The bacterium that causes bubonic plague would seem unlikely to help medical scientists, but researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have harnessed it to uncover a new regulatory mechanism that inhibits the immune system.
Which US groups have the best and worst hearing? How have researchers improved cell-phone sound quality without changing the existing infrastructure? These questions and more will be answered in a web pressroom and a press luncheon for the Acoustical Society of America meeting in Providence, RI.
This data provides the first molecular link between NO free radicals and protein misfolding, which is currently thought to be a common pathway in the pathogenesis of virtually all neurodegenerative conditions. Such conditions also include ALS (or Lou Gehrig's disease), Huntington's disease, and many others.
Like pieces in a giant jigsaw puzzle, continents have split, drifted and merged again many times throughout Earth's history, but geologists haven't understood the mechanism behind the moves.
Johns Hopkins undergraduates took on the challenge of designing custom computer desks to enable a women with disabilities to continue to work from home.
Iowa State University researchers will be chasing tornado data in the lab and across tornado alley. The goal is a better understanding of wind storms so engineers can design buildings that stand up to tornadoes, microburst thunderstorms, hurricanes and gust fronts.
A new material for paving recreation trails holds potential for the large-scale recycling of rubber from automotive tires, as well as for cushioning the activities of joggers, walkers, and bicyclers. And it's less expensive than other rubberized paving materials currently on the market.
Most detailed forecast to date shows sharp snowpack decline between now and year 2100; New Zealand, Latin America, Western U.S., European ranges hardest hit.
1) Studying a world touched by humans; 2) Using plants to restore environments; 3) Crowds cause more than stress; 4) Community diversity affected by climate change; 5) Sugar maples and calcium.
What do month-to-month changes in temperature have to do with century-to-century changes in temperature? At first it might seem like not much. But in a report published in this week's Nature, scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have found some unifying themes in the global variations of temperature at time scales ranging from a single season to hundreds of thousands of years.
For a scientist, having one's research published in a peer-reviewed journal signifies a high level of professional expertise and accomplishment. If that journal happens to be Science or Nature "” two of the world's top scientific publications "” so much the better.
Mice are known to have a keen sense of smell, but it's not just their noses that are adept at picking up a scent, a new study shows. Scientists at Indiana University Bloomington report biochemical machinery that allows mouse sperm cells to follow the weakest of scents. Even when ovary extracts were diluted 100,000 times, some sperm cells still found their mark.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln scientists looking to fill gaps in basic understanding about gold's structure at the nanoscale have turned up a full-sized and surprising discovery -- hollow cage-like structures made of pure gold atoms. These structures, many of which look somewhat like bird cages, can host an atom inside.
New study suggests that the last common ancestor shared between chimps and humans may be ~1 million years more recent than previous estimates. Additional findings reveal a particularly young age of one of the human sex chromosomes and point to a complex process of speciation, with possible interbreeding during speciation.
"Moving mountains" has come to mean doing the impossible. Yet at least once in the past, one mountain relocated a fair distance away. This feat took place around 50 million years ago, in the area of the present-day border between Montana and Wyoming. Heart Mountain was part of a larger mountain range when the 100 km (62 mile) long ridge somehow became detached from its position and shifted about 100 km to the southwest.
Can one literally "lose oneself" in an experience? Many theoretical models of the mind reject this notion, proposing that awareness is dependent on the mediation of areas involved in self representation "“ a vigilant, self-aware "observer" network "“ in the human brain.
Scientists have uncovered a class of gold atom clusters that are the first known metallic hollow equivalents of the famous hollow carbon fullerenes known as buckyballs.
A protein found in various cell types including the skin, has been discovered in the tissue covering the eye and may have future clinical implications in various pathologies of the ocular surface such as eye infection or dry eye.
University of Idaho mule clones leased by American Mule Racing Association leaders will be available to the media May 19 in Stockton, Calif. Two mule clones, Idaho Gem and Idaho Star, are scheduled to begin their race careers June 3 and 4 at Winnemucca, Nev., apparently the first clones to compete in an athletic event.
From snowflakes to the leaves on a tree, objects in nature are made of irregular molecules called fractals. Scientists now have created and captured an image of the largest man-made fractal molecule at the nanoscale.
The EERC will hold a regional biomass energy workshop July 18-19, 2006 in Grand Forks, ND.
Scientists have boosted the power output of microbial fuel cells more than 10-fold by letting the bacteria congregate into a slimy matrix known as a biofilm. The research suggests that efficient technologies for generating electricity with microbes are much closer than anticipated.
Women are able to subconsciously pick up cues of interest in children in men's faces and use those cues to determine if they are attracted to them for long-term relationships. Women's judgments of men's facial masculinity accurately reflect testosterone levels, making those with high testosterone levels attractive for short-term relationships.
In research that could improve climate prediction models, scientists at Georgia Tech and NASA have found that thunderstorms over Tibet provide a main pathway for water vapor and chemicals to travel into the stratosphere, home of the protective ozone layer.
The use of monochloramine to disinfect drinking water can cause harmful levels of lead in the water, says a University of Missouri-Rolla chemist. His research will be published in the May 15 issue of the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
Despite research efforts to find modern factors that would explain the different life expectancies of men and women, the gap is actually ancient and universal, according to University of Michigan researchers.
