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Supercomputer Dedicated To Bioengineering, Computational Biology Installed

The University of California, San Diego, with support from the National Institutes of Health and the Whitaker Foundation, has installed a supercomputer dedicated to solving a wide range of challenging biological problems. The 210-node Dell PowerEdge Linux cluster capable of 2.6 trillion mathematical operations per second, the second most powerful computer cluster on campus, will be used to analyz...

Supercomputers to focus brains on AIDS dilemma

More than two decades after it burst onto the scene, HIV/AIDS has claimed more than twenty million lives and continues to devastate societies around the world, particularly in Africa and other developing countries. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, after years of effort AIDS researchers succeeded in developing a class of drugs that proved to be highly effective against AIDS. By blocking the acti...

Color perception is not in the eye of the beholder: It's in the brain

First-ever images of living human retinas have yielded a surprise about how we perceive our world. Researchers at the University of Rochester have found that the number of color-sensitive cones in the human retina differs dramatically among people--by up to 40 times--yet people appear to perceive colors the same way. The findings, on the cover of this week's journal Neuroscience, strongly suggest...

Hunger in America rises by 43 percent over last five years

Hunger in American households has risen by 43 percent over the last five years, according to an analysis of US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data released today. The analysis, completed by the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University, shows that more than 7 million people have joined the ranks of the hungry since 1999. The USDA report, Household Food Security in the United...

Method slashes quantum dot costs by 80 percent

Rice scientists replace pricey solvents with cheap processing fluidsIn an important advance toward the large-scale manufacture of fluorescent quantum dots, scientists at Rice University have developed a new method of replacing the pricey solvents used in quantum dot synthesis with cheaper oils that are commonplace at industrial chemical plants. Rice's study, which was conducted under the a...

Cracking the perception code

The brain may interpret the information it receives from sensory neurons using a code more complicated than scientists previously thought, according to new research from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. By studying how monkeys perceive a vibrating object when it touches the skin, scientists found that changes in an animal's attention over time influe...

'Perception' gene tracked humanity's evolution, scientists say

A gene thought to influence perception and susceptibility to drug dependence is expressed more readily in human beings than in other primates, and this difference coincides with the evolution of our species, say scientists at Indiana University Bloomington and three other academic institutions. Their report appears in the December issue of Public Library of Science Biology. The gene encod...

Hepatitis B accounts for 40 percent of 'missing' Asian women

In a groundbreaking, sure-to-be-controversial new study, Emily Oster (a graduate student in economics at Harvard University) argues that excess female mortality, such as infanticide, may not be the only cause of uncommonly high male to female ratios in many Asian countries. It has long been observed that the relative number of males is higher in certain Asian countries than in the West, where it...

Superconducting magnet attracts molecular research

One of the newest - and unequivocally the coolest - pieces of real estate on the Brandeis University campus is a facility containing a state-of-the-art superconducting magnet for use in researching biological macromolecules such as DNA, RNA, enzymes and other proteins. The installation of the gleaming 800 MHz German-made Bruker magnet was recently completed in a specially built facility o...

Vaccine provides 100 percent protection against avian flu virus in animal study

Scientists have sequenced and compared the genomes of planktonic microbes living throughout the water column in the Pacific Ocean. The pioneering study yielded insight into the specialization of microbial communities at each depth--ranging from 40 to more than 13,000 feet. "By reading the information stored in the genomes of entire microbial communities, we can begin to measure the pulse o...

Oceans are 70 percent shark free

Marine scientists have discovered that the deepest oceans of the world would appear to be shark free. Sharks occur throughout the world's oceans and it had been hoped that as man explores deeper into th...

BiovaxID?yields 89 percent survival in patients with aggressive non-Hodgkins

Accentia Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. report follow-up data to a Phase 2 trial conducted by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) that shows Biovest's BiovaxID yielded an 89% survival rate in mantle cell lymphoma patients. The median follow-up was 3.8 years. Historically, patients with this type of lymphoma only have had a 50% chance of surviving 3 years and 20% chance of surviving 5 years. Bi...

Georgia Tech accelerates drug discovery with new IBM supercomputing cluster

The Center will use IBM technologies to advance research into new drugs for the treatment of some of today's most life-threatening diseases, including cancer. The Center's research will be headed by one of the world's leading systems biologists, Dr. Jeffrey Skolnick, the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Computational Systems Biology. Funded by $8.5 million in grants from the St...

