Body

MADISON – Liquid crystals, the state of matter that makes possible the flat screen technology now commonly used in televisions and computers, may have some new technological tricks in store.

(Edmonton) Coelacanths, an ancient group of fishes once thought to be long extinct, made headlines in 1938 when one of their modern relatives was caught off the coast of South Africa. Now coelacanths are making another splash and University of Alberta researchers are responsible.

Lead U of A researcher Andrew Wendruff identified fossils of a coelacanth that he says are so dramatically different from previous finds, they shatter the theory that coelacanths were evolutionarily stagnant in that their body shape and life-style changed little since the origin of the group.

Philadelphia, Pa. (May 2, 2012) – Wheelchair users with spinal cord injury (SCI) report very high rates of wheelchair breakdowns—and the problem is getting worse, suggests a study in American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (AJPM&R), the official journal of the Association of Academic Physiatrists, AJPM&R is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., MAY 2, 2011 – Preterm babies are born at a higher rate in the United States than in 130 other countries of the world, including many poorer nations, according to the just-released report Born Too Soon: The Global Action Report on Preterm Birth.

Scientists are announcing the roadmap, policies and procedures for an ambitious international project that aims to compile a landmark sequel to "The Book of Life." The follow-up to the Human Genome Project, which decoded all of the genes that make up humans, involves identifying and profiling all of the proteins produced by the thousands of genes bundled together in all of the human chromosomes. Called the Chromosome-Centric Human Proteome Project (C-HPP), it is the topic of an article in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research.

NEW YORK (May 2, 2012) – A study by the Wildlife Conservation Society documents that intense development of the two largest natural gas fields in the continental U.S. are driving away some wildlife from their traditional wintering grounds.

A new study provides a long-sought explanation for the beneficial fat-fighting effects of black pepper. The research, published in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, pinpoints piperine — the pungent-tasting substance that gives black pepper its characteristic taste, concluding that piperine also can block the formation of new fat cells.

Blood diamonds may get the most attention. But they are not the only minerals sold on the world market to finance wars and other conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa, according to an article in the current issue of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

Macrophages play a key role in the immune response, protecting organisms against infection and regulating the development of inflammation in tissue. Macrophages differ depending on where they are located and which tasks they perform. A scientist at TUM has been investigating whether these different types of cells have the same origin – and has come up with some surprising results. His findings reveal that there are two distinct macrophage cell lines that continue into adult life and that these two lineages have different origins.

A pioneering approach to imaging breast cancer in mice has revealed new clues about why the human immune system often fails to attack tumors and keep cancer in check. This observation, by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), may help to reveal new approaches to cancer immunotherapy.

As with many concerned consumers, a team of University of Oklahoma researchers wondered if the green color sometimes seen in bacon is, in fact, harmful to human health. Recently, these OU scientists took an important first step in answering this question by determining the structure of the green pigment responsible for this 'nitrite burn.'

In a paper published in Nature's open access journal Scientific Reports, researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno, report that male pseudoscorpions treated with the antibiotic tetracycline suffer significantly reduced sperm viability and pass this toxic effect on to their untreated sons. They suggest a similar effect could occur in humans and other species.

New Rochelle, NY, May 2, 2012—When blood sugar levels in diabetes are poorly controlled, patients tend to have more complications such as depression and other mood disturbances, including anxiety and anger, and a lower overall quality of life. A better understanding of the relationship between glycemic variability and psychological disorders can lead to more effective strategies for patient management, as presented in articles published in Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

Chemical sensors are exceedingly good at detecting a single substance or a class of chemicals, even at highly rarified concentrations. Biological noses, however, are vastly more versatile and capable of discriminating subtle cues that would confound their engineered counterparts. Unfortunately, even highly trained noses do leave a certain ambiguity when relaying a signal and are not particularly suited for work in specialized situations like operating rooms.

Maximum running speed is the most important variable influencing mammalian eye size other than body size, according to new research from The University of Texas at Austin.

Species with larger eyes usually have higher visual acuity, says Chris Kirk, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology. But what are the ecological factors that cause some mammals to develop larger eyes than others?