SBI to sell Rs. 5,000-crore NPAs to asset reconstruction cos

For the first time in over two centuries of its history, the nation’s largest lender State Bank of India, which had reported 5.73 per cent of its assets as bad loans in the December quarter, is going all out to stem the rot by offloading around Rs. 5,000 crore of its Rs. 67,799 crore dud assets to ARCs before the end of the mon...

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Google, Pandora, Kanye, SanDisk: Intellectual Property

Google Inc., (GOOG) owner of the most-used search engine, must face revived claims that its Street View mapping system infringed a California company’s patents for creating images for visually navigating a geographic ar...

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Yuan $150 Billion Bet Inflates Dollar Swap: China Credit

The weakening of China’s currency had already caused investors to hedge yuanstructured products estimated by Morgan Stanley at $150 billion before today’s widening of the trading band threatened even greater volatili...

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Mitsubishi Estate to Rebuild Apartments After Defects Found

Mitsubishi Estate Co. (8802),Japan’s biggest developer by market value, will rebuild a Tokyoresidential complex where it stopped selling apartments that went for as much as 350 million yen ($3.4 million) after finding defec...

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Commodities Cushioned From Crimea Crisis by Ample Supply

Unprecedented natural gas reserves in Europe, record global grain output and the threat of mutual economic calamity from oil sanctions are cushioning commodity prices even as the Ukraine-Russia conflict spurs a gold rally. While U.K. gas prices, a European benchmark, rose 5.1 percent since the crisis began at the end of...

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Alibaba Starting U.S. IPO Process as Hong Kong Bid Falters

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. kicked off the process for what may be the biggest U.S. initial public offering in two years after struggling to persuade Hong Kong regulators to approve its proposed governance structu...

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Singapore Home Sales Rose 1.7% in February on New Projects

Singapore’s home sales rose in February as developers marketed new projects, a government report showed. Home sales climbed 1.7 percent to 724 units last month compared with 712 in the same period a year ago, according to data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority released today. Sales climbed 28 percent from January, the data show...

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WTI Crude Rises for Third Day on Crimea Vote; Brent Holds Steady

West Texas Intermediate crude rose for a third day amid speculation that Crimea’s vote to split fromUkraine may heighten tensions between Russia and the West. Brent was steady in Lond...

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'Love hormone' oxytocin could provide new treatment for anorexia, study suggests

King's College London Summary: Oxytocin, also known as the 'love hormone,' could provide a new treatment for anorexia nervosa, according to new research. The study found that oxytocin alters anorexic patients' tendencies to fixate on images of high calorie foods, and larger body shape. The findings follow an earlier study by the same group showing that oxytocin changed patients' responses to angry and disgusted faces. The study, published today, found that oxytocin alters anorexic patients' tendencies to fixate on images of high calorie foods,...

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Origin of life: Simulating how Earth kick-started metabolism

University of Leeds Summary: Researchers have developed a new approach to simulating the energetic processes that may have led to the emergence of cell metabolism on Earth -- a crucial biological function for all living organisms. The research could help scientists to understand whether it is possible for life to have emerged in similar environments on other worl...

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Exchange rate behaves like particles in a molecular fluid

ETH Zurich Summary: The swings in market prices and exchange rates have the same foundations as molecule movements in physics. This has been demonstrated by a team of scientists from Switzerland and Japan. Brownian motion, the name given by scientists to the microtwitching of particles in fluid, results from the impact of the universal thermal agitation of the individual molecules in the fluid. The renowned French mathematician Louis Bachelier observed back at the beginning of the 20th century that there were parallels between this random walk...

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Genetic differences in female athletes with ACL injuries found in study

American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Summary: For the first time, a new study identified varied female-to-male expression of ribonucleic acid molecules leading to proteins maintaining ligament structure, that could explain why females are more likely to suffer an anterior cruciate ligament injury than males. For the first time, a new study identified varied female-to-male expression of ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules leading to proteins maintaining ligament structure. In the study, "Gene Expression Differences in Young Male and Female...

