Each extra hour per day spent watching TV, using the internet or playing computer games during Year 10 is associated with poorer grades at GCSE at age 16, according to research from the University of Cambridge. In a study published today in the open access International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, researchers also found that pupils doing an extra hour of daily homework and reading performed significantly better than their peers. However, the level of physical activity had no effect on academic performance. The link between physical activity ...

Metabolic or bariatric surgery may be more effective than standard medical treatments for the long-term control of type 2 diabetes in obese patients, according to a new study by King's College London and the Universita Cattolica in Rome, Italy. The study, published in the Lancet, is the first to provide data on five-year outcomes of surgery from a randomized clinical trial specifically designed to compare this new approach against standard medical therapy for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. A number of studies have shown that bariatric or weight-loss surgery can result ...

Astronomers from the University of Cambridge have developed a new, highly accurate method of measuring the distances between stars, which could be used to measure the size of the galaxy, enabling greater understanding of how it evolved. Using a technique which searches out stellar 'twins', the researchers have been able to measure distances between stars with far greater precision than is possible using typical model-dependent methods. The technique could be a valuable complement to the Gaia satellite - which is creating a three-dimensional map of the sky over five years ...

Many doctors working in India's private hospitals are under pressure to carry out unnecessary tests and procedures to meet revenue targets, according to The BMJ this week. In a special report published today, Meera Kay, a journalist in Bangalore, asks what can be done about financial targets for doctors working in profit driven hospitals that lead to expensive but unnecessary tests and surgery that also come with risk of harm? According to Dr Gautam Mistry, a cardiologist in Kolkata, such unethical practices are widely known about in medical circles but public discourse ...

Among 51 military service members who experienced severe acute kidney injury during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, 88% of the injuries were due to blasts or projectiles. Twenty-two percent of the patients died within 60 days. Although still high, this mortality rate is significantly less than might be expected historically. The majority of survivors completely recovered their kidney function. Washington, DC (September 3, 2015) -- Acute kidney injury (AKI) leading to an abrupt or rapid decline in kidney function is a serious and increasingly prevalent condition. While ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Using a new technique to analyze 52 years of international conflict, researchers suggest that there may be no such thing as a "democratic peace." In addition, a model developed with this new technique was found to predict international conflict five and even ten years in the future better than any existing model. Democratic peace is the widely held theory that democracies are less likely to go to war against each other than countries with other types of government. In the new study, researchers found that economic trade relationships and participation ...

Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have documented the accuracy of three new tests for more rapidly diagnosing drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis (TB), which are much harder and more expensive to treat and which, experts say, represent a major threat to global public health. The study is published online in the current issue of PLOS ONE. "Our study shows that TB testing that once took two to three months can now be done in as little as a day," said co-author Richard Garfein, PhD, professor in the Division of Global Public Health ...

Earth's species are disappearing at an astonishing--and troubling--rate. As human activity continues to put pressure on ecosystems around the world, the rate of loss continues to climb. How we slow this devastating loss and protect the enormous number of species on Earth is of considerable importance, and debate. Unfortunately, it is not feasible to simply protect everything. Limited funds require conservation planners and policy makers to prioritize the preservation of specific regions and ecosystems. An often-used strategy is to identify areas of high species richness ...

September 3, 2015 - Men and women exposed in early gestation to the man-made Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33 in regions with extreme food shortages were 1.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in adulthood. In regions with severe famine there was a 1.3 fold rise in the odds of Type 2 diabetes, and there was no diabetes increase among individuals born in regions with no famine. Researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, the Komisarenko Institute of Endocrinology and Metabolism in Kiev, Ukraine, and the Cheboratev Institute of Gerontology ...

MADISON, Wis. -- "Gaydar" -- the purported ability to infer whether people are gay or straight based on their appearance -- seemed to get a scientific boost from a 2008 study that concluded people could accurately guess someone's sexual orientation based on photographs of their faces. In a new paper published in the Journal of Sex Research, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison challenge what they call "the gaydar myth." William Cox, an assistant scientist in the Department of Psychology and the lead author, says gaydar isn't accurate and is actually a harmful ...

The gut is an important reservoir for drug-resistant bacteria responsible for life-threatening hospital-acquired infections. A study in mice published on September 3rd in PLOS Pathogens reports that two of the most common antibiotic-resistant bacterial species circulating in hospitals occupy and effectively share the same location in the gut, and that they can be eliminated by fecal transplantation of a healthy gut microbiome. Eric Pamer, from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, USA, and colleagues, investigated the interactions between vancomycin-resistant ...

Much like birds fly in flocks to conserve energy, dolphins swim in pods to mate and find food, and colonies of ants create complex nests to protect their queens, immune cells engage in coordinated behavior to wipe out viruses like the flu. That's according to a new study published today in the journal Science by researchers at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. The findings reveal, for the first time, how immune cells work together to get to their final destination - the site of an injury or infection. The body is expansive and a virus or bacteria ...

WASHINGTON, DC (September 3, 2015)-- The District of Columbia's needle exchange program prevented 120 new cases of HIV infection and saved an estimated $44 million over just a two-year period, according to a first-of-a-kind study published today by researchers at the Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH) at the George Washington University. "Our study adds to the evidence that needle exchange programs not only work but are cost-effective investments in the battle against HIV," says Monica S. Ruiz, PhD, MPH, an assistant research professor in ...

