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• Bad to the Bone: Some Breast Cancer Cells Are Primed to Thrive
• Humans can acquire the capacity for echolocation
• Is War Really Disappearing? A New Analysis Suggests Not
• Unexpected use of former cancer drug Zebularine
• Light on twenty-year-old mystery of the speed of electrons passing through very tiny wires
• Study Shows Air Pollution Causes 200,000 Early Deaths Each Year in the U.S.
• Scientists Detail Critical Role of Gene in Many Lung Cancer Cases

Bad to the Bone: Some Breast Cancer Cells Are Primed to Thrive Posted: 29 Aug 2013 02:12 PM PDT When a cancer cell sloughs off the edge of a tumor in the breast, it faces a tough road to survive. The cell must not only remain physically intact as it rushes through blood vessels, but it also must find a new organ to lodge itself in, take in enough nutrients and oxygen to stay alive, and begin dividing, all while escaping notice by the body’s immune system. read more

Humans can acquire the capacity for echolocation Posted: 29 Aug 2013 09:06 AM PDT As blind people can testify, we humans can hear more than one might think. The blind learn to navigate using as guides the echoes of sounds they themselves make. This enables them to sense the locations of walls and corners, for instance: by tapping the ground with a stick or making clicking sounds with the tongue, and analyzing the echoes reflected from nearby surfaces, a blind person can map the relative positions of objects in the vicinity. read more

Is War Really Disappearing? A New Analysis Suggests Not Posted: 29 Aug 2013 08:52 AM PDT While some researchers have claimed that war between nations is in decline, a new analysis suggests we shouldn’t be too quick to celebrate a more peaceful world. The study finds that there is no clear trend indicating that nations are less eager to wage war, said Bear Braumoeller, author of the study and associate professor of political science at The Ohio State University. Conflict does appear to be less common than it had been in the past, he said. But that’s due more to an inability to fight than to an unwillingness to do so. read more

Unexpected use of former cancer drug Zebularine Posted: 29 Aug 2013 08:43 AM PDT Researchers at Lund University have unexpectedly discovered that an old cancer drug can be used to prevent rejection of transplanted tissue. The researchers now have high hopes that their discovery could lead to new treatments for both transplant patients and patients with autoimmune diseases. The researchers behind the study, which has been published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE, work at the Rausing Laboratory, Lund University, where they have conducted research on brain tumours over many years. read more

Light on twenty-year-old mystery of the speed of electrons passing through very tiny wires Posted: 29 Aug 2013 08:07 AM PDT Groningen scientists have found an explanation for a mystery that has been puzzling the physics community since 1995. In the scientific journal Nature on Thursday 28 August (Advance Online Publication), they explain why electrons pass through very tiny wires (known as quantum point contacts) less smoothly than expected. The observations of the group led by Prof. C.H. (Caspar) van der Wal of the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials of the University of Groningen will affect electronics on a nanoscale: ‘Our thinking about this has been too naïve so far.’ read more

Study Shows Air Pollution Causes 200,000 Early Deaths Each Year in the U.S. Posted: 29 Aug 2013 07:55 AM PDT Researchers from MIT’s Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment have come out with some sobering new data on air pollution’s impact on Americans’ health. read more

Scientists Detail Critical Role of Gene in Many Lung Cancer Cases Posted: 29 Aug 2013 07:43 AM PDT Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have shown that a well-known cancer-causing gene implicated in a number of malignancies plays a far more critical role in non-small cell lung cancer, the most common form of the disease, than previously thought. These findings establish the gene as a critical regulator of lung cancer tumor growth. This new information could turn out to be vital for the design of potentially new therapeutic strategies for a group of patients who represent almost half of non-small cell lung cancer cases. read more

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