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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 27, 2014 at 6:22am

How does the brain process rhythm?
A region of the brain called the putamen has a central role in our ability to keep a beat in our head.
http://elife.elifesciences.org/content/3/e02658

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 26, 2014 at 10:21am

E-cigarettes don’t help smokers quit, study finds
People who tried electronic devices no more likely to give up smokes a year later
Electronic cigarettes may not shut off the urge to smoke cigarettes. A survey of 949 smokers found no difference in quit rates a year after some had taken up e-cigarettes while others hadn’t, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco report March 24 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

E-cigarettes deliver nicotine in vapor form without the cancer-causing combusted materials of a lit cigarette. Manufacturers suggest that using them is a first step toward quitting smoking. Of 949 smokers who answered online questionnaires, 88 reported trying e-cigarettes at the study’s outset. One year later, about 13.5 percent of all participants had quit smoking during the year. Roughly equal percentages of e-cigarette users and smokers who didn’t use them had successfully quit regular cigarettes; differences in quit rates between the two groups fell within the study’s margin of error.

Separately, studies published in 2013 in the Lancet and the American Journal of Preventive Medicine similarly found no more quitting among smokers who took up e-cigarettes. The UCSF authors suggest that regulators prohibit ads claiming that e-cigarettes help people quit smoking unless scientific evidence emerges to prove it.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/e-cigarettes-don%E2%80%99t-help...

http://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797%2812%2900822-7/abstract

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2813...

E-cigarettes, with or without nicotine, were modestly effective at helping smokers to quit, with similar achievement of abstinence as with nicotine patches, and few adverse events. Uncertainty exists about the place of e-cigarettes in tobacco control, and more research is urgently needed to clearly establish their overall benefits and harms at both individual and population levels.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 26, 2014 at 9:59am

Scientists have found that commonly used anti-inflammation drugs could also be used as antibiotics
Some commonly used drugs that combat aches and pains, fever and inflammation are also thought to have the ability to kill bacteria, research published in Chemistry & Biology shows.

These drugs, better known as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), act on bacteria in a way that is fundamentally different from current antibiotics. The discovery could open up new strategies for fighting drug-resistant infections and “superbugs.”
http://www.cell.com/chemistry-biology/retrieve/pii/S1074552114000672
Evidence suggests that some nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) possess antibacterial properties with an unknown mechanism. We describe the in vitro antibacterial properties of the NSAIDs carprofen, bromfenac, and vedaprofen, and show that these NSAIDs inhibit the Escherichia coli DNA polymerase III β subunit, an essential interaction hub that acts as a mobile tether on DNA for many essential partner proteins in DNA replication and repair. Crystal structures show that the three NSAIDs bind to the sliding clamp at a common binding site required for partner binding. Inhibition of interaction of the clamp loader and/or the replicative polymerase α subunit with the sliding clamp is demonstrated using an in vitro DNA replication assay. NSAIDs thus present promising lead scaffolds for novel antibacterial agents targeting the sliding clamp.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 26, 2014 at 9:57am

A study of patients with chronic headaches suggests that pain is linked with the brain’s ability to change with use.
New insights into how the human brain responds to chronic pain could eventually lead to improved treatments for patients, according to University of Adelaide researchers.

Neuroplasticity is the term used to describe the brain’s ability to change structurally and functionally with experience and use.
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/

The Brain’s Inability To Change Linked To Chronic Pain

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 26, 2014 at 9:55am

Scientists have developed nanoparticle-based colors that could be used to make paint and electronic displays that never fade.
Nanoparticles Give Color Without Pigments
Most of the colors we see around us arise from paints and dyes that absorb certain wavelengths of light and reflect the remainder. In contrast, structural color is created when an object’s very nanostructure amplifies a specific wavelength.

Although examples of structural color have been found in nature, producing structural color in the lab is difficult as it requires a material’s molecules to be in a very specific crystalline pattern.