How do we succeed in putting our ideas into words, so that another person can understand them? This complex undertaking involves translating an idea into a one-dimensional sequence, a string of words to be read or spoken one after the other.
By stacking layers of ceramic cloth with interlocking nanotubes in between, a team of researchers has created new composites with significantly improved properties compared to traditional materials. The "nanotube sandwiches," which are described in the May 7 online edition of the journal Nature Materials, could find use in a wide array of structural applications.
In a painstaking set of experiments in overweight mice, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered a gene that appears to play an important role in the onset of type 2 diabetes.
By analyzing the composition and location of sediments off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, researchers at Syracuse University have determined that the glaciers covered a much larger area of the continent than originally thought. The findings are significant to understanding Earth's early history, and suggest that our climate system is capable of shifting very rapidly, yielding dramatic results.
Scientists have gained new insight into the way an embryonic retina cell develops and then commits itself to a specific role. They have observed a small window of opportunity during which a cell has been designated to play a particular role, but has not yet begun to function as such.
UB engineers are launching unprecedented seismic tests on a full-scale, three-bedroom, wood-frame townhouse, the largest wooden structure to be tested in the U.S. In November, the house will undergo the most violent shaking possible in a laboratory, mimicking an earthquake that occurs only once every 2,500 years.
Everyone knows mutations "“ genetic mistakes in DNA, the material of heredity "“ are bad: The more mutations in the cell's DNA, the higher the risk of cancer developing. But in the last few years it has become clear that the very processes that generate mutations, if they take place at a relatively low frequency, can actually protect us from cancer.
By studying microscopic hairs called cilia on algae, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that an internal structure that helps build cilia is also responsible for a cell's response to external signals.
The vast loop of winds that drives climate across the tropical Pacific and helps nourish marine ecosystems has weakened by 3.5% since the mid-1800s and may weaken another 10% by 2100, according to a new study in Nature. The study indicates that the only plausible explanation is human-induced climate change.
New research disputes a notion held by many geologists and seismologists that the Kamchatka Peninsula on Russia's east coast actually is on the North America plate, the same tectonic plate as the mainland United States.
Researchers have painstakingly analyzed interviews with 40 Ohio residents to learn more about how people speak. They listened to every spoken word "“ indeed every syllable - along with coughs, laughs and pauses in the conversation, and then labeled what actually was spoken. The result is a 306,652-word repository called the Buckeye Speech Corpus.
Arizona farmers receive the same yield/acre, use fewer chemical insecticides and maintain insect biodiversity when they plant the biotech cotton known as Bt cotton, according to new research. The finding comes from the first large-scale study that simultaneously examined how growing Bt cotton affects yield, pesticide use and biodiversity.
Estimates of increased plant respiration in response to higher global temperatures may be somewhat overstated as they have not taken into account plants' ability to adjust to changing conditions, according to researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
One of the largest and most anticipated U.S. science construction projects of the past several decades has passed its most significant performance test. The Department of Energy's Spallation Neutron Source, located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has generated its first neutrons.
A team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health reports the discovery of a master molecular sensor embedded in the spores of pathogenic fungi that triggers the transformation from benign to potentially deadly.
By stripping the E. coli genome of vast tracts of its genetic material - hundreds of apparently inconsequential genes - a team of Wisconsin researchers has created a leaner and meaner version of the bacterium that is a workhorse of modern biology and industry.
Researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) report in the April 23 issue of Nature that they have identified neurons that encode the values that subjects assign to different items. The activity of these neurons might facilitate the process of decision-making that occurs when someone chooses between different goods.
Researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Toronto have designed a nanoscale assembly of molecules that successfully counteracts and inhibits anthrax toxin in animal and laboratory experiments. The novel approach used to neutralize anthrax toxin could be applied in designing potent therapeutics for a variety of pathogens and toxins, according to the researchers.
A scientific paradox linking artificial sweeteners such as saccharin with a sensory experience in which plain water takes on a sweet taste has guided researchers at the Monell Center to an increased understanding of how humans detect sweet taste. The findings, reported in Nature, will open doors to the development of new sweeteners and inhibitors.
A new online research tool, "PowerAtlas" [www.poweratlas.org], has been developed by UAB scientists as a storehouse of information for genetics researchers, potentially saving them time and money in performing microarray studies.
Whether exposure to secondhand smoke increases the chance that children with a family history of cardiovascular disease will develop the disease themselves is under study at the Medical College of Georgia.
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has created the Janelia Farm Research Campus to fill a need for a scientific community that promotes and rewards collaborative, interdisciplinary research.
Seattle scientists have developed a new method for analyzing the Major Histocompatibility Complex of the human genome. Found on chromosome 6, this region encodes more than 400 genes. Many of these genes play a role in immunity to infections and cancer.
A collaborative study by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute as part of the Integrative Neuroscience Initiative on Alcoholism Consortium (INIA) have identified some 3,800 "unique genes" that may determine a predisposition for a high degree of alcohol intake.
RSS
Medicine keyboard_arrow_right
Sciencekeyboard_arrow_right
Life keyboard_arrow_right
Business keyboard_arrow_right
Journal News keyboard_arrow_right
By Location keyboard_arrow_right
Meetings, Grants, and Events keyboard_arrow_right