ScienceDaily: Latest Science News

---

• Plastic antibody works in first tests in living animals
• New type of human stem cell may be easier to manipulate
• 'Instant acid' method offers new insight into nanoparticle dispersal in the environment and the body
• Helping hearts, spinal cords and tendons heal themselves
• Bacteria converted into ‘mini-factories’ for biofuels and vaccines
• Sleep preference can predict performance of Major League Baseball pitchers
• Single-molecule devices can serve as powerful new science tools
• Making cancer killers: Reprogramming immune system cells to produce natural killer cells for cancer
• Polyphenols in red wine and green tea halt prostate cancer growth, study suggests
• Potential new target for schizophrenia drugs identified
• Microbes reprogrammed to ooze oil for renewable biofuel
• High-school seniors with excessive daytime sleepiness have an increased risk of depression
• Freezing 'to death' and living to tell about it: Study reveals how suspended animation protects against lethal hypothermia
• Mechanism that limits scar formation discovered
• NASA's Dawn spacecraft fires past record for speed change
• CPAP therapy provides a memory boost for adults with sleep apnea
• Fresh findings about chickenpox could lead to better blood tests
• Childhood parasomnias such as sleepwalking and bedwetting may persist into adolescence
• Many famous comets originally formed in other solar systems
• Gamma interferon a wake-up call for stem cell response to infection
• Insight into structure of HIV protein could aid drug design
• How to overcome resistance to one group of breast cancer drugs
• Rare lady beetles prefer traditional diet
• Smoke-free air laws effective at protecting children from secondhand smoke
• 'Dark Pulse Laser' produces bursts of ... almost nothing
• New function discovered in cancer-prevention protein: p53 is activated to control the creation of ova and spermatozoa
• Predicting amount of oil in contaminated soils: Scientists develop faster method for testing soils around oil spills
• Propofol poses low risk in pediatric imaging studies, but risk increases with anesthesia duration, study finds
• New boreal forest biomass maps produced from radar satellite data
• First-time parents' daily sleep duration predicts their relationship satisfaction
• Sharks can really sniff out their prey, and this is how they do it
• Common gene variants appear to increase risk of vitamin D deficiency
• Absence of organic compounds on surface of Mars explained by new theory
• Gout drug benefits kidney disease patients, analysis finds
• Model explains rapid transition toward division of labor in biological evolution
• Children's testimony may be influenced by co-witnesses
• Exoplanet caught on the move
• Diabetes may double cancer risk in women
• Collagen manufactured from transgenic tobacco plants
• Biologists isolate genes that regulate the sleep-feeding conflict: New insights into how brain chooses between critical survival behaviors
• Waste steel in the Gulf of Mexico
• Teen automobile crash rates are higher when school starts earlier
• Brain stimulation with ultrasound may enhance cognitive function
• Improving recovery from spinal cord injury
• Could string theory explain similarities between utracold gases and quark gluon plasma?
• Compound enhances cancer-killing properties of agent in trials
• New method manipulates particles for sensors, crime scene testing
• Do toddlers pick up gender roles during play?

Plastic antibody works in first tests in living animals Posted: 11 Jun 2010 11:00 AM PDT Scientists are reporting the first evidence that a plastic antibody -- an artificial version of the proteins produced by the body's immune system to recognize and fight infections and foreign substances -- works in the bloodstream of a living animal. The discovery, they suggest, is an advance toward medical use of simple plastic particles custom tailored to fight an array of troublesome "antigens."

New type of human stem cell may be easier to manipulate Posted: 11 Jun 2010 11:00 AM PDT Researchers have a developed a new type of human pluripotent stem cell that can be manipulated more readily than currently available stem cells.

'Instant acid' method offers new insight into nanoparticle dispersal in the environment and the body Posted: 11 Jun 2010 11:00 AM PDT Using a chemical trick that allows them to change the acidity of a solution almost instantly, researchers have demonstrated a simple and effective technique for quantifying how the stability of nanoparticle solutions change when the acidity of their environment suddenly changes.