Taking a different approach inspired by the feathers of the cotinga bird, researchers have devised a system to obtain structural color using microcapsules filled with a disordered solution of nanoparticles suspended in water. When the microcapsule is partly dried out, it shrinks, bringing the particles closer and closer together. Eventually the average distance between all the particles will give rise to a specific reflected color from the capsule.
Full-Spectrum Photonic Pigments with Non-iridescent Structural Colors through Colloidal Assembly
Structurally colored materials could potentially replace dyes and pigments in many applications, but it is challenging to fabricate structural colors that mimic the appearance of absorbing pigments. We demonstrate the microfluidic fabrication of “photonic pigments” consisting of microcapsules containing dense amorphous packings of core–shell colloidal particles. These microcapsules show non-iridescent structural colors that are independent of viewing angle, a critical requirement for applications such as displays or coatings. We show that the design of the microcapsules facilitates the suppression of incoherent and multiple scattering, enabling the fabrication of photonic pigments with colors spanning the visible spectrum. Our findings should provide new insights into the design and synthesis of materials with structural colors.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201309306/abstract;...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 26, 2014 at 9:52am

Nanowire ‘Fingerprints’ To Fight Counterfeiting
Nanowire fingerprints are cheap to produce and extremely difficult to replicate, making them useful in anti-counterfeiting measures, scientists say.
Researchers from South Korea have utilized the unique patterns made from tiny, randomly scattered silver nanowires to authenticate goods and tackle the growing problem of counterfeiting.

The nanoscale ‘fingerprints’ are made by randomly dumping 20 to 30 individual nanowires, each with an average length of 10 to 50 µm, onto a thin plastic film, and could be used to tag a variety of goods from electronics and drugs to credit cards and bank notes.

According to the researchers, the fingerprints are almost impossible to replicate because of the natural randomness of their creation and the difficulty associated with manipulating such small materials.
Anti-counterfeit nanoscale fingerprints based on randomly distributed nanowires
http://iopscience.iop.org/0957-4484/25/15/155303/

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 26, 2014 at 9:50am

The loss of biodiversity is closely linked to outbreaks of diseases in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a study which points at biodiversity’s potential role as A buffer against disease outbreaks.

Despite increasing health control measures, parasitic and infectious diseases have been emerging and recurring in South-East Asia — which the study calls “a recognized hotspot for biodiversity” and “which is suffering from rapid and extensive erosion of that diversity.”

The two trends may be linked, finds the study published in PLOS One, saying that “that although biodiversity is a source of pathogens, well-preserved biodiversity could act an insurance against outbreaks.”

Infectious Diseases and Their Outbreaks in Asia-Pacific: Biodiversity and Its Regulation Loss Matter
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone....

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 26, 2014 at 9:47am

The Unconscious Mind Can Detect a Liar — Even When the Conscious Mind Fails
When it comes to detecting deceit, your unconscious mind may be more accurate than conscious thought in pegging truth-tellers and liars, according to a new research.

The findings suggest that conscious awareness may hinder our ability to detect whether someone is lying, perhaps because we tend to seek out behaviours that are supposedly stereotypical of liars, like averted eyes or fidgeting.

However, those behaviours may not be all that indicative of an untrustworthy person, researchers said.
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/the-unc...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 26, 2014 at 7:23am

MIT Engineers Use Bacterial Biofilms To Create Lifelike Materials
drawing inspiration from the way in which minerals, living cells and other substances combine to form bone, a team of MIT engineers have created a type of “living material” out of bacterial cells, according to research appearing in Sunday’s edition of the journal Nature Materials.

Lead author Allen Chen, an MIT-Harvard MD-PhD student, and his colleagues coaxed those cells to produce biofilms capable of incorporating nonliving materials such as gold nanoparticles and quantum dots. They combined the ability of living cells to respond to their environments and produce complex biological molecules with the benefits of nonliving materials, such as adding functions like electrical conductivity or light emissions.

- Nature

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 26, 2014 at 7:20am

Scientists Working On Facial Reconstruction Method Using Genetic Material
Modeling 3D Facial Shape from DNA
Human facial diversity is substantial, complex, and largely scientifically unexplained. We used spatially dense quasi-landmarks to measure face shape in population samples with mixed West African and European ancestry from three locations (United States, Brazil, and Cape Verde). Using bootstrapped response-based imputation modeling (BRIM), we uncover the relationships between facial variation and the effects of sex, genomic ancestry, and a subset of craniofacial candidate genes. The facial effects of these variables are summarized as response-based imputed predictor (RIP) variables, which are validated using self-reported sex, genomic ancestry, and observer-based facial ratings (femininity and proportional ancestry) and judgments (sex and population group). By jointly modeling sex, genomic ancestry, and genotype, the independent effects of particular alleles on facial features can be uncovered. Results on a set of 20 genes showing significant effects on facial features provide support for this approach as a novel means to identify genes affecting normal-range facial features and for approximating the appearance of a face from genetic markers.
http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal....

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