http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. An analysis of an 18,000-year-old fossil, described as the remains of a diminutive humanlike creature, proves that genuine cave-dwelling "hobbits" once flourished in Southeast Asia, according to a Long Island anthropologist who conducted X-ray studies of a skull. http://www.physorg.com/news150654813.html Other Sciences Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:33:33 EST news150654813 The Nasca civilization is perhaps best known for the drawings its people etched onto the desert floor in southwest Peru, a massive and mysterious body of simple and intricate works that span several hundred square miles. http://www.physorg.com/news150654634.html Other Sciences Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:30:34 EST news150654634 Masses of immune cells that form as a hallmark of tuberculosis (TB) have long been thought to be the body's way of trying to protect itself by literally walling off the bacteria. But a new study in the January 9th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, offers evidence that the TB bacteria actually sends signals that encourage the growth of those organized granuloma structures, and for good reason: each granuloma serves as a kind of hub for the infectious bugs in the early stages of infection, allowing them to expand further and spread throughout the body. http://www.physorg.com/news150643255.html Biology Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:20:55 EST news150643255 A new Rice University study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that socioemotional meanings, including sexual ones, are conveyed in human sweat. http://www.physorg.com/news150643103.html Medicine & Health Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:18:23 EST news150643103 Researchers at North Carolina State University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have produced the first link between a species of bacteria most commonly found in sheep and human illness. http://www.physorg.com/news150473724.html Medicine & Health Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:15:24 EST news150473724 Mutation of a gene that helps proteins migrate in and out of the cell's genetic command center - the nucleus - puts some families at higher risk for the degenerative brain disease acute necrotizing encephalopathy (ANE). http://www.physorg.com/news150468352.html Medicine & Health Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:45:52 EST news150468352 The study of ancient microbes may not seem consequential, but such pioneering research at the University of Oklahoma has implications for the state of modern human health. Cecil Lewis, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, says results of this research raise questions about the microbes living on and within people. http://www.physorg.com/news150397619.html Medicine & Health Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:06:59 EST news150397619 Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and at UC-San Francisco have succeeded in isolating stem cells from human testes. The cells bear a striking resemblance to embryonic stem cells - they can differentiate into each of the three main types of tissues of the body - but the researchers caution against viewing them as one and the same. http://www.physorg.com/news150397024.html Biology Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:57:04 EST news150397024 (PhysOrg.com) -- Bees see some flowers in multicolour because of previously unknown iridescence of the petals, usually invisible to the human eye, researchers from the University of Cambridge report this week in Science. http://www.physorg.com/news150387612.html Biology Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:20:12 EST news150387612 An international team led by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers has identified genetic markers associated with risk for ulcerative colitis. The findings, which appear today as an advance online publication of the journal Nature Genetics, bring researchers closer to understanding the biological pathways involved in the disease and may lead to the development of new treatments that specifically target them. http://www.physorg.com/news150298032.html Medicine & Health Sun, 04 Jan 2009 13:27:12 EST news150298032 Just after 5 p.m. doors rattle shut and feet begin to shuffle past the narrow lab where Karim Si-Tayeb sits hunched over a microscope, all but invisible to the scientists leaving the Medical College of Wisconsin. Si-Tayeb has already worked eight hours and will work five more, eyes locked on the living cells in his care. Under the microscope, their tiny colonies resemble constellations of tightly packed stars. They carry his ambition. http://www.physorg.com/news150295895.html Biology Sun, 04 Jan 2009 12:51:35 EST news150295895 James Thomson knew that to send a cell back to its past was no trivial matter. Like generations of biologists, the University of Wisconsin-Madison stem cell pioneer had been taught that development was a one-way street; it began with an embryo and finished with all the mature cells that make up the body. Yet in the summer of 2007, Thomson and scientists around the globe were racing to do what once had been thought impossible: to reverse the natural process and return old cells to their embryonic origin. They sought the healing potential of embryonic stem cells - immortal in a lab dish, able to become any cell in the body - but without the controversial destruction of human embryos. http://www.physorg.com/news150098009.html Medicine & Health Fri, 02 Jan 2009 05:53:29 EST news150098009 A research team from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine has identified a protein produced by cancerous lung epithelial cells that enhances metastasis by stimulating the activity of inflammatory cells. Their findings, to be published in the January 1 issue of the journal Nature, explain how advanced cancer cells usurp components of the host innate immune system to generate an inflammatory microenvironment hospitable for the metastatic spread of lung cancer. The discovery could lead to a therapy to limit metastasis of this most common lethal form of cancer. http://www.physorg.com/news149951977.html Medicine & Health Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:19:37 EST news149951977 Scientists have new information about the complex genetic signature associated with Alzheimer's disease, the leading cause of cognitive decline and dementia in the elderly. The research, published by Cell Press in the January issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, uses a powerful, high-resolution analysis to look for genes associated with this devastating neurodegenerative disorder. http://www.physorg.com/news149947901.html Medicine & Health Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:11:41 EST news149947901 Researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered that a molecule implicated in leukemia and lung cancer is also important in muscle repair and in a muscle cancer that strikes mainly children. http://www.physorg.com/news149860013.html Medicine & Health Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:46:53 EST news149860013 In a recently conducted study, a multidisciplinary French-American research team with expertise in archaeology, past climates, and ecology reported that Neanderthal