Why are there not more lions when there's plenty of prey on the African savanna? A research team including two University of Guelph ecologists has discovered an unexpected pattern linking prey and predator species in diverse ecosystems worldwide. Integrative biology professors John Fryxell and Kevin McCann co-authored the paper, published today in Science. The team included researchers at McGill University, the University of British Columbia and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ont. Beyond lions and the gazelles they hunt on the African ...

This news release is available in Japanese. Regular exposure to bacteria particles and farm dust protects children from allergies because it blunts their inflammatory immune responses, a new mouse study suggests. The study implicates a particular anti-inflammatory enzyme, A20, in this protective effect. While aspects of how allergies develop remain unclear, scientists know they're driven not only by genes but also by environment. Homes with pets, as well as dairy farms - where children breathe dust containing higher doses of fungal particles, cowshed-derived bacteria ...

This news release is available in Japanese. Ecological communities around the world are richly varied, but a new study finds that many of these diverse communities follow an unexpected, yet consistent pattern: where prey are abundant, there are not proportionally more predators. Instead, as prey biomass increases, the ratio of predator-to-prey biomass decreases. This pattern was systematically identified across different areas, including grasslands, forests, lakes, and oceans, revealing an underlying structural organization of ecosystems. Pinpointing underlying ...

This news release is available in Japanese. Researchers have identified a mutation in plants that allows them to break down TNT, an explosive that has become highly prevalent in soil in the last century, particularly at manufacturing waste sites, mines, and military conflict zones. TNT, or 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, is a toxic and persistent environmental pollutant that accumulates in the roots of plants, inhibiting growth and development. The identification of a plant mechanism that not only evades the negative impacts of TNT, but breaks down this harmful substance could ...

This news release is available in Japanese. A special news edition, Science in Iran, looks closely at the scientific challenges and triumphs of a country that has faced international isolation in recent years. Following an exclusive interview about the Iran nuclear deal with Ali Akbar Salehi, president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Science International News Editor Richard Stone delves further into the state of Iran's scientific endeavors. Decades of economic sanctions have deprived Iranian scientists of critical scientific resources and collaboration. ...

Biologists at the University of York have taken an important step in making it possible to clean millions of hectares of land contaminated by explosives. A team from the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products (CNAP) in the University's Department of Biology has unravelled the mechanism of TNT toxicity in plants raising the possibility of a new approach to explosives remediation technology. TNT has become an extensive global pollutant over the last 100 years and there are mounting concerns over its toxicity to biological systems. The study, which is published in Science, ...

Researchers at VIB (a leading life sciences institute in Flanders, Belgium) and Ghent University have successfully established a causal relationship between exposure to so-called farm dust and protection against asthma and allergies. This breakthrough discovery is a major step forward towards the development of an asthma vaccine. The results of the research were published in the leading journal Science. It is commonly known that drinking raw cow's milk can provide protection against allergies. A 14-member research team, led by professors Bart Lambrecht and Hamida Hammad ...

Evidence from a new study published in PLOS Computational Biology by researchers from Brown University and led by Assistant Professor Thomas Serre suggests that when we analyze scenery we simply make the easiest judgments first, rather than following a priority order of categories. There are many ways we understand scenery. Is it navigable or obstructed? Natural or man-made? A face or not a face? In previous experiments, researchers have found that some categorization tasks seem special, in that they occur earlier than others, leading to a hypothesis that the brain has ...

Rodents huddle together when it is cold, they separate when it is warm, and at moderate temperatures they cycle between the warm center and the cold edges of the group. In a new study published in PLOS Computational Biology, Jonathan Glancy, Roderich Gross, Jim Stone and Stuart Wilson from the University of Sheffield found they could simulate huddling by assuming simply that touching individuals in turn brings their temperatures closer to an ideal body temperature. According to the model, these selfish individual behaviours improved the ability of the whole group to regulate ...

Why aren't there more lions? That was what puzzled McGill PhD student Ian Hatton, when he started looking at the proportion of predators to prey across dozens of parks in East and Southern Africa. In this case, the answer had nothing to do with isolated human hunters. The parks were teeming with potentially tasty treats for the lions. So one might imagine that the population of lions in each park would increase to match the available prey. Instead, what Hatton and the McGill-led team discovered was that, in a very systematic way, in crowded settings, prey reproduced less ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (September 3, 2015) - A protein known to play a role in transporting the molecular contents of normal cells into and out of various intracellular compartments can also turn such cells cancerous by stimulating a key growth-control pathway. By conducting a large-scale search for regulators of the signaling pathway known as PI3K/AKT, which promotes cell survival, growth, and proliferation--and which is highly active in cancer cells--researchers at Whitehead Institute and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have implicated the protein RAB35 in the oncogenic ...

For millions of years, the Pacific and North American plates have been sliding past -- and crashing into -- one another. This ongoing conflict creates uplift, the geological phenomenon that formed mountains along the west coast. A new analysis by UC Santa Barbara earth scientist Alex Simms demonstrates that the Pacific coastlines of North America are not uplifting as rapidly as previously thought. The results appear in the journal Geological Society of America Bulletin. "Current models overestimate uplift rates by an average of 40 percent," said Simms, an associate ...