Starting with the tiny fruit fly, and then moving into mouse and human patients, researchers at VIB connected to the Center for Human Genetics (K.U. Leuven) say they have showed that the same gene suppresses cancer in all three. Reciprocally, switching off the gene leads to cancer. The scientists think there is a good chance that the gene can be switched on again with a drug.
With sexual activity among adolescents in the United States resulting in over 750,000 teenage pregnancies each year and reports of up to 25 percent of all female adolescents in the US having sexually transmitted infections, researchers and public health officials are looking for those factors that might increase sexual activity in teens. In an article published in the April 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers say that teenagers who preferred popular songs with degrading sexual references were more likely to engage in intercourse or in pre-coital activities.
A team of scientists has used game theory to explain the bizarre behavior of a group of ravens. Juvenile birds from a roost in North Wales have been observed adopting the unusual strategy of foraging for food in 'gangs.' New research published in PLoS One explains how this curious behavior can be predicted by adapting models more commonly used by economists to analyse financial trends.
This is the first time
game theory has been used to successfully predict novel animal behavior in the real world. The researchers believe this analysis could also shed light on the variation in feeding strategies in different populations in other species.
Women undertaking a ten week program of 75 minute Restorative Yoga (RY) classes gained positive differences in aspects of mental health such as depression, positive emotions, and spirituality (feeling calm/peaceful) compared to the control group. The study, published today in a special issue of Psycho-Oncology focusing on physical activity, shows the women had a 50% reduction in depression and a 12% increase in feelings of peace and meaning after the yoga sessions.
Richard Hawkins, Canada Research Chair in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, says there is no evidence that information technologies necessarily reduce our environmental footprint. His research will provide input into the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) initiative on IT and sustainability at the United Nations' Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark later this year.
"It was once assumed that there was little or no material dimension to information technology, thus, it should be clean with minimal environmental impact," says Hawkins who is also a professor in the U of C's Faculty of Communication and Culture. "However, we are finding that reality is much more complicated."
Show Me The Science Month Day 20
Tumor cells wield the enzyme heparanase like a machete to cut a swath
through the dense forest of carbohydrates that make up the sticky
matrix that helps hold communities of cells into tissues. Aggressive,
metastatic tumor cells have to break free of the confines of this
extracellular matrix in order to both grow and colonize new parts of
the body. In humans, heparanase is expressed at high levels in tumor
cells, and it therefore makes an attractive drug target: knock out
heparanase, and tumor cells can't bushwhack their way out of the
confines of the extracellular matrix.
A group of Israeli researchers has
discovered a defective form of heparanase in blind mole rats, animals which spend their whole lives underground and as a result have adapted to deal with low oxygen conditions that parallel conditions experienced by tumor cells. This defective form of heparanse could become a new tool in the cancer treatment toolbox.
Hurry! Don't let [random eBay item here] get away! Increase your max bid before someone else steals away your item.
There are a few ways in which the creation of eBay was absolute genius; it played upon the needs and wants of society as a whole, combining them and providing easy access to previously unavailable or difficult to find items.
It is every geek’s dream to join a think tank and thereby rule the world with nifty numbers and influential ideas—for no think tank is completely without agenda. John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis (not to be confused with the Emmy-winning actor of the same name, most known for his role as the beer-swilling husband on the TV series Roseanne) even-handedly describes the difference in approach of first-rate liberal versus conservative think tanks, saying, for example, “The Brookings Institution is more likely to investigate unmet needs and ask what governmental programs could solve this problem. The NCPA is more likely to investigate how government policies are causing the problem in the first place and ask how the private sector can be utilized to solve it.”
Do sexy images sell products? Like anything in marketing, it depends on if it works, says a new study in Journal of Consumer Research, but the common belief is that it doesn't work all that great for women. The researchers say there may be ways to do it that can attract customers of both sexes.
In today's cluttered advertising space, marketers use increasingly radical images that include nudity and sexual language.
Authors Darren W. Dahl (University of British Columbia, Vancouver), Jaideep Sengupta (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), and Kathleen D. Vohs (University of Minnesota) followed up on earlier research that has demonstrated that women exhibit negative reactions to explicit sexual content in advertising.
Experts in intellectual property and patents write in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation that tools such as online social networking could be used to eradicate the enormous backlog of patent applications in the US.
Social networking sites such as Facebook, ScientificBlogging and MySpace allow visitors to create networks of friends and contacts, upload images, music, videos, and news stories. Members can discuss, blog, and rate different media on such sites and provide useful feedback to the content creators. Analyzing social networks can uncover patterns of interaction between people and reveal what is important and well-ranked in a given group, or community.