extinction was principally a result of competition with Cro-Magnon populations, rather than the consequences of climate change. http://www.physorg.com/news149769271.html Other Sciences Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:34:31 EST news149769271 Agricultural crop production relies on composted waste materials and byproducts, such as animal manure, municipal solid waste composts, and sewage sludge, as a necessary nutrient source. Studies have shown that human hair, a readily available waste generated from barbershops and hair salons, combined with additional compost, is an additional nutrient source for crops. Although human hair has become commercially available to crop producers in the past couple years, it has not been proven to be an exclusive source of nutrients in greenhouse container production. http://www.physorg.com/news149769187.html Other Sciences Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:33:07 EST news149769187 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new molecule important in a part of the memory that allows recognition of people has been identified by researchers at the University of Bristol. This type of memory is impaired at an early stage during Alzheimer`s disease and so it is hoped that understanding the function of this molecule may lead to better cures and treatments for this devastating disease. http://www.physorg.com/news149345656.html Medicine & Health Wed, 24 Dec 2008 12:54:16 EST news149345656 Researchers at the University of Rochester have shown that the human brain -once thought to be a seriously flawed decision maker -is actually hard-wired to allow us to make the best decisions possible with the information we are given. The findings are published in today's issue of the journal Neuron. http://www.physorg.com/news149345120.html Medicine & Health Wed, 24 Dec 2008 12:45:20 EST news149345120 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers have discovered the atomic structure of a powerful "molecular motor" that packages DNA into the head segment of some viruses during their assembly, an essential step in their ability to multiply and infect new host organisms. http://www.physorg.com/news149344139.html Biology Wed, 24 Dec 2008 12:28:59 EST news149344139 In the comics, the Phantom is a masked crimefighter who protected the innocent from pirates, hijackers and other evildoers. While not as dashing or exciting as its costumed namesake, this electromagnetic phantom -- a carbon and polymer mixture that simulates the human body -- is being readied by the National Institute of Standards and Technology for its upcoming role as a different kind of protector. The NIST phantom serves as a mannequin in a standardized performance test for walk-through metal detectors or WTMDs such as those used at airports. http://www.physorg.com/news149276153.html Physics Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:35:53 EST news149276153 Access to maternal health-care is extremely limited and poor nutrition, anemia and malaria are widespread in eastern Burma, which increases the risk of pregnancy complications, says new research published in the open access journal PLoS Medicine. Human rights violations -such as displacement and forced labur -are also widely present, and in some communities forced relocation doubled the risk of women developing anemia and greatly decreased their chances of receiving any antenatal care. http://www.physorg.com/news149247869.html Medicine & Health Tue, 23 Dec 2008 09:44:29 EST news149247869 Even though the most deadly form of malaria for humans, Plasmodium falciparum, has been linked to malaria found in chimpanzees, this group has been fairly isolated on the malarial family tree -until now. A new phylogenetic analysis from the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History reveals that malarial parasites found in tree-dwelling rats share a close evolutionary relationship with P. falciparum and Plasmodium reichenowi. The analysis is based on amplification of entire mitochondrial genomes of malarial parasites that use humans, rodents, birds, and lizards as their hosts. http://www.physorg.com/news149171174.html Biology Mon, 22 Dec 2008 12:26:14 EST news149171174 A research team led by Professor Michael Chazan, director of the University of Toronto's Archaeology Centre, has discovered the earliest evidence of our cave-dwelling human ancestors at the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa. http://www.physorg.com/news148919004.html Other Sciences Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:23:24 EST news148919004 The study, which appears in the December 18 online version of Cell Stem Cell and the January 2009 print edition of the journal, provides proof of principle that alternative sources of stem cells can be created. http://www.physorg.com/news148830455.html Biology Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:47:35 EST news148830455 (PhysOrg.com) -- Biologists face the major challenge of understanding genetic and environmental risk factors underlying human diseases. Surprisingly, animal species in the wild have sometimes acquired the characteristics of a human disease through evolution. http://www.physorg.com/news148753307.html Biology Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:21:47 EST news148753307 University of Minnesota anthropology professor Kieran McNulty (along with colleague Karen Baab of Stony Brook University in New York) has made an important contribution toward solving one of the greatest paleoanthropological mysteries in recent history -- that fossilized skeletons resembling a mythical "hobbit" creature represent an entirely new species in humanity's evolutionary chain. http://www.physorg.com/news148741116.html Other Sciences Wed, 17 Dec 2008 12:58:36 EST news148741116 Researchers in Pennsylvania are reporting for the first time that nanoparticles 1/5,000 the diameter of a human hair encapsulating an experimental anticancer agent, kill human melanoma and drug-resistant breast cancer cells growing in laboratory cultures. The discovery could lead to the development of a new generation of anti-cancer drugs that are safer and more effective than conventional chemotherapy agents, the scientists suggest. The research is scheduled for the Dec. 10 issue of ACS' Nano Letters. http://www.physorg.com/news148573402.html Nanotechnology Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:23:22 EST news148573402 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team led by MIT researchers releases today the most comprehensive independent review of the future of the nation`s human spaceflight program undertaken in many years. The report recommends setting loftier goals for humans in space, focusing research more clearly toward those goals, and increasing cooperation with other nations and private industry. http://www.physorg.com/news148569966.html Space & Earth Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:26:06 EST news148569966 A study by UC Davis researchers appearing in the journal Science reports the discovery of a new mechanism of attention in the human brain. Previous studies in animals implicated changes in the state of a portion of the brainstem, called the locus ceruleus (LC), in shifts from distractible to attentive states. http://www.physorg.com/news148562922.html Medicine & Health Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:28:42 EST news148562922