This finding has significant implications for developing new ways to detect, diagnose and treat cancer and diseases of the immune system.

The findings have diagnostic and therapeutic potential for auto-immune diseases and cancer.

"The strong similarity in the adaptive immune cells between different people suggests that the same disease will induce the same response in different people," Dr Robins said.

"The technology... can readily detect such a response, even if the magnitude of the immune reaction is small."

"Therefore, we potentially could use one or more of these shared T-cell responses as a diagnostic for a particular disease."

For the study, Dr Robins and his colleagues sequenced more than five million T-cell receptor DNA strands from each of seven healthy donors.

After comparing these sequences, they found two primary results.

Firstly, the set of T-cell receptor sequences used by the human immune system is not a random cross section of all the possibilities, but a small subset with consistent properties that the scientists subsequently identified.

"Each person's adaptive immune system is far more alike than expected," said Dr Robins.

Secondly, pair-wise comparisons of the T-cell receptors in the seven donors revealed that that tens of thousands of identical receptors are shared by each pair, even in people of different ethnicities.

"The results of our paper suggest that a specific set of T-cells that we can now detect are likely to play a causative role in the disease," Dr Robins said.

"Further, we can detect this targeted set much earlier than present diagnostics, perhaps saving vital cell function with the preventive administration of currently available therapeutics."

"And because the T-cell clones are causative of the disease, they also double as therapeutic targets."

"In principle, a monoclonal antibody could be developed to target these T-cell clones and prevent the autoimmune attack."

"Effectively, the immune system is an amplifier."

"So a very small tumor has the potential to induce a magnified immune response."

"We are readily able to detect such a response."

"The results of this paper suggest that multiple patients might have a similar response to the same type of tumour."

"Therefore, detection of these similar responses could be an early diagnostic for certain types of cancer."

But macrophages do much more than that -- not only do they act as antimicrobial warriors, they also play critical roles in immune regulation and wound-healing.

They can respond to a variety of cellular signals and change their physiology in response to local cues.

"We'd like to dispel the narrow notion that most people have that macrophages' only role is defence, and expand it to include their role in homeostasis."

"It might be possible to manipulate macrophages to make better vaccines, prevent immunosuppression, or develop novel therapeutics that promote anti-inflammatory immune responses."

But certain harmful microbes, such as the tropical parasite Leishmania spp., can exploit wound-healing macrophages, said Dr. Mosser.

"If you have a macrophage whose job it is to promote wound-healing, that macrophage will not be capable of killing microbes," he said.

"The microbe can enter the macrophage and survive inside, which is not good for the human host."

Understanding how Leishmania exploits macrophages has led to a better understanding of how macrophages function in health and disease.

It has also stressed the importance of treating infections early, before the bugs can wreak havoc on the immune system.

That's according to a new study that examined the role of laughter in jury deliberations during a capital murder case.

Researchers were given access to the full transcript of jury deliberations in the 2004 Ohio trial of Mark Ducic, a white male charged with two murders and 30 additional counts, largely related to drug violations.

"As far as we know, this is the only jury transcript available for study from a death penalty case."

Keyton and her co-author, Dr Stephenson Beck of North Dakota State University, were struck by the amount of laughter.

"This was intriguing," Professor Keyton said.

"We're interested in how people communicate within a group in order to accomplish a task, and we saw this as an opportunity to explore the role of laughter in how people signal support -- or lack of support -- for other people's positions within a group."

Keyton noted that there is very little research on the role of laughter in communication, particularly when divorced from humour.

The researchers learned that laughter could be used as a tool, intentionally and strategically, to control communication and affect group dynamics.

For example, one juror was very vocal and made it clear early in the case that she was opposed to the death penalty.

In one instance, when that juror agreed with other jury members, one of the other members said 'She's so smart,' resulting in laughter from other members of the group.

"That had the effect of further distancing her from the rest of the jury," Keyton said.

"When juries form, they don't know each other."

"So part of the jury process is to create relationships within the group -- for example, figuring out who thinks like me, who will have the same position I have."

"There are power dynamics at play."

"Laughter matters, even when it is a serious group task."

"Laughter is natural, but we try to suppress it in formal settings."

"So, when it happens, it's worth closer examination."

At one point, the jury was unclear on whether a sentence related to one of the charges was for 30 days or 30 years.

This confusion led to widespread laughter.

"The laughter allowed the jurors to release some tension, while also allowing them to acknowledge they had made an error -- so they could move forward with that error corrected," Keyton said.

