Scientists have reported that an experimental vaccine targeting one of the most common genetic drivers of pancreatic cancer, called mutant KRAS, is safe and generated a durable immune responses aimed at preventing the cancer.
A new study in The Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI) found that preventing weight gain, obesity, and ultimately diabetes could be as simple as keeping a nuclear receptor, PPARgamma, from being activated in a small part of the brain.
When researchers blocked the effects of PPARgamma in a small number of brain cells in mice, the animals ate less and became resistant to a high-fat diet.
Proopiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons are found in the hypothalamus and regulate food intake. When activated, these neurons cause a feeling of fullness and curb appetite. PPARgamma regulates the activation of these neurons.
Scientists have recently gathered some of the strongest evidence to date to explain what makes the sun's outer atmosphere so much hotter than its surface. The new observations of the small-scale extremely hot temperatures are consistent with only one current theory - nanoflares – a constant peppering of impulsive bursts of heating, none of which can be individually detected, provide the mysterious extra heat.
In the world we commonly perceive around us, it takes only a slight disturbance for a pencil standing on its tip to fall in one direction or another, but in the quantum world it is possible in principle for particles of a system to fall both left and right at the same time. Differentiating this “and” state – the quantum entanglement of particles – from the classical “or” is an experimental challenge. Scientists have now devised a
quantum metrology
method that enables entanglement verification for states of large atomic systems.
Dietary capsaicin, the active ingredient in chili peppers, produces chronic activation of a receptor on cells lining the intestines of mice, triggering a reaction that ultimately reduces the risk of colorectal tumors, finds a study in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.
More than 10,000 reptile species have been recorded into the Reptile Database, a web-based catalog of all living reptile species and classification, making the reptile species among the most diverse vertebrate groups in the world, alongside bird and fish species, and likely the largest known.
Experts projected that 2014 would mark the year that reptiles would become the most diverse vertebrate group in the world. Reptiles include snakes, lizards, turtles, crocodiles, tuataras and amphisbaenians.
A paper in The Journal of Clinical Investigation helps explain why brain tumors occur more often in males and frequently are more harmful than similar tumors in females.
Glioblastomas, the most common malignant brain tumors, are diagnosed twice as often in males, who suffer greater cognitive impairments than females and do not survive as long. The researchers found that retinoblastoma protein (RB), a protein known to reduce cancer risk, is significantly less active in male brain cells than in female brain cells.
New research has revealed psychogenic seizures which could be mistaken for epilepsy are linked to feelings of anxiety. The team of researchers devised a set of tests to determine whether there was a link between how people interpret and respond to anxiety, and incidences of psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNESs) – seizures that can be brought on by threatening situations, sensations, emotions, thoughts, or memories.
Understanding eye diseases is tricky enough but knowing what causes them at the molecular level will help.
University of Iowa researchers have created the most detailed map to date of a region of the human eye long associated with blinding diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration. The high-resolution molecular map catalogs thousands of proteins in the choroid, which supplies blood and oxygen to the outer retina, itself critical in vision.
By seeing differences in the abundance of proteins in different areas of the choroid, the researchers can begin to figure out which proteins may be the critical actors in vision loss and eye disease.
Researchers have been able to experimentally reproduce
morphological changes
in mice which have taken millions of years to occur. Through small and gradual modifications in the embryonic development of mice teeth, induced in the laboratory, they obtained teeth which morphologically are very similar to those observed in the fossil registry of rodent species which separated from mice millions of years ago.To modify the development of their teeth, the team
from the University of Helsinki and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
worked with embryonic teeth cultures from mice not coded by the ectodysplasin A (EDA) protein, which regulates the formation of structures and differentiation of organs in the embryo throughout its development.
Scholars at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital analyzed pediatric medical emergencies on flights worldwide between January 2010 - June 2013 and found 90 that percent of deaths occurred in children under the age of 2 - lap infants may be at greater risk for death on a commercial airline flight, they suggest.
The history of World War I - since there was no II then, it was simply The Great War - is well-known. Volumes have been written about why European monarchs, related to each other, nonetheless rolled "the iron dice" and sent millions of young men to their deaths. The technological and medical advances, and America's emergence as the decision-maker in geopolitics, have also been exhaustively examined.Yet the role of women, not so much. World War II was another matter; from Rosie the Riveter to WACs, empowered female imagery was common. World War I, on the other hand, caused progress on universal suffrage to go backward, and the role of women challenged the concept of femininity that existed.
Topological transport of light is the photonic analog of topological electron flow in certain semiconductors.
In the electron case, the current flows around the edge of the material but not through the bulk. It is "topological" in that even if electrons encounter impurities in the material the electrons will continue to flow without losing energy.
