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Some Immune Cells Change To Prolong Inflammation

Some Immune Cells Change To Prolong Inflammation

Researchers have unraveled one of the mysteries of how a small group of immune cells work: That some inflammation-fighting immune cells may actually convert into cells that trigger disease. 
White blood cells, called T-cells, iare one of the body's critical disease fighters. Regulatory immune cells, called "Tregs," direct T-cells and control unwanted immune reactions that cause inflammation. They are known to produce only anti-inflammatory proteins to keep inflammation caused by disease in check.

Evolution Of The Antarctic Ice Sheet And How It Resists Climate Change

Evolution Of The Antarctic Ice Sheet And How It Resists Climate Change

A new analysis of the stability of the Antarctic ice sheet shows that ice rises (pinning points that keep the floating parts of ice sheets in place) are formed during the transition between glacial and interglacial periods, which significantly slows down the response of the ice sheet to climate change.

Soy Supplements Don't Help With Asthma Severity

Soy Supplements Don't Help With Asthma Severity

The supplements industry has embraced claims suggesting a link between soy intake and decreased asthma severity,  but a randomized, double-blind study, where half of the participants took a soy isoflavone supplement twice daily for six months, and the other half took a placebo,  found that soy supplements do not improve lung function for patients with asthma. 

Brain-Computer Interface Makes Communication For Kids With Cerebral Palsy Easier

Brain-Computer Interface Makes Communication For Kids With Cerebral Palsy Easier

The Augmented BNCI Communication projects has developed a new brain-computer interface system to enhance communication skills of people with cerebral palsys.Cerebral palsy is a chronic movement disability affects between 2 and 3 per 1,000 people. People with Dyskinetic Cerebral Palsy (DCP), 15% of the cases, have normal intelligence ability but cannot speak or express themselves due to lack of motor control. "Since they cannot express themselves, these children do not connect with other people and end up not developing their intelligence," says Biomechanics Institute of Valencia (IBV) researcher Juanma Belda.

Low-Volatility Organic Compounds: How Forests Can Effect Clouds And Climate

Low-Volatility Organic Compounds: How Forests Can Effect Clouds And Climate

According to a new global-scale projection, terrestrial vegetation emits several million tons of extremely low-volatility organic compounds (ELVOCs) per year to the atmosphere, which affect cloud seeds via formation of low-volatility vapors. These oxidation products of compounds such as monoterpenes results in an increase of condensing vapors that can further form cloud condensation nuclei over the continents and have an influence on the formation of clouds. The results show how a number of natural compounds, which together account for around 70 percent of the biological hydrocarbon emissions, produce low-volatility products and how they can possibly effect the climate via aerosol particles. 

Predicting Congressional Voting - Social Identification Trumps Party

Predicting Congressional Voting - Social Identification Trumps Party

In America, where there is a two-party system, there are numerous opportunities to compromise or cross party lines politically, so looking at where someone falls on a conservative-liberal graph lines doesn't tell us much about how they will vote. Democrats receive over 90 percent of education union donations, for example, so no left-right model predicted that the education reform known as No Child Left Behind would pass  91-8 in the Senate and 384-41 in the House.

InstantShoe -  Adjustable Customized Footwear Uses Memory Shape Composite

InstantShoe - Adjustable Customized Footwear Uses Memory Shape Composite

A new adjustable female shoe based on memory shape composite of leather and Nitinol material allows fitting the shoe to the foot shape after obtaining anthropometric measurements through a portable scanner and modifying it with a machine that completes the process directly in the shop. The "InstantShoe" prototype expected to be out on the market at the end of 2015.

Baby Pacifier May Be Source Of Infant Exposure To Endocrine Disruptor

Baby Pacifier May Be Source Of Infant Exposure To Endocrine Disruptor

A new study has found that endocrine disrupting chemicals--which can interfere with the actions of hormones in the body--are present in some plastic teethers for babies, and the chemicals can leach out of the products.
Investigators detected significant endocrine activity in 2 of 10 plastic teethers. One teether contained methyl-, ethyl- and propylparaben, while the second contained at least 6 different endocrine disrupting compounds that remain so far unidentified.

Cancer Drugs May Hold Key To Treating Down Syndrome

Cancer Drugs May Hold Key To Treating Down Syndrome

A class of FDA-approved cancer drugs may be able to prevent problems with brain cell development associated with disorders including Down syndrome and Fragile X syndrome, researchers at the University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute have found.
The researchers' proof-of-concept study using fruit fly models of brain dysfunction was published today in the journal eLife. They show that giving the leukemia drugs nilotinib or bafetinib to fly larvae with the equivalent of Fragile X prevented the wild overgrowth of neuron endings associated with the disorder. Meanwhile, the drugs--both tyrosine-kinase inhibitors--did not adversely affect the development or neuronal growth in healthy flies.

Tobacco Users Have Become Marginalized - They Don't Even Bother To Vote Now

Tobacco Users Have Become Marginalized - They Don't Even Bother To Vote Now

A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research shows a new dimension to the marginalization of smokers: people who smoke are less likely to vote than their non-smoking peers.
"One on hand, the result is intuitive. We know from previous research that smokers are an increasingly marginalized population, involved in fewer organizations and activities and with less interpersonal trust than nonsmokers. But what our research suggests is that this marginalization may also extend beyond the interpersonal level to attitudes toward political systems and institutions," says Karen Albright, PhD, assistant professor at the Colorado School of Public Health, and the paper's first author.

Seeing Is Hearing: Blind Echolocators Use Visual Areas Of The Brain

Seeing Is Hearing: Blind Echolocators Use Visual Areas Of The Brain

Some blind individuals use echoes from tongue or finger clicks to recognize objects in the distance, such echolocation can almost be a radar 'replacement' for vision. Recent research showed that echolocation in blind individuals is a full form of sensory substitution, and that blind echolocation experts recruit regions of the brain normally associated with visual perception when making echo-based assessments of objects.