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Only small number of symptomatic side effects reported in those taking statins are actually attributable to statins, study finds

European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Summary: Only a small number of symptomatic side effects reported in those taking statins are actually attributable to statins, according to large meta-analysis of prevention trials, and investigators of a new study are calling on drug regulators to provide clear evidence to patients on claims of drug side effec...

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A brain signal for psychosis risk

Elsevier Summary: Only one third of individuals identified as being at clinical high risk for psychosis actually convert to a psychotic disorder within a three-year follow-up period. This risk assessment is based on the presence of sub-threshold psychotic-like symptoms. Thus, clinical symptom criteria alone do not predict future psychosis risk with sufficient accuracy to justify aggressive early intervention, especially with medications such as antipsychotics that produce significant side effects. Thus, clinical symptom criteria alone do not...

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Africa's air pollution underestimated in climate change models

CNRS Summary: Human activity in Africa significantly contributes to air pollution. However, no detailed data regarding country-by-country pollutant emissions in the continent was available until now. To remedy this scientists mapped these emissions in Africa for 2005, before estimating them for 2030, using three scenarios. The researchers showed that the climate change models used by the IPCC underestimate Africa's emissions, which could account...

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U.S. to Relinquish Control of Internet Address System

The U.S. plans to hand over control of the system for assigning website addresses to a non-government entity, an Obama administration official said. The nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is being asked to convene interested groups from around the world to...

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Targeting bacterial cell division to fight antibiotic resistance

youris.com Summary: New research has found some compounds effective in blocking the proliferation of certain bacteria, raising hopes of a new class of drugs to combat antibiotic resistant infections. Nowadays, people do not expect to die as a result of a common infection like bacterial pneumonia. However, many do. Indeed, some bacteria have become resistant to all available antibiotics, due to overuse. The trouble is that there are currently no antibiotic that can kill all possible pathogens. Until now, antibiotic resistance has been counteracted...

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Performing cardio, resistance training during same session: Does order matter? Research says no

Suomen Akatemia (Academy of Finland) Summary: Although the remarkable benefits of combined training have been clarified by numerous investigations, fitness enthusiasts struggle with the same question: Does the order of cardio and resistance training influence the effectiveness of a training program? Based on their findings, the researchers concluded that the training order of combined cardio- and resistance training does not seem to have an effect on biological adaptations, leaving the exercise order up to personal preference. This question...

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3-D X-ray film: Rapid movements in real time

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Summary: How does the hip joint of a crawling weevil move? A technique to record 3-D X-ray films showing the internal movement dynamics in a spatially precise manner and, at the same time, in the temporal dimension has now been developed. The scientists applied this technique to a living weevil. From up to 100,000 two-dimensional radiographs per second, they generated complete 3D film sequences in real time or slow...

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Stem cells inside sutures could improve healing in Achilles tendon injuries

SAGE Publications Summary: Sutures embedded with stem cells led to quicker and stronger healing of Achilles tendon tears than traditional sutures, according to a new study. Achilles tendon injuries are common for professional, collegiate and recreational athletes. These injuries are often treated surgically to reattach or repair the tendon if it has been torn. Patients have to keep their legs immobilized for a while after surgery before beginning their rehabilitation. Achilles tendon injuries are common for professional, collegiate and recreational...

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Dinosaur skull may reveal T. rex's smaller cousin from the north

PLOS Summary: A 70-million-year-old fossil found in the Late Cretaceous sediments of Alaska reveals a new small tyrannosaur. Tyrannosaurs, the lineage of carnivorous theropod ("beast feet") dinosaurs that include T. rex, have captivated our attention, but the majority of our knowledge about this group comes from fossils from low- to mid-latitudes of North America and Asia. In this study, scientists analyzed the partial skull roof, maxilla, and jaw,...

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Language 'evolution' may shed light on human migration out-of-Beringia: Relationship between Siberian, North American languages

PLOS Summary: Evolutionary analysis applied to the relationship between North American and Central Siberian languages may indicate that people moved out from the Bering Land Bridge, with some migrating back to central Asia and others into North Ameri...

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Project hoping to end alarming decline of bobwhite quail

Texas A&M University Summary: The bobwhite quail, a favorite among hunters and wildlife enthusiasts alike throughout the United States, has literally flown the coop -- its numbers have been decreasing alarmingly for decades, but a groundbreaking project could prove to be a big move toward understanding bobwhite population tren...