"Laughter is one way of dealing with ambiguity and tension in situations where a group is attempting to make consequential decisions and informal power dynamics are in play."

"There are very few opportunities to see group decision making, with major consequences, in a public setting."

"It is usually done in private, such as in corporate board meetings or judicial proceedings."

"But laughter is something that occurs frequently, and not only because something is funny."

"Nobody in the jury was laughing at jokes."

Image credit: David Shankbone / CC A-SA 3.0

Thirty-one of 75 patients hospitalised for opioid detoxification told researchers that they first got hooked on drugs legitimately prescribed for pain.

"This information suggests that there is a progressive nature to opioid use, and that prescription opioids can be the gateway to illicit drug addiction."

"It also tells us that people who use prescriptions illegally may be at greater risk for subsequent heroin use than those who use prescriptions legally."

Slightly more than half of the study group -- 51 per cent -- said they first used the drugs for post-surgical pain, back pain or after an injury.

49 percent said that they were curious and/or someone they were with had the drugs.

Those who became addicted from using drugs legally prescribed for pain were more likely to be older, female, have a university degree, and more likely to take their drugs orally, rather than nasally or via injection.

Users' comments on how they got started using drugs other than for pain, and why they continued, were revealing.

'Pill parties' were a common starting point.

One person said the drug 'was handed to me by my friend, this guy I know, someone who was at the party.'

Another patient said young people are using it "like Viagra.'

When asked if any doctor had ever asked about a substance use problem before writing a prescription, of the 53 participants who answered the question, 74 per cent said no.

Professor Blondell emphasised that the prescribing physician is in the best position to prevent or address addiction in their patients.

"I tell patients that addiction can be an unintended side-effect that occurs occasionally with the use of these medications," he said.

"Doctors need to be able to help them if this occurs, so doctors will need to monitor the use of these medications closely."

"I also tell patients to discard unused medication ASAP to prevent addiction in themselves and those, such as teenage family members, who might get their hands on these leftover pills."

Image credit: Bill Barber / CC BY-NC 2.0

Women who ate an average of one to two servings of high cocoa chocolate per week had a 32 per cent lower risk of developing heart failure.

"But if you’re going to have a treat, dark chocolate is probably a good choice, as long as it’s in moderation."

High concentration of compounds called 'flavonoids' in chocolate may lower blood pressure, among other benefits, according to mostly short-term studies.

But this is the first study to show long-term outcomes related specifically to heart failure, which can result from ongoing untreated high blood pressure.

Dr Mittleman said differences in chocolate quality affect the study’s implications for Americans.

Higher cocoa content is associated with greater heart benefits.

In Sweden, even milk chocolate has a higher cocoa concentration than dark chocolate sold in the United States.

Also, the average serving size for Swedish women in the study ranged from 19 grams among those 62 and older, to 30 grams among those 61 and younger.

In contrast, the standard American portion size is 20 grams.

"Those tempted to use these data as their rationale for eating large amounts of chocolate or engaging in more frequent chocolate consumption are not interpreting this study appropriately," said Professor Dr Linda Van Horn of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

"This is not an ‘eat all you want’ take-home message, rather it’s that eating a little dark chocolate can be healthful, as long as other adverse behaviours do not occur, such as weight gain or excessive intake of non-nutrient dense ‘empty’ calories."

The flexible plastic sheets have inspired a new inexpensive way to create, test and mass-produce large-area patterns on the nanoscale.

"It is a simple, low-cost and high-throughput nanopatterning method that can be done in any laboratory."

Shrinky Dinks are large flexible sheets which are heated in an oven.

When exposed to heat, they shrink to small hard plates without altering their colour or shape.

The new technique utilises this property to manipulate the electronic, photonic and magnetic properties of nanomaterials.

It also easily controls a pattern's size and symmetry and can be used to produce millions of copies of the pattern over a large area.

Potential applications include devices that take advantage of nanoscale patterns, such as solar cells, high-density displays, computers, and chemical and biological sensors.

Solvent-assisted nanoscale embossing (SANE) can increase the spacing of patterns up to 100 per cent as well as decrease them down to 50 per cent in a single step, merely by stretching or heating (shrinking) the polymer substrate (the Shrinky Dinks material).

Also, SANE can reduce critical feature sizes as small as 45 per cent compared to the master by controlled swelling of patterned polymer moulds with different solvents.

SANE works from the nanoscale to the macroscale.

"No other existing nanopatterning method can both prototype arbitrary patterns with small separations and reproduce them over six-inch wafers for less than US$100," Professor Odom said.

