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Forensics Ferret Out Fire Beetle Secret
Researchers gain new insights into the mechanisms of heart disease: Mutated and intact proteins of the cytoskeleton form abnormal aggregates
New mathematical framework formalizes oddball programming techniques
New research dashes notions of benign brain plaque
Strengthening proteins with polymers
Cycling may negatively affect male reproductive health, UCLA study finds
Probability of contamination from severe nuclear reactor accidents is higher than expected
The living fossils of brain evolution
New TB test promises to be cheap and fast
Newly discovered breast milk antibodies help neutralize HIV
GPS for the brain: UGA researchers develop new brain map
Metastable Material: Study Shows Availability of Hydrogen Controls Chemical Structure of Graphene Oxide
Bias found in mental health drug research presented at major psychiatric meeting
Food fight or romantic dinner? Communication between couples is key to improving men’s diets
Neuron-nourishing cells appear to retaliate in Alzheimer’s

Posted: 23 May 2012 06:36 AM PDT

Black fire beetles of the genus Melanophila possess unusual infrared sensors. It seems that they use these to detect forest fires, even from great distances, since their wood-eating larvae can only develop in freshly burned trees. Scientists have been wondering for a long time how sensitive these biological IR sensors really are. Researchers from the University of Bonn and from the Forschungszentrum Jülich have concluded that the beetles' sensors might even be more sensitive that uncooled infrared sensors designed by humans.

Researchers gain new insights into the mechanisms of heart disease: Mutated and intact proteins of the cytoskeleton form abnormal aggregates

Posted: 23 May 2012 06:15 AM PDT

Malformed desmin proteins aggregate with intact proteins of the same kind, thereby triggering skeletal and cardiac muscle diseases, the desminopathies. This was discovered by researchers from the RUB Heart and Diabetes Center NRW in Bad Oeynhausen led by PD Dr. Hendrik Milting in an interdisciplinary research project with colleagues from the universities in Karlsruhe, Würzburg and Bielefeld. They report in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

New mathematical framework formalizes oddball programming techniques

Posted: 22 May 2012 03:16 PM PDT

Two years ago, Martin Rinard's group at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory proposed a surprisingly simple way to make some computer procedures more efficient: Just skip a bunch of steps. Although the researchers demonstrated several practical applications of the technique, dubbed loop perforation, they realized it would be a hard sell.

New research dashes notions of benign brain plaque

Posted: 22 May 2012 03:10 PM PDT

The time may have come to scrub the idea that brain plaque — deposits of protein that clog passages between brain cells — might not be all that bad.

University of Florida researchers have discovered that people with no signs of dementia during their lives, even though their brains contained the debris typical of Alzheimer’s disease, probably would have experienced health problems had they lived longer, according to a study to appear this week in the open access journal Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy.

Strengthening proteins with polymers

Posted: 22 May 2012 12:35 PM PDT

Proteins are widely used as drugs — insulin for diabetics is the best known example — and as reagents in research laboratories, but they react poorly to fluctuations in temperature and are known to degrade in storage.

Cycling may negatively affect male reproductive health, UCLA study finds

Posted: 22 May 2012 12:24 PM PDT

A study by researchers at the UCLA School of Nursing has found that serious male cyclists may experience hormonal imbalances that could affect their reproductive health.

The study, "Reproductive Hormones and Interleukin-6 in Serious Leisure Male Athletes," was recently published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology.

Probability of contamination from severe nuclear reactor accidents is higher than expected

Posted: 22 May 2012 12:00 PM PDT

Catastrophic nuclear accidents such as the core meltdowns in Chernobyl and Fukushima are more likely to happen than previously assumed. Based on the operating hours of all civil nuclear reactors and the number of nuclear meltdowns that have occurred, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz have calculated that such events may occur once every 10 to 20 years (based on the current number of reactors) — some 200 times more often than estimated in the past.

The living fossils of brain evolution

Posted: 22 May 2012 11:52 AM PDT

In the course of its evolution, the architecture of the mouse brain may have barely changed. Similar to the tiny ancestors of modern mammals that lived about 80 million years ago, nerve cells in the mouse visual cortex are densely packed in a small area of the brain. However, during the subsequent evolution of larger brains the architecture of the cerebral cortex was radically restructured.

New TB test promises to be cheap and fast

Posted: 22 May 2012 11:25 AM PDT

Biomedical engineers at UC Davis have developed a microfluidic chip to test for latent tuberculosis. They hope the test will be cheaper, faster and more reliable than current testing for the disease.

"Our assay is cheaper, reusable, and gives results in real time," said Ying Liu, a research specialist working with Professor Alexander Revzin in the UC Davis Department of Biomedical Engineering.

The team has already conducted testing of blood samples from patients in China and the United States.

Newly discovered breast milk antibodies help neutralize HIV

Posted: 22 May 2012 11:21 AM PDT

Antibodies that help to stop the HIV virus have been found in breast milk. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center isolated the antibodies from immune cells called B cells in the breast milk of infected mothers in Malawi, and showed that the B cells in breast milk can generate neutralizing antibodies that may inhibit the virus that causes AIDS.

GPS for the brain: UGA researchers develop new brain map

Posted: 22 May 2012 08:53 AM PDT

University of Georgia researchers have developed a map of the human brain that shows great promise as a new guide to the inner workings of the body's most complex and critical organ.

With this map, researchers hope to create a next-generation brain atlas that will be an alternative option to the atlas created by German anatomist Korbinian Brodmann more than 100 years ago, which is still commonly used in clinical and research settings.

Metastable Material: Study Shows Availability of Hydrogen Controls Chemical Structure of Graphene Oxide

Posted: 22 May 2012 08:36 AM PDT

A new study shows that the availability of hydrogen plays a significant role in determining the chemical and structural makeup of graphene oxide, a material that has potential uses in nano-electronics, nano-electromechanical systems, sensing, composites, optics, catalysis and energy storage.

The study also found that after the material is produced, its structural and chemical properties continue to evolve for more than a month as a result of continuing chemical reactions with hydrogen.

Bias found in mental health drug research presented at major psychiatric meeting

Posted: 22 May 2012 08:27 AM PDT

When thousands of psychiatrists attend their field’s largest annual meeting each year, the presentations they hear about research into drug treatments report overwhelmingly on positive results.

That’s the finding of a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology by two young psychiatrists from the University of Michigan and Yale University, who analyzed the presentations given at two recent meetings of the American Psychiatric Association.

Food fight or romantic dinner? Communication between couples is key to improving men’s diets

Posted: 22 May 2012 08:16 AM PDT

Married men will eat their peas to keep the peace, but many aren't happy about it, and may even binge on unhealthy foods away from home.

"The key to married men adopting a healthier diet is for couples to discuss and negotiate the new, healthier menu changes as a team," said Derek Griffith, assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Neuron-nourishing cells appear to retaliate in Alzheimer’s

Posted: 22 May 2012 08:08 AM PDT

When brain cells start oozing too much of the amyloid protein that is the hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, the astrocytes that normally nourish and protect them deliver a suicide package instead, researchers report.

Amyloid is excreted by all neurons, but rates increase with aging and dramatically accelerate in Alzheimer’s. Astrocytes, which deliver blood, oxygen and nutrients to neurons in addition to hauling off some of their garbage, get activated and inflamed by excessive amyloid.