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Concerns raised about using beta agonists in beef cattle

Texas Tech University Summary: Use of beta agonists in cattle production has received considerable national attention. A veterinary epidemiologist has found that although there are significant benefits to the practice, an increase in death loss of cattle raises questions about welfare implications of its u...

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Fiat Adds 800 Workers at Chrysler 200 Factory in Michigan

Fiat SpA (F) is adding 800 employees in Sterling Heights,Michigan, to support production of the redesigned Chrysler 200, reviving a factory that was almost shuttered following the U.S. automaker’s 2009 bankrupt...

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New rehabilitation methods for amputees, stroke patients developed

University of Missouri-Columbia Summary: When use of a dominant hand is lost by amputation or stroke, a patient is forced to compensate by using the nondominant hand exclusively for precision tasks like writing or drawing. Presently, the behavioral and neurological effects of chronic, forced use of the nondominant hand are largely understudied and unknown. Now, researchers have shed light on how a patient compensates when losing a dominant hand...

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Sound trumps meaning in first language learning

Linguistic Society of America  Summary: Four-to-seven-year-old children rely on the sounds of new nouns more than on their meaning when assigning them to noun classes, even though the meaning is more predictive of noun class in the adult language, new research reveals. This finding demonstrates that children's sensitivity to their linguistic environment does not line up with objective measures of informativity, highlighting the active role that children play in selecting the data from which they learn language. The article examines children's...

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Gestational diabetes may raise risk for heart disease in midlife

American Heart Association Summary: Pregnant women may face an increased risk of early heart disease if they develop gestational diabetes. Early screening and intervention is important to identify later heart disease risk for these mothers, researchers said, along with recognizing reproductive characteristics that may contribute to disease risk in women to inform early prevention efforts. Gestational diabetes, which develops only during pregnancy and usually disappears after the pregnancy, increases the risk that the mother will develop diabetes...

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Fischer Says Bailout of Financial Firm Should Never Happen Again

Stanley Fischer, the nominee to be Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s top lieutenant, said governments must devise measures to ensure taxpayer dollars are never used again to save a failing ba...

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Nicotine withdrawal weakens brain connections tied to self-control over cigarette cravings

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Summary: A new brain imaging study shows how smokers suffering from nicotine withdrawal may have more trouble shifting from a key brain network—known as default mode, when people are in a so-called “introspective” state -— and into a control network that could help exert more conscious, self-control over cravings and to focus on quitting for good. The findings help validate a neurobiological basis behind why so many people trying to quit end up relapsing -- up to 80 percent, depending...

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Traders Beat Market Indexes Borrowing Tools From Sports

Graham Davidson was in a slump, the worst he’d ever known. In 15 years as a foreign-exchange trader in Sydney, New York and London, he’d always made money. Now, in the winter of 2011, he seemed to have lost his touch, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its April iss...

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Meta-analysis: Any blood pressure reading above normal may increase risk of stroke

American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Summary: Anyone with blood pressure that’s higher than the optimal 120/80 mmHg may be more likely to have a stroke, according to a new meta-analysis. people with pre-high blood pressure were 66 percent more likely to develop a stroke than people who had normal blood pressure, results demonstrated. The researchers determined that nearly 20 percent of strokes in the study population were due to pre-high blood pressure. The meta-analysis looked at all of the available research on the risk of developing stroke...

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U.S. to Relinquish Control of Internet Address System

The U.S. said it plans to hand over control of the system for assigning website addresses to a non-government entity, the final phase in an effort to fully privatize and globalize management of the Internet’s backbo...

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'Ultracold' molecules promising for quantum computing, simulation

Purdue University Summary: Researchers have created a new type of 'ultracold' molecule, using lasers to cool atoms nearly to absolute zero and then gluing them together, a technology that might be applied to quantum computing, precise sensors and advanced simulations. "It sounds counterintuitive, but you can use lasers to take away the kinetic energy, resulting in radical cooling," said Yong P. Chen, an associate professor of physics and electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University. Physicists are using lasers to achieve such extreme...