St. Jude projects 90 percent cure rate for ALL

The cure rate for the once almost universally fatal childhood cancer acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) could reach 90 percent in the near future, thanks to improvements in diagnosis and treatment over the past four decades, according to investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Almost 4,000 cases of ALL are diagnosed in the United States each year, about two-thirds of which are in...

UC Riverside psychologist explores human perception, finds 'wow factor'

Faces tell the stories in UC Riverside Professor Larry Rosenblum's ecological listening lab, as volunteer test subjects show that they can "read" unheard speech -- not just from lips, but from the simple movements of dots placed on lips, teeth and tongue. They can also recognize people's voices just from seeing their faces, and vice versa, and seem to be able to distinguish among a variety...

Face perception is modulated by sexual orientation

New research indicates that an area of the brain thought to act in reward circuitry may represent a phase in visual processing during which sexual orientation modulates how we perceive individual faces. The findings are reported by Felicitas Kranz and Alumit Ishai of the University of Zurich. Of all the visual skills possessed by humans, face recognition is arguably the most developed. Pa...

Biofuels can replace about 30 percent of fuel needs with significant research and policy effort

With world oil demand growing, supplies dwindling and the potential for weather- and conflict-related supply interruptions, other types of fuels and technologies are needed to help pick up the slack. A group of experts in science, engineering and public policy from the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Imperial College London and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory recommend a comprehensi...

Psychotropic drug prescriptions for teens surge 250 percent over 7 year period

Psychotropic drug prescriptions for teenagers skyrocketed 250 percent between 1994 and 2001, rising particularly sharply after 1999, when the federal government allowed direct-to-consumer advertising and looser promotion of off-label use of prescription drugs, according to a new Brandeis University study in the journal Psychiatric Services. This dramatic increase in adolescent visits to h...

Avian flu modeled on supercomputer, explores vaccine and isolation options for thwarting a pandemic

Using supercomputers to respond to a potential national health emergency, scientists have developed a simulation model that makes stark predictions about the possible future course of an avian influenza pandemic, given today's environment of worldwide connectivity. The research, by a team of scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the University of Washington and the Fred Hu...

Just the expectation of a mirthful laughter experience boosts endorphins 27 percent, HGH 87 percent

There's no doubt that laughter feels good, but is there real neurophysiology behind it and what can you do about it? In a paper being presented in an American Physiological Society session at Experimental Biology 2006, Lee S. Berk of Loma Linda University, reports that not only is there real science and psychophysiology, but just the anticipation of the "mirthful laughter" involved in watc...

Patients and their doctors have different perceptions about HIV and its treatment

According to results of a nation-wide study published in the latest issue of SAGE Publications' Journal of the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care (JIAPAC), HIV positive patients and their doctors have very different views about the disease and how it's treated. The study uncovered differences of opinion between patients and physicians about the initiation of treatment, th...

Septum keeps neurons in synch, can reduce epileptic seizures by 90 percent

The brain's septum helps prevent epileptic seizures by inducing rhythmical electrical activity in the circuits of another area of the brain known as the hippocampus, according to a new study in the Journal of Neurophysiology. The researchers found that, by imposing a normal "theta" rhythm on chronically epileptic rats, they could reduce epileptic seizures by 86-97 percent. The study "Septo...

One therapeutic dose of radiation causes 30 percent spongy bone loss in mice

Mice receiving just one therapeutic dose of radiation lost up to 39% of the spongy portion of their inner bone, reducing the inner bone's weight bearing connections by up to 64%, researchers reported. The study, which appears in the online edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology, has implications for patients receiving radiation therapy and astronauts traveling on long space flights. <p...

76 percent of workers older than 60 years of age are overweight or obese

76% of workers older than 60 years of age are overweight or obese. However, less than one third of those 40 years of age and younger suffer these health issues. This is one of the conclusions shown in the research of Alberto Cordero of the School of Medicine, and the University Hospital, published in the [Spanish...

Perceived facial similarity in children is an estimate of kin recognition

Perceived facial similarity of children is effectively an estimate of the probability that two children are close genetic relatives according to a new study recently published in Journal of Vision, an online, free access publication of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO). Participants in the study judged pairs of pictures of children, half of which portrayed ac...

