A new cancer vaccine platform works by enhancing the ability of the immune system to recognize cancer by leveraging anti-viral memories it already has - due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the worst outbreak of the last 70 years.
We learn a lot from genes but it turns out we can learn even more - like where you lived or even who you spent time with. It just requires knowing where and how to look.Researchers from Stanford and Tel-Aviv University are using a technique called "reverse ecology" to examine metabolic networks and pull out proxies for reconstructing bacterial environments millions of years in the past. The work, published in the February issue of the Journal of Computational Biology, offers clues to the complex evolutionary interplay between organisms such as parasites and hosts.
Interstellar space dust from a dead star identified by a research team led by The University of Nottingham could unlock some of the mysteries of the early universe.Dr Loretta Dunne and her team have found new evidence of huge dust production in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant, the remains of a star that exploded about 300 years ago. The paper is set to be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
White people are having a tough 2009. And it's going to get worse if new research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology is accurate. A series of six studies conducted by University of Washington and Michigan State University psychologists says that whites react more negatively to racial minority individuals who strongly identify with their racial group than to racial minority individuals who weakly identify with their group.The research, they say, may provide evidence for the claim from some blacks that they personally experience more prejudice than they see others receiving.
A pregnant fossil fish at the Natural History Museum in London has shed light on the possible origin of sex, according to a study published today in the journal Nature by an international team including Museum scientists.The fossil is an adult placoderm, an extinct group of armored fish, and it contains a 5cm-long embryo. It is dated to the Upper Devonian period 350 million years ago and was found in the Gogo formation of western Australia. The fish species is Incisoscutum ritchiei and this specimen is one of the earliest examples of a pregnant vertebrate and shows that internal fertilisation, or sex, started far sooner than previously thought.
A 380-million-year-old fossil fish that shows an unborn embryo and umbilical cord has been discovered, write scientists from the Natural History Museum in Nature. The extremely rare specimen shows incredible detail. The umbilical cord is attached to an area of small bones, corresponding to the embryo. This means the fish would have given birth to live young, known as viviparity and is the oldest record of this kind known.'The find is important because it provides concrete evidence for vivparity,' says Zerina Johanson, fossil fish curator at the Natural History Museum.Fossil specimen found in Australia showing the umbilical cord and embryo parts. © Museum Victoria
Starting with the tiny fruit fly, and then moving into mouse and human patients, researchers at VIB connected to the Center for Human Genetics (K.U. Leuven) say they have showed that the same gene suppresses cancer in all three. Reciprocally, switching off the gene leads to cancer. The scientists think there is a good chance that the gene can be switched on again with a drug.
With sexual activity among adolescents in the United States resulting in over 750,000 teenage pregnancies each year and reports of up to 25 percent of all female adolescents in the US having sexually transmitted infections, researchers and public health officials are looking for those factors that might increase sexual activity in teens. In an article published in the April 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers say that teenagers who preferred popular songs with degrading sexual references were more likely to engage in intercourse or in pre-coital activities.
A team of scientists has used game theory to explain the bizarre behavior of a group of ravens. Juvenile birds from a roost in North Wales have been observed adopting the unusual strategy of foraging for food in 'gangs.' New research published in PLoS One explains how this curious behavior can be predicted by adapting models more commonly used by economists to analyse financial trends.This is the first time game theory has been used to successfully predict novel animal behavior in the real world. The researchers believe this analysis could also shed light on the variation in feeding strategies in different populations in other species.
Women undertaking a ten week program of 75 minute Restorative Yoga (RY) classes gained positive differences in aspects of mental health such as depression, positive emotions, and spirituality (feeling calm/peaceful) compared to the control group. The study, published today in a special issue of Psycho-Oncology focusing on physical activity, shows the women had a 50% reduction in depression and a 12% increase in feelings of peace and meaning after the yoga sessions.
Richard Hawkins, Canada Research Chair in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, says there is no evidence that information technologies necessarily reduce our environmental footprint. His research will provide input into the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) initiative on IT and sustainability at the United Nations' Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark later this year."It was once assumed that there was little or no material dimension to information technology, thus, it should be clean with minimal environmental impact," says Hawkins who is also a professor in the U of C's Faculty of Communication and Culture. "However, we are finding that reality is much more complicated."
Do sexy images sell products? Like anything in marketing, it depends on if it works, says a new study in Journal of Consumer Research, but the common belief is that it doesn't work all that great for women. The researchers say there may be ways to do it that can attract customers of both sexes.In today's cluttered advertising space, marketers use increasingly radical images that include nudity and sexual language.Authors Darren W. Dahl (University of British Columbia, Vancouver), Jaideep Sengupta (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), and Kathleen D. Vohs (University of Minnesota) followed up on earlier research that has demonstrated that women exhibit negative reactions to explicit sexual content in advertising.
Experts in intellectual property and patents write in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation that tools such as online social networking could be used to eradicate the enormous backlog of patent applications in the US.Social networking sites such as Facebook, ScientificBlogging and MySpace allow visitors to create networks of friends and contacts, upload images, music, videos, and news stories. Members can discuss, blog, and rate different media on such sites and provide useful feedback to the content creators. Analyzing social networks can uncover patterns of interaction between people and reveal what is important and well-ranked in a given group, or community.
