New York - An immensely powerful yet invisible force pulls water from the earth to the top of the tallest redwood and delivers snow to the tops of the Himalayas. Yet despite the power of evaporating water, its potential to propel self-sufficient devices or produce electricity has remained largely untapped -- until now. In the June 16 online issue of Nature Communications, Columbia University scientists report the development of two novel devices that derive power directly from evaporation - a floating, piston-driven engine that generates electricity causing a light to ...

The urban mosquito that carries the dengue fever virus is hitching rides on river boats connecting the Amazonian town of Iquitos, Peru, with rural areas. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases published a study by disease ecologists at Emory University, showing how the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is normally associated with urban areas, is tapping human transportation networks to expand its range. "The majority of large barges we surveyed were heavily infested," says Sarah Anne Guagliardo, who led the study as a PhD student in the lab of Uriel Kitron, chair of Emory's Department ...

Plants are a ubiquitous and essential part of our lives. Estimates suggest there are hundreds of thousands of plant species known to science. How many species are there, really? How are they related? How many are threatened with extinction? Answering these questions in such an enormous clade of life is an important but daunting task for scientists. Modern molecular techniques and, in particular, next-generation sequencing provide a powerful tool set to begin uncovering these answers. DNA regions can quickly be obtained and compared across species to infer relationships ...

This news release is available in German. They are thin, light-weight, flexible and can be produced cost- and energy-efficiently: printed microelectronic components made of synthetics. Flexible displays and touch screens, glowing films, RFID tags and solar cells represent a future market. In the context of an international cooperation project, physicists at the Technische Universität München (TUM) have now observed the creation of razor thin polymer electrodes during the printing process and successfully improved the electrical properties of the printed ...

This news release is available in French. A multidisciplinary group of researchers from British Columbia has developed a participatory action research program to help address healthy body weight in children. The SCOPE (Sustainable Childhood Obesity Prevention through Community Engagement) program has a simple message and was developed to engage communities to take action to prevent childhood obesity. The first phase of the SCOPE program was funded by Child Health BC, an initiative of BC Children's Hospital, and was carried out in communities in British Columbia. The ...

Alexandria, VA - From the tiny microcosms of atomic theory and futuristic colonies on Mars to dinosaurs walking the Earth, science illustrators translate scientific findings and theories into something lifelike, accurate and aesthetically pleasing. The July cover story from EARTH Magazine, "Science Illustrators: Making the Invisible Visible," takes readers on a behind-the-scenes of how illustrators transform a scientific concept into an informed work of art. Scientific illustrating is informed as much by researching the scientific literature as it is by the imagination. ...

COLUMBUS, OHIO - Imagine getting a sudden boost in status at work that changes you from a largely ignored worker to someone that others turn to for advice and help. Sounds great, doesn't it? But a new study finds that an unanticipated gain in status can come with some negative baggage - if you did not earn the boost. Researchers studied American employees of a Japanese firm who didn't enjoy particularly high status with the company - until it adopted English as its official language. Then, all of a sudden, Japanese employees who didn't speak English had to rely a ...

Preschoolers with oppositional defiant behavior are more likely to have shorter telomeres, a hallmark of cellular aging, which in adults is associated with increased risk for chronic diseases and conditions like diabetes, obesity and cancer. This phenomenon was uncovered by UCSF researchers, who also identified maternal clinical depression as an independent predictor for shortened telomeres in young children, according to a study published on Tuesday in the journal Translational Psychiatry. Likened to the plastic tips of shoelaces, telomeres cap the ends of chromosomes ...

Up to 80 percent of individuals with a past history of depression will get depressed again in the future. However, little is known about the specific factors that put these people at risk. New research suggests that it may be due to the things you pay attention to in your life. Researchers at Binghamton University recruited 160 women -- 60 with a past history of depression, 100 with no history of depression. They showed each woman a series of two faces, one with a neutral expression and the other with either an angry, sad or happy expression. Using eye-tracking, they ...

WASHINGTON - While the U.S. inland waterways system covers a vast geographic area, its freight traffic is highly concentrated, and the system needs a sustainable and well-executed plan for maintaining system reliability and performance to ensure that its limited resources are directed where they are most essential, says a new report from the National Research Council's Transportation Research Board. More targeted operations and maintenance (O&M) investments informed by an asset management approach would prioritize locks and facilities that are most in need of maintenance ...

Although most citizens tend to believe that big business owns Washington D.C., a team of researchers suggests that business may have a less dominant and more complicated relationship with government than previously thought. In a study of randomly selected federal policy decisions between 1998 and 2002, the researchers found that when citizen interest groups and other competitors opposed businesses on policies, businesses had roughly an equal chance of success as the citizen group. When the researchers examined a shorter time period, businesses were only successful about ...