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Water-rich gem points to vast 'oceans' beneath Earth's surface, study suggests

University of Alberta Summary: The first terrestrial discovery of ringwoodite confirms the presence of massive amounts of water 400 to 700 kilometers beneath Earth's surface. Ringwoodite is a form of the mineral peridot, believed to exist in large quantities under high pressures in the transition zone. Ringwoodite has been found in meteorites but, until now, no terrestrial sample has ever been unearthed because scientists haven't been able to conduct...

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Quantum chaos in ultracold gas discoveredUniversity of Innsbruck Summary: Researchers have discovered that even simple systems, such as neutral atoms, can possess chaotic behavior, which can be revealed using the tools of quantum mechanics. The ground-breaking research opens up new avenues to observe the interaction between quantum particles.

University of Innsbruck Summary: Researchers have discovered that even simple systems, such as neutral atoms, can possess chaotic behavior, which can be revealed using the tools of quantum mechanics. The ground-breaking research opens up new avenues to observe the interaction between quantum particl...

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Costco’s U.K. Unit Inadvertently Granted Membership to Iran Air

Costco Wholesale (COST) Corp., the largest U.S. warehouse-club chain, said its U.K. unit inadvertently granted a membership to a person in the name of Iran Air, a move that could have violated sanctions against Ir...

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New fossil species: Origin of toothed whale echolocation

New York Institute of Technology Summary: A new fossil species, Cotylocara macei, shows evidence of echolocation and the complex anatomy underlying this unique behavior that has evolved in toothed whales, dolphins and porpoises. "Its dense bones and air sinuses would have helped this whale focus its vocalizations into a probing beam of sound, which likely helped it find food at night or in muddy water ocean waters," said the lead auth...

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Key heart failure culprit discovered in tiny piece of RNA

Mount Sinai Medical Center Summary: A small, but powerful, new player in the onset and progression of heart failure has been discovered by cardiovascular researchers. The researchers have also shown how they successfully blocked the newly discovered culprit to halt the debilitating and chronic life-threatening condition in its trac...

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Building new drugs just got easier

Scripps Research Institute Summary: A method for modifying organic molecules has been developed that significantly expands the possibilities for developing new pharmaceuticals and improving old ones. The innovation makes it easier to modify existing organic compounds by attaching biologically active "functional group" to drug molecules. A typical small-molecule drug derives its activity from such functional groups, which are bound to a relatively...

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'Master regulator' of obesity? Distant IRX3 gene appears to interact with obesity-related FTO gene mutations

University of Chicago Medical Center Summary: Mutations within the gene FTO have been implicated as the strongest genetic determinant of obesity risk in humans, but the mechanism behind this link remained unknown. Now, an international team of scientists has discovered that the obesity-associated elements within FTO interact with IRX3, a distant gene on the genome that appears to be the functional obesity gene. The FTO gene itself appears to have...

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Microbes help to battle infection: Gut microbes help develop immune cells, study finds

California Institute of Technology Summary: Beneficial gut bacteria are necessary for the development of innate immune cells -- specialized types of white blood cells that serve as the body's first line of defense against invading pathogens -- new research has found. The research suggests that a healthy population of gut microbes can actually provide a preventative alternative to antibioti...

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Material rivaling graphene may be mined out of rocks

Faculty of Physics University of Warsaw Summary: Will one-atom-thick layers of molybdenum disulfide, a compound that occurs naturally in rocks, prove to be better than graphene for electronic applications? There are many signs that might prove to be the case. But physicists have shown that the nature of the phenomena occurring in layered materials are still ill-understood and require further resear...

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Bacterium, fungus team up to cause virulent tooth decay in toddlers

American Society for Microbiology Summary: Early childhood caries, a highly aggressive and painful form of tooth decay that frequently occurs in preschool children, especially from backgrounds of poverty, may result from a nefarious partnership between a bacterium and a fungus, according to new research. The resulting tooth decay can be so severe that treatment frequently requires surgery -- in the operating room. The resulting tooth decay can...

