science newsletter: Science News SciGuru.com

Πέμπτη 29 Νοεμβρίου 2012

Science News SciGuru.com

Post-Divorce Journaling May Hinder Healing for Some
Common heart failure drugs could benefit more patients
Making music together connects brains
Black hole upsets galaxy models
Treating Cocaine Dependence: A Promising New Pharmacotherapy
Record-Setting X-ray Jet Discovered
Scientists Uncover a Novel Cooperative Effort to Stop Cancer Spread
The music of the silks

Post-Divorce Journaling May Hinder Healing for Some

Posted: 29 Nov 2012 07:14 AM PST

Following a divorce or separation, many people are encouraged by loved ones or health-care professionals to keep journals about their feelings. But for some, writing in-depth about those feelings immediately after a split may do more harm than good, according to new research.

Common heart failure drugs could benefit more patients

Posted: 29 Nov 2012 05:09 AM PST

A novel study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden suggests that commonly used drugs to treat heart failure and high blood pressure may have a wider range of application than earlier known, and also can be used against so called HFPEF - a type of heart failure that until now has been impossible to treat. The study, which is published in the scientific journal JAMA, shows that the mortality rate in a group of HFPEF patients who used these medications decreased.

Making music together connects brains

Posted: 29 Nov 2012 05:03 AM PST

Anyone who has ever played in an orchestra will be familiar with the phenomenon: the impulse for one’s own actions does not seem to come from one’s own mind alone, but rather seems to be controlled by the coordinated activity of the group. And indeed, interbrain networks do emerge when making music together – this has now been demonstrated by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. The scientists used electrodes to trace the brain waves of guitarists playing in duets.

Black hole upsets galaxy models

Posted: 29 Nov 2012 04:56 AM PST

A group headed by Remco van den Bosch from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy has discovered a black hole that shakes the foundations of current models of galaxy evolution. This monster has 17 billion solar masses and is thus significantly heavier than the models predict. And even more significantly: the object could be the most massive black hole known to date.

Treating Cocaine Dependence: A Promising New Pharmacotherapy

Posted: 28 Nov 2012 10:26 AM PST

Medication development efforts for cocaine dependence have yet to result in an FDA approved treatment. The powerful rewarding effects of cocaine, the profound disruptive impact of cocaine dependence on one’s lifestyle, and the tendency of cocaine to attract people who make poor life choices and then exacerbate impulsive behavior all make cocaine a vexing clinical condition.

Record-Setting X-ray Jet Discovered

Posted: 28 Nov 2012 10:21 AM PST

A jet of X-rays from a supermassive black hole 12.4 billion light years from Earth has been detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This is the most distant X-ray jet ever observed and gives astronomers a glimpse into the explosive activity associated with the growth of supermassive black holes in the early universe.

Scientists Uncover a Novel Cooperative Effort to Stop Cancer Spread

Posted: 28 Nov 2012 09:40 AM PST

Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have uncovered a group of what have been considered relatively minor regulators in the body that band together to suppress the spread of cancer from its primary site.

The discovery offers a fresh batch of possible therapeutic targets as well as new diagnostic tools with the potential to predict and inhibit the spread of cancer (metastasis) in patients suffering from the disease.

The music of the silks

Posted: 28 Nov 2012 09:35 AM PST

Pound for pound, spider silk is one of the strongest materials known: Research by MIT’s Markus Buehler has helped explain that this strength arises from silk’s unusual hierarchical arrangement of protein building blocks.

Now Buehler — together with David Kaplan of Tufts University and Joyce Wong of Boston University — has synthesized new variants on silk’s natural structure, and found a method for making further improvements in the synthetic material.