Athens, Ga. - Lax state vaccination laws contribute to lower immunization rates and increased outbreaks of preventable diseases--like whooping cough and measles--according to a new study from the University of Georgia. Through their research, released in the August issue of the journal Health Affairs, study authors David Bradford and Anne Mandich found higher rates of pertussis, or whooping cough, in states that allowed philosophical exemptions and used a standardized exemption form. Vaccination exemption rates have increased drastically in the past 10 years, according ...

Ottawa, ON (5 August 2015) - Canadian Science Publishing and the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology are pleased to announce the release of a special edition of Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences in recognition of the Museum's thirtieth anniversary on September 25, 2015. The insatiable curiosity of the Royal Tyrrell Museum scientists has driven its research program for the past thirty years, and has positioned the Museum as a leader in furthering our understanding of the evolution of life on Earth. The Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, an NRC Research Press journal ...

In households with kids -- or grown-up klutzes -- a durable set of melamine plates and bowls is a must. But studies suggest that heat and acid can cause melamine from dinnerware to seep into food and potentially cause harmful health effects. Now scientists show that substituting stainless steel containers for melamine ones when serving hot food could reduce the amount of the substance in people's bodies. Their report appears in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology. In 2008, the health effects of acute melamine exposure became widely known when a scandal erupted ...

From "dragon's blood" to slippery elm root, coded and obscure ingredients of ancient recipes are getting a second look today not by Harry Potter fans, but by historians who want to experience science as it was practiced centuries ago. An article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, explores some of the intriguing discoveries these recent efforts have yielded and the unexpected questions they raise. Sarah Everts, a senior editor at C&EN, notes that most science historians had long derided alchemy as pseudo-science, ...

NEW YORK, NY, August 5, 2015 - A diet high in refined carbohydrates may lead to an increased risk for new-onset depression in postmenopausal women, according to a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The study by James Gangwisch, PhD and colleagues in the department of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) looked at the dietary glycemic index, glycemic load, types of carbohydrates consumed, and depression in data from more than 70,000 postmenopausal women who participated in the National Institutes of Health's Women's Health ...

Researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute have uncovered a link between the genomes of cells originating in the neural crest and development of tumors -- a discovery that could lead to new ways to diagnose and treat cancer. The new finding, recently published in Oncotarget, resolves why some cancer types share genomic and clinical features. The discovery may also lead to new ways to diagnose and treat brain cancer, such as gliomas, medulloblastomas, and neuroblastomas; and skin cancer, known as melanoma. More than 22,000 new cases of brain cancer and more ...

LAWRENCE -- We've all been there. Occasionally, in the midst of a conversation, our mind flashes blank, and it's impossible to conjure the word for a thing, place or person. We'll gesture with our hands and feel like we're on the verge of remembering. But the word won't come. It's a predicament language researchers dub the "tip of the tongue" state. "These states are interesting for a few reasons," said Michael Vitevitch, professor of psychology at the University of Kansas and investigator with KU's Life Span Institute. "They tell us how the language system is built ...

Here's the summary of a new research report appearing in the August 2015 issue of The FASEB Journal: Prolonged spaceflight may give you a nasty case of diarrhea. Specifically, when mice were subjected to simulated spaceflight conditions, the balance of bacteria and the function of immune cells in the gut changed, leading to increased bowel inflammation. "Our study provides useful insights on the cross-regulation of the mucosal immune system, epithelial barrier and commensal bacteria not only in humans in spaceflight or analog, but also in humans on earth that undergo ...

If you are watching what you eat, working out, and still not seeing improvements in your cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, etc., here's some hope. A new report appearing in the August 2015 issue of The FASEB Journal suggests that inflammation induced by deficiencies in vitamins and minerals might be the culprit. In this report, researchers show that - in some people - improvement results in many of the major markers of health when nutritional deficiencies are corrected. Some even lost weight without a change in their diet or levels of activity. "It is well known ...

Here's another reason to put the salt shaker down: New research in mice shows that diets high in sodium may be a novel risk factor in the development of multiple sclerosis (MS) by influencing immune cells that cause the disease. Although this research does implicate salt intake as a risk factor, it is important to note that dietary salt is likely just one of the many environmental factors contributing to this complex disease, and very much influenced by one's genetic background. This finding was published in the August 2015 issue of The FASEB Journal. "We hope to provide ...

Seven articles dealing with the conservation of monarch butterflies were published on August 5 in Annals of the Entomological Society of America. Along with this collection, there is a new paper from American Entomologist on the conservation of Karner blue butterflies (Lycaeides melissa samuelis), an endangered species with a one-inch wingspan, which are the focus of a cutting-edge recovery program in Wisconsin that has become a model for other recovery plans for imperiled species. As AESA editor-in-chief Lawrence E. Hurd, Ph.D., said of the collection: "This group of ...

Chicago, August 5, 2015 - Patients undergoing surgery for lung cancer may wait too long to receive treatment, and too many patients skip vital diagnostic steps that are needed to help determine the best possible treatment, according to study published in the August 2015 issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. Key points: Patients who undergo surgery for lung cancer often wait too long to receive treatment, and too many patients skip vital diagnostic steps that are needed to help determine the best possible treatment; Only 1 in 10 patients had the recommended combination ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass--One big problem faced by electrodes in rechargeable batteries, as they go through repeated cycles of charging and discharging, is that they must expand and shrink during each cycle -- sometimes doubling in volume, and then shrinking back. This can lead to repeated shedding and reformation of its "skin" layer that consumes lithium irreversibly, degrading the battery's performance over time. Now a team of researchers at MIT and Tsinghua University in China has found a novel way around that problem: creating an electrode made of nanoparticles with a solid ...