Altered perception of reward in human cocaine addiction

People addicted to cocaine have an impaired ability to perceive rewards and exercise control due to disruptions in the brain's reward and control circuits, according to a series of brain-mapping studies and neuropsychological tests conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory. "Our findings provide the first evidence that the brain's threshold for responding...

Supercomputing equipment to advance the frontiers of computational biology

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will continue to advance the frontiers of computational science with the help of IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer. Awarded under IBM's Shared University Research (SUR) program, this Blue Gene will complement the $100 million partnership between Rensselaer, IBM, and New York state to create one of the world's most powerful university-based supercomputin...

Chronic pain up almost 40 percent among US workers in past decade

Persistent, chronic pain has risen dramatically among full-time U.S. workers in the past 10 years, but workers today opt to go to their jobs rather than call in sick, leading to a growing trend of presenteeism ?a negative impact on work despite being physically present at the job. These data, released today, are from a 2006 national survey conducted by Harris Interactive® on "Pain in the Workplac...

Virginia Tech's System X supercomputer provides super tool for simulation of cell division

Virginia Tech researchers in computer science and biology have used the university's supercomputer, System X, to create models and algorithms that make it possible to simulate the cell cycle -- the processes leading to cell division. They have demonstrated that the new mathematical models and numerical algorithms provide powerful tools for studying the complex processes going on inside living cel...

100 percent juices found as beneficial to health as fruits and vegetables

When it comes to some of today’s health issues, 100 percent fruit and vegetable juices do help reduce risk factors related to certain diseases....

Meeting the ethanol challenge: Scientists use supercomputer to target cellulose bottleneck

Termites and fungi already know how to digest cellulose, but the human process of producing ethanol from cellulose remains slow and expensive. The central bottleneck is the sluggish rate at which the cellulose enzyme complex breaks down tightly bound cellulose into sugars, which are then fermented into ethanol. To help unlock the cellulose bottleneck, a team of scientists has conducted mol...

Quitting smoking reduces risk of lung cancer mortality by 70 percent

Giving up smoking is highly effective in preventing death from lung cancer and can reduce the risk of dying from the disease by up to 70%. In addition, new research from the Asia-Pacific region confirms that cigarette smoking substantially increases the risk of dying from lung cancer in both Australia/New Zealand (ANZ) and Asia, and importantly highlights the continuing popularity of cigarette sm...

Re-analysis of cigarettes confirms tobacco companies increased addictive nicotine 11 percent

A reanalysis of nicotine yield from major brand name cigarettes sold in Massachusetts from 1997 to 2005 has confirmed that manufacturers have steadily increased the levels of this agent in cigarettes. This independent analysis, based on data submitted to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) by the manufacturers, found that increases in smoke nicotine yield per cigarette averaged 1...

Using brain scans, researchers find evidence for a two-stage model of human perceptual learning

Using advanced brain imaging techniques, researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have watched how humans use both lower and higher brain processes to learn novel tasks, an advance they say may help speed up the teaching of new skills as well as offer strategies to retrain people with perceptual deficits due to autism. , the research team...

Action video games sharpen vision 20 percent

Video games that contain high levels of action, such as Unreal Tournament, can actually improve your vision. Researchers at the University of Rochester have shown that people who played action video games for a few hours a day over the course of a month improved by about 20 percent in their ability to identify letters presented in clutter—a visual acuity test similar to ones used in regul...

To sleep, perchance to dream: New insight into melatonin production

In the April 1 issue of G&D, a Korean research team led by Dr. Kyong-Tai Kim (Pohang University) describes how melatonin production is coordinated with the body's natural sleep/wake cycles. Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland in the brain, which helps to regulate our bodies' circadian rhythm (the roughly-24-hour cycle around which basic physiological processes proceed)....

100 percent of pregnant women have at least one kind of pesticide in their placenta

Human beings are directly responsible for more than 110,000 chemical substances which have been generated since the Industrial Revolution. Every year, we "invent" more than 2,000 new substances, most of them contaminants, which are emitted into the environment and which are consequently present in food, air, soil and water. Nonetheless, human beings are also victims of these emissions, and involu...

Percutaneous aortic valve replacement safe, successful in high-risk patients

Catheter techniques are expanding into new territory, successfully aiding in the replacement of narrowed, calcified aortic valves in patients too sick to withstand open-chest surgery. According to a study reported at the 30th Annual Scientific Sessions of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI), May 9?2, 2007, in Orlando, FL, patients who were treated with the CoreValv...