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Missing link in plant immunity identified

Norwich BioScience Institutes Summary: An enzyme critical to plant immunity has been found to be activated in a previously unknown way, according to new research. The enzyme, the NAPDH oxidase RBOHD, triggers a rapid generation of signalling molecules derived from oxygen that are believed to be detrimental to microbial growth. The newly-discovered way this enzyme is activated, by a protein (called BIK1) fills a gap in how plants perceive a threat...

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Large study identifies exact gut bacteria involved in Crohn's disease

Cell Press Summary: While the causes of Crohn's disease are not well understood, recent research indicates an important role for an abnormal immune response to the microbes that live in the gut. In the largest study of its kind, researchers have now identified specific bacteria that are abnormally increased or decreased when Crohn's disease develops. The findings suggest which microbial metabolites could be targeted to treat patients with this chronic and currently incurable inflammatory bowel disease. Twenty-eight gastroenterology centers across...

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BofA, Citigroup, Credit Suisse Sued by FDIC Over Libor

Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. (C) and Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) were among 16 of the world’s biggest banks sued by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for allegedly manipulating the London interbank offered rate from 2007 to 20...

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Could grapefruit be good for your kidneys?

University of Royal Holloway London Summary: A natural product found in grapefruit can prevent kidney cysts from forming, new research indicates. Naringenin, which is also present in other citrus fruits, has been found to successfully block the formation of kidney cysts, an effect that occurs in polycystic kidney disease, by regulating the PKD2 protein responsible for the condition. With few treatments currently available, symptoms include high...

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The Solar Energy Outlook for 2014

Utah, USA -- For decades, solar has been like the Rodney Dangerfield of renewable energy. Rarely has it received the respect it has deserved. But by all accounts, 2013 was a watershed year in that respect. In Q3 alone, 930 megawatts of PV were installed in the United States — and in the last two and a half years, total global PV capacity grew from 50 gigawatts to over 100. Sure, 2013 saw its share of failures and disappointments. But according...

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Combing Ocean for Flight 370 Harder Than Two-Year French Hunt

As the search for the missing Malaysian jetliner shifts to the vast expanses of the Indian Ocean, the hunt for an Air France (AF)plane that vanished over the Atlantic in 2009 provides some sobering lessons. Wreckage from the French jet took two years to locate on the seabed even though debris was found floating five days after the plane...

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And the Future of Residential Solar Is…Up for Grabs

Get ready — there is a revolution in residential solar going on. From financing models, solar leases, community (group buy) to owners of multi-unit housing complexes potentially becoming independent power producers, there is a changing of the business model guard. Think of it, the world may be a major storage innovation away from disconnecting from the utility grid. Do not kid yourself, there will be utility pushback but there will also be utility...

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Why the Potential for Grid Defection Matters

Utilities deliver both active (or real) power and reactive (or imaginary) power along their distribution lines. Real power does the actual work when you flip on a light switch.  Certain energy loads, such as motors and refrigerators, include energy storage elements that periodically need to reverse the direction of energy flow. This electric power from stored electromagnetic energy, which returns to the source in each cycle, is known as reactive...

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Renewable Energy Brings Out Some Extreme Nimbyism

You may have heard of extreme preppers. These are people who spend a large portion of their time preparing themselves, their homes and their families for what they believe is an inevitable disaster resulting from an economic meltdown, the spread of a deadly virus, climate change or another catastrophic event.  And hey, you never know, in the end these preppers may be the heroes of our time. But have you heard about extreme not-in-my-backyard-ists?...

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Why the Potential for Grid Defection Matters

Two weeks ago, Rocky Mountain Institute, HOMER Energy, and CohnReznick Think Energy released "The Economics of Grid Defection," which assesses when and where distributed solar-plus-battery systems could reach economic parity with the electric grid, creating the possibility for defection of utility customers. The results of our analysis have been startling to many: continued rapid declines in the cost of solar and the start of the same...

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California Flexes Its Solar Muscles

New Hampshire, USA -- At 1:41 PM on Saturday March 8, California hit a new record of solar energy output of nearly 4.1 GW. That narrowly beat out the previous record of 3.9 GW, which was set the day before. It's also more than double the peak solar output from last June, and quadruple the output from the summer of 2012. Coincident demand for the new record was about 22.6 GW, meaning at that peak solar served about 18 percent of demand, roughly enough to power three million homes. All of that data is from California ISO (CAISO), which reported...