The team from the Universities of Manchester and York say that the home dates to at least 8,500 BC -- when Britain was still attached to the continental European landmass.

They are currently excavating a large wooden platform next to the lake, made of timbers which have been split and hewn.

This platform is the earliest known evidence of carpentry in Europe.

The house itself predates what was previously Britain's oldest known dwelling at Howick, Northumberland, by at least 500 years.

The wooden dwelling at Star Carr, which was first excavated by the team two years ago, had post holes around a central hollow which would have been filled with organic matter such as reeds, and possibly a fireplace.

"This exciting discovery marries world-class research with the lives of our ancestors," said David Willetts, Universities and Science Minister.

"It brings out the similarities and differences between modern life and the ancient past in a fascinating way, and will change our perceptions for ever."

"I congratulate the research team and look forward to their future discoveries."

The site was inhabited by hunter gatherers from just after the last ice age, for a period of between 200 and 500 years.

They would have migrated from an area now under the North Sea, hunting animals including deer, wild boar, elk and enormous wild cattle known as auroch.

Though they did not cultivate the land, the inhabitants did burn part of the landscape to encourage animals to eat shoots and they also kept domesticated dogs.

"This is a sensational discovery and tells us so much about the people who lived at this time," said Dr Nicky Milner of the University of York.

"From this excavation, we gain a vivid picture of how these people lived."

"For example, it looks like the house may have been rebuilt at various stages."

"It is also likely there was more than one house and lots of people lived here."

"The platform is made of hewn and split timbers -- the earliest evidence of this type of carpentry in Europe."

"And the artefacts of antler, particularly the antler head-dresses, are intriguing as they suggest ritual activities."

The discoveries mean we could have to re-think our assumptions about how people lived in the Stone Age.

"This changes our ideas of the lives of the first settlers to move back into Britain after the end of the last Ice Age," said Dr Chantal Conneller of the University of Manchester.

"We used to think they moved around a lot and left little evidence."

"Now we know they built large structures and were very attached to particular places in the landscape."

These positions include manager of research and development, director of finance, mechanical engineer and construction supervisor.

"In every other kind of job, attractive women were preferred. This wasn't the case with men which shows that there is still a double standard when it comes to gender."

According to Johnson, beautiful people still enjoy significant benefits on the whole.

They tend to get higher salaries, better performance evaluations, higher levels of admission to college, better voter ratings when running for public office, and more favourable judgements in trials.

But in certain niches, beauty can be a hindrance -- something researchers have called the 'beauty is beastly' effect.

"In two studies, we found that attractiveness is beneficial for men and women applying for most jobs, in terms of ratings of employment suitability," according to the study.

"However, attractiveness was more beneficial for women applying for feminine sex-typed jobs than masculine sex-typed jobs."

In one experiment, participants were given a list of jobs and photos of applicants and told to sort them according to their suitability for the job.

They had a stack of 55 male and 55 female photos.

In job categories such as director of security, hardware salesperson, prison guard and tow truck driver, attractive women were overlooked.

Attractive women tended to be sorted into positions like receptionist or secretary.

"One could argue that, under certain conditions, physical appearance may be a legitimate basis for hiring," Professor Johnson said.

"In jobs involving face-to-face client contact, such as sales, more physically attractive applicants could conceivably perform better than those who are less attractive."

"However it is important that if physical attractiveness is weighed equally for men and women to avoid discrimination against women."

We also imitate other people's speech patterns, including inflections, talking speed and speaking style -- even foreign accents of people we talk to.

A new study shows that unintentional speech imitation can even make us sound like people whose voices we never hear.

Those individuals were asked to identify the words by saying them out loud clearly and quickly.

To make the lip-reading task easier, the test subjects were given a choice of two possible words.

They were never asked to imitate or repeat the talker.

Researchers discovered that words spoken by the test subjects sounded more like the words of the talker they lip-read than words spoken when read from a list.

That finding provided compelling evidence that unintentional speech imitation extends to lip-reading, even for normal hearing individuals with no formal lip-reading experience.

"Whether we are hearing or lipreading speech articulations, a talker’s speaking style has subtle influences on our own manner of speaking," said Professor Lawrence D. Rosenblum of the University of California, Riverside.

"This unintentional imitation could serve as a social glue, helping us to affiliate and empathize with each other."

"But it also might reflect deep aspects of the language function."

"Specifically, it adds to evidence that the speech brain is sensitive to -- and primed by -- speech articulation, whether heard or seen."

"It also adds to the evidence that a familiar talker’s speaking style can help us recognise words."

