produces a breast milk sugar that influences the development of the community of gut bacteria in her infant,
The researchers emphasized that the finding does not suggest that breast milk from mothers without an active copy of the gene is less nourishing or healthy.
The relationships between the mothers'genetics, the composition of her breast milk and the development of her infant's gut microbiota.
It also reveals clues for enriching desirable bacteria in populations at risk of intestinal diseases--such as preemies.
produces a breast milk sugar that influences the development of the community of gut bacteria in her infant.
which alters the composition of their breast milk sugars and changes how the microbial community, or microbiota, of their infants'guts develop.
The research may have applications in a clinical setting for protecting premature infants from a range of intestinal diseases including necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC),
a condition that is the second most common cause of death among premature infants in the United states. The researchers emphasized that the finding does not suggest that breast milk from mothers without an active copy of the gene is less nourishing or healthy.
The relationships between the mothers'genetics, the composition of her breast milk and the development of her infant's gut microbiota.
It also reveals clues for enriching desirable bacteria in populations at risk of intestinal diseases--such as preemies."
"said David Mills, Peter J. Shields Endowed Chair in Dairy Food science at UC Davis and senior study author."
"What this work does show us is that the mother's genotype matters, and that it influences the breast milk,
which clearly drives the establishment of microbes in the intestines of their babies.""The research examining the differences in infant gut microbial populations arising from differences in human milk oligosaccharides (sugars),
"Maternal Fucosyltransferase 2 Status Affects the Gut Bifidobacterial Communities of Breastfed Infants, "is published online today in the journal Microbiome, a Biomedcentral journal.
The relationship between human genetics, breast milk and Bifidobacterium appears to have developed throughout mammalian evolution. Development of a healthy gut microbiota can have a lifelong effect on health
The early establishment of bifidobacteria has been shown to be associated with improved immune response to vaccines, development of the infants'immature immune system,
and protection against pathogens. Bifidobacterium are known to consume the 2'-fucosylated glycans (sugars) found in the breast milk of women with the fucosyltransferase 2 mammary gene.
The study found that, on average, Bifidobacterium were established earlier and more frequently in infants fed by women with an active copy of the gene, the secretors,
The research was conducted using milk samples from 44 mothers in the UC Davis Foods for Health Institute Lactation Study and fecal samples from their infants at four different time points.
They also measured the amount and type of breast milk sugars left over in the infant's feces,
"This work significantly advances our efforts to decipher how human milk amazingly orchestrates colonization of the infant gut by helpful bacteria,
It is a gel-like material called an electroactive polymer that can potentially mimic human movement
energy and resources to follow their dreams.""Rasmussen credits PPPL with providing help and support during critical points in her project."
"It was and continues to be a wonderful resource not just because of the plasma physics but the people,
to adhere to the metal electrodes. Initially working with Lew Meixler on a federal Cooperative Research and development Agreement in the Plasma Surface Laboratory, she solved the problem by treating the metal (steel or titanium) with a plasma.
This changed the metal's surface and made the gel adhere more closely to the metalpppl was also involved with crucial tests of the material last summer,
when the material was exposed to over 300,000 RADS of gamma radiation. That is 20 times the amount that would be lethal to a human
along with Rasmussen and her staff, signed the back of the metal container or coupon holding the material."
300 pounds of supplies and payloads, including material for research experiments, to the International space station National Laboratory.
Additional information about the launch is available at https://blogs. nasa. gov/spacex/2015/03/31/spacex-targeting-april-13-for-station-resupply-launch/.
The International space station is an international science laboratory in low Earth orbit where astronauts conduct scientific research in biology, human biology, astronomy, meteorology and other fields in a gravity-free environment.
