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.
Facebook has more than 1.23 billion active users. Most of them are not actually friends with each other and because they are not friends with each other, they feel pushy recommending products or services. They're fine hammering on politics and religion, but endorsing a car looks too corporate.
That's bad news for Facebook's business model, which has so far convinced advertisers they need to spend money. Facebook has tinkered with everything from forcing contributors to pay to have their posts seen by people on their list to pushing ads more aggressively based on everything from browser cookies to media use on the PCs of members.
Moderate to severe diarrhea (MSD) is a major cause of childhood mortality in developing countries and ranks as one of the top four causes of death among young children in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. In a finding that may one day help control this major cause of death among children in developing countries, a team has identified microorganisms that may trigger diarrheal disease and others that may protect against it.
These microbes were not widely linked to the condition previously and a much better understanding of these interactions is important because they could lead to possible dietary interventions.
If your glass is half full, you recognize that in recent geological history, 90,000 of every 100,000 years have been ice ages, and it's been 12,000 years since the last one. In that light, global warming might be a good thing.
Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists have shown regulatory proteins in the nucleus to adopt a kind of “Tom Sawyer” behavior when it comes to the work of initiating gene activation. Transcription factors are proteins that orchestrate the flow of genetic information from DNA to messenger RNA (mRNA) and the results show how transcription factors (TFs) activate mRNA synthesis of a gene, and leave the scene – in a model termed “hit-and-run” transcription.
Scientists at VIB and KU Leuven have demonstrated in fruit-flies that over-activity of the enzyme HDAC6 in the nerve ends exacerbates the symptoms of the neurodegenerative condition Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS / Lou Gehrig's Disease). Inhibition of this enzyme could offer a protective effect against ALS.
Due to the president making bee colonies a national priority, there is a lot of talk from environmentalists about banning neonicotinoid pesticides but they may be blaming out of convenience rather than evidence.
Car and truck exhaust fumes can be bad for humans and for pollinators too. In new research on how pollinators find flowers when background odors are strong, University of Washington and University of Arizona researchers have found that both natural plant odors and human sources of pollution can conceal the scent of sought-after flowers.
By revealing the mechanisms that allow the bacteria to rapidly clog up medical devices, a group of researchershas moved a step closer to preventing infections of the common hospital pathogen, Staphylococcus aureus.
The researchers have shown that the bacteria colonizes into large groups, called biofilms, using a biological glue, and form thin, slimy, thread-like structures called streamers. The streamers adhere to a surface and are able to trap passing cells as they flow through medical devices such as stents and catheters, becoming more rigid and eventually clogging up the whole device.
New immigration research from Rice University, the University of North Carolina and the Centre for Population, Poverty and Public Policy Studies suggests the U.S. should re-evaluate its definition of skilled workers to include informal skills of migrant workers.
The study, "Identifying and Measuring the Lifelong Human Capital of 'Unskilled' Migrants in the Mexico-U.S. Migrator Circuit," draws on a binational multistage research project that involved interviews with 320 Mexican migrants and return migrants in North Carolina and Guanajuato, Mexico. The study identifies lifelong human capital – knowledge and technical and social skills – acquired and transferred throughout these migrants' careers.
Promiscuity means different things in different cultures, a one-size-fits-all approach rarely fits anyone, which is why western protesters do so poorly telling Africans how they need to change their behavioral ways. And in western society, female promiscuity is frowned on more than the male kind. Even in different countries it has different perceptions. The British show "Coupling" was hilarious to both Americans and British people but when a US network made an American version, it was a huge flop, even though it was taken almost verbatim from the British. The reason is because American audiences thought promiscuous British women were funny, but not American ones.
In rodent models, a drug that blocks the action of the enzyme Cdk5 could substantially reduce brain damage if administered shortly after a stroke, according to a new paper in the Journal of Neuroscience, because aberrant Cdk5 activity causes nerve cell death during stroke.
The land known as Israel today was once pretty bleak. Mark Twain spoke of the barren landscape and lack of people when it was owned by colonial European powers. Nothing much was there.
But then Jews began buying it up. They planted crops and modernized irrigation. After World War II, the United Nations made it a country and now the land is considered so valuable the Arab states insist they should own it instead.
Old World monkeys have undergone a remarkable evolution in facial appearance as a way of avoiding interbreeding with closely related and geographically proximate species, according to a new paper which provides best evidence to-date for the role of visual cues as a barrier to breeding across species.
The researchers studied guenons—a group of more than two dozen species of monkeys indigenous to the forests of Central and West Africa. Many different species of guenons are often sympatric—they live in close proximity to each other, with multiple species often traveling, feeding, and sleeping side-by-side. Therefore interbreeding, which could result in afflicted infertile offspring, remains an unwelcome possibility.