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General Motors Sued in Texas Over Ignition-Switch Defects

General Motors Co. (GM) was sued on behalf of vehicle owners over an ignition flaw in some small-model cars as it faces regulators’ questions about this year’s recall of 1.6 million vehicl...

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Merkel's Green Push Blows Away German Coal-Power Profits

Warsaw and Frankfurt -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel's campaign to limit climate change with an energy system based on renewable sources is cutting into profits of companies that still provide 57 percent of the power that keeps Europe's biggest economy humming. The continent's fivefold increase in solar and wind power in the past decade flooded electricity grids with power, displacing fossil fuels so fast that coal- and gas-dependent...

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A Look at Australia's Solar Power Rebate System

Solar rebates have been making news the world over, providing home- and small business owners in Australia, America, the UK and even South Africa with an added incentive to reduce their carbon footprints and live sustainably. Solar power station in Wilpena, Australia In Australia the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES) was put in place to encourage businesses and individuals to purchase and install air source heat pumps, solar water...

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Coal India officers call off 3-day strike

Coal India officers called off their three-day strike midway on Friday after receiving assurances from its chairman on pay-related demands, a union leader said, ensuring little impact on production that peaks in March. The state-owned company, the world's No. 1 coal miner that accounts for about 80% of India's output, frequently falls short of its output target due to employee strikes, delays in getting approvals to exp...

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India's Inflation Gives RBI Breathing Space

NEW DELHI—India's wholesale price inflation slipped in February as food prices cooled, giving policy makers some breathing space to consider eventually lowering interest rates to help revive grow...

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Coal India officers call off strike; output impact minimal

(Reuters) - Coal India(COAL.NS) officers called off their three-day strike midway on Friday after receiving assurances from its chairman on pay-related demands, a union leader said, ensuring little impact on production that peaks in Mar...

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No one likes a copycat, no matter where you live

University of Washington Summary: Even very young children understand what it means to steal a physical object, yet it appears to take them another couple of years to understand what it means to steal an idea. Psychologists discovered that preschoolers often don't view a copycat negatively, but they do by the age of 5 or 6. And that holds true even across cultures that typically view intellectual property rights in different wa...

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First human totally endoscopic aortic valve replacements reported

American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) Summary: Surgeons in France have successfully replaced the aortic valve in two patients without opening the chest during surgery. The procedure, using totally endoscopic aortic valve replacement (TEAVR), shows potential for improving quality of life of heart patients by offering significantly reduced chest trauma. Endoscopic surgery is already used by cardiovascular surgeons for procedures such as atrial septal defect repair and coronary artery bypass grafting. This leads to faster recovery time...

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Scientists 'herd' cells in new approach to tissue engineering

University of California - Berkeley Summary: An electrical current can be used to orchestrate the flow of a group of cells, engineers have discovered. This achievement sets the stage for more controlled forms of tissue engineering and for potential applications such as 'smart bandages' that use electrical stimulation to help heal wounds. "This is the first data showing that direct current fields can be used to deliberately guide migration of a sheet...

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Link between missing DNA, birth defects confirmed

University of Pennsylvania Summary: The genetic basis for a particular human syndrome that involves cleft palate, epilepsy and respiratory difficulties has been identified by researchers. Better understanding of these genes could help guide treatments for related conditions. "Epilepsy and cleft palate affect tens of thousands of children in the U.S. alone each year," authors said, "and respiratory failure is a particular problem in premature and low birth weight babies. Finding the causative genes for these conditions could have some very clinically...

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Substance naturally found in humans effective in fighting brain damage from stroke

Henry Ford Health System Summary: A molecular substance that occurs naturally in humans and rats was found to ‘substantially reduce’ brain damage after an acute stroke and contribute to a better recovery, according to a newly released animal study. The study was the first ever to show that the peptide AcSDKP provides neurological protection when administered one to four hours after the onset of an ischemic stroke. The study, published online before...

