|  Failure to destroy toxic protein -- not buildup of protein itself -- contributes to Huntington's disease  | Recycling is not only good for the environment, it's good for the brain. A study using rat cells indicates that quickly clearing out defective proteins in the brain may prevent loss of brain cells. | Read More » Climate friendly fuel cells for hydrogen cars have come one step closer  | Climate friendly fuel cells for hydrogen cars have come one step closer. Researchers have shown how to build fuel cells that produce as much electricity as current models, but require markedly less of the rare and valuable precious metal platinum. | Read More » Multiple sclerosis research could help repair damage affecting nerves  | Multiple sclerosis treatments that repair damage to the brain could be developed thanks to new research. A study has shed light on how cells are able to regenerate protective sheaths around nerve fibers in the brain. | Read More » Mirror, mirror on the wall, who has the lowest noise of them all  | Scientists have demonstrated a novel "crystalline coating" technique for producing low-loss mirrors. This technology will further accelerate progress in the development of narrow-line width lasers. | Read More » Current efforts will not save the world's most endangered cat  | Almost 100 million euros has been spent so far on conservation efforts for the last 250 remaining Iberian lynxes in the wild. But the charismatic species is likely to go extinct within 50 years because the current management plans do not account for the effects of climate change. If they did, the population might increase instead concludes a new international study. The study highlights the importance of integrating climate models in management plans for biodiversity. | Read More » Helping robots become more touchy-feely, literally: Paper-thin e-skin responds to touch by lighting up  | Engineers have created a new e-skin that responds to touch by instantly lighting up. The more intense the pressure, the brighter the light it emits. The material is the first sensor network on flexible plastic that is user-interactive. | Read More » A first in front-line immunity research  | Researchers have gained new insight into the early stages of our immune response, providing novel pathways to develop treatments for diseases from multiple sclerosis to cancer. | Read More » Common stem cell in heart and lung development explains adaption for life on land  | Biologists have known that the co-development of the cardiovascular and pulmonary systems is a recent evolutionary adaption to life outside of water. Researchers show that the pulmonary vasculature develops even in the absence of the lung. Mice in which lung development is inhibited still have pulmonary blood vessels, which revealed to the researchers that cardiac progenitors, or stem cells, are essential for cardiopulmonary co-development. | Read More » A bad alliance: Rare immune cells promote food-induced allergic inflammation in the esophagus  | Until recently, how EoE, a food allergy-associated disease, developed was unclear, but a new study shows that a type of rare immune cell and specific reactions to allergenic foods team up -- in a bad way. This association does point to new ways to possibly treat inflammation associated with EoE. | Read More » Making big 'Schroedinger cats': Quantum research pushes boundary by testing micro theory for macro objects  | Since Erwin Schroedinger's famous 1935 cat thought experiment, physicists around the globe have tried to create large scale systems to test how the rules of quantum mechanics apply to everyday objects. Researchers recently made a significant step forward in this direction by creating a large system that is in two substantially different states at the same time. | Read More » Ancient ice melt unearthed in Antarctic mud: 20 meter sea level rise, five million years ago  | Global warming five million years ago may have caused parts of Antarctica's large ice sheets to melt and sea levels to rise by approximately 20 meters, scientists report. | Read More » Flip of mitotic spindle has disastrous consequences for epithelial cells  | Investigators have used genetics and live cell imaging to illuminate molecular mechanisms that position the cell division machinery in growing tissues. | Read More » Sex chromosome shocker: The 'female' X a key contributor to sperm production  | Painstaking new analysis of the genetic sequence of the X chromosome -— long perceived as the "female" counterpart to the male-associated Y chromosome -— reveals that large portions of the X have evolved to play a specialized role in sperm production. | Read More » King David's palace uncovered in Judean Shephelah  | King David's Palace has just been uncovered in the Judean Shephelah. Royal storerooms were also revealed in the archaeological excavation. These are the two largest buildings known to have existed in the tenth century BCE in the Kingdom of Judah. | Read