|  Physicists 'entangle' microscopic drum's beat with electrical signals  | Extending evidence of quantum behavior farther into the large-scale world of everyday life, physicists have "entangled" -- linked the properties of -- a microscopic mechanical drum with electrical signals. | Read More » Chemistry with sorted molecules: Reaction rate of many molecules depends on their shape  | Most molecules occur in several shapes, which may behave very differently. Using a sorting machine for molecules, chemists can now for the first time directly measure the various reaction rates of different forms of the same compound. | Read More » Sieving through 'junk' DNA reveals disease-causing genetic mutations  | Scientists have revealed nearly 100 genetic variants implicated in the development of cancers such as breast cancer and prostate cancer. | Read More » Light at night, melatonin and bird behavior  | Low light levels, similar to those found in urban areas at night, can have a significant effect on melatonin production in birds at night. This suggests that melatonin could be mediating changes in bird behaviour at night. Researchers suggest that altered melatonin production may cause birds to interpret increased light during the night as shorter nights. | Read More » International study shows efficacy of new gastric cancer drug  | The phase III study of a new drug to treat gastric cancer shows that an antibody ramucirumab inhibits the action of various proteins involved in tumour growth, prolonging survival of patients with advanced gastric cancer. | Read More » Warmer oceans could raise mercury levels in fish  | Rising ocean surface temperatures caused by climate change could make fish accumulate more mercury, increasing the health risk to people who eat seafood, researchers report. | Read More » Scientists use climate model to better understand electricity in the air  | Scientists have developed a global electric circuit model by adding an additional layer to a climate model. | Read More » Native tribes' traditional knowledge can help US adapt to climate change  | New England's Native tribes, whose sustainable ways of farming, forestry, hunting and land and water management were devastated by European colonists four centuries ago, can help modern America adapt to climate change. | Read More » Naked jets of water make a better pollutant detector  | When you shine UV through water polluted with certain organic chemicals and bacteria, the contaminants measurably absorb the UV light and then re-emit it as visible light. Many of today's more advanced devices for testing water are built to make use of this fluorescent property of pollutants; but the walls of the channels through which the water travels in these devices can produce background noise that makes it difficult to get a clear reading. | Read More » Bright nearby double star Fomalhaut is actually a triple  | The nearby star system Fomalhaut -- of special interest for its unusual exoplanet and dusty debris disk -- has been discovered to be not just a double star, as astronomers had thought, but one of the widest triple stars known. | Read More » Pediatricians warn that cuts to SNAP program will harm children  | Pediatricians call the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp Program), one of America's most cost-effective and successful public health programs in the country. According to the authors, not only does it make life much better for children and families, it also saves society money. | Read More » Diesel exhaust stops honeybees from finding the flowers they want to forage  | Exposure to common air pollutants found in diesel exhaust pollution can affect the ability of honeybees to recognise floral odours. Honeybees use floral odours to help locate, identify and recognise the flowers from which they forage. Now it appears that diesel exhaust fumes change the profile of flora odour, and that these changes may affect honeybees' foraging efficiency and, ultimately, could affect pollination and thus global food security. | Read More » Scientists identify potential new drug for inherited cancer  | Scientists have identified a new drug candidate for an inherited form of cancer with no known cure. | Read More » Step-forward in mission to tackle parasitic worm infections  | Gastrointestinal parasitic infections, which are worm infections in the intestine, affect nearly one quarter of the world population and normally result in a chronic, long-lived infection associated with poor quality of life and health problems. A team of researchers has identified a pathway that seems to be important in driving the chronic infection and that could now potentially be targeted for therapy. | Read More » Data-driven machine learning effectively flags risk for post-stroke dangers  | A team of experts in neurocritical care, engineering, and informatics have devised a new way to detect which stroke patients may be at risk of a serious adverse event following a ruptured brain aneurysm. | Read More » Brain stimulation affects compliance with social norms  | Neuroeconomists have identified a specific brain region that controls compliance with social