CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Brown-headed cowbirds have a reputation for being deadbeat parents: They lay their eggs in other birds' nests and then disappear, the story goes, leaving the care and feeding of their offspring to an unwitting foster family. A new study suggests, however, that cowbird moms pay close attention to how well their offspring do, returning to lay their eggs in the most successful host nests, and avoiding those that have failed. The new findings are reported in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. "Cowbirds may be paying attention not only to their own ...

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (September 9, 2015) -- Have you ever wondered why we call a dog a dog and not a cat? Is this an arbitrary decision, or is it based on iconicity--the resemblance between word structure and meaning? New research shows that for Indo-European languages, like English and Spanish, iconicity is more common than previously believed. The results are important for understanding the nature of human language, explains Lynn Perry, assistant professor of psychology in the University of Miami College of Arts & Sciences and co-lead author of the study. "Many linguists ...

In a study with 18 adults who had never smoked, scientists at Johns Hopkins report they have demonstrated one of the earliest steps -- nicotine "reinforcement" -- in the process of addiction, and shown that some people are far more vulnerable to nicotine addiction than others. In a summary of the research, published online Sept. 8 in the journal Psychopharmacology, the investigators say they have, for the first time, characterized the body's reaction to the first, tiniest "hits" of nicotine. The results, they say, should lay groundwork for future revelations about genetic ...

September 9, 2015 - The aging of the population, shifting diagnostic criteria, and new health care policy initiatives are some of the factors driving changes in mental health treatment for older Americans, according to the September special issue of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer. "Both workforce shortages and fiscal pressures have presented obstacles to caring for the behavioral needs of our elderly," according to a guest editorial by Drs. James Ellison of Christiana Care Health System, Wilmington, Del., and Brent Forester ...

September 9, 2015 - Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is a severe form of premenstrual syndrome that causes major disruption in several areas of life for many women. Many treatment options have been proposed, but which are most effective? A comprehensive review of the evidence, including specific treatment guidelines, is presented in the September Journal of Psychiatric Practice, published by Wolters Kluwer. "Given the debilitating symptoms and impact associated with PMDD, health care professionals need to be able to identify and effectively treat patients with ...

A team of physicists has taken pictures of a theorized but previously undetected magnetic wave, the discovery of which offers the potential to be an energy-efficient means to transfer data in consumer electronics. The research, which appears in the journal Physical Review Letters, was conducted by scientists at New York University, Stanford University, and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. "This is an exciting discovery because it shows that small magnetic waves--known as spin-waves--can add up to a large one in a magnet, a wave that can maintain its shape as ...

Patients with liver failure could benefit from a treatment that helps the immune system to combat infections linked to the condition, research suggests. A study in mice has revealed that treatment with an immune-boosting molecule called CSF-1 helps to trigger the body's natural defence mechanisms in the liver. Researchers say that if the therapy proves successful in patients, it could help those who are unsuitable for a liver transplant. Patients with liver failure are highly prone to serious infections that can lead to sepsis, a potentially life-threatening condition ...

Brain plasticity is the ability of the brain to change both anatomically and functionally in response to changes in the body or in the environment. For many years, researchers believed that the brain did not suffer major changes after childhood. Although brain plasticity predominates in the first years of life, research done in the last 30 years has shown that it may also occur in adulthood, continuing to change through learning. Brain plasticity may also occur following injury, amputation or nerve damage. Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, can be traced back ...

In a deception that likely has evolved over thousands of years, a caterpillar that feeds on corn leaves induces the plant to turn off its defenses against insect predators, allowing the caterpillar to eat more and grow faster, according to chemical ecologists in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. The finding is one more revelation about the myriad of chemical signals that pass between plants and insects that scientists at Penn State and around the world have been discovering in recent years. In this case, the agent of deceit is the caterpillar's feces, or ...

Organic electronics has many advantages: it is inexpensive, flexible and lightweight. In terms of applications, we are only limited by our imaginations. There has been a lot of development in polymers since the phenomenon of conducting and semi-conducting plastics was discovered and in 2000 awarded a Nobel Prize. Their weakness is still speed; plastics conduct a charge slowly, compared to silicon, for instance. A polymer consists of long chains of hydrocarbon, where other elements are bound, which give the particular plastic its properties. Research is underway, and researchers ...

An effective smart phone application should make data collection easy, but not so easy that the user forgets to access and reflect on that information, according to a team of researchers. People who accessed a sleep monitoring app through a small display window -- often called a widget -- on an Android smart phone were more likely to manually enter their diary information, as well as interact with that data than users who monitored their sleep without the feature, according to Eun Kyoung Choe, assistant professor of information sciences and technology, Penn State. "As ...

Amsterdam, September 9, 2015 - A bioelectronic nose that mimics the human nose can detect traces of bacteria in water by smelling it, without the need for complex equipment and testing. According to a study published in Biosensors and Bioelectronics the technology works by using the smell receptors in the human nose. The sensor is simple to use and it can detect tiny amounts of contamination in water, making it more sensitive than existing detection methods. The authors of the study, from Seoul National University, say this could make the technology even more useful in ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Booster seat-aged children are twice as likely to suffer serious injury or death in a car crash than younger children but a new study shows they may be less likely to have car seats inspected for proper use. Less than a quarter of car seat and booster checks analyzed in the new University of Michigan Health System study were conducted in children ages four and older at car seat inspection stations in Michigan. Just 1 in 10, or 11 percent of inspections, covered booster seat-age children ages 4-7 while half were for rear-facing car seats. The findings, ...

