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	New Bird Fossil Hints at More Undiscovered Chinese Treasures NEW Mar. 25, 2010 The study of Mesozoic birds and the dinosaur-bird transition is one of the most exciting and vigorous fields in vertebrate paleontology today. A newly described bird from the Jehol Biota of northeast China suggests that scientists have only tapped a small proportion of the birds and dinosaurs that were living at that time, and that the rocks still have many secrets to reveal.	RSS FEEDS Scientific Frontline® The Comm Center The E.A.R.® World News Report Space Weather Alerts Stellar Nights® Cassini Gallery Mars Gallery Missions Gallery Observatories Gallery Exploration Gallery Aviation Gallery Nature Trail Gallery Endorsed Sites Carnegie Institution for Science National Institutes of Health HHMI Geological Society of America The National Center for Atmospheric Research Royal Astronomical Society The Earth Institute International Research Institute for Climate and Society Australian Research Council Max Planck Society Scientific Frontline® Is supported in part by “Readers Like You”
	Surprising New Clues on How to Build a Heart NEW Mar. 24, 2010 Coronary artery disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, contributing to an estimated seven million deaths annually. Each year, tens of millions of people take medications or undergo surgery in hopes of staving off progression of the disease. But the surgical interventions – bypass grafts – are only a temporary fix. Sooner or later, they wear out. Now, new studies of how the heart develops in growing mouse embryos have brought researchers a step closer to understanding how to induce.....
	Zebrafish Study with Human Heart Implications NEW Mar. 24, 2010 Bony fish like the tiny zebrafish have a remarkable ability that mammals can only dream of: if you lop off a chunk of their heart they swim sluggishly for a few days but within a month appear perfectly normal. How they accomplish this - or, more importantly, why we can't - is one of the significant questions in regenerative medicine today.
	Metallic Glass Yields Secrets Under Pressure Mar. 16, 2010 Metallic glasses are emerging as potentially useful materials at the frontier of materials science research. They combine the advantages and avoid many of the problems of normal metals and glasses, two classes of materials with a very wide range of applications. For example, metallic glasses are less brittle than ordinary glasses and more resilient than conventional metals. Metallic glasses also have unique electronic behavior that scientists are just beginning to understand.
	Mayo Clinic Study Finds Cardiac Rehabilitation Helps Survival Time in Heart Patients Receiving Stent Therapy Mar. 15, 2010 The findings, presented today at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Atlanta, found that patients who had coronary angioplasty (stent placement, also known as percutaneous coronary intervention) and afterwards participated in a cardiac rehabilitation program had a 45 to 47 percent decrease in mortality compared to those who did not participate in a cardiac rehabilitation program.
	Scientists Find New Way to Get Physical in the Fight Against Cancer Mar. 12, 2010 Conventional biological wisdom holds that living cells interact with their environment through an elaborate network of chemical signals. As a result many therapies for the treatment of cancer and other diseases in which cell behavior goes awry focus on drugs that block or disrupt harmful chemical signals. Now, a new road for future therapies may have been opened with scientific evidence for a never seen before way in which cells can also sense and respond to physical forces.
	Induced Neural Stem Cells: Not Quite Ready for Prime Time Feb. 15, 2010 The great promise of induced pluripotent stem cells is that the all-purpose cells seem capable of performing all the same tricks as embryonic stem cells, but without the controversy. However, a new study comparing the ability of induced cells and embryonic cells to morph into the cells of the brain has found that induced cells — even those free of the genetic factors used to program their all-purpose qualities — differentiate less efficiently and faithfully than their embryonic counterparts.
	Protons, neutrons melt to produce 'quark-gluon plasma' at RHIC Feb. 15, 2010 Recent analyses from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a 2.4-mile-circumference “atom smasher” at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, establish that collisions of gold ions traveling at nearly the speed of light have created matter at a temperature of about 4 trillion degrees Celsius — the hottest temperature ever reached in a laboratory, about 250,000* times hotter than the center of the Sun. lasma of quarks and gluons.
	New Dino Species: Early Meat-Eaters Crossed Continents Dec. 10, 2009 New Dinosaur Species Tawa hallae from New Mexico Had Evolutionary Roots in South America Did the first dinosaurs wander across continents or stay put where they first evolved? The first dinosaurs evolved 230 million years ago when the continents were assembled into one landmass called Pangea. The question of early dinosaur movements remained unclear until the discovery of some exciting new fossils.