More » To savor the flavor, perform a short ritual first  | Blowing out the candles on birthday cake isn't just for fun. New research reveals that the rituals we perform before eating can actually change our perception of the food. | Read More » Loss of African woodland may impact on climate, study shows  | A more strategic approach to managing trees across Africa could have a positive impact on the changing climate, researchers say. | Read More » Mental illness linked to early death in people with epilepsy  | People with epilepsy are 10 times more likely to die early, before their mid-fifties, compared with the general population, according to a 41 year study. | Read More » Too many antioxidants? Resveratrol blocks many cardiovascular benefits of exercise  | In older men, a natural antioxidant compound found in red grapes and other plants – called resveratrol – blocks many of the cardiovascular benefits of exercise, according to new research. | Read More » Scientific experiment creates a wave frozen in time  | Scientists have created, in a laboratory, a static pipeline wave, with a crest that moves neither forward nor backward. This research will allow improvement in boat and seaport designs and will enable analysis of how carbon dioxide exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere occurs. | Read More » Could turning on a gene prevent diabetes?  | The resistance to insulin seen in type 2 diabetics is caused partly by the lack of a protein that has not previously been associated with diabetes. This breakthrough could potentially help to prevent diabetes. | Read More » Protein complex linked to cancer growth may also help fight tumors  | Researchers have discovered a gene expression signature that may lead to new immune therapies for lung cancer patients. They found that NF-κB, a protein complex known to promote tumor growth, may also have the ability to boost the immune system to eliminate cancerous cells before they harm, as well as promote antitumor responses. | Read More » Declining sea ice strands baby harp seals  | Young harp seals off the eastern coast of Canada are at much higher risk of getting stranded than adult seals because of shrinking sea ice cover caused by recent warming in the North Atlantic, according to a Duke University study. | Read More » Sub-saharan water: Not just fossil water  | The Sahara conceals large quantities of water stored at depth and inherited from ancient times. A recent study has just shown that this groundwater is not entirely fossil, but resupplied every year. Using a method based on data obtained by satellite, scientists estimated the variations in the volume of water lying under the northern Sahara desert: the current rate of recharge is on average 1.4 km3 per year, for the period 2003-2010. This represents 40% of withdrawals, mainly for irrigation to support the oasis economy. The inputs therefore do not compensate for the withdrawals, but their existence means that these transboundary aquifers, the main water resource of semi-arid regions in Algeria and Tunisia, could be managed sustainably. | Read More » From obscurity to dominance: Tracking the rapid evolutionary rise of ray-finned fish  | Mass extinctions, like lotteries, result in a multitude of losers and a few lucky winners. This is the story of one of the winners, a small, shell-crushing predatory fish called Fouldenia, which first appears in the fossil record a mere 11 million years after an extinction that wiped out more than 90 percent of the planet's vertebrate species. | Read More » New hope for hormone resistant breast cancer  | A new finding provides fresh hope for the millions of women worldwide with estrogen receptor positive breast cancer. Scientists have shown that a specific change, which occurs when tumors become resistant to anti-estrogen therapy, might make the cancers susceptible to treatment with chemotherapy drugs. | Read More » Greening of the Earth pushed way back in time  | Conventional scientific wisdom has it that plants and other creatures have only lived on land for about 500 million years, but a new study is pointing to evidence for life on land that is four times as old -- at 2.2 billion years ago and almost half way back to the inception of the planet. | Read More » Geochemical 'fingerprints' leave evidence that megafloods eroded steep gorge  | For the first time, scientists have direct geochemical evidence that the 150-mile long Tsangpo Gorge, possibly the world's deepest, was the conduit by which megafloods from glacial lakes, perhaps half the volume of Lake Erie, drained catastrophically through the Himalayas when their ice dams failed during the last 2 million years. | Read More » Nighttime heat waves quadruple in Pacific Northwest  | Nighttime heat waves -- events where the nighttime low is unusually hot for at least three days in a row -- are becoming more common in western Washington and Oregon. | Read More » | |
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