Helping hearts, spinal cords and tendons heal themselves Posted: 11 Jun 2010 11:00 AM PDT A Canadian researcher is hoping that in about 10 years a tendon, spinal cord or heart valve will be able to regenerate itself after an injury or disease. The chemical engineer is currently trying to develop microscopic polymer fibers to help rebuild human tissue and speed the healing process.

Bacteria converted into ‘mini-factories’ for biofuels and vaccines Posted: 11 Jun 2010 11:00 AM PDT Scientists have manipulated simple bacteria into constructing internal compartments where biofuels and vaccines can be produced. These micro-compartments eventually occupy almost 70 percent of the available space in a bacteria cell, enabling segregation of metabolic activities and, in the era of synthetic biology, representing an important tool by which defined micro-environments can be created for specific metabolic functions.

Sleep preference can predict performance of Major League Baseball pitchers Posted: 11 Jun 2010 11:00 AM PDT In early games that started before 7 p.m., the earned run average (ERA) of pitchers who were morning types (3.06) was lower than the average ERA of pitchers who were evening types (3.49); however, in games that started at 7 p.m. or later, pitchers who were evening types performed slightly better (4.07 ERA) than morning types (4.15 ERA). The study involved 18 pitchers from five MLB teams, using the players' statistics from the 2009 season.

Single-molecule devices can serve as powerful new science tools Posted: 11 Jun 2010 08:00 AM PDT With controlled stretching of molecules, researchers have demonstrated that single-molecule devices can serve as powerful new tools for fundamental science experiments. Their work has resulted in detailed tests of long-existing theories on how electrons interact at the nanoscale.

Making cancer killers: Reprogramming immune system cells to produce natural killer cells for cancer Posted: 11 Jun 2010 08:00 AM PDT A team of researchers has developed a method to produce cells that kill tumor cells in the lab and prevent tumors forming in mouse models of cancer. Although the current work is in cells and mice, if the research transfers to human biology, the new type of cell could be a new source for cell-based anticancer therapies.

Polyphenols in red wine and green tea halt prostate cancer growth, study suggests Posted: 11 Jun 2010 08:00 AM PDT In what could lead to a major advance in the treatment of prostate cancer, scientists now know exactly why polyphenols in red wine and green tea inhibit cancer growth. This new discovery explains how antioxidants in red wine and green tea produce a combined effect to disrupt an important cell signaling pathway necessary for prostate cancer growth.

Potential new target for schizophrenia drugs identified Posted: 11 Jun 2010 08:00 AM PDT Scientists have identified a protein that boosts the signaling power of a receptor involved in relaying messages between brain cells, a finding that suggests a new target for the development of treatments for schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease. The protein, called Norbin, directly interacts with a receptor for the neurotransmitter glutamate, which is critical to the process by which individual brain cells send messages to one another and plays a key role in learning and memory.

Microbes reprogrammed to ooze oil for renewable biofuel Posted: 11 Jun 2010 08:00 AM PDT Using genetic sleight of hand, researcher have coaxed photosynthetic microbes to secrete oil -- bypassing energy and cost barriers that have hampered green biofuel production.

High-school seniors with excessive daytime sleepiness have an increased risk of depression Posted: 11 Jun 2010 08:00 AM PDT High school seniors were three times more likely to have strong depression symptoms (odds ratio = 3.04) if they had excessive daytime sleepiness. Fifty-two percent of participants had excessive daytime sleepiness, 30 percent had strong depression symptoms and 32 percent had some symptoms of depression. Students reported a mean total sleep time on school nights of only 6.1 hours. The study involved 262 high-school seniors.

Freezing 'to death' and living to tell about it: Study reveals how suspended animation protects against lethal hypothermia Posted: 11 Jun 2010 05:00 AM PDT How is it that some people who apparently freeze to death can be brought back to life with no long-term negative health consequences? New findings may help explain the mechanics behind this phenomenon.