	Delaying the Aging Process Protects Against Alzheimer's Disease Dec. 10, 2009 Aging is the single greatest risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. In their latest study, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies found that simply slowing the aging process in mice prone to develop Alzheimer’s disease prevented their brains from turning into a neuronal wasteland.
	Supportive Materials will Help Regenerate Heart Tissue Dec. 08, 2009 Every year in the United States, approximately 900,000 people die from heart disease. The prevalence of heart disease has prompted researchers to develop new regenerative therapies to treat the condition, including the injection of adult stem cells into the scarred heart muscle that results from a heart attack. This treatment, called cellular cardiomyoplasty, relies on injected stem cells receiving appropriate cues from their surrounding tissue to cause them to become cardiac muscle.
	Researchers Identify Gene that Spurs Deadly Brain Cancer Dec. 03, 2009 Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have identified a new factor that is necessary for the development of many forms of medulloblastoma, the most common type of malignant childhood brain cancer. HHMI investigator Huda Y. Zoghbi and colleagues at Baylor College of Medicine prevented medulloblastoma from developing in mice by shutting down production of the protein Atoh1 in susceptible brain cells.
	Tick Saliva: New Target for Lyme Disease Vaccine Nov. 20, 2009 A protein found in the saliva of ticks may prove to be an attractive target for a new type of Lyme disease vaccine. In studies in mice, Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers at Yale University produced an antiserum against a protein in tick saliva that significantly reduced the likelihood that mice could be infected with the tick-borne bacterium that causes Lyme disease. Lyme disease first manifests in humans as a rash that may pass unnoticed.
	Like Humans, Ants Use Bacteria to Make Their Gardens Grow Nov. 19, 2009 Leaf-cutter ants, which cultivate fungus for food, have many remarkable qualities. Here’s a new one to add to the list: the ant farmers, like their human counterparts, depend on nitrogen-fixing bacteria to make their gardens grow. The finding, reported this week documents a previously unknown symbiosis between ants and bacteria and provides insight into how leaf-cutter ants have come to dominate the American tropics and subtropics.
	Mayo Study Shows Stroke Incidence Related to Angioplasty Remains Steady Over Past 15 Years Nov. 18, 2009 Results of a Mayo Clinic study show the incidence of stroke or mini-stroke related to a coronary angioplasty remained steady over a 15-year period. Researchers say this is good news because physicians now are performing the artery-opening procedure on older patients who are sicker and need more complicated treatment.
	Why Can't Chimps Speak? Study Links Evolution of Single Gene to Human Capacity for Language Nov. 11, 2009 Scientists suspect that part of the answer to the mystery lies in a gene called FOXP2. When mutated, FOXP2 can disrupt speech and language in humans. Now, a UCLA/Emory study reveals major differences between how the human and chimp versions of FOXP2 work, perhaps explaining why language is unique to humans.
	T. Rex Body Plan Debuted in Puny Raptorex Sept. 17, 2009 Raptorex shows that tyrannosaur design evolved at “punk size,” said Sereno, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, “basically our bodyweight. And that’s pretty staggering, because there’s no other example that I can think of where an animal has been so finely designed at about 100th the size that it would eventually become.”
	Researchers Find Target for Pulmonary Fibrosis Aug. 23, 2009 A diagnosis of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis is not much better than a death sentence: there is no treatment and the survival rate is less than three years. But researchers at the University of Michigan have discovered that targeting of a novel gene utilizing genetic and pharmacologic strategies was successful in treating pulmonary fibrosis in mice and will be developed for future testing in humans.
	New Approach to Wound Healing May Be Easy on Skin, But Hard on Bacteria Aug. 19, 2009 Silver is widely used to prevent bacterial contamination in wound dressings, says Agarwal, "but these dressings deliver a very large load of silver, and that can kill a lot of cells in the wound." Wound healing is a particular problem in diabetes, where poor blood supply that inhibits healing can require amputations, and also in burn wards. Agarwal says some burn surgeons avoid silver dressings despite their constant concern with infection.
