(Philadelphia, PA) - The buildup of fat in the blood makes a bad situation worse - it not only raises a person's risk for heart attack or stroke but also impairs the growth of new blood vessels. How excess fat in the blood - a condition known as hyperlipidemia - blocks vessel growth was unclear, but new work by researchers at Temple University School of Medicine (TUSM) shows that a molecule known as caspase-1 plays a central role and that preventing its activity could be the key to building new blood vessels and restoring blood supply to oxygen-starved tissues. "Caspase-1 ...

NOAA and its research partners, using an ensemble modeling approach, predict that the 2015 western Lake Erie harmful algal bloom season will be among the most severe in recent years and could become the second most severe behind the record-setting 2011 bloom. The effects of the cyanobacterial blooms include a higher cost for cities and local governments to treat their drinking water, as well as risk to swimmers in high concentration areas, and a nuisance to boaters when blooms form. These effects will vary in locations and severity with winds, and will peak in September. The ...

A group of preschoolers were given one shot to beat the world's fastest builder of block towers. Unbeknownst to the children, it had already been decided who would capture the victory and who would see it slip away. The losers shook it off without it ruining their mood. The winners - even the two-year-olds - showed some obvious swagger: heads held high, chests puffed out, hands on hips in a victorious power pose. But here's the thing - children show emotions much younger than they understand them. That's why the psychologists who staged the contest asked the ...

Research with human tissue and cells suggests that genetic variations, in addition to failure to comply with treatment regimens, may account for some failures of an anti-HIV drug to treat and prevent HIV infection. In a report described online today in the journal EBioMedicine, investigators at Johns Hopkins found that tenofovir, marketed as Viread, is processed differently according to cell location, so that if the drug is eventually marketed as a topical gel, it could work differently depending on whether it is applied to the vagina or the rectum. Tenofovir has been ...

This news release is available in French. Montreal, July 9, 2015 -- Death rates due to health problems like obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease are on the rise. According to the World Health Organization, that's due to our increasingly sedentary lifestyles. Clearly, it's important to lead more active lives. Something as simple as taking the stairs can make a big difference. But can pedestrians be convinced to make healthy choices when an escalator seems so much faster and more convenient than a staircase? Yes, say researchers from Concordia ...

Around 85% of the matter in the Universe is dark [1], and of a type not understood by physicists. Although it doesn't shine or absorb light, astronomers can detect this dark matter through its effect on stars and galaxies, specifically from its gravitational pull. A major project using ESO's powerful survey telescopes is now showing more clearly than ever before the relationships between this mysterious dark matter and the shining galaxies that we can observe directly [2]. The project, known as the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS - http://kids.strw.leidenuniv.nl/), uses imaging ...

Childhood high blood pressure (HBP) is a serious public health challenge worldwide due to associated increases in risk of end organ damages and correlation with HBP in adulthood. The prevalence of elevated blood pressure (BP) has been reported to increase significantly among United States children and adolescents from 1988-1994 to 1999-2008, but little is known about recent trends in BP values and elevated BP. The authors of a new study, "Trends in elevated blood pressure among US children and adolescents: 1999-2012," published today by the American Journal of Hypertension, ...

ANN ARBOR--University of Michigan researchers and their colleagues predict that the 2015 western Lake Erie harmful algal bloom season will be among the most severe in recent years and could become the second-most severe behind the record-setting 2011 bloom. The 2015 seasonal forecast uses models that translate spring nutrient loading into predicted algal blooms in the Western Basin of Lake Erie. After a relatively dry April and May, the heavy rains in June produced record discharge and nutrient loadings from the Maumee River, which runs through Toledo and northeastern ...

This news release is available in German. Graphene, the only one atom thick carbon network, achieved overnight fame with the 2010 Nobel Prize. But now comes competition: Such layers can also be formed by black phosphorous. Chemists at the Technische Universität München (TUM) have now developed a semiconducting material in which individual phosphorus atoms are replaced by arsenic. In a collaborative international effort, American colleagues have built the first field-effect transistors from the new material. For many decades silicon has formed the ...

Chicago - Although opioids are frequently prescribed to treat chronic lower back pain, new research suggests these powerful medications may be less effective in some patients. A study published in the Online First edition of Anesthesiology, the official medical journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists® (ASA®), found patients who were prescribed opioids to treat chronic lower back pain experienced significantly less pain relief and were more likely to abuse their medication when they had psychiatric disorders such as depression or anxiety. "High levels ...

Neuroscientists at Duke University have introduced a new paradigm for brain-machine interfaces that investigates the physiological properties and adaptability of brain circuits, and how the brains of two or more animals can work together to complete simple tasks. These brain networks, or Brainets, are described in two articles to be published in the July 9, 2015, issue of Scientific Reports. In separate experiments reported in the journal, the brains of monkeys and the brains of rats are linked, allowing the animals to exchange sensory and motor information in real time ...

The human eye is an amazing instrument and can accurately distinguish between the tiniest, most subtle differences in color. Where human vision excels in one area, it seems to fall short in others, such as perceiving minuscule details because of the natural limitations of human optics. In a paper published today in The Optical Society's new, high-impact journal Optica, a research team from the University of Stuttgart, Germany and the University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland, has harnessed the human eye's color-sensing strengths to give the eye the ability to ...

