Body

The continent of Antarctica is at risk from human activities and other forces, and environmental management is needed to protect the planet's last great wilderness area, says an international team of researchers, including a Texas A&M University oceanographer, in a paper published in the current issue of Science magazine.

SALT LAKE CITY, July 12, 2012 – University of Utah physicists invented a new "spintronic" organic light-emitting diode or OLED that promises to be brighter, cheaper and more environmentally friendly than the kinds of LEDs now used in television and computer displays, lighting, traffic lights and numerous electronic devices.

EUGENE, Ore. -- (July 12, 2012) -- Archaeological work in Oregon's Paisley Caves has found evidence that Western Stemmed projectile points -- darts or thrusting spearheads -- were present at least 13,200 calendar years ago during or before the Clovis culture in western North America.

A century ago, the South Pole was one of Earth's last frontiers, but now the Antarctic is under threat from human activity.

Led by Monash University's Professor Steven Chown, a multidisciplinary team of experts from around the globe has set out the current and future conservation challenges facing the Antarctic in a Policy Forum article published today in Science.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study of Oregon's Paisley Caves confirms that humans used the site as early as 12,450 radiocarbon years ago, and the projectile points they left behind were of the "Western Stemmed" tradition and not Clovis – which suggests parallel technological development of early inhabitants to the Americas.

The study, published this week in the journal Science, could have a major impact on theories of how the Western Hemisphere was populated. The research was funded by multiple organizations, including the National Science Foundation.

A clever new imaging technique discovered at the University of California, Berkeley, reveals a possible plan of attack for many bacterial diseases, such as cholera, lung infections in cystic fibrosis patients and even chronic sinusitis, that form biofilms that make them resistant to antibiotics.

Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered a chemical that offers a completely new and promising direction for the development of drugs to treat metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes—a major public health concern in the United States due to the current obesity epidemic.

Receptor

The protein in question is the adenosine A2A receptor, the main receptor for caffeine in the human body. This receptor is also linked to Parkinson's disease. The class of around 800 proteins to which the adenosine A2A receptor belongs forms the target for roughly half of all medicines. 'No wonder that researchers across the globe have been trying for decades to find out more about these proteins,' comments IJzerman.

Crystallizing the protein

Who were the first humans to enter the North American continent? Were they humans who founded what is known as the Clovis culture over 13,000 years ago? Or did other, totally unrelated peoples precede the Clovis immigrants? This issue has been intensely, if not bitterly debated for decades. The Clovis culture has been seen as the cradle of North American indigenous culture. Now new international research shows that people of another culture and technology were present concurrently or even previous to those of Clovis.

Research from the University of Melbourne has shown that two different vaccine viruses- used simultaneously to control the same condition in chickens- have combined to produce new infectious viruses, prompting early response from Australia's veterinary medicines regulator.

The vaccines were used to control infectious laryngotracheitis (ILT), an acute respiratory disease occurring in chickens worldwide. ILT can have up to 20% mortality rate in some flocks and has a significant economic and welfare impact in the poultry industry.

Talk about a bait-and-switch. Male representatives of the tropical fish known as swordtail characins have flag-like sex ornaments that catch mates just like the bait on a fishing rod would. What's more, a study reported online on July 12 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, shows just what any good fly-fisherman would know: Lures work best if they mimic the foods that fish most often eat. For some characins in the study, that means males are waving pretend ants around in hopes of getting a bite.

We all know that humans have domesticated plants and animals for our sustenance and enjoyment, but we've tamed various microbes as well. Now researchers reporting online on July 12 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, show that the mark of that domestication on microbes, and specifically on the mold used for thousands of years to brew sake and soy sauce from rice and soybeans, looks rather unique.

The calorie-burning and heat-generating brown fat found in full-grown humans is actually not quite brown; it's beige. So says a new study reported on July 12th in the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, in which researchers fully characterize this promising obesity-fighting tissue in both mice and humans for the first time.

The findings could lead to more specific ways to address the epidemic of obesity and diabetes by giving those beige fat cells a boost, the researchers say.

BOSTON—Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have isolated a new type of energy-burning fat cell in adult humans which they say may have therapeutic potential for treating obesity.

Called "beige fat," the cells are found in scattered pea-sized deposits beneath the skin near the collarbone and along the spine in adult humans. Because this type of fat can burn off calories – rather than store them, as "white fat" cells do – beige fat cells might spawn new therapies for obesity and diabetes, according to researchers led by Bruce Spiegelman, PhD, of Dana-Farber.

What do beer, dogs and cats, and corn all have in common?

All of them are the end products of the process of domestication. Almost everybody knows that a number of different animals and plants have been bred for qualities that benefit humans. But few people realize that a number of microbes have undergone a similar transformation.