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 finds that bacterial movement is impeded in flowing water, enhancing the likelihood that the microbes will attach to surfaces, which sheds some new light on how infections take hold in medical devices.The findings were the result of microscopic analysis of bacteria inside microfluidic devices and combined experimental observations with mathematical modeling. The study showed that the flow of liquid can have two significant effects on microbes: “It quenches the ability of microbes to chase food,” says co-author Roman Stocker, an assitant professor of civil engineering at MIT, “and it helps microbes find surfaces.”
Zircon crystals from Western Australia's Jack Hills region crystallized 4.4 billion years ago, building on earlier studies that used lead isotopes to date Australian zircons and identify them as the oldest bits of the Earth's crust. The microscopic zircon crystal is now confirmed to be the oldest known material of any kind formed on Earth.
A new study strengthens the theory of a "cool early Earth," where temperatures were low enough for liquid water, oceans and a hydrosphere not long after the planet's crust congealed from a sea of molten rock. The study reinforces the belief that Earth had a hydrosphere before 4.3 billion years ago and possibly life not long afte.
The upside to global warming might be milder winters. This would naturally lead to fewer deaths to due cold but an analysis of data from the past 60 years shows that is not likely.
Polio is an incurable, crippling, contagious and possibly fatal viral disease. The United States last experienced a polio epidemic in the 1950s, before a vaccine was introduced.
Today, it has been eradicated from most of the planet, but a polio-like syndrome has been found in a cluster of children from California over a one-year period, according to a case report released today.
Can diet give you a better memory?
It seems to, at least when it comes to an animal cognition test using lemurs. A study of five lemur species found that fruit-eatershad better spatial memory than lemurs with a more varied diet. The researchers conclude that relying on foods that are seasonally available and far-flung gives a competitive edge to individuals with certain cognitive abilities - such as remembering where the food is.
The Interface Region Imaging Spectrometer (IRIS) mission studies the chromosphere, that layer of the sun's atmosphere that is key to regulating the flow of energy and material as they travel from the sun's surface out into space.
Along the way, the energy heats up the upper atmosphere, the corona, and sometimes powers solar events such as this flare. IRIS is equipped with a spectrograph that can separate out the light it sees into its individual wavelengths, which in turn correlates to material at different temperatures, velocities and densities.
Rule breakers are often more creative, because they are not bound by conventional ideas. So are liars.
Yet one of those has a positive connotation and one is negative. But lying about performance on one task increased creativity on a subsequent task, by making people feel less bound by conventional rules, finds a paper in Psychological Science.
To examine the link between dishonesty and creativity,
lead researcher Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School
and colleague Scott Wiltermuth of the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California designed a series of experiments that allowed, and even sometimes encouraged, people to cheat.
Microseconds after the big ban happened the universe was a superhot, superdense primordial soup of “quarks” and “gluons,” particles of matter and carriers of force. The quark-gluon plasma cooled almost instantly but it set the stage for the universe we know today and to better understand how the universe evolved, a quark-gluon plasma is being reproduced in giant particle accelerators like the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), where the Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC ("STAR") experiment has been collecting and analyzing data for the past decade.
In 2011, a tsunami hit Japan. While the damage to a nuclear power plant got all of the media attention, with activists claiming mutant pregnancies in California a short while later, the environmental damage caused by the tsunami itself should be more of a concern.
The amount of debris in the ocean is growing exponentially and the driftage generated by the 2011 tsunami gave scientists Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner a unique chance to learn about the effects of the ocean and wind on floating materials as they move across the North Pacific Ocean.
Are you worried you are losing your memory and wonder if you might have Alzheimer's coming?
You have a good chance of being correct. Self-reported memory complaints predict clinical memory impairment later in life rather well, according to a new paper. Erin Abner, Ph.D, an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, asked 3,701 men aged 60 and older a simple question: "Have you noticed any change in your memory since you last came in?"
That answers told a rather accurate medical tale. "It seems that subjective memory complaint can be predictive of clinical memory impairment," Abner said. "Other epidemiologists have seen similar results, which is encouraging, since it means we might really be on to something."
A highly sexed mouse-like marsupial from Queensland's Springbrook National Park, the Black-tailed Antechinus , has been identified as a new species.
It's the third new species in the genus Antechinus Dr. Andrew Baker's research team has discovered in the past two years, all from south-east Queensland.
This one has a strange life. Males are unlikely to survive to see the birth of their children, the stress of mating seems to be too much for them.
Baker said he suspected the rare, Black-tailed Antechinus was a separate species when he and his team came across it last May because it had distinctive yellow-orange markings around its eyes and on its rump, and a black tail and feet.
When women enter menopause, estrogen levels drop and that is linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, but research from University of Copenhagen’s Centre for Team Sport and Health finds that interval-based team sport can make up for this estrogen loss.
Estrogen, the primary female sex hormone, is an important guardian of the female vascular system. Thus, s oestrogen levels fall during menopause, the risks of increased blood pressure and development of cardiovascular disease increases. Team sports improve the condition of women, reduces blood pressure and thus protects the cardiovascular system.