norms. They discovered that norm compliance is independent of knowledge about the norm and can be increased by means of brain stimulation. | Read More » Obesity suppresses cellular process critical to kidney health  | Unlike in normal-weight mice with kidney disease, a degradation process called autophagy is suppressed in obese mice with kidney disease. This suppression leads to kidney cell damage. In obese people the same with kidney disease, suppressed autophagy. | Read More » Aggressive fungal pathogen causes mold in fruits, vegetables  | A research team has discovered the mechanism by which an aggressive fungal pathogen infects almost all fruits and vegetables. The team discovered a novel virulence mechanism of Botrytis cinerea, a pathogen that can infect more than 200 plant species, causing serious gray mold disease on almost all fruits and vegetables that have been around, even at times in the refrigerator, for more than a week. | Read More » Laying down a discerning membrane  | One of the thinnest membranes ever made is also highly discriminating when it comes to the molecules going through it. Engineers have constructed a graphene oxide membrane less than 2 nanometers thick with high permeation selectivity between hydrogen and carbon dioxide gas molecules. | Read More » Biochar in soils cuts greenhouse gas emissions  | Microbiologists show soil microbe communities can be influenced to decrease nitrous oxide emissions. | Read More » Is the human brain capable of identifying a fake smile?  | Since Leonardo Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, much has been said about what lies behind her smile. Now, researchers have discovered how far this attention-grabbing expression confuses our emotion recognition and makes us perceive a face as happy, even if it is not. Human beings deduce others´ state of mind from their facial expressions. | Read More » Astronomers discover large 'hot' cocoon around a small baby star  | Astronomers have observed an infrared dark cloud and discovered a baby star surrounded by a large hot cloud. This hot cloud is about ten times larger than those found around typical solar-mass baby stars. | Read More » Advanced technology for gene expression analysis can facilitate drug development  | When developing new drugs, monitoring cellular responses to candidate compounds is essential for assessing their efficacy and safety. Researchers report a new method to monitor and quantify the activity of gene promoters during the response to a drug, using the advanced gene expression analysis method CAGE followed by single-molecule sequencing. This research paves the way to a more precise analysis of cellular responses to drugs, at the level of individual promoters. | Read More » Investing in employees' health leads to increased productivity  | Workplace health promotion programs that improve employee health can lead to significant increases in productivity — and associated cost savings, reports a new study. | Read More » Climate puzzle over origins of life on Earth  | The mystery of why life on Earth evolved when it did has deepened with new research. Scientists have ruled out a theory as to why the planet was warm enough to sustain the planet's earliest life forms when the Sun's energy was roughly three-quarters the strength it is today. | Read More » How fluid dynamics and transport shaped the structure of our lungs in the course of evolution  | Physicists suggest how evolution has shaped our lungs through successive optimizations of physical parameters such as conservation of energy and speed of delivery. Our respiratory system consists of a bronchial tree designed to transport air through the lungs combined with an alveolar system designed to capture the oxygen. Both are subjected to different type of optimizations. Only tree-like structures, the paper shows, are able to efficiently feed organs above a small size, below which organs are solely fed by diffusion. | Read More » Surprisingly simple scheme for self-assembling robots  | Researchers find that small cubes with no exterior moving parts can propel themselves forward, jump on top of each other, and snap together to form arbitrary shapes. | Read More » Believers consume fewer drugs than atheists  | Young Swiss men who say that they believe in God are less likely to smoke cigarettes or pot or take ecstasy pills than Swiss men of the same age group who describe themselves as atheists. Belief is a protective factor against addictive behaviour. This is the conclusion reached by a study funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. | Read More » Well-connected hemispheres of Einstein's brain may have sparked his brilliance  | The left and right hemispheres of Albert Einstein's brain were unusually well connected to each other and may have contributed to his brilliance. | Read More » Five regular meals a day reduce obesity risk among adolescents  | A regular eating pattern may protect adolescents from obesity, according to a population-based study with more than 4,000 participants. When eating five meals - breakfast, lunch, dinner and two snacks - a day, even those with a genetic predisposition to