UBC research shows world's monitored seabird populations have dropped 70 per cent since the 1950s, a stark indication that marine ecosystems are not doing well. Michelle Paleczny, a UBC master's student and researcher with the Sea Around Us project, and co-authors compiled information on more than 500 seabird populations from around the world, representing 19 per cent of the global seabird population. They found overall populations had declined by 69.6 per cent, equivalent to a loss of about 230 million birds in 60 years. "Seabirds are particularly good indicators of ...

Chemotherapy treatment usually involves the patient receiving medicine through an intravenous catheter. These catheters, as well as the the equipment attached to them, are treated with a silver coating which is antibacterial, preventing bacterial growth and unwanted infections during a treatment. Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU) Department of Physics are now studying what happens when different drugs come in contact with this silver coating. Silver breaks down chemotherapy drugs "We wanted to find potential problem sources ...

This news release is available in German. Although global concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has continuously increased over the past decade, the mean global surface temperature has not followed the same path. A team of international reseachers, KIT scientists among them, have now found an explanation for this slowing down in global warming: the incoming solar radiation in the years 2008-2011 was twice as much reflected by volcanic aerosol particles in the lowest part of the stratosphere than previously thought. The team presents their study ...

In a recent article in Nature, Keith Shepherd and the Land Health Decisions team at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), together with their external partners, propose a radically new method to the SDG community that would answer these questions. They call on the United Nations and private sector to dispense with the highly criticized target setting approach and adopt the new method of decision analysis. The target setting approach is widely seen as ineffective or counter-productive. Targeting emphasizes meeting a 'target' rather than learning how to improve performance ...

The quality of waters can be assessed using of the organisms occurring therein. This approach often results in errors, because many species look alike. Therefore, new methods focus on DNA analyses instead. Biologists at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) have optimised the process so that they are now able to identify many organisms at once in a quick and reliable manner using short DNA sequences. The results have been published in the PLOS ONE magazine. Expert knowledge for species identification threatens to disappear Industry, agriculture and human settlement ...

Researchers at the University of Liverpool's Institute of Infection and Global Health (IGH) have discovered a common cause of heart damage in patients with sepsis. Sepsis is the most common cause of death in hospitalised critically ill people and affects up to 18 million people world-wide annually. The electrical and mechanical malfunctions of the heart have been poorly understood in sepsis, with underdeveloped clinical management strategies, as a consequence. This new discovery, however, promises to benefit a high number of patients with heart failure or rhythm ...

Since 1994, researchers at Case Western Reserve University have studied mothers--some who used cocaine while pregnant and others who did not--to understand how the drug affected their children's cognitive and social development. Their latest findings suggest a link between prenatal cocaine exposure and an adolescent's likelihood to have sexual intercourse before age 15. Teens who were prenatally cocaine exposed (PCE) were 2.2 times more likely to engage in sexual intercourse before age 15 than those who weren't, yet how PCE affects early sexual behavior may differ ...

This news release is available in German. Some pollinators not only provide fertilization services for flowering plants, they also lay their eggs on the plants' leaves after they have visited the flowers. Voracious caterpillars hatch from these eggs and their enormous appetite can easily kill the plants. So when plants advertise for pollinators they frequently also attract herbivores. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, demonstrated in field trials that the flowers of the coyote tobacco Nicotiana attenuata are able ...

AMES, Iowa - Developing any habit--good or bad--starts with a routine, and exercise is no exception. The trick is making exercise a habit that is hard to break. According to a new Iowa State University study, that may be easier to accomplish by focusing on cues that make going for a run or to the gym automatic. Some interventions designed to help people start and continue exercising may focus on the execution habit, or an exact routine to follow at the gym, said Alison Phillips, an assistant professor of psychology at Iowa State. However, Phillips' research, published ...

MANHATTAN, Kansas -- A new study led by a Kansas State University geneticist has shown that genomic signatures of adaptation in crop plants can help predict how crop varieties respond to stress from their environments. It is the first study to document that these genomic signatures of adaptation can help identify plants that will do well under certain stresses, such drought or toxic soils, said Geoff Morris, assistant professor of agronomy at Kansas State University and a researcher affiliated with the university's Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Collaborative Research ...

Since their first discovery a generation ago, it has been recognized that hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the deep dark oceans represented unique habitats for exotic forms of life previously unknown to science. But what has gone quite overlooked, until now, is the role that these "rare, exotic" systems might play in regulating the global-scale chemistry of the oceans and, hence, the health and productivity of our planet as a whole. A new study by researchers from University of Washington (UW), Old Dominion University (ODU), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), ...

Strategies to support healthier diets among seniors need to take into account differences between elderly men and women, according to UBC research. The two groups had varying responses to a tactic thought to boost seniors' fruit and vegetable intake, according to a study published in Appetite. The study explored which types of social support encouraged seniors to boost their daily intake of fruits and vegetables. Social support, typically provided by friends and family, comes in different forms. It ranges from emotional support, which bolsters one's sense of self, ...

One of the most important things to understand in battery technology is the precise physical and chemical processes that occur at the electrode/electrolyte interface. However, microscopic understanding of these processes is quite limited due to a lack of suitable probing techniques. Now, researchers at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a new technique that enables sensitive and specific detection of molecules at the electrode/electrolyte interface. This new ...