She recently received a grant from the Pediatric Medical device Consortium at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to research this possibility i
The structure of the light-driven ion pump KR2 may provide a blueprint for new optogenetic tools In 2013,
belongs to a group of light-sensitive proteins that have become the basis of the research field of optogenetics.
which is a feature that so far had been missing in the toolkit of optogenetics. However, until now neither the exact atomic structure nor the ion transport mechanism had been known--which is an important prerequisite for utilizing KR2
This challenge awakened the interest of a team of structural biologists headed by Prof. Valentin Gordeliy
Using X-ray crystallography, the team obtained the first high-resolution 3d structural images of the single protein
Gordeliys team changed the structure by swapping specific amino acids at the site in question through targeted mutations.
but also one of the mutations seemed to turn KR2 into a light-driven potassium pump--the first of its kind.
To accurately prove this observation the team performed a series of electrophysiological experiments with the purified protein in collaboration with Ernst Bamberg at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt am Main,
who is an expert on membrane proteins and one of the founders of optogenetics. For potential optogenetic application, this result is especially interesting,
says Bamberg:""In neurons, transporting potassium ions from the cell is the natural mechanism of deactivation.
"A study about the device will appear in an upcoming issue of the scientific journal Sensors,
what type of influenza it is, and it can differentiate between a human strain and a bird strain,"said Neethirajan."
"The device uses gold nanoparticles (microscopic particles) and glowing quantum dots. The researchers developed a novel approach for rapid and sensitive detection of surface proteins of viruses from blood samples of turkeys.
The new nanobiosensor can detect the strains of H5n1 and H1n1. The most recent outbreak was from H5n2,
UNSW Associate professor Andrea Morello from the School of Electrical engineering and Telecommunications, said his team had realised successfully a new control method for future quantum computers.
Unlike conventional computers that store data on transistors and hard drives, quantum computers encode data in the quantum states of microscopic objects called qubits.
which is affiliated with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation & Communication Technology, was first in the world to demonstrate single-atom spin qubits in silicon,
as published in Nature Nanotechnology in 2014. It has demonstrated now a key step that had remained elusive since 1998."
can be controlled using electric fields, instead of using pulses of oscillating magnetic fields, "explained UNSW's Dr Arne Laucht,
postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the study. Associate professor Morello said the method works by distorting the shape of the electron cloud attached to the atom,
using a very localized electric field.""This distortion at the atomic level has the effect of modifying the frequency at
which the electron responds.""Therefore, we can selectively choose which qubit to operate. It's a bit like selecting which radio station we tune to,
by turning a simple knob. Here, the'knob'is applied the voltage to a small electrode placed above the atom."
"The findings suggest that it would be possible to locally control individual qubits with electric fields in a large-scale quantum computer using only inexpensive voltage generators, rather than the expensive high-frequency microwave sources.
Moreover, this specific type of quantum bit can be manufactured using a similar technology to that employed for the production of everyday computers,
drastically reducing the time and cost of development. The device used in this experiment was fabricated at the NSW node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility,
in collaboration with the group led by UNSW Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak. Key to the success of this electrical control method is the placement of the qubits inside a thin layer of specially purified silicon
"Associate professor Morello said. The purified silicon was provided through collaboration with Professor Kohei Itoh from Keio University in Japan n
#Breakthrough in cancer research: Cancer-suppressing proteins The research was conducted in the laboratory of Distinguished Professor Aaron Ciechanover, of the Technion Rappaport Faculty of medicine.
The team was led by research associate Dr. Yelena Kravtsova-Ivantsiv and included additional research students and colleagues,
as well as physicians from the Rambam, Carmel and Hadassah Medical centers, who are studying tumors and their treatment. kpc1 an important and vital pathway in the life of the cell,
which is responsible for the degradation of defective proteins that could damage the cell if not removed.
The ubiquitin system tags these proteins and sends them for destruction in the cellular complex known as the proteasome.
-B has been identified as a link between inflammation and cancer. The hypothesis of the connection between inflammatory processes and cancer was suggested first in 1863 by German pathologist Rudolph Virchow,
and has been confirmed over the years in a long series of studies. Ever since the discovery (nearly 30 years ago) of NF?
It is involved in tumors of various organs (prostate, breast, lung, head and neck, large intestine, brain, etc.
inhibition of apoptosis (programmed cell death) normally eliminates transformed cells; acceleration of uncontrolled division of cancer cells;
which are vital to tumor growth; and increased resistance of cancerous cells to irradiation and chemotherapy.