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Ocean food web is key in the global carbon cycle

University of California - Santa Barbara Summary: Nothing dies of old age in the ocean. Everything gets eaten and all that remains of anything is waste. But that waste is pure gold to an oceanographer. In a study of the ocean's role in the global carbon cycle, oceanographers used those nuggets to their advantage. They incorporated the lifecycle of phytoplankton and zooplankton -- small, often microscopic animals at the bottom of the food chain...

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Cellular alchemy: How to make insulin-producing cells from gut cells

Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania  Summary: Introducing three proteins that control the regulation of DNA in the nucleus -- called transcription factors -- into an immune-deficient mouse turned a specific group of cells in the gut lining into beta-like cells. “Our results demonstrate that the intestine could be an accessible and abundant source of functional insulin-producing cells,” says the lead author of the...

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Why antisocial youth are less able to see perspective of others

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Summary: Adolescents with antisocial personality disorder inflict serious physical and psychological harm on both themselves and others. However, little is yet known about the underlying neural processes. Researchers have pinpointed a possible explanation: Their brain regions responsible for social information processing and impulse control are less developed. The study focused on incarcerated delinquent adolescents from the Netherlands aged between 15 and 21 years who had been diagnosed with an antisocial personality...

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Sensex on weak footing, down over 100 points; top ten stocks in focus

NEW DELHI: The S&P BSE Sensex plunged as much as 160 points in trade on Friday, led by losses in ICICI BankBSE -2.36 %, L&T, Axis BankBSE -2.45 %, ITCBSE -0.54 % and HDFCBSE -1.24 %. Tracking the momentum, the 50-share Nifty index slipped below its crucial psychological level of 6450 levels in trade, weighed down by losses in banks, realty, capital goods and metal stocks.&nb...

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MRI to 'see through' metal screws developed to follow patients after hip fracture surgery

Hospital for Special Surgery Summary: People who sustain the most common type of hip fracture are at increased risk of complications. A special type of MRI has been developed that can show a detailed image following fracture repair, without the distortion caused by metal surgical screws that are problematic in standard MRIs. Each year, more than 340,000 people suffer a broken hip in the United States. Each year, more than 340,000 people suffer a broken hip in the United States. The femoral neck, the area just below the ball of the hip's ball-and-socket...

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After major earthquake, silence: Dynamic stressing of a global system of faults results in rare seismic silence

Seismological Society of America Summary: In the global aftershock zone that followed the major April 2012 Indian Ocean earthquake, seismologists noticed an unusual pattern -- a dynamic 'stress shadow,' or period of seismic silence when some faults near failure were temporarily rendered incapable of a large rupture. Why did this rare period of quiet occur? The magnitude (M) 8.6 earthquake, a strike-slip event at intraoceanic tectonic plates, caused global seismic rates of M≥4.5 to spike for several days, even at distances tens of thousands of...

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Improving safety, effectiveness of lithium therapy: Closer than ever

The researchers found that oral lithium salicylate produced steady lithium levels up to 48 hours in rats without the toxic spike associated with the rapid absorption of current FDA-approved lithium carbonate. They concluded that lithium salicylate could be more effective than lithium carbonate, yet without accompanying risks of toxicity, a potentially important development in the next generation of lithium therapeutics. Their study results appeared...

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Education boosts brain function long after school, study shows

"Finding ways to improve the cognition of seniors is of central importance to the economic well-being of aging countries," says IIASA researcher Vegard Skirbekk, who worked on the study with researchers Nicole Schneeweis and Rudolf Winter Ebmer at Linz University The study examined variation in years of schooling arising from compulsory educational reforms implemented in six European countries during the 1950s and 1960s, measuring mental functioning in seniors with various levels of schooling. It shows that the burden of demographic change is...

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Gesturing with hands a powerful tool for children's math learning

Previous research has found that gestures can help children learn. This study in particular was designed to answer whether abstract gesture can support generalization beyond a particular problem and whether abstract gesture is a more effective teaching tool than concrete action. "We found that acting gave children a relatively shallow understanding of a novel math concept, whereas gesturing led to deeper and more flexible learning," explained the...