Mechanism that limits scar formation discovered Posted: 11 Jun 2010 05:00 AM PDT Researchers have discovered that an unexpected cellular response plays an important role in breaking down and inhibiting the formation of excess scar tissue in wound healing.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft fires past record for speed change Posted: 11 Jun 2010 05:00 AM PDT Deep in the heart of the asteroid belt, on its way to the first of the belt's two most massive inhabitants, NASA's ion-propelled Dawn spacecraft has eclipsed the record for velocity change produced by a spacecraft's engines. The previous standard-bearer for velocity change, NASA's Deep Space 1, also impelled by ion propulsion, was the first interplanetary spacecraft to use this technology. The Deep Space 1 record fell on Saturday, June 5, when the Dawn spacecraft's accumulated acceleration over the mission exceeded 4.3 kilometers per second (9,600 miles per hour).

CPAP therapy provides a memory boost for adults with sleep apnea Posted: 11 Jun 2010 05:00 AM PDT On an overnight picture memory consolidation task, OSA patients being treated with CPAP therapy outperformed both untreated OSA patients and a control group of people who did not have OSA, suggesting that CPAP is effective at recouping memory abilities that are impaired by OSA. CPAP patients correctly identified more photographs after one night of sleep. The study involved a preliminary sample of 135 adults between the ages of 33 and 65 years.

Fresh findings about chickenpox could lead to better blood tests Posted: 11 Jun 2010 05:00 AM PDT Fresh understanding of the virus that causes chickenpox and shingles could lead to improved vaccines and diagnostic tests, a study suggests.

Childhood parasomnias such as sleepwalking and bedwetting may persist into adolescence Posted: 11 Jun 2010 05:00 AM PDT Although incident parasomnias are uncommon as children enter adolescence, parasomnias present in preadolescents may persist into the teen years, according to a new research.

Many famous comets originally formed in other solar systems Posted: 11 Jun 2010 02:00 AM PDT Many of the most well known comets, including Halley, Hale-Bopp and, most recently, McNaught, may have been born in orbit around other stars, according to a new theory by an international team of astronomers.

Gamma interferon a wake-up call for stem cell response to infection Posted: 11 Jun 2010 02:00 AM PDT Most of the time, the body's blood-forming stem cells remain dormant, with just a few producing blood cells and maintaining a balance among the different types. However, invading bacteria can be a call-to-arms, awaking the sleeping stem cells and prompting them to produce immune system cells. The "bugler" that awakes them is gamma interferon, a front-line protein defender against bacterial infection, researchers have found.

Insight into structure of HIV protein could aid drug design Posted: 11 Jun 2010 02:00 AM PDT Researchers have created a three-dimensional picture of an important protein that is involved in how HIV -- the virus responsible for AIDS -- is produced inside human cells. The picture may help researchers design drugs that can prevent HIV from reproducing.

How to overcome resistance to one group of breast cancer drugs Posted: 11 Jun 2010 02:00 AM PDT New research has identified a mechanism by which human breast cancer cells can develop resistance to one group of drugs used to treat breast cancer, suggesting new approaches to treating the disease.

Rare lady beetles prefer traditional diet Posted: 11 Jun 2010 02:00 AM PDT Experts watched helplessly as a colony of rare, captive lady beetles was lost in 2008, then teetered on the edge of disaster again in 2009.

Smoke-free air laws effective at protecting children from secondhand smoke Posted: 11 Jun 2010 02:00 AM PDT Researchers have found that children and adolescents living in non-smoking homes in counties with laws promoting smoke-free public places have significantly lower levels of a common biomarker of secondhand smoke exposure than those living in counties with no smoke-free laws.

'Dark Pulse Laser' produces bursts of ... almost nothing Posted: 10 Jun 2010 11:00 PM PDT In an advance that sounds almost Zen, researchers have demonstrated a new type of pulsed laser that excels at not producing light.