The current research was conducted on models of human tumors grown in mice as well as on samples of human tumors,
and a strong connection was discovered between the suppression of malignancy and the level of the two proteins,
clearly indicating that the increased presence of KPC1 and/or p50 in the tissue can protect it from cancerous tumors.
Professor Ciechanover, who is also the president of the Israel Cancer Society, notes that many more years are required"to establish the research
and gain a solid understanding of the mechanisms behind the suppression of the tumors. The development of a drug based on this discovery is a possibility,
although not a certainty, and the road to such a drug is long and far from simple
#Researchers test smartphones for earthquake warning The study, led by scientists at the U s. Geological Survey
and published April 10 in the inaugural volume of the new AAAS journal Science Advances, found that the sensors in smartphones
and similar devices could be used to build earthquake warning systems. Despite being less accurate than scientific-grade equipment,
the GPS (Global positioning system) receivers in a smartphone can detect the permanent ground movement (displacement) caused by fault motion in a large earthquake.
Using crowd-sourced observations from participating users'smartphones, earthquakes could be detected and analyzed, and customized earthquake warnings could be transmitted back to users."
"Crowd-sourced alerting means that the community will benefit by data generated from the community,
"said Sarah Minson, USGS geophysicist and lead author of the study. Minson was a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech
while working on this study. Earthquake early warning systems detect the start of an earthquake and rapidly transmit warnings to people
and automated systems before they experience shaking at their location. While much of the world's population is susceptible to damaging earthquakes,
EEW systems are currently operating in only a few regions around the globe, including Japan and Mexico."
"Most of the world does not receive earthquake warnings mainly due to the cost of building the necessary scientific monitoring networks,
Researchers tested the feasibility of crowd-sourced EEW with a simulation of a hypothetical magnitude 7 earthquake,
and with real data from the 2011 magnitude 9 Tohoku-oki, Japan earthquake. The results show that crowd-sourced EEW could be achieved with only a tiny percentage of people in a given area contributing information from their smartphones.
For example, if phones from fewer than 5000 people in a large metropolitan area responded the earthquake could be detected
and analyzed fast enough to issue a warning to areas farther away before the onset of strong shaking."
"The speed of an electronic warning travels faster than the earthquake shaking does explained Craig Glennie, a report author and professor at the University of Houston.
The authors found that the sensors in smartphones and similar devices could be used to issue earthquake warnings for earthquakes of approximately magnitude 7 or larger,
but not for smaller, yet potentially damaging earthquakes. Comprehensive EEW requires a dense network of scientific instruments.
Scientific-grade EEW, such as the U s. Geological Survey's Shakealert system that is currently being implemented on the west coast of the United states,
will be able to help minimize the impact of earthquakes over a wide range of magnitudes.
However in many parts of the world where there are insufficient resources to build and maintain scientific networks,
but consumer electronics are increasingly common, crowd-sourced EEW has significant potential.""The U s. earthquake early warning system is being built on our high-quality scientific earthquake networks,
but crowd-sourced approaches can augment our system and have real potential to make warnings possible in places that don't have said high-quality networks
Douglas Given, USGS coordinator of the Shakealert Earthquake Early warning system. The U s. Agency for International Development has agreed already to fund a pilot project, in collaboration with the Chilean Centro Sismologico Nacional,
to test a pilot hybrid earthquake warning system comprising stand-alone smartphone sensors and scientific-grade sensors along the Chilean coast."
"The use of mobile phone fleets as a distributed sensor network--and the statistical insight that many imprecise instruments can contribute to the creation of more precise measurements--has broad applicability including great potential to benefit communities where there isn't an existing
network of scientific instruments, "said Bob Iannucci of Carnegie mellon University, Silicon valley.""Thirty years ago it took months to assemble a crude picture of the deformations from an earthquake.
This new technology promises to provide a near-instantaneous picture with much greater resolution, "said Thomas Heaton, a coauthor of the study and professor of Engineering Seismology at Caltech."