Despite all the shortened words and slang seen on Twitter, it turns out that people follow many of the same communication etiquette rules on social media as they do in speech. Research from the Georgia Institute of Technology shows that when tweeters use hashtags -- a practice that can enable messages to reach more people -- they tend to be more formal and drop the use of abbreviations and emoticons. But when they use the @ symbol to address smaller audiences, they're more likely to use non-standard words such as "nah," "cuz" and "smh." The study also found when people ...

This news release is available in French. Although hypnosis has existed for hundreds of years, today it is still difficult to clearly judge its usefulness in the medical domain. In a report submitted to the French Directorate General for Health, researchers from Inserm led by Bruno Falissard assessed the effectiveness of this complementary medical practice for some of its indications (women's health, digestive ailments, surgery, psychiatry, etc.). The latter illustrates its therapeutic value during anaesthesia, and in the management of irritable bowel syndrome. It also ...

Catch a whiff of an enchanting perfume, the sweet smell of freshly cut grass, newly baked bread, even the odor of two-stroke engine fumes, and many of us are whisked off to distant places in our memories. Smells trigger immediate emotional responses and marketing departments the world over have exploited this everywhere from supermarkets to car showrooms to help us part with our hard-earned cash. Now, writing in the International Journal of Trade and Global Markets, Shuvam Chatterjee of the Regent Education & Research Foundation, in Dhakuria, India, discusses the concept ...

Mindfulness meditation is associated with all sorts of benefits to mental and physical well-being, but a new study suggests that it may also come with a particular downside for memory. The findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, show that participants who engaged in a 15-minute mindfulness meditation session were less able to differentiate items they actually encountered from items they only imagined. "Our results highlight an unintended consequence of mindfulness meditation: memories may be less accurate," ...

In recent years, researchers have realized that many products, including pharmaceuticals, have ended up where they're not supposed to be -- in our drinking water. But now scientists have developed a way to make drugs that break down into harmless compounds before they contaminate our taps. Their report appears in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology. A wide range of active ingredients originating from pesticides, shampoos, lotions, cosmetics, disinfectants and drugs get washed into sewage systems or rivers and streams, ending up in our tap water. Scientists ...

Amsterdam, September 9, 2015 - A new Ebola test that uses magnetic nanoparticles could help curb the spread of the disease in western Africa. Research published in Biosensors and Bioelectronics shows that the new test is 100 times more sensitive than the current test, and easier to use. Because of this, the new test makes it easier and cheaper to diagnose cases, enabling healthcare workers to isolate patients and prevent the spread of Ebola. The authors of the study, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, say their new technology could be applied to the detection of any ...

WASHINGTON, DC (September 9, 2015) -- Women are not only at greater risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) when compared to men; per capita, they also bear six times the cost of AD care that men do, reports a study published today in the journal Women's Health Issues. Authors Zhou Yang of Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health and Allan Levey of the Emory University School of Medicine used a lifetime perspective to calculate AD costs to women and men based on three factors: the probability of developing AD, the disease's duration, and the required formal ...

Within the past few years, a new technology has made altering genes in plants and animals much easier than before. The tool, called CRISPR/Cas9 or just CRISPR, has spurred a flurry of research that could one day lead to hardier crops and livestock, as well as innovative biomedicines. But along with potential benefits, it raises red flags, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society. Ann M. Thayer, a senior correspondent at C&EN, notes that scientists have long had the ability to remove, repair ...

In today's smart home, technologies can track how much energy a particular appliance like a refrigerator or television or hair dryer is gobbling up. What they don't typically show is which person in the house actually flicked the switch. A new wearable technology developed at the University of Washington called MagnifiSense can sense what devices and vehicles the user interacts with throughout the day, which can help track that individual's carbon footprint, enable smart home applications or even assist with elder care. In a study to be presented this week at the ...

Irvine, Calif., Sept. 7, 2015 - Astronomers from the University of California, Irvine and Baltimore's Space Telescope Science Institute have generated the most accurate statistical description yet of faint, early galaxies as they existed in the universe 500 million years after the Big Bang. In a research paper published today in Nature Communications, the team describes its use of a new statistical method to analyze Hubble Space Telescope data captured during lengthy sky surveys. The method enabled the scientists to parse out signals from the noise in Hubble's deep-sky ...

Privately insured pregnant women are less likely to have C-sections when their regular care includes midwives and 24-hour obstetrician coverage, according to a study by researchers at UC San Francisco and Marin General Hospital. The study published online in Obstetrics & Gynecology, on Sept. 8, compared the number of C-sections among women with private insurance, before and after an overhaul of staff practices at Marin General Hospital. Prior to April 2011, private patients at this community hospital in Northern California were managed under a conventional model, in ...

BEER-SHEVA, Israel...September 9, 2015 -- Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) research demonstrates how Jewish mothers' emphasis on the many aspects of well being, fitness and a sense of self-fulfillment helps to counteract the innumerable "ideal" body images seen and heard by their daughters in the mass media. The new study published in Feminism and Psychology focuses on how Jewish mothers instilled resilience in their daughters to combat body dissatisfaction, which can lead to eating disorders. It included 20 pairs of mothers and adult-age daughters and eight other ...