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Restoring order in brain: Brain cell regeneration may alleviate symptoms of Alzheimer's disease

Now Prof. Daniel Offen and Dr. Adi Shruster of Tel Aviv University's Sackler School of Medicine have discovered that by reestablishing a population of new cells in the part of the brain associated with behavior, some symptoms of Alzheimer's disease significantly decreased or were reversed altogether. The research, published in the journal Behavioural Brain Research, was conducted on mouse models; it provides a promising target for Alzheimer's symptoms in human beings as well. "Until 15 years ago, the common belief was that you were born...

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Empathy chimpanzees offer is key to understanding human engagement

While it's been long known that human empathy can extend to family, friends, strangers and even other species, it has been unknown until now whether nonhumans are similarly broad in their empathic responses. To answer this question, Campbell and de Waal used contagious yawning as a measure of involuntary empathy. According to Campbell, "Copying the facial expressions of others helps us to adopt and understand their current state." The researchers...

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Higher levels of cerebrospinal fluid predict faster cognitive loss in Parkinson's disease

A characteristic pathological feature of PD is the presence of Lewy bodies, which are formed by intracellular deposits of the protein α-synuclein in neurons. Although several large studies have shown that α-synuclein levels are lower in the CSF of PD patients and those with related synucleinopathies compared to controls, its role in cognitive decline and dementia had been unexplored. Researchers were able to access CSF samples from the deprenyl and tocopherol antioxidative therapy of Parkinsonism (DATATOP) study, which is the largest cohort assembled...

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More secure communications thanks to quantum physics

Professor Thomas Walther of the Institute of Applied Physics at the Technical University of Darmstadt is convinced that "Sooner or later, the quantum computer will arrive." Yet the quantum physicist is not worried. After all, he knows of an antidote: so-called quantum cryptography. This also uses the bizarre rules of quantum physics, but not to decrypt messages at a record pace. Quite the opposite -- to encrypt it in a way that can not be cracked by a quantum computer. To do this, a "key" that depends on the laws of quantum mechanics has to be...

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New gene for bipolar disorder discovered

Throughout the course of their lives, about one percent of the population suffers from bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive disorder. The patients undergo a veritable rollercoaster of emotions: During extreme shifts, they experience manic phases with delusions of grandeur, increased drive and a decreased need for sleep as well as depressive episodes with a severely depressed mood to the point of suicidal thoughts. The causes of the disease...

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Cancer cells don't take 'drunken' walks through body

Johns Hopkins University  Summary: Biologists have believed that cancers cells spread through the body in a slow, aimless fashion, resembling a drunk who can't walk three steps in a straight line. They now know that's true in a flat petri dish, but not in the three-dimensional space of an actual body. This finding is important because it should lead to more accurate results for scientists studying how cancer spreads through the body, often leading to a grim prognosis. To address this dimensional disagreement, the study's authors have produced...

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Chip-scale tunable laser to enable bandwidth-on-demand in advanced optical networks

The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Summary: Researchers have demonstrated the smallest wavelength-tunable laser fabricated by microelectromechanical system (MEMS) technology. The laser features a wide tuning range which enables telecommunications providers to cost-effectively expand system capacity in advanced optical networks to support high data packets at ultra fast speed. By having one laser, instead of several, that can generate light over a range of wavelengths, the network infrastructure is greatly simplified, and...

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NextEra's Massive McCoy Solar Project Clears Another Hurdle

New Hampshire, USA -- NextEra Energy has received local approval for the initial phase of one of the biggest solar photovoltaic (PV) projects in the U.S. development pipeline. Riverside County supervisors this week gave a thumbs-up to their portion of the first phase of NextEra's proposed 750-MW McCoy Solar Energy Project in Southern California. Officials issued a conditional use permit for a 50-MW array on 477 acres of privately...

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Fostering Community Power: A New Pay It Forward Model for Solar

People can now help build solar energy projects in a brand new way. RE-volv, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, has developed a revolving fund to finance solar projects for community centers that raises up-front costs by crowdfunding donations. RE-volv just finished its second solar energy project, a 22-kW installation at the Kehilla Community Synagogue in Oakland.  Its first project, completed in June, was a 10-kW system at the Shawl-Anderson...

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