	New Therapeutic Strategy Could Target Toxic Protein in Most Patients with Huntington’s Disease Apr. 09, 2009 Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have designed tiny RNA molecules that shut off the gene that causes Huntington’s disease without damaging that gene’s healthy counterpart, which maintains the health and vitality of neurons. Laboratory studies suggest that a single small interfering RNA could reduce production of the damaging Huntingtin protein in nearly half of people with the disease.
	New Medications Show Promise in Treating Drug-Resistant Prostate Cancer Apr. 08, 2009 A new therapy for metastatic prostate cancer has shown considerable promise in early clinical trials involving patients whose disease has become resistant to current drugs. Of 30 men who received low doses of one the drugs in a multisite phase I/II trial designed to evaluate safety, 22 showed a sustained decline in the level of prostate specific antigen (PSA) in their blood. Phase III clinical trials are planned to evaluate the drug’s effect on survival in a large group of patients with metastatic prostate cancer
	Researchers Develop New Way to See Single RNA Molecules in Living Cells Apr. 06, 2009 Biomedical engineers have developed a new type of probe that allows them to visualize single ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules within live cells more easily than existing methods. The tool will help scientists learn more about how RNA operates within living cells. Techniques scientists currently use to image these transporters of genetic information within cells have several drawbacks, including the need for synthetic RNA or a large number of fluorescent molecules.
	Nanoscopic probes can track down and attack cancer cells Mar. 17, 2009 A researcher has developed probes that can help pinpoint the location of tumors and might one day be able to directly attack cancer cells. Joseph Irudayaraj, a Purdue University associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering, developed the nanoscale, multifunctional probes, which have antibodies on board, to search out and attach to cancer cells.
	Ancient 1.5 Million-Year-Old Footprints Show Earliest Evidence of Modern Foot Anatomy and Walking Feb. 26, 2009 The George Washington University professor Brian Richmond and his colleagues have discovered a set of 1.5 million-year-old human ancestor footprints in Kenya that show the earliest direct evidence of a modern human style of upright walking called bipedalism. The discovery of ancient hominin footprints is an incredibly rare event, and the new prints are the second oldest in the world.
	Huge pressures that melt diamond on planet Neptune determined by Sandia Feb. 18, 2009 The enormous pressures needed to melt diamond to slush and then to a completely liquid state have been determined ten times more accurately by Sandia National Laboratories researchers than ever before. As a bonus to science, researchers Marcus Knudson, Mike Desjarlais, and Daniel Dolan discovered a triple point at which solid diamond, liquid carbon, and a long-theorized but never-before-confirmed state of solid carbon called bc8 were found to exist together.
	Did Increased Gene Duplication Set Stage for Human Evolution? Feb. 11, 2009 Roughly 10 million years ago, a major genetic change occurred in a common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans. Segments of DNA in its genome began to form duplicate copies at a greater rate than in the past, creating an instability that persists in the genome of modern humans and contributes to diseases like autism and schizophrenia. But that gene duplication also may be responsible for a genetic flexibility that has resulted in some uniquely human characteristics.
	Element of Split Personality Jan. 28, 2009 Scientists have found the first case of an ionic crystal consisting of just one chemical element – boron. This is the densest and hardest known phase of this element. The new phase turned out to be a key to understanding the phase diagram of boron – the only element for which the phase diagram was unknown since its discovery 200 years ago.
	New Protein Family May Explain a Mystery of Insect Olfaction Jan. 08, 2009 Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Leslie Vosshall dreams of a day when her findings on insect olfaction are used to develop a strategy for blunting an insect's sense of smell. Without smell, blood-thirsty mosquitoes would be blinded to the scent of humans, and medflies would be unable to find their way to citrus crops. Vosshall and her colleagues at Rockefeller University have been working to understand how the insect olfactory system works, always keeping their eyes on the bigger picture
	Researchers Develop Novel Glioblastoma Mouse Model Jan. 05, 2009 Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have developed a versatile mouse model of glioblastoma—the most common and deadly brain cancer in humans—that closely resembles the development and progression of human brain tumors that arise naturally.
	Researchers Link Blood Sugar to Normal Cognitive Aging Dec. 31, 2008 Although it is widely known that the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease cause damage to the hippocampus, the area of the brain essential for memory and learning, studies have suggested that it is also vulnerable to normal aging. Until now, the underlying causes of age-related hippocampal dysfunction have remained largely unknown.