Science news

• [Research Article] TFEB inhibits endothelial cell inflammation and reduces atherosclerosis

  31-01-2017 23:26 via stke.sciencemag.org
  TFEB suppresses oxidative stress and inflammation in endothelial cells to decrease atherosclerosis.
  
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• [Research Article] PDZRN3 destabilizes endothelial cell-cell junctions through a PKCζ-containing polarity complex to increase vascular permeability

  31-01-2017 23:26 via stke.sciencemag.org
  Inhibiting the E3 ubiquitin ligase PDZRN3 could stabilize endothelial cell connections to prevent vascular leakage.
  
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• [Editors' Choice] New connections: Multiple paths control vascular integrity

  31-01-2017 23:26 via stke.sciencemag.org
  A pair of studies identifies new targets to prevent pathological vascular permeability.
  
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• [Editors' Choice] New connections: Better blood vessels and muscles with TFEB

  31-01-2017 23:26 via stke.sciencemag.org
  TFEB suppresses atherosclerosis and improves muscle performance independently of its role in autophagy.
  
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• [Editors' Choice] Guanidine throws the riboswitch

  31-01-2017 23:26 via stke.sciencemag.org
  A bacterial riboswitch responds to endogenously produced guanidine.
  
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• [Editors' Choice] Daily oxygen rhythms

  31-01-2017 23:26 via stke.sciencemag.org
  The hypoxia response system and circadian clock system are interconnected.
  
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• Lobstermen question need for restrictions to help species

  31-01-2017 22:40
  PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Some lobster fishermen expressed skepticism Tuesday about a plan to try to revive the dwindling southern New England lobster stock through new fishing restrictions.
  
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• Into the Blue: Boeing's Starliner Spacesuit and Past Blue Astronaut Wear

  31-01-2017 22:31
  
  A new astronaut garb has grabbed attention for its distinctive blue color, but for those familiar with history, it shares the shade with spacesuits past. The Boeing Company recently revealed its new pressure garment that NASA crews and commercial passengers will wear for flights on board its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, starting as soon as 2018. "It feels good to walk around in Boeing Blue," stated Chris Ferguson, Boeing's director of CST-100 Starliner crew and mission systems and a former astr
  
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• PBS' 'Nova' seeking periodic-table fans to fund TV special

  31-01-2017 22:26
  
  LOS ANGELES (AP) — Geeks of America, PBS' "Nova" wants you to open up your minds and wallets for a sequel to its sleeper 2012 hit film on the periodic table.
  
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• Texas mulls changing science standards questioning evolution

  31-01-2017 21:55
  AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Board of Education will decide whether to scrap a requirement that public schools teach high school students to scrutinize "all sides" of scientific theory after hearing Tuesday from academics who say that was meant to water down lessons on evolution and leave students wondering whether God created the universe.
  
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• Tech execs trash Trump travel ban

  31-01-2017 21:29 via cbc.ca
  
  The U.S. tech sector has widely criticized President Donald Trump's travel ban. What could it mean for Canadian tech companies?
  
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• Paralyzed patients communicate thoughts via brain-computer interface

  31-01-2017 20:49
  
  LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have developed a brain-computer interface that reads the brain's blood oxygen levels and enables communication by deciphering the thoughts of patients who are totally paralyzed and unable to talk.
  
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• Locked-in patients answer questions using their thoughts alone in a ground-breaking experiment

  31-01-2017 20:10
  
  Researchers believe they could lay the ground for communication with people that have motor neuron diseases.
  
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• LSD’s grip on brain protein could explain drug’s long-lasting effects

  31-01-2017 20:00
  
  The newly discovered structure of a human serotonin receptor linked to LSD could reveal why the drug’s hallucinogenic effects last so long.
  