obesity had no higher body mass index (BMI) than their controls. The collection of the data on the study population began prenatally, and the participants were followed up until the age of 16. | Read More » Antibiotics drastically overprescribed for sore throats, bronchitis  | A vast majority of people who see their doctors for sore throats or acute bronchitis receive antibiotics, yet only a small percentage should, according to analyses of two major national surveys. Those illnesses usually are caused by viruses, and antibiotics -- which only treat bacterial infections -- do not help. | Read More » Fecal transplant pill knocks out recurrent C. diff infection  | Swallowing pills containing a concentrate of fecal bacteria successfully stops recurrent bouts of debilitating Clostridium difficile infection by rebalancing the bacteria in the gut. | Read More » New role for the benefits of oxygen  | During a heart attack when the flow of oxygen-rich blood to a section of the heart is interrupted, and not quickly restored, heart muscle begins dying. Deprived of oxygen and other essential nutrients, cell death continues possibly leading to progressive loss of heart function and congestive heart failure. Rsearchers found that dying heart cells still contain enough oxygen for metabolism, and additional short-term spikes of oxygen keep the cells alive and active. | Read More » Stem cells engineered to become targeted drug factories  | A group researchers have found a way to use stem cells as drug delivery vehicles. The researchers inserted modified strands of messenger RNA into connective tissue stem cells -- called mesenchymal stem cells -- which stimulated the cells to produce adhesive surface proteins and secrete interleukin-10, an anti-inflammatory molecule. | Read More » Facebook and Twitter may yield clues to preventing the spread of disease  | Facebook and Twitter could provide vital clues to control infectious diseases by using mathematical models to understand how we respond socially to biological contagions. Authors reviewed social factors in epidemiology, and have suggested that the biological spread of diseases is intertwined with how society responds to those contagions. | Read More » Wealth inequality can promote cooperation  | Unequal access to resources can promote cooperation, shows a new study based on evolutionary game theory. | Read More » Research reveals the mechanism of the sodium-potassium pump  | Researchers have established the structure of a crucial enzyme -- the so-called sodium-potassium pump -- which forms part of every cell in the human body. The result may pave the way for a better understanding of neurological diseases. | Read More » Metabolic enzymes discovered with 'widespread roles' in opium poppy  | Scientists have discovered metabolic enzymes in the opium poppy that play "widespread roles" in enabling the plant to make painkilling morphine and codeine, and other important compounds. | Read More » Fighting fat with Botox  | Researchers have had promising experimental results from using Botox as a weight loss tool in rats. The research group hopes to win approval for human testing in the near future. | Read More » Sparing the body, breast cancer treatment via nipple injection  | A new technique for breast cancer treatment and prevention has been proposed by researchers - injection of therapeutics via the nipple. The procedure, demonstrated on mice, offers direct access to the most common origin of breast cancer, the milk ducts, and could be used to offer cancer therapy that spares healthy regions of the body. | Read More » Component of citrus fruits blocks formation of kidney cysts  | A new study published has identified that a component of grapefruit and other citrus fruits, naringenin, successfully blocks the formation of kidney cysts. | Read More » Scientists discover molecules that show promise for new anti-flu medicines  | A new way to attack flu viruses is taking shape in laboratories, where scientists have identified chemical agents that block the virus's ability to replicate itself in cell culture. These novel compounds show promise for a new class of antiviral medicines to fight much-feared pandemic influenza such as the looming "bird flu" threats caused by the H5N1 influenza A virus and the new H7N9 virus. | Read More » Power of precision medicine in successful treatment of patient with disabling OCD  | A multidisciplinary team led by a geneticist and psychiatrist have published a paper providing a glimpse of both the tremendous power and the current limitations of "precision medicine." | Read More » Study links moderate activity to lower breast cancer risk  | A large new American Cancer Society study adds to increasing evidence that physical activity reduces the risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women. | Read More » New kind of microscope uses neutrons  | Researchers have developed a new concept for a microscope that would use neutrons -- subatomic particles with no electrical charge -- instead of beams of light or electrons to create high-resolution images. | Read More » | |
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