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"Recipe of Life": Protein Key to Cell Motility Has Implications for Stopping Cancer Metastasis
Risks and advantages of coupling ethnicity and achievement for Asian Americans
A new robotic fish can change direction almost as rapidly as a real fish
A Brain Signal for Psychosis Risk
Identification of the gut bacteria that characterize Crohn’s disease
Wishing to be another gender: links to ADHD and autism spectrum disorders
Chronic pain research delves into the brain

"Recipe of Life": Protein Key to Cell Motility Has Implications for Stopping Cancer Metastasis

Posted: 13 Mar 2014 07:19 AM PDT

“Cell movement is the basic recipe of life, and all cells have the capacity to move,” says Roberto Dominguez, PhD, professor of Physiology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Motility – albeit on a cellular spatial scale -- is necessary for wound healing, clotting, fetal development, nerve connections, and the immune response, among other functions. On the other hand, cell movement can be deleterious when cancer cells break away from tumors and migrate to set up shop in other tissues during cancer metastasis.

Risks and advantages of coupling ethnicity and achievement for Asian Americans

Posted: 13 Mar 2014 06:57 AM PDT

Children of Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants to the USA attain levels of educational achievement that exceed those of both third generation black and white counterparts. This is despite that fact that the Vietnamese parents in particular lack high levels of formal education or marketable skills and hence socioeconomic advantages and non-economic middle class resources such as parental education. These are factors often associated with offspring’s educational achievement and economic success in adulthood.

A new robotic fish can change direction almost as rapidly as a real fish

Posted: 13 Mar 2014 06:44 AM PDT

Soft robots — which don’t just have soft exteriors but are also powered by fluid flowing through flexible channels — have become a sufficiently popular research topic that they now have their own journal, Soft Robotics. In the first issue of that journal, out this month, MIT researchers report the first self-contained autonomous soft robot capable of rapid body motion: a “fish” that can execute an escape maneuver, convulsing its body to change direction in just a fraction of a second, or almost as quickly as a real fish can.

A Brain Signal for Psychosis Risk

Posted: 13 Mar 2014 06:24 AM PDT

Only one third of individuals identified as being at clinical high risk for psychosis actually convert to a psychotic disorder within a 3 year follow-up period. This risk assessment is based on the presence of sub-threshold psychotic-like symptoms.

Thus, clinical symptom criteria alone do not predict future psychosis risk with sufficient accuracy to justify aggressive early intervention, especially with medications such as antipsychotics that produce significant side effects.

Identification of the gut bacteria that characterize Crohn’s disease

Posted: 12 Mar 2014 09:00 AM PDT

New-onset Crohn’s disease is characterized by changes in the populations of gastrointestinal bacteria. This involves reduction in abundance of beneficial, anti-inflammatory microbes and increases in bacteria that promote processes such as inflammation and complications such as colorectal carcinoma. These are the findings of a large new multi-centre North American study to be published in the journal Cell Host and Microbe on March 12th. Furthermore, the study finds that the use of antibiotics can increase the microbial imbalance, tilting it further towards pathogenic organisms.

Wishing to be another gender: links to ADHD and autism spectrum disorders

Posted: 12 Mar 2014 07:42 AM PDT

Children and teenagers with an autism spectrum disorder or those who have attention deficit and hyperactivity problems are much more likely to wish to be another gender. So says John Strang of the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC, USA, leader of the first study to compare the occurrence of such gender identity issues among children and adolescents with and without specific neurodevelopmental disorders. The paper is published in Springer’s journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.

Chronic pain research delves into the brain

Posted: 12 Mar 2014 07:32 AM PDT

University of Adelaide researchers say new insights into how the human brain responds to chronic pain could eventually lead to improved treatments for patients.

Neuroplasticity is the term used to describe the brain's ability to change structurally and functionally with experience and use.

"Neuroplasticity underlies our learning and memory, making it vital during early childhood development and important for continuous learning throughout life," says Dr Ann-Maree Vallence, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the University of Adelaide's Robinson Institute.