Science Daily

Vast Martian glaciers of water ice under protective blankets of rocky debris persist today at much lower latitudes than any ice previously identified on Mars, says new research using ground-penetrating radar on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The discovery is an encouraging sign for scientists searching for life beyond Earth. The water ice might also provide a useful resource for human explorers visiting the red planet.

A new study shows that when patients with macular degeneration focus on using another part of their retina to compensate for their loss of central vision, their brain seems to compensate by reorganizing its neural connections. Age--related macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness in the elderly. The study appears in the journal Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience.

Adhesive shellfish proteins bind regardless of how many binding elements they contain. This has potential for the development of new kinds of binding agents.

Canadian researchers are trying to answer why some smokers develop lung cancer while others remain disease free, despite similar lifestyle changes.

Stanford artificial intelligence researchers have developed software that makes it easy to reach inside an existing video and place a photo on the wall so realistically that it looks like it was there from the beginning. The photo is not pasted on top of the existing video, but embedded in it. It works for videos as well; you can play a video on a wall inside your video.

New research has traced elevated levels of a specific compound in the brain to problem-solving deficits in patients with schizophrenia. The finding suggests that drugs used to suppress the compound, called kynurenic acid, might be an important supplement to antipsychotic medicines, as these adjuncts could be used to treat the disorder's most resistant symptoms -- cognitive impairments.

More than a century ago, the development of the earliest motion picture technology made what had been previously thought "magical" a reality: capturing and recreating the movement and dynamism of the world around us. A breakthrough technology based on new concepts has now accomplished a similar feat, but on an atomic scale by allowing, for the first time, the real-time, real-space visualization of fleeting changes in the structure and shape of matter barely a billionth of a meter in size.

Cells can turn on tumor-promoting growth circuits by falsely reporting critical genetic information during the process of transcription: making RNA from DNA. Damage to the DNA making up a gene can lead to a misreading of the gene as it is made into RNA, a process called transcriptional mutagenesis. Transcriptional mutagenesis could represent an additional way DNA damage contributes to tumor formation.

As anyone who watched the Olympics can appreciate, timing matters when it comes to complex sequential actions. It can make a difference between a perfect handspring and a fall, for instance. But what controls that timing? Scientists are closing in on the brain regions responsible, thanks to some technical advances and some help from songbirds.

Researchers are reporting development of a faster test for identifying the food protein that triggers celiac disease, a difficult-to-diagnose digestive disease involving the inability to digest protein called gluten that occurs in wheat, oats, rye, and barley. The finding could help millions of people avoid diarrhea, bloating, and other symptoms that occur when they unknowingly eat foods containing gluten.

Rock avalanches and landslides, rock falls and slope slips are all contained in the concept of mass movements. The ever more intensive usage of the mountainous regions and the climate change are some of the causes for these natural erosion processes from high alpine regions to the hill country, and they are not insignificant causes. Engineering geologists are modeling mass movements with specially adapted computer programs. Their know-how is helpful for the risk assessment of imminent landslides and slope slips.

A single exposure to uncontrollable stress impairs decision making in rats for several days, making them unable to reliably seek out the larger of two rewards.

Researchers have developed an unlimited number of pure insulin-producing cells from mouse embryonic stem cells. The cells, which have the same sub-cellular structures as the insulin-producing cells naturally found in the pancreas, were highly effective in treating diabetes in the mouse model.

Scientists have identified a relationship between two proteins in the brain that has links to both nicotine addiction and autism. The finding has led to speculation that existing drugs used to curb nicotine addiction might serve as the basis for potential therapies to alleviate the symptoms of autism. The discovery identified a defining role for a protein made by the neurexin-1 gene, which is located in brain cells and assists in connecting neurons as part of the brain's chemical communication system.

Counterintuitive as it may seem, those healthful phytoestrogen nutrients that consumers usually associate with fruits and vegetables also exist in foods of animal origin. After all, "phyto" means "plant." Now the first comprehensive study of phytoestrogen content in foods has identified the best sources of these nutrients.

A new report suggests that the number of cases of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis in the U.S. has declined in the past fifteen years, but new cases continue to be reported. Researchers note the decrease in the number of XDR-TB cases coincides with improved TB and HIV/AIDS control.

If you are over seventy years old, your chances of dying in a fire at home are four times as high as they are for the rest of the population. It is also a fact that half of all women who die in house fires are 70 or older. These are among the results of a report from SINTEF Norwegian Fire Laboratories.

What makes residents of certain states or countries more likely to consume more alcohol? According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, high levels of individualism lead to more problem drinking.

Scientists have made electronics that can bend. They've made electronics that can stretch. And now, they've reached the ultimate goal -- electronics that can be subjected to any complex deformation, including twisting. Researchers have improved their so-called "pop-up" technology to create circuits that can be twisted. Such electronics could be used in places where flat, unbending electronics would fail, like on the human body.

Two critical properties of cancer cells are their ability to divide without restraint and to spread away from the primary tumor to establish new tumor sites. Now, researchers have found a protein they say acts as a deadly master switch, both freeing cancer cells from a tumor while ramping up new growth.