New function discovered in cancer-prevention protein: p53 is activated to control the creation of ova and spermatozoa Posted: 10 Jun 2010 11:00 PM PDT The protein p53 is very important in protecting against cancer, preventing cancer-causing mutations from accumulating. In a new study, researchers have discovered that this protein plays an unexpected physiological role: it also becomes activated during the formation process of ova and spermatozoids. The discovery could open the door to new approaches and ways of studying the disease.

Predicting amount of oil in contaminated soils: Scientists develop faster method for testing soils around oil spills Posted: 10 Jun 2010 11:00 PM PDT A team of scientists has demonstrated a new method for testing soils for oil contamination that is faster than traditional testing methods.

Propofol poses low risk in pediatric imaging studies, but risk increases with anesthesia duration, study finds Posted: 10 Jun 2010 11:00 PM PDT A new study finds that propofol, a well-known anesthesia medication, has a low occurrence of adverse events for children undergoing research-driven imaging studies. The study showed a low incidence of adverse events and no long-term complications when propofol was used to sedate children for imaging studies that require them to be still for long periods of time.

New boreal forest biomass maps produced from radar satellite data Posted: 10 Jun 2010 11:00 PM PDT Having a large-scale boreal forest biomass inventory would allow scientists to understand better the carbon cycle and to predict more accurately Earth's future climate. However, obtaining these maps has been wrought with difficulty -- until now.

First-time parents' daily sleep duration predicts their relationship satisfaction Posted: 10 Jun 2010 11:00 PM PDT Self-reported relationship satisfaction among new parents was strongly associated with objective total sleep time measured by actigraphy. This association was stronger than the association between subjectively reported sleep and relationship satisfaction. Mothers significantly underestimated fathers' self-reported relationship satisfaction; fathers underestimated mothers' subjective sleep quality. Participants were 22 couples who were first-time parents; their average age was 27.6 years. Data were collected from each couple an average of seven weeks after the birth of their child.

Sharks can really sniff out their prey, and this is how they do it Posted: 10 Jun 2010 05:00 PM PDT It's no secret that sharks have a keen sense of smell and a remarkable ability to follow their noses through the ocean, right to their next meal. Now, researchers have figured out how the sharks manage to keep themselves on course.

Common gene variants appear to increase risk of vitamin D deficiency Posted: 10 Jun 2010 05:00 PM PDT Scientists have identified four common gene variants that are associated with blood levels of vitamin D and with an increased risk of vitamin D deficiency.

Absence of organic compounds on surface of Mars explained by new theory Posted: 10 Jun 2010 05:00 PM PDT The ongoing search for evidence of past or present life on Mars includes efforts to identify organic compounds such as proteins in Martian soil, but their absence to date remains a mystery. A new theory to explain what happens to these carbon-based molecules is presented in a new article.

Gout drug benefits kidney disease patients, analysis finds Posted: 10 Jun 2010 05:00 PM PDT A drug commonly used to treat gout may help maintain kidney disease patients' health, according to a new analysis. The research is the first to show that allopurinol treatment in patients with chronic kidney disease decreases inflammation, slows the progression of kidney disease, and reduces patients' risk of experiencing a cardiovascular event or being hospitalized.

Model explains rapid transition toward division of labor in biological evolution Posted: 10 Jun 2010 05:00 PM PDT The transition from colonies of individual cells to multicellular organisms can be achieved relatively rapidly, within one million generations, according to a new mathematical model that simplifies our understanding of this process.

Children's testimony may be influenced by co-witnesses Posted: 10 Jun 2010 05:00 PM PDT When children report about an event they can be highly accurate. But if they talk to other witnesses, children's testimony may become tainted. Researchers have examined children's vulnerability to co-witness influence, and present a new method that can help child witnesses to provide more detailed witness reports.

Exoplanet caught on the move Posted: 10 Jun 2010 02:00 PM PDT For the first time, astronomers have been able to directly follow the motion of an exoplanet as it moves from one side of its host star to the other. The planet has the smallest orbit so far of all directly imaged exoplanets, lying almost as close to its parent star as Saturn is to the Sun. Scientists believe that it may have formed in a similar way to the giant planets in the Solar System.