Many patients with bipolar disorder, a debilitating mental condition that can take a person from the sluggishness of severe depression to super-human energy levels, are often misdiagnosed as having major depressive disorder, or MDD. But now as an alternative to reliance on patient interviews, scientists are closing in on an objective test that could help clinicians distinguish between the two -- and provide better treatment. Their method appears in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research. For many reasons, bipolar disorder is commonly mistaken for MDD. One reason is that the ...

People ignore daily alcohol guidelines as they are deemed irrelevant to occasional drinkers Findings show drinkers prefer Canadian and Australian guidelines Research may be used to inform new policies in the future The Government's current alcohol guidelines are unrealistic and largely ignored because they have little relevance to people's drinking habits, according to a new report by the University of Sheffield's Alcohol Research Group (SARG) in collaboration with the University of Stirling. The study, which is the first of its kind, explored how drinkers make ...

Scientists at the University of York have shed new light on how humans process colour - revealing that we see things differently in winter compared with summer. The researchers examined how our colour perception changes between seasons and in particular how we process the colour known as unique yellow. Humans identify four unique hues - blue, green, yellow and red - that do not appear to contain mixtures of other colours. Unique yellow is particularly interesting to scientists as it is stable across large populations - everyone agrees what unique yellow looks like despite ...

Study suggests planetary rings have a universal particle distribution Study solves 'amazing' mathematical inverse cubes law of particle size distribution In a breakthrough study, an international team of scientists, including Professor Nikolai Brilliantov from the University of Leicester, has solved an age-old scientific riddle by discovering that planetary rings, such as those orbiting Saturn, have a universally similar particle distribution. The study, which is published in the academic journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), also suggests ...

Large-scale anonymised datasets from mobile phones can give a better picture of society than ever before available. Mobile phone use helps us understand social networks, mobility and human behaviour. A review article recently published in EPJ Data Science highlights the main contributions in the field of mobile phone datasets analysis in the past 15 years. Vincent Blondel from the Université Catholique de Louvain, in Belgium, and colleagues conclude, among other things, that predictions that the world would shrink into a small village have not completely materialised ...

Counties in the United States with more beautiful weather and scenery have lower rates of membership and affiliation with religious organizations, according to a Baylor University study. "Beautiful weather, mountains and waterfronts can serve as conduits to the sacred, just like traditional religious congregations," said lead author Todd W. Ferguson, a doctoral candidate in sociology in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences. But the research is not necessarily a measure of whether enjoying the great outdoors tempts people away from going to a place of worship on a lovely ...

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY'S HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS--Stories about corrupt CEOs raiding the corporate piggy bank would appear to be the best argument for shareholder protection laws known as "anti-self-dealing laws." But there's another bonus. A new study finds in countries with strong legislation to prevent fraudulent corporate behavior, banking crises have a less severe impact on firms and the economy in general. The study, "How the stock market can play this critical role is the subject of "Spare Tire? Stock Markets, Banking Crises, and Economic Recoveries," ...

Researchers have identified a protein produced by white blood cells that puts the brakes on muscle repair after injury. By removing the protein CD163 from mice, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine could boost muscle repair and recovery of blood flow after ischemic injury (damage caused by restriction of blood flow). The findings point to a target for potential treatments aimed at enhancing muscle regeneration. Muscle breakdown occurs in response to injury or inactivity -- during immobilization in a cast, for example -- and in several diseases such as diabetes ...

This news release is available in Portuguese and Spanish. A recently published special issue of the Journal of Heredity focuses on case studies of real-world applications of conservation genetics in Latin America, from nabbing parrot smugglers to exposing fraudulent fish sales. The discipline of conservation genetics - the use of genetic techniques to further goals of conserving and restoring biodiversity - has been growing for at least four decades. But only relatively recently have genetic techniques been used not just to understand conservation problems, ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (August 5, 2015) -- Women may now have yet another reason to quit smoking given the results of a new study that is being reported online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS). The Swedish study involving 25,474 women is the first to quantify the combined effects of smoking and age at menopause on overall mortality in terms of survival time by investigating the role of smoking as a possible effect modifier. A harmful association between younger age at menopause and overall mortality has already been documented. In ...

A new review highlights how an integrated pest management approach that utilizes a combination of chemical and nonchemical control options is the best strategy for getting rid of bed bug infestations; however, pest management professionals that are hired on a lowest bid basis are not likely to use such an approach. Efforts in multi-family settings are especially dependent on a collaborative community or building-wide effort involving residents, building staff, and pest control technicians. The review notes that to prevent reinfestation and reduce costs associated ...

Music is currently played in approximately 50% to 70% of surgical operations performed worldwide. In a new study of 20 operations conducted in the UK, repeated requests--for example, for a surgical instrument--were 5 times more likely to occur in surgeries with music than in those without. The findings suggest that music during surgery can lead to increased tensions due to frustration at ineffective communication. In addition, patient safety could potentially be affected due to miscommunication. "Our study shows that playing music in the operating theatre can run counter ...