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Amyloid beta proteins, widely thought to cause Alzheimer's disease, block the transport of vital cargoes inside brain cells. Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease have discovered that reducing the level of another protein, tau, can prevent amyloid beta from causing such traffic jams.

The highlights in this release summarize research papers that have been recently published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres and Geophysical Research Letters.

Researchers from the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center played an important role in a study that led to the Food & Drug Administration's recent fast tracking of ipilimumab, a promising treatment for metastatic melanoma.

Cotton growers can produce more cotton if they plant early, but not without irrigation. That's the finding of an article published in the September-October 2010 Agronomy Journal, a publication of the American Society of Agronomy.

For the first time, a team of MIT chemical engineers has observed single ions marching through a tiny carbon-nanotube channel. Such channels could be used as extremely sensitive detectors or as part of a new water-desalination system. They could also allow scientists to study chemical reactions at the single-molecule level.

Vaccine manufacturers and public health decision-makers need to collaborate in a more efficient and effective manner not only to reduce the likelihood of supply shortages for pediatric vaccines but also to maximize community immunity, says Sheldon H. Jacobson, a University of Illinois researcher who specializes in statistics and data analysis.

Joseph Stalin once claimed that a single death was a tragedy, but a million deaths was a statistic. New research from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University validates this sentiment, confirming large-scale tragedies don't connect with people emotionally in the same way smaller tragedies do.

Using protein crystallography beamlines at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source, a team of researchers has resolved the atomic-scale crystal structure of an enzyme called "Csy4" that plays a key role in a microbial immune system. The research provides important new clues to the fundamental role of RNA in the evolution of life.

A survey in the latest issue of the Hastings Center Report found that most hospices in Oregon, the first state to legalize physician-assistance in dying, either do not participate in or have limited participation in requests for such assistance. Both legal and moral reasons are identified.

The existence of dark matter particles in the sun's interior seems inevitable, despite dark matter never having been observed (there or elsewhere), despite intensive ongoing searches. Once gravitationally captured by the sun, these particles tend to accumulate in its core.In a paper to be published in the scientific journal Science, Dr. Ilidio Lopes and professor Joseph Silk propose that the presence of dark matter in the Sun's interior causes a significant drop in its central temperature.

Researchers at the University Campus in Tunis, Tunisia, have published details of a speech enhancement system that uses two distinct tools to reduce the noise from a recorded or sampled voice signal.

DNA analysis is poised to experience a significant advancement thanks to the work of a Texas A&M University chemical engineer, who has discovered a way to achieve more effective separation of DNA fragments.

Tweet this, Ashton Kutcher, Lady Gaga and Britney Spears. Just because you have a ton of followers on Twitter doesn't necessarily mean you're among the most influential people in the Twitterverse, according to researchers from Northwestern University.

For cancer patients, who have an increased risk of developing venous thromboembolism due to a hyperactive blood coagulation system, there is now an enhanced risk model to predict their chance of developing blood clots, according to a recent study published today in Blood, the journal of the American Society of Hematology.

This edition of the Hastings Center Report includes a number of essays that look at personalized medicine from several perspectives.

One third of the world's population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which leads to tuberculosis (TB), a leading cause of death worldwide. A new discovery, led by a team of researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, offers hope for new approaches to the prevention and treatment of TB.

Fresh insight into how plants slow their growth in cold weather could help scientists develop crops suited to cooler environments.

A simple device measures the quantum noise of vacuum fluctuations and generates true random numbers.

An investigation published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine has found that male partners who express greater support, attention and sympathy to women's chronic vulvovaginal pain may trigger more pain, but also increase sexual satisfaction in female partners.

Numerous CCTV systems are in use in public places which have the capacity to gather large amounts of image material. For the time being, however, there are no effective ways to analyze the mass of video data automatically and recognize potential risk situations in advance. VTT is involved in an EU research project aimed at developing IT solutions to this end.