"Crowd-sourced data are less precise, but for larger earthquakes that cause large shifts in the ground surface, they contain enough information to detect that an earthquake has occurred,
information necessary for early warning,"said study co-author Susan Owen of NASA's Jet propulsion laboratory, Pasadena, California a
#Researchers find protein that may signal more aggressive prostate cancers Biomarkers in the body are analogous to the warning lights in cars that signal something might need repairing.
In our bodies, they indicate if something's wrong or if we're about to get sick
or if we're predisposed to certain illnesses."("In the context of prostate cancer) there's a big interest in trying to find biomarkers to discriminate between aggressive and nonaggressive disease,
"said Renny Franceschi, U-M professor of dentistry, biological chemistry and biomedical engineering. Franceschi and colleagues recently discovered a biomarker that they believe achieves this differentiation.
Prostate cancer can grow so slowly the carrier dies of natural causes before the cancer spreads,
but the deadly form progresses very rapidly.""If this biomarker does indeed control the growth of prostate cells,
it's a new signal that's not been seen before and could provide a potential new drug target for prostate cancer,
"Franceschi said.""It could also be a potential biomarker to discriminate between fast and slow growing tumors."
"The U-M researchers made the discovery in a roundabout way, said Franceschi, whose research lab mainly studies bone formation, not cancer."
"We discovered this regulatory mechanism in bone cells, but subsequently found it was also operative in prostate cancer cells,
"he said.""This is the first paper the lab has published on cancer.""The idea is that adding a phosphate group, a process called phosphorylation, to the protein Runx2,
changes its structure to activate specific genes in both bone and prostate cancer cells--but with vastly different results.
However, in prostate cancer cells, Runx2 triggered genes that fuel tumor growth and metastasis."It's unusual that a protein
whose function is to produce bone has this unusual function in prostate cancer, "Franceschi said.
and found that tumor growth was reduced. Franceschi's lab also collaborated with researchers in Italy to analyze tissue samples from 129 patients with prostate cancer.
They found little or no Runx2 phosphorylation in normal prostate, benign prostate or prostatitis, which suggests that Runx2 phosphorylation is associated closely with the more aggressive forms of prostate cancer.
The next step is to establish an actual cause-effect relationship between Runx2 phosphorylation and prostate cancer.
To do this they will compare prostate cancer formation in normal mice and mice lacking Runx2 in their prostates.
Worldwide, prostate cancer is the second-most common cancer in men, according to the World Cancer Research Fund International.
In the U s.,about 221,000 new cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed in 2015 resulting in roughly 27,500 deaths s
#Hyper-stretchable elastic-composite energy harvester Scientists have developed a hyper-stretchable elastic-composite energy harvesting device called a nanogenerator.
A research team led by Professor Keon Jae Lee of the Department of Materials science and engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science
and Technology (KAIST) has developed a hyper-stretchable elastic-composite energy harvesting device called a nanogenerator. Flexible electronics have come into the market
and are enabling new technologies like flexible displays in mobile phone, wearable electronics, and the Internet of things (Iots).
However, is the degree of flexibility enough for most applications? For many flexible devices, elasticity is a very important issue.
For example, wearable/biomedical devices and electronic skins (e skins) should stretch to conform to arbitrarily curved surfaces and moving body parts such as joints, diaphragms, and tendons.
They must be able to withstand the repeated and prolonged mechanical stresses of stretching. In particular, the development of elastic energy devices is regarded as critical to establish power supplies in stretchable applications.
Although several researchers have explored diverse stretchable electronics, due to the absence of the appropriate device structures and correspondingly electrodes,
researchers have not developed ultra-stretchable and fully-reversible energy conversion devices properly. Recently researchers from KAIST and Seoul National University (SNU) have collaborated
and demonstrated a facile methodology to obtain a high-performance and hyper-stretchable elastic-composite generator (SEG) using very long silver nanowire-based stretchable electrodes.
Their stretchable piezoelectric generator can harvest mechanical energy to produce high power output (4 V) with large elasticity (250%)and excellent durability (over 104 cycles.
These noteworthy results were achieved by the non-destructive stress-relaxation ability of the unique electrodes as well as the good piezoelectricity of the device components.