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• 'Hidden' Solar Flares Linked to High-Energy Gamma-Rays for 1st Time

  31-01-2017 19:41
  
  Solar eruptions hidden by the light of the sun are releasing bursts of energy roughly 30 times more powerful than ever seen before, and for the first time, an international team of scientists has associated these hidden flares with high-energy gamma-rays. Using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in combination with its Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) — a pair of satellites that image the sun in orbits ahead of and behind Earth's — the researchers were able to con
  
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• 'Chameleon' Supernova Challenges Notions About How Stars Evolve

  31-01-2017 19:41
  
  When some stars reach the end of their lives, they explode in a bright stellar event called a supernova, releasing material created in the heart of the star out into the universe. "While stars begin their lives with hydrogen fusing into helium, large stars nearing a supernova death have run out of hydrogen as fuel," NASA officials said in a statement.
  
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• A new study is to look into ways new robots could care for the elderly

  31-01-2017 19:24
  
  The £2m, three-year project includes UK academics.
  
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• Accused Quebec mosque killer quietly embraced far-right ideology

  31-01-2017 19:04
  
  Alexandre Bissonnette cut a low profile as a shy, withdrawn political science student, keen on far-right ideas.
  
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• Sad news, folks. Scientists say we won't be able to see the Northern Lights from the UK in the future

  31-01-2017 18:30
  
  Changing solar activity could be the reason why.
  
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• Meet the ex-policeman who saves seahorses

  31-01-2017 18:14 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Paul Ferber, an ex-British policeman who lives on Koh Seh in the Gulf of Thailand, tells World Service how he catches illegal fishermen plundering Cambodia's ecosystem.
  
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• The Latest: Alaska volcano erupts; ash trace reaches city

  31-01-2017 18:03
  ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The Latest on the eruption of an Alaska volcano (all times local):
  
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• See Venus, Mars and Moon Crescent Form Cosmic Triangle Tonight

  31-01-2017 17:19
  
  To compensate for its unfriendly chill, the coming night offers the unusual beauty of two twilight spectacles: Skywatchers are right in the midst of a nearly two-week-long duet of Venus and Mars at dusk, with these two planets forming a trio with the crescent moon on Tuesday evening (Jan. 31). Venus, of course, reigns supreme in the evening. On New Year's Day, the reddish planet was 12 degrees to the east (upper left) of Venus.
  
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• Making the most of magma: Edmonton researcher explores restless Chilean volcano

  31-01-2017 17:17 via cbc.ca
  
  Martyn Unsworth is travelling to Chile to study a restless volcano which appears to be on the verge of eruption.
  
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• 'Startling' dinosaur protein discovery

  31-01-2017 17:00 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Ancient proteins dating back 195 million years have been found inside a dinosaur bone.
  
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• 3-billion-year-old crystals hint at lost continent’s fate

  31-01-2017 17:00
  
  Zircon crystals from a long-gone continent called Mauritia may have resurfaced during volcanic eruptions on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean.
  
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• How Winter Weather May Affect Hospital Admissions

  31-01-2017 16:49
  Winter weather can come with a slew of health risks, ranging from heart problems to injuries from slips and falls, but those slick and snowy days can also keep people from getting to the hospital. In a new study from Boston hospitals, researchers found that hospitals admissions vary on snowy days, decreasing for certain conditions, such as heart problems, while increasing for others, such as frostbite. "With global climate change, major snowstorms may become more frequent and severe," lead study
  
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• LSD May Help Reveal What Makes Music Meaningful

  31-01-2017 16:48
  
  There's a good chance that there's a song that is particularly meaningful to you, and a new small study from Switzerland may explain what makes things we experience, including music, meaningful. In the study, researchers asked people to take the drug lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, and then were able to pinpoint how people's brains ascribed meaning to specific factors, such as songs, in their environment. It turns out that this connection to meaning may involve certain areas of the brain tha
  
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• Brain-Stimulating Activities May Keep Seniors Sharp

  31-01-2017 16:48
  
  Elderly adults who use a computer or engage in other brain-stimulating activities may reduce their risk of developing memory and thinking problems later in life, a new study suggests. The study found that U.S. adults ages 70 or older who engaged in mentally stimulating activities at least once or twice a week were less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment four years later, compared with those who did not engage in mentally stimulating activities as frequently. Mild cognitive impairment (M
  
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• Doctors Remove 6-Foot-Long Tapeworm from Man's Gut

  31-01-2017 16:47
  
  Doctors in India removed a lengthy pork tapeworm from a man's gut, according to a recent report of the man's case. The tapeworm, which goes by the scientific name Taenia solium, was nearly 2 meters (6.6 feet) long. In fact, it was the longest worm that Dr. Cyriac Philips, a liver specialist at PVS Memorial Hospital in India who treated the man, had ever seen, he said.
  