Image credit: Bekah Healey / CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

Scientists have previously found genetic material from retroviruses in vertebrate genomes.

Now a team of researchers have now discovered that human and other vertebrate genomes also contain many ancient sequences from Ebola/Marburgviruses and Bornaviruses -- two deadly virus families.

"This was a surprise for us," said Dr Anna Marie Skalka of the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.

"It says that the source of our genetic material is considerably wider than we thought."

"It includes our own genes and unexpected viral genes as well."

Researchers compared 5,666 viral genes from all known non-retroviral families with single-stranded RNA genomes to the genomes of 48 vertebrate species, including humans.

In doing so, they uncovered 80 separate viral sequence integrations into 19 different vertebrate species.

Interestingly, nearly all of the viral sequences come from ancient relatives of just two viral families, the Ebola/Marburgviruses and Bornaviruses, both of which cause haemorrhagic fevers and neurological disease.

"These viruses are RNA viruses," Dr Skalka said.

"They replicate their RNA and are not known to make any DNA."

"And they have no known mechanism for getting their genetic material integrated into the DNA of the host genome."

"Indeed, some of them don't even enter the nucleus when they replicate."

That the sequences, some of which may have been integrated into the genomes more than 40 million years ago, have been largely conserved over evolutionary time suggests that they give the host a selective advantage -- perhaps protecting them from future viral infection.

"In a way, one might even think of these integrations as genomic vaccinations," said Dr Skalka.

Researchers have devised a new method for simpler, faster 'data mining' -- a way to simply extract and analyse massive amounts of this data.

"If you line them up for each person, you have a line of hundreds of numbers that paint a picture of a person -- who they are, what their interests are, who their friends are and so forth."

"These strings of hundreds of attributes are called high-dimensional data because each attribute is called one dimension."

"Data mining is about digging up interesting information from this high-dimensional data."

A group of data-mining methods dubbed 'multidimensional scaling' (MDS) first developed in the 1930s has been used ever since to make data analysis simpler by reducing the dimensionality of the data.

Professor Venkatasubramanian described MDS as 'probably one of the most important tools in data mining and is used by countless researchers everywhere.'

But Professor Venkatasubramanian and colleagues have now devised a new method of multidimensional scaling that is faster, simpler, can be used for a wider range of problems and can handle more data.

"Data mining means finding patterns, relationships and correlations in high-dimensional data," Professor Venkatasubramanian said.

"You literally are digging through the data to find little veins of information."

"The challenge of data mining is dealing with the dimensionality of the data and the volume of it."

"So one expression common in the data mining community is 'the curse of dimensionality.'"

"The curse of dimensionality is the observed phenomenon that as you throw in more attributes to describe individuals, the data mining tasks you wish to perform become exponentially more difficult."

"We are now at the point where the dimensionality and size of the data is a big problem."

"It makes things computationally very difficult to find these patterns we want to find."

The new method can handle large amounts of data because 'rather than trying to analyse the entire set of data as a whole, we analyze it incrementally, sort of person by person," said Professor Venkatasubramanian.

That speeds up data mining 'because you don't need to have all the data in front of you before you start reducing its dimensionality.'

Professor Venkatasubramanian acknowledged that there are privacy concerns around data mining, but also highlighted the potential benefits to consumers.

"The issue of privacy in data mining is like any set of potentially negative consequences of scientific advances," he said.

"If you target advertising based on what people need, it becomes useful."

"The better the advertising gets, the more it becomes useful information and not advertising."

"And the way we are being inundated with all forms of information in today's world, whether we like it or not we have no choice but to allow machines and automated systems to sift through all this to make sense of the deluge of information passing our eyes every day."

Buckyballs were previously thought to float through space, but they had evaded detection until now.

"We are particularly excited because they have unique properties that make them important players for all sorts of physical and chemical processes going on in space."

Buckyballs are molecules made from 60 carbon atoms arranged in a three-dimensional sphere.

Their alternating patterns of hexagons and pentagons are similar to the geodesic domes popularised by Buckminster Fuller -- hench buckyballs, more formally known as buckminsterfullerene.

The Cami team unexpectedly found the carbon balls while observing a planetary nebula named Tc 1.

The buckyballs were found in the clouds surrounding the white dwarf star at the heart of the nebule -- perhaps reflecting a short stage in the star's life, when it sloughs off a burst of material rich in carbon.

"We did not plan for this discovery," Cami said.

"But when we saw these whopping spectral signatures, we knew immediately that we were looking at one of the most sought-after molecules."

Sir Harry Kroto, Nobel prize winning co-discoverer of buckyballs, said: "This most exciting breakthrough provides convincing evidence that the buckyball has, as I long suspected, existed since time immemorial in the dark recesses of our galaxy."

Current flu vaccines do not generate such broadly neutralising antibodies -- which is why they must be re-formulated each year to match the predominant virus strains in circulation.

"This significant advance lays the groundwork for the development of a vaccine to provide long-lasting protection against any strain of influenza."

"A durable and effective universal influenza vaccine would have enormous ramifications for the control of influenza, a disease that claims an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 lives annually, including an average of 36,000 in the United States."

Dr Gary J. Nabel of NIAID and his colleagues first primed mice, ferret and monkey immune systems with a vaccine made from DNA encoding the influenza virus hemagglutinin (HA) surface protein.

After being primed with the DNA vaccine, the mice and ferrets received a booster dose of the 2006-2007 seasonal influenza vaccine or a vaccine made from a weakened cold adenovirus containing HA flu protein.

Monkeys were boosted with the seasonal flu vaccine only.

The prime-boost vaccine stimulated an immune response to the stem of the lollipop-shaped hemagglutinin of influenza virus.

Unlike HA's head -- which mutates readily, allowing the virus to become unrecognisable to antibodies -- the stem varies relatively little from strain to strain.

In principle, antibodies generated against the stem of HA should be able to recognise and neutralise multiple flu strains.

"We are excited by these results," said Dr Nabel.

"The prime-boost approach opens a new door to vaccinations for influenza that would be similar to vaccination against such diseases as hepatitis, where we vaccinate early in life and then boost immunity through occasional, additional inoculations in adulthood."

Now another small fish is living in the oxygen-depleted dead zone and feasting upon the ecologically dead-end jellyfish.

"The sardines never recovered and jellyfish became a huge and serious problem, eating what the sardines had eaten."

Jellyfish are considered a dead-end food source as they eat lots of small fish and other sea creatures -- but they have few predators.

However the bearded goby, Sufflogobius bibarbatus, a 4-to-6-inch long, 1.5 inch-wide fish, eats jellyfish.

Larger fish, sea mammals, and sea birds eat gobies -- putting jellyfish back into the food cycle.

"We don't know if they are eating dead jellyfish from the bottom, or if they are coming up to oxygen-filled layers to eat jellyfish, but they are eating jellyfish," Professor Braithwaite said.

Stranger still is the gobies' use of the dead zone in the area.

One reason there were so many sardines and now jellyfish is a large area of up-welling water off the southwest coast of Africa from Namibia to South Africa.

This deep cold water contains large amounts of nutrients.

When plankton eat the nutrients, their populations increase massively.

Excess nutrients and dead plankton then fall to the ocean floor.

"A horrible toxic sludge forms, and very few things can live in it except for some bacteria and nematodes," said Professor Braithwaite.

"Somehow the gobies can withstand the toxic environment, but we don't know exactly how they are doing it."

Gobies can cope without oxygen for hours at a time while they rest on the muddy seabed -- but remain alert.

"When we touch them with a rod, they show rapid escape responses," said Braithwaite.

For the goby, the toxic mud is a perfect hiding place as no predators are willing to enter that environment.

"It is a win-win situation where the gobies are using a resource that is usually a dead end in the ocean, the jellyfish," Professor Braithwaite said.

"And they are using the toxic mud as a refuge."

"Together this seems to explain why their population is growing despite the fact that they are now being the main prey species in this unusual ecosystem."

The synthetic cannabinoid called MDA19 seems to avoid side effects by targeting one specific subtype of the cannabinoid receptor.

Dr. Naguib investigated cannabinoid receptors to develop new drugs that could treat neuropathic pain.

Neuropathic pain is caused by nerve damage and is common in patients with trauma, diabetes, and other conditions.

Current treatments are generally ineffective.

Rats treated with MDA19 experienced reduced neuropathic pain, with greater effects at higher doses.

At the same time, it did not seem to cause any of the behavioural effects associated with cannabis.

"With functionally selective drugs, it would be possible to separate the desired from the undesired effects of a single molecule through a single receptor," Dr Naguib said.

More research will be needed before MDA19 is ready for testing in humans.

"These elegant studies by Professor Naguib demonstrate remarkable analgesic properties for this synthetic cannabinoid," said Dr Steven L. Shafer of Columbia University.

"Although preliminary, these studies suggest that synthetic cannabinoids may be a significant step forward for patients suffering from neuropathic pain."