The new SEG can be applied to a wide-variety of wearable energy harvesters to transduce biomechanical-stretching energy from the body (or machines) to electrical energy.
Professor Lee said, "This exciting approach introduces an ultra-stretchable piezoelectric generator. It can open avenues for power supplies in universal wearable and biomedical applications as well as self-powered ultra-stretchable electronics
#Scientists create invisible objects in the microwave range without metamaterial cloaking Physicists from ITMO University,
Ioffe Institute and Australian National University managed to make homogenous cylindrical objects completely invisible in the microwave range.
Contrary to the now prevailing notion of invisibility that relies on metamaterial coatings, the scientists achieved the result using a homogenous object without any additional coating layers.
The method is based on a new understanding of electromagnetic wave scattering. The results of the study were published in Scientific Reports.
The scientists studied light scattering from a glass cylinder filled with water. In essence such an experiment represents a two-dimensional analog of a classical problem of scattering from a homogeneous sphere (Mie scattering), the solution to
which is known for almost a century. However, this classical problem contains unusual physics that manifests itself
when materials with high values of refractive index are involved. In the study, the scientists used ordinary water whose refractive index can be regulated by changing temperature.
As it turned out, high refractive index is associated with two scattering mechanisms: resonant scattering, which is related to the localization of light inside the cylinder,
and nonresonant, which is characterized by smooth dependence on the wave frequency. The interaction between these mechanisms is referred to as Fano resonances.
The researchers discovered that at certain frequencies waves scattered via resonant and nonresonant mechanisms have opposite phases
The work led to the first experimental observation of an invisible homogeneous object by means of scattering cancellation.
were tested successfully in microwave experiments. What matters is that the invisibility idea we implemented in our work can be applied to other electromagnetic wave ranges,
including to the visible range. Materials with corresponding refractive index are known either long or can be developed at will,"said Mikhail Rybin, first author of the paper and senior researcher at the Metamaterials Laboratory in ITMO University.
The discovery of invisibility phenomenon in a homogenous object and not an object covered with additional coating layers is also important from the engineering point of view.
Because it is much easier to produce a homogeneous cylinder the discovery could prompt further development of nanoantennas,
wherein invisible structural elements could help reduce disturbances. For instance, invisible rods could be used as supports for a miniature antenna complex connecting two optical chips.
The subject of invisibility came into prominence with the development of metamaterials--artificially designed structures with optical properties that are encountered not elsewhere in nature.
Metamaterials are capable of changing the direction of light in exotic ways, including making light curve around the cloaked object.
Nevertheless, coating layers based on metamaterials are extremely hard to fabricate and are not compatible with many other invisibility ideas.
The method developed by the group is based on a new understanding of scattering processes and leaves behind the existing ones in simplicity and cost-effectiveness e
#Scientists uncover gene'architects'responsible for body's blueprint Researchers have identified two key proteins that act as genetic'architects,
Previous work by the research team from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne,
revealing a mechanism for how the environment could affect development in very early pregnancy. Dr Bilal Sheikh, Associate professor Tim Thomas, Associate professor Anne Voss and colleagues have discovered now that MOZ
and the protein BMI1 play opposing roles in giving developing embryos the set of instructions needed to ensure that body segments including the spine,
Associate professor Voss said the study revealed that the proteins tightly regulated Hox gene expression in early embryonic development."
"Associate professor Voss said.""The embryo is organised along an'axis'from head to tail, and a standard pattern of development is established that subdivides the body into segments,
"Associate professor Voss said that, though they worked together, MOZ and BMI1 played opposing roles.""We discovered that MOZ
and correctly timing Hox gene expression, ensuring the genes were activated at the right time and in the right place,
Associate professor Voss said. She said the research also showed that significantly reducing Hox gene expression still allowed normal development,
as long as the timing and location of expression were correct.""We found that if the Hox genes were activated too early or late,
"Associate professor Voss said.""Interestingly, we also found that producing an'accurate'amount of MOZ or BMI1 in developing embryos was not nearly as important for correct development as
"Importantly, MOZ and BMI1 could provide a mechanism to transmit signals from the environment to the developing embryo, with potentially devastating consequences."