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• Fresh clashes near South Sudan's oil hub of Malakal

  31-01-2017 13:27
  By Denis Dumo JUBA (Reuters) - Fresh clashes broke out around South Sudan's second-largest city of Malakal on Tuesday, a rebel spokesman and a government official said, the latest turn in the struggle for the capital of the oil-producing Upper Nile region. The United Nations said Malakal, on the banks of the White Nile near the country's northern border with Sudan, was largely deserted after civilians fled the fighting. "The rebels had been trying to provoke the SPLA all this time because the SP
  
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• Map of Zika virus reveals how it shifts as it matures

  31-01-2017 13:00
  
  A cryo-electron microscopy map of immature Zika virus offers a never-before-seen glimpse of remodeling of the virus’s protein and RNA core.
  
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• Under Pressure: Why Spaceflight Is So Hard on Astronauts' Eyes

  31-01-2017 12:42
  
  The likely culprit is the lack of a day-night cycle in the pressure inside astronauts' skulls, a new study reports. For example, crewmembers aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have to exercise vigorously for several hours each day to keep their muscles and bones from wasting away. Indeed, nearly 30 percent of American space shuttle crewmembers noted a loss of visual acuity after returning home from their two-week missions, according to a 2013 report by the U.S. National Academy of Scie
  
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• The Beastly, Yet Gentle, Giant 'Otto' Under the Milky Way

  31-01-2017 12:42
  
  While this may look like a colossal new rover for trekking around the Red Planet, it is not. This enormous machine bathed in the light of the Milky Way in the Atacama Desert of Chile is actually an transporter for the giant ALMA radio telescope affectionately known as an Otto. The massive vehicle measures more than 65 feet (20 meters) long and 32 feet (10 meters) wide with 28 wheels.
  
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• Pinpricks and Spilled Milk: Describing the Textures of the Night Sky

  31-01-2017 12:42
  
  Paul Sutter is an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University and the chief scientist at COSI Science Center. How many times do we describe the sight of an accretion disk around a distant black hole, or the fantastic fireworks of a supernova explosion?
  
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• These Powerful Blazars Are the Most Distant Ever Seen

  31-01-2017 12:41
  
  Monster black holes shooting jets of gamma-ray radiation right at us have been spotted farther away than ever before, dating back to when the universe was nearly one-tenth its current age. The five distant objects, called gamma-ray blazars, deepen the mystery of how black holes so large could have formed so early in the universe's history. Roopesh Ojha, an astronomer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, presented the new results during a press conference today (Jan. 30) at the Amer
  
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• Proposed Space Mission Would Use the Moon to Help Search for Exploding Stars

  31-01-2017 12:41
  
  LOX would take advantage of the relatively quiet lunar environment, where the significant sources of background noise that would plague such an instrument orbiting the Earth would be absent or well understood. In addition, LOX would effectively use the moon as a reference object to better determine the location of the supernovas it discovers. If the mission flies, it would be the first dedicated astrophysics mission to the moon, according to the scientists who are making the proposal.
  
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• Meteorite Studies Reveal Surprises About Earth's Formation

  31-01-2017 12:41
  
  Two studies published Wednesday (Jan. 25) in the journal Nature suggest that Earth's main building blocks were rocks similar to meteorites known as enstatite chondrites, and that the planet got most of its water gradually during the formation process, rather than in one big burst toward the end. "The results presented in these papers lead to the troubling conclusion that the meteorites in our collection are not particularly good examples of Earth's building blocks," Richard Carlson, a geochemist
  
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• NASA twins study shows space travel changes body at genetic level

  31-01-2017 11:00 via cbc.ca
  
  NASA’s twin study is showing the stress of space travel on the body — including genetic differences between Scott Kelly, the twin who spent nearly a year in space, and his brother Mark, who stayed on Earth.
  
