Body

Boston, MA -- In the wake of the horrific school shootings in Newtown, Conn. in December, three Harvard experts say the best way to curb gun violence in the U.S. is to take a broad public health approach, drawing on proven, evidence-based strategies that have successfully reduced other public health threats like smoking, car crashes, and accidental poisonings.

The authors make the case for a comprehensive public health approach to gun violence in a viewpoint article published online January 7, 2013 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Why are efficient and affordable solar cells so highly coveted? Volume. The amount of solar energy lighting up Earth's land mass every year is nearly 3,000 times the total amount of annual human energy use. But to compete with energy from fossil fuels, photovoltaic devices must convert sunlight to electricity with a certain measure of efficiency.

New research suggests that racial stereotypes and creativity have more in common than we might think.

In an article published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researcher Carmit Tadmor of Tel Aviv University and colleagues find that racial stereotyping and creative stagnation share a common mechanism: categorical thinking.

"Although these two concepts concern very different outcomes, they both occur when people fixate on existing category information and conventional mindsets," Tadmor and her colleagues write.

In France, more than 860,000 people suffer from Alzheimer's disease and related disorders, making them the largest cause of age-related loss of intellectual function. Cognitive impairments observed in Alzheimer's disease result from the accumulation of abnormal tau proteins in nerve cells undergoing degeneration . We know that obesity, a major risk factor in the development of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, increases the risk of dementia during the aging process. However, the effects of obesity on 'Taupathies' (i.e.

This press release is available in Spanish.

First detected in the United States a decade ago, the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) is now in at least 39 states, is wreaking havoc in homes and gardens, and is a major economic threat to orchard fruits, garden vegetables and row crops. It's no wonder the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) ranks this pest as its top "invasive insect of interest."

WHAT:

CHAMPAIGN, lll. — Researchers have discovered a new compound that restores the health of mice infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), an otherwise dangerous bacterial infection. The new compound targets an enzyme not found in human cells but which is essential to bacterial survival.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Peanuts are one of the most common triggers of severe food-induced allergic reactions, which can be fatal, and the prevalence of peanut allergy is increasing. However, there is currently no clinical treatment available for peanut allergy other than strict dietary elimination and, in cases of accidental ingestion, injections of epinephrine.

Philadelphia, Pa.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- University of Florida researchers and colleagues have identified a protein that, when absent, helps the body burn fat and prevents insulin resistance and obesity.

The findings from the National Institutes of Health-funded study were published online ahead of print Sunday, Jan. 6, in the journal Nature Medicine.

Animal cells behave like fluid-filled sponges in response to being mechanically deformed according to new research published today in Nature Materials.

Scientists from the London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN) at UCL have shown that animal cells behave according to the theory of 'poroelasticity' when mechanically stimulated in a way similar to that experienced in organs within the body. The results indicate that the rate of cell deformation in response to mechanical stress is limited by how quickly water can redistribute within the cell interior.

Jerusalem, January 6, 2013 – Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in collaboration with researchers at the Salk Institute in California, have found for the first time that a specific protein is essential not only for maintaining a healthy retina in the eye, but also may have implications for understanding and possibly treating other conditions in the immune, reproductive, vascular and nervous systems, as well as in various cancers.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Research findings from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine are shining a light on an important regulatory role performed by the so-called dark matter, or "junk DNA," within each of our genes.

The new study reveals snippets of information contained in dark matter that can alter the way a gene is assembled.

A research team of scientists from EMBL Grenoble and the IGBMC in Strasbourg, France, have, for the first time, described in molecular detail the architecture of the central scaffold of TFIID: the human protein complex essential for transcription from DNA to mRNA. The study, published today in Nature, opens new perspectives in the study of transcription and of the structure and mechanism of other large multi-protein assemblies involved in gene regulation.

A woman's exposure to high pollen levels in late pregnancy increases the risk of early asthma in the child, according to a group of researchers at Sweden's Umeå University in a recent study.