"Associate professor Voss said.""Substances or environmental challenges that impact MOZ or BMI1 expression could affect
"Associate professor Voss said.""In this study we showed a key difference; two molecules that have only a maintenance role in fruit flies are indispensible for initiating the blueprint in mammalian development."
Dr Sheikh was a Phd student at The University of Melbourne during part of this research study y
#Smartphone-based device could provide rapid, low-cost molecular tumor diagnosis A device developed by Massachusetts General Hospital investigators may bring rapid,
accurate molecular diagnosis of tumors and other diseases to locations lacking the latest medical technology.
In their report appearing in PNAS Early Edition, the researchers describe a smartphone-based device that uses the kind of technology used to make holograms to collect detailed microscopic images for digital analysis of the molecular composition of cells and tissues."
"The global burden of cancer, limited access to prompt pathology services in many regions and emerging cell profiling technologies increase the need for low-cost,
portable and rapid diagnostic approaches that can be delivered at the point of care, "says Cesar Castro, MD, of the MGH Cancer Center and Center for Systems Biology,
co-lead author of the report.""The emerging genomic and biological data for various cancers,
which can be essential to choosing the most appropriate therapy, supports the need for molecular profiling strategies that are more accessible to providers, clinical investigators and patients;
and we believe the platform we have developed provides essential features at an extraordinary low cost.""The device the team has developed--called the D3 (digital diffraction diagnosis) system--features an imaging module with a battery-powered LED light clipped onto a standard smartphone that records high-resolution imaging data with its camera.
With a much greater field of view than traditional microscopy, the D3 system is capable of recording data on more than 100,000 cells from a blood
or tissue sample in a single image. The data can then be transmitted for analysis to a remote graphic-processing server via a secure,
encrypted cloud service, and the results rapidly returned to the point of Care for molecular analysis of tumors,
a sample of blood or tissue is labeled with microbeads that bind to known cancer-related molecules
and are loaded into the D3 imaging module. After the image is recorded and data transmitted to the server,
the presence of specific molecules is detected by analyzing the diffraction patterns generated by the microbeads.
A numerical algorithm developed by the research team for the D3 platform is capable of distinguishing cells from beads
and of analyzing as much as 10 MB of data in less than nine hundredths of a second.
A pilot test of the system with cancer cell lines detected the presence of tumor proteins with an accuracy matching that of the current gold standard for molecular profiling,
The investigators then conducted analysis of cervical biopsy samples from 25 women with abnormal PAP SMEARS--samples collected
along with those used for clinical diagnosis--using microbeads tagged with antibodies against three published markers of cervical cancer.
Based on the number of antibody-tagged microbeads binding to cells, D3 analysis promptly and reliably categorized biopsy samples as high-risk, low-risk or benign, with results matching those of conventional pathologic analysis
. D3 analysis of fine-needle lymph node biopsy samples was accurately able to differentiate four patients
whose lymphoma diagnosis was confirmed by conventional pathology from another four with benign lymph node enlargement. Along with protein analyses, the system was enhanced to successfully detect DNA--in this instance from human papilloma virus--with great sensitivity.
a price that would be expected to drop with further refinement of the system.""We expect that the D3 platform will enhance the breadth
and depth of cancer screening in a way that is feasible and sustainable for resource limited-settings, "says Ralph Weissleder, MD, Phd, director of the MGH Center for Systems Biology (CSB) and co-senior author of the paper."
"By taking advantage of the increased penetration of mobile phone technology worldwide, the system should allow the prompt triaging of suspicious
or high-risk cases that could help to offset delays caused by limited pathology services in those regions
and reduce the need for patients to return for follow-up care, which is often challenging for them."
and DNA markers of other disease catalysts, including infectious agents and allergens; 2) integrate the software with larger databases;
and 3) conduct clinical studies in settings such as care-delivery sites in developing countries or rural settings and for home testing with seamless sharing of information with providers and/or clinical investigators."
"The MGH has filed a patent application covering the D3 technology y
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