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• Yemen's Houthis attack Saudi ship, launch ballistic missile

  31-01-2017 07:13
  The armed Houthi movement attacked a Saudi warship off the western coast of Yemen on Monday, causing an explosion that killed two crew members and injured three others, Saudi state news agency SPA reported. Separately, the Houthis said they launched a ballistic missile at a Saudi-led coalition military base on the Red Sea island of Zuqar between Yemen and Eritrea on Tuesday morning, according to the group's official news channel al-Masira. The attacks signal an escalation to weeks of combat on Y
  
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• Malaria drugs fail for first time on patients in UK

  31-01-2017 07:00 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The drug combination was unable to cure four patients, who had all visited Africa, doctors say.
  
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• Yeast mutants unlock the secrets of aging

  31-01-2017 06:00
  
  (Concordia University) In two recently published articles, Concordia biology professor Vladimir Titorenko from the Faculty of Arts and Science and a team of fellow researchers take a closer look into what delaying and accelerating yeast genes might mean for humans.
  
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• Why is some social media content interpreted as bragging?

  31-01-2017 06:00
  
  (Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News) People who post personal content on social networking sites such as Facebook and try to present themselves in a positive light may be perceived as bragging, and therefore be less attractive to others, according to a new study published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.
  
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• UTA materials scientist invents breath monitor to detect flu

  31-01-2017 06:00
  
  (University of Texas at Arlington) Perena Gouma, a professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Arlington, has published an article in the journal Sensors that describes her invention of a hand-held breath monitor that can potentially detect the flu virus.
  
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• UTA aerospace engineering professor named AIAA Fellow

  31-01-2017 06:00
  
  (University of Texas at Arlington) Frank Lu, a professor in the Aerospace Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Arlington, has been named a Fellow of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics.
  
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• UD's Anderson Janotti receives NSF Career Award to model defects in complex materials

  31-01-2017 06:00
  
  (University of Delaware) The University of Delaware's Anderson Janotti has won a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award to develop computational models of defects in materials that are used for energy, electronics, and optoelectronics applications.
  
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• Tuberculosis-resistant cows developed for the first time using CRISPR technology

  31-01-2017 06:00
  
  (BioMed Central) CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology has been used for the first time to successfully produce live cows with increased resistance to bovine tuberculosis, reports new research published in the open access journal Genome Biology.
  
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• Tracking fishing vessels and sharks reveals protection for large mobile animals

  31-01-2017 06:00
  
  (Global Fishing Watch) An international initiative to increase the amount of Marine Protected Area (MPAs) from the current 2 percent to 10 percent by the year 2020 has drawn critics over the need and the practicality. New study identified all fishing activity around a remote pacific MPA and correlated it to reef shark movements. The study revealed 6,752 fishing days over 24 months, demonstrating both need for MPAs, and ability to monitor them effectively.
  
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• Tracking fishing vessels and sharks reveal protection for large mobile animals

  31-01-2017 06:00
  
  (Global Fishing Watch) An international initiative to increase the amount of Marine Protected Area (MPAs) from the current 2 percent to 10 percent by the year 2020 has drawn critics over the need and the practicality. New study identified all fishing activity around a remote pacific MPA and correlated it to reef shark movements. The study revealed 6,752 fishing days over 24 months, demonstrating both need for MPAs, and ability to monitor them effectively.
  
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• Tracing the cosmic web with star-forming galaxies in the distant universe

  31-01-2017 06:00
  
  (National Institutes of Natural Sciences) A research group led by Hiroshima University has revealed a picture of the increasing fraction of massive star-forming galaxies in the distant universe. Massive star-forming galaxies in the distant universe, about 5 billion years ago, trace large-scale structure in the universe. In the nearby universe, about 3 billion years ago, massive star-forming galaxies are not apparent. This change is consistent with the picture of galaxy evolution established by o
  
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• The world's first heat-driven transistor

  31-01-2017 06:00
  
  (Linköping University) Dan Zhao and Simone Fabiano at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Linköping University, have created a thermoelectric organic transistor. A temperature rise of a single degree is sufficient to cause a detectable current modulation in the transistor. The results have now been published in Nature Communications.
  
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