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have located a new - and likely more promising, they say - target for a potential vaccine against malaria, a mosquito-borne illness that kills as many as 750,000 people each year. The findings, published June 15 in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, detail how the researchers created a 3-D crystal structure of the protein believed central to the transmission of the malaria parasite through mosquitoes. In looking anew at the AnAPN1 protein, an enzyme in the gut of the Anopheles mosquito, ...

Cancer and type 2 diabetes are two of the most significant public health burdens facing the world today, and currently available data suggests their prevalence is expected to continue to increase. Nut consumption has long been hypothesized to have a role in preventing both of these diseases, but until now evidence has been inconsistent. A new systematic review and meta-analysis published in Nutrition Reviews on June 16 shows that nut consumption is, indeed, associated with a decreased risk of certain types of cancer, but not type 2 diabetes. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic ...

This news release is available in French. Quebec City, June 16, 2015--People whose chromosomes contain the DNA of the roseola virus are three times more likely to suffer from angina, according to a new study by researchers from the Université Laval Faculty of Medicine, the CHU de Québec Research Center-Université Laval, and the University of Washington. Details of this finding are published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Roseola, also known as "sixth disease," is a very common childhood infection caused by ...

The SAMT project of the European Union will work together with leading industrial actors from the cement, oil, metal, water, waste and chemical industries and review the latest scientific developments within the field of sustainability assessment. In the first phase of the project, a total of 90 methods and tools were reviewed. In the second phase, the best performing methods and practices will be tested with real-life case studies. 'The industries can learn from each other by sharing information on their methods and tools to evaluate sustainability. The SAMT project ...

Protected forested areas in Brazil, Costa Rica, Indonesia and Thailand have prevented the release of more than 1,000 million additional tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, an economic service provided by nature worth at least $5 billion, according to new research by Georgia State University economist Paul Ferraro with alumnus Merlin M. Hanauer and colleagues. In an article published this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the authors use this finding to show how conservation research methodology is improved by joining its two distinct ...

A study conducted by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) has revealed the importance of single males in small, threatened populations. Results from a study of endangered New Zealand hihi birds (Notiomystis cincta), published this week in Evolutionary Applications, showed that bachelor males who don't hold breeding territories, known as 'floaters', could help maintain genetic diversity and decrease the likelihood of inbreeding by sneakily fathering chicks. These underestimated individuals are vital to the long-term survival of small populations, such as in the hihi, ...

Researchers of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in the Helmholtz Association, in collaboration with the National Heart Research Institute Singapore (NHRIS), have gained new insights into the regulation of disease-associated genes. They used a new technique that enables them to observe gene regulation at the level of protein production. They could thus capture more individual gene regulations than with traditional methods that only capture gene expression and transcription (Nature Communications, doi: 10.1038/ncomms8200)*. When a gene is read, ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University have created stretchable, transparent conductors that work because of the structures' "nano-accordion" design. The conductors could be used in a wide variety of applications, such as flexible electronics, stretchable displays or wearable sensors. "There are no conductive, transparent and stretchable materials in nature, so we had to create one," says Abhijeet Bagal, a Ph.D. student in mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State and lead author of a paper describing the work. "Our technique uses geometry to stretch ...

Researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University have discovered that suspended sediment damages fish gills and can increase the rate of disease in fish. "Suspended sediments result from flood plumes, coastal agricultural and industrial development and from dredging operations and are increasing in coastal waters worldwide," says study co-author, Dr Amelia Wenger. "Fish gills are in direct contact with their environment and are the first line of defence in the animal's immune response, which makes them the perfect place ...

University of Tokyo researchers have discovered the structure and transport properties of the "intermediate state" in lithium-ion batteries - key to understanding the mechanisms of charge and discharge in rechargeable batteries. These findings may help accelerate battery reaction speed and significantly shorten battery charging time. Although there is strong demand to minimize battery-charging time, the mechanisms of battery charge and discharge reactions have yet to be fully understood. While the existence of an "intermediate state" that accelerates battery charge and ...

Researchers have discovered that extreme exercise can cause intestinal bacteria to leak into the bloodstream, leading to blood poisoning. Experts at Monash University monitored people participating in a range of extreme endurance events, including 24-hour ultra-marathons and multi-stage ultra-marathons, run on consecutive days. "Blood samples taken before and after the events, compared with a control group, proved that exercise over a prolonged period of time causes the gut wall to change, allowing the naturally present bacteria, known as endotoxins, in the gut to ...

A promising type of vaccine designed to eradicate malaria by blocking parasite transmission could be a step closer, as a result of experts uncovