PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Can't solve a riddle? The answer might lie in knowing what doesn't work

2021-03-04
(Press-News.org) Ever get stuck trying to solve a puzzle?

You look for a pattern, or a rule, and you just can't spot it. So you back up and start over.

That's your brain recognizing that your current strategy isn't working, and that you need a new way to solve the problem, according to new research from the University of Washington. With the help of about 200 puzzle-takers, a computer model and functional MRI (fMRI) images, researchers have learned more about the processes of reasoning and decision-making, pinpointing the brain pathway that springs into action when problem-solving goes south.

"There are two fundamental ways your brain can steer you through life -- toward things that are good, or away from things that aren't working out," said END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Earth has a hot new neighbour -- and it's an astronomer's dream

Earth has a hot new neighbour -- and its an astronomers dream
2021-03-04
A newly discovered planet could be our best chance yet of studying rocky planet atmospheres outside the solar system, a new international study involving UNSW Sydney shows. The planet, called Gliese 486b (pronounced Glee-seh), is a 'super-Earth': that is, a rocky planet bigger than Earth but smaller than ice giants like Neptune and Uranus. It orbits a red dwarf star around 26 light-years away, making it a close neighbour - galactically speaking. With a piping-hot surface temperature of 430 degrees Celsius, Gliese 486b is too hot to support ...

A parental paradox for Black girls in the justice system

2021-03-04
COLUMBUS, Ohio - For Black girls in the juvenile justice system, attention from a caregiver might amount to too much of a bad thing, a recent study suggests. Though parental attentiveness would generally be considered beneficial to troubled youths, the finding hints at the possibility that a history of trauma in a household's adults may filter down to younger generations, researchers say. The study, examining how family and peer social support influenced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in Black girls who were in detention, found that lower self-esteem, less optimism about the future and higher negative behaviors by peers were associated with greater PTSD symptoms in these girls. But one more factor also correlated with those symptoms: a higher level of caregiver support. "This ...

Moms need guidance on what to eat when their breastfeeding infant has a food allergy

2021-03-04
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (March 4, 2021) - Many new mothers with infants want very much to breastfeed as it is the gold standard for early nutrition. What to do when you find out your young child has a food allergy, and you are breastfeeding? A new study in Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), found that more than 28% of the women were given no guidance on whether they could eat the same food their breastfeeding child was allergic to. "We found that guidance from healthcare practitioners for breastfeeding mothers in this situation ...

Field study shows icing can cost wind turbines up to 80% of power production

Field study shows icing can cost wind turbines up to 80% of power production
2021-03-04
AMES, Iowa - Wind turbine blades spinning through cold, wet conditions can collect ice nearly a foot thick on the yard-wide tips of their blades. That disrupts blade aerodynamics. That disrupts the balance of the entire turbine. And that can disrupt energy production by up to 80 percent, according to a recently published field study led by Hui Hu, Iowa State University's Martin C. Jischke Professor in Aerospace Engineering and director of the university's Aircraft Icing Physics and Anti-/De-icing Technology Laboratory. Hu has been doing laboratory studies of turbine-blade icing for about 10 years, including performing experiments ...

Study aims to help governments maximize profits from oil and gas auctions

2021-03-04
HOUSTON - (March 4, 2021) - Federal and state governments auction leases to oil and gas companies to extract natural resources from public land. A revamp of the auction system -- utilizing a new model developed by a Rice University economist -- could lead to more competitive bids and, ultimately, more money for governments. Yunmi Kong, an assistant professor of economics at Rice and the study's author, discussed her model in "Sequential Auctions with Synergy and Affiliation Across Auctions." The article appeared in the January 2021 edition of the Journal of Political Economy. "Much of the oil- and gas-producing ...

Scientists explore the action mechanism of a new antibiotic

Scientists explore the action mechanism of a new antibiotic
2021-03-04
Scientists from Skoltech and MSU have investigated antibiotic nybomycin that could prove effective against bacteria resistant to other antibiotics. Their research was published in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. All bacterial cells contain topoisomerases, an important group of enzymes that help deal with spatial difficulties stemming from bacterial cell division associated with circular DNA replication. Topoisomerases can be of two types, I and II, depending on breaks they produce in DNA (one strand or double strand). Type II often acts as a target for antibiotics, including fluoroquinolones (FQ), a common group of antibiotics that comprises levofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, and others. Unfortunately, bacteria easily acquire resistance to ...

Failing to see the forest for the trees may prevent better cardiovascular outcomes

2021-03-04
Managing single risk factors like blood pressure rather than looking at overall risk may be wasting scarce resources in countries where cardiovascular disease (CVD) is on the rise, according to a new study. Researchers looked at country-specific levels of cardiovascular risk, associations with socio-demographic factors and whether WHO guidelines on the use of blood pressure medication were being followed across 45 low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). They found a higher risk of CVD in lower educated and non-employed people, an overuse of medicines in people at lower levels of CVD risk and an underuse of medicines in people at higher risk across ...

Dramatic decline in western butterfly populations linked to fall warming

Dramatic decline in western butterfly populations linked to fall warming
2021-03-04
Western butterfly populations are declining at an estimated rate of 1.6% per year, according to a new report to be published this week in Science. The report looks at more than 450 butterfly species, including the western monarch, whose latest population count revealed a 99.9% decline since the 1980s. "The monarch population that winters along the West Coast plummeted from several hundred thousand just a few years ago to fewer than 2,000 this past year," said Katy Prudic, an assistant professor of citizen and data science in the University of Arizona School of Natural Resources and the Environment and a co-author of the report. "Essentially, the western monarch is on the brink of extinction, but what's most unsettling is they are situated in the middle of the pack, so to speak, ...

COVID-19 screening: A new model for assessing the efficiency of group testing

2021-03-04
How best to evaluate the performance of a group testing strategy for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which involves pooling samples from multiple individuals in order to conduct a single RT-PCR test on the whole group? To do precisely that, scientists from the CNRS, l'université Grenoble Alpes, and l'université Sorbonne Paris Nord1 have developed a model that evaluates the efficiency of such tests. Their theoretical study accounts for both dilution effect and the detection limits of the RT-PCR test, in an effort to assess the number of potential false negatives based on pooled sample size, to optimize group size thereby minimizing epidemic risk, and finally to more accurately determine ...

High strength through hierarchy

High strength through hierarchy
2021-03-04
The research group presents its findings in the current issue of the journal Science. When the Eiffel Tower was inaugurated in 1889, it was considered a technical marvel. Its artful and delicate arrangement of large and small iron girders provided extraordinary stability and made sure it became the world's tallest building at the time by a long shot. "Hierarchical" is what experts call the engineering approach of an open array of larger beams braced by smaller ones. For several years now, material science researchers have tried to transfer this efficient approach to the internal microstructure of materials, for example by using 3D printers that can replicate engineering truss ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Breast cancer risk in younger women may be influenced by hormone therapy

Strategies for staying smoke-free after rehab

Commentary questions the potential benefit of levothyroxine treatment of mild hypothyroidism during pregnancy

Study projects over 14 million preventable deaths by 2030 if USAID defunding continues

New study reveals 33% gap in transplant access for UK’s poorest children

Dysregulated epigenetic memory in early embryos offers new clues to the inheritance of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)

IVF and IUI pregnancy rates remain stable across Europe, despite an increasing uptake of single embryo transfer

It takes a village: Chimpanzee babies do better when their moms have social connections

From lab to market: how renewable polymers could transform medicine

Striking increase in obesity observed among youth between 2011 and 2023

No evidence that medications trigger microscopic colitis in older adults

NYUAD researchers find link between brain growth and mental health disorders

Aging-related inflammation is not universal across human populations, new study finds

University of Oregon to create national children’s mental health center with $11 million federal grant

Rare achievement: UTA undergrad publishes research

Fact or fiction? The ADHD info dilemma

Genetic ancestry linked to risk of severe dengue

Genomes reveal the Norwegian lemming as one of the youngest mammal species

Early birds get the burn: Monash study finds early bedtimes associated with more physical activity

Groundbreaking analysis provides day-by-day insight into prehistoric plankton’s capacity for change

Southern Ocean saltier, hotter and losing ice fast as decades-long trend unexpectedly reverses

Human fishing reshaped Caribbean reef food webs, 7000-year old exposed fossilized reefs reveal

Killer whales, kind gestures: Orcas offer food to humans in the wild

Hurricane ecology research reveals critical vulnerabilities of coastal ecosystems

Montana State geologist’s Antarctic research focuses on accumulations of rare earth elements

Groundbreaking cancer therapy clinical trial with US Department of Energy’s accelerator-produced actinium-225 set to begin this summer

Tens of thousands of heart attacks and strokes could be avoided each year if cholesterol-lowering drugs were used according to guidelines

Leading cancer and metabolic disease expert Michael Karin joins Sanford Burnham Prebys

Low-intensity brain stimulation may restore neuron health in Alzheimer's disease

Four-day school week may not be best for students, review finds

[Press-News.org] Can't solve a riddle? The answer might lie in knowing what doesn't work