News Articles

Proteins are essential for healthy cells and all biological activities - misfolded and/or damaged proteins are common to human neurodegenerative diseases and age-associated diseases.A big question is, when during a lifespan do proteins start to misbehave?A new Northwestern University study says that protein damage can be detected much earlier than previously believed, long before individuals exhibit symptoms.   Importantly, the results also suggest that if we intervene early enough, the damage could be delayed.

There once was a battle of the sexes, when some women and men believed the genders were basically the same.   Then there was a cultural détente, which regrettably involved a lot of pantsuits, before settling into the modern realization that a uni-sex society was not going to happen but gender differences do not warrant different paychecks.New research by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the University of Chicago's Department of Comparative Human Development says that  the sexes may have more in common than believed when it comes to taking risks - testosterone.

High protein, low carbohydrate diets have been successful at helping individuals rapidly lose weight but due to their recent popularity little is known about the diets' long-term effects on vascular health. A new study provides some of the first data on this subject, demonstrating that mice placed on a 12-week low carbohydrate/high-protein diet showed a significant increase in atherosclerosis, a buildup of plaque in the heart's arteries and a leading cause of heart attack and stroke. The findings also showed that the diet led to an impaired ability to form new blood vessels in tissues deprived of blood flow, as might occur during a heart attack.

Think you can design a better iPhone?  We think we can, mostly by eliminating whatever attracts the more smug Apple users.  And we're not alone.   From running shoes to ceiling fans (no, Apple will not let you design your own phone - they won't even let you decide what you can install), consumers are becoming the designers of their own products, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research which looks at the ways consumers compare their creations to those designed by professionals.

Everyone is thorough about checklists of items they want to take on long trips - fewer people worry about things they are supposed to leave behind.  But forty years ago, as the Apollo 11 astronauts were completing their checklist to leave the Moon they discovered that they had forgotten something important that wasn't supposed to return to Earth.

An international team has sequenced the genome of Schistosoma mansoni, a parasite that infects 200 million people in 76 countries through freshwater snails.The US is not one of the affected countries because we don't have the snails that carry the Schistosoma mansoni parasite, though Americans at risk include those traveling in the Peace Corps, on business or for church missions.   The new research is the largest genome sequencing of a parasite to date. 

A sense of pleasure generated by the brain’s hedonic neural systems is fundamental to daily life and it's been essential for evolution and the survival of humans and most animals, say Morten Kringelbach and Kent Berridge, editors of a new book to be published by Oxford University Press in October 2009 called Pleasures of the Brain.

New research led by Michael Symonds, Professor of Developmental Physiology in the School of Clincal Sciences at The University of Nottingham, says Brown adipose tissue (BAT), the brown fat found in abundance in hibernating animals and newborn babies, could be the key to new ways of preventing obesity.Studies have previously shown that BAT activity in adults is reduced with obesity, so logically  promoting BAT function could prevent or reduce obesity in some people. Symonds now says that daylight is a major factor in controlling BAT activity.  “Our research has suggested a previously unknown mechanism for controlling BAT function in humans and this could potentially lead to new treatments for the prevention or reversal of obesity.”

Would you like to make your own black hole before the LHC supposedly dooms us all (though it has to stop breaking first before it can unleash  physics-induced Eschaton)? Dartmouth researchers say they may be able to do it.Writing in Physical Review Letters, they propose a new way of creating reproduction black holes in the laboratory on a much-tinier scale than their science-fiction staples. The new method, if it works, would create tiny quantum-sized black hole and allow researchers to better understand what physicist Stephen Hawking proposed more than 35 years ago; that black holes are not totally void of activity, they emit photons, what is now called Hawking radiation. 

On the big list of environmental challenges we face, you might worry about volcanic ash or industrial soot or farting cows ... some people are even concerned by an obscure greenhouse gas named carbon dioxide.    But you probably aren't concerned about the global impact of those rare rocket launches.Going green is big, though, so efforts to make green rocket propellant are getting funding.   Thus, NASA and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research are pleased  to accounce they have successfully launched a small rocket using an environmentally-friendly, safe propellant comprised of aluminum powder and water ice, called ALICE. 

Researchers at the University of Iowa and Kansas State University say a deafness-causing gene defect in mice helped identify a new protein that protects sensory cells in the ear, according to findings in PLoS Genetics. In humans, hereditary deafness is one of the most common birth defects, yet most genes involved in hearing are unidentified. Mice are used as research models because mouse and human auditory genetics are very similar. Using a deaf mouse model generated at The Jackson Laboratory, the team identified the deafness-causing defect in the claudin-9 gene. The mutated gene fails to produce normal claudin-9 protein, which, the UI team showed, is needed to maintain the proper distribution of potassium in the inner ear.

We humans spend roughly one-third of our lives asleep but researchers don't know why. Science magazine listed the function of sleep is one of the 125 greatest unsolved mysteries in science and we've seen theories range from brain 'maintenance', including memory consolidation and pruning, to reversing damage from oxidative stress suffered while awake, to promoting longevity. None of these theories are well established, and many are mutually exclusive.