Diabetes may double cancer risk in women Posted: 10 Jun 2010 02:00 PM PDT A new study finds that type 2 adult-onset diabetes has a surprisingly positive effect on reducing the rate of prostate cancer in men, but may double the risk of female genital and other cancers. The new study is not the first to report such a risk, but it's one of the largest to confirm these findings, and it's the first to determine the statistical differences in cancer risks for men and women.

Collagen manufactured from transgenic tobacco plants Posted: 10 Jun 2010 02:00 PM PDT A scientist has succeeded in producing a replica of human collagen from tobacco plants -- an achievement with tremendous commercial implications for use in a variety of human medical procedures.

Biologists isolate genes that regulate the sleep-feeding conflict: New insights into how brain chooses between critical survival behaviors Posted: 10 Jun 2010 02:00 PM PDT A team of biologists has isolated genes that regulate the sleep-feeding conflict. The study offers new insights into how the brain chooses between behaviors that are critical for survival.

Waste steel in the Gulf of Mexico Posted: 10 Jun 2010 02:00 PM PDT The huge tonnages of waste steel from decommissioned offshore oil and gas structures represents a serious problem for operators looking to recoup losses and avoid environmental harm. A way to calculate the weight of the problem has been developed by US researchers.

Teen automobile crash rates are higher when school starts earlier Posted: 10 Jun 2010 02:00 PM PDT In 2008 the teen crash rate was about 41 percent higher in Virginia Beach, Va., where high school classes began at 7:20 a.m., than in adjacent Chesapeake, Va., where classes started more than an hour later at 8:40 a.m. There were 65.4 automobile crashes for every 1,000 teen drivers in Virginia Beach, and 46.2 crashes for every 1,000 teen drivers in Chesapeake. The two adjoining cities have similar demographics, including racial composition and per capita income.

Brain stimulation with ultrasound may enhance cognitive function Posted: 10 Jun 2010 11:00 AM PDT The ability to diagnose and treat brain dysfunction without surgery, may rely on a new method of noninvasive brain stimulation using pulsed ultrasound developed by a team of scientists. The approach shows that pulsed ultrasound stimulates action potentials in intact motor cortex in mice and elicits motor responses comparable to those only previously achieved with implanted electrodes.

Improving recovery from spinal cord injury Posted: 10 Jun 2010 11:00 AM PDT Once damaged, nerves in the spinal cord normally cannot grow back and the only drug approved for treating these injuries does not enable nerve regrowth. Medical researchers now show that treating injured rat spinal cords with an enzyme, sialidase, improves nerve regrowth, motor recovery and nervous system function.

Could string theory explain similarities between utracold gases and quark gluon plasma? Posted: 10 Jun 2010 11:00 AM PDT For a few millionths of a second after the Big Bang, the universe consisted of a hot soup of elementary particles called quarks and gluons. A few microseconds later, those particles began cooling to form protons and neutrons, the building blocks of matter. Could string theory explain similarities between utracold gases and quark gluon plasma?

Compound enhances cancer-killing properties of agent in trials Posted: 10 Jun 2010 11:00 AM PDT Adding a second agent may make a new, experimental anti-cancer drug effective against a wide range of cancers, researchers have found.

New method manipulates particles for sensors, crime scene testing Posted: 10 Jun 2010 11:00 AM PDT Researchers have developed a potential new tool for medical diagnostics, testing food and water for contamination, and crime-scene forensics. The technique uses a combination of light and electric fields to position droplets and tiny particles, such as bacteria, viruses and DNA, which are contained inside the drops.

Do toddlers pick up gender roles during play? Posted: 10 Jun 2010 11:00 AM PDT The differences in mothers' and fathers' interactions with their children, particularly in play situations, may influence toddlers' associations of specific behaviors with male and female genders. According to a new study, context, gender of the parent and gender of the child combine in a complex pattern to shape parent-child interaction.

You are subscribed to email updates from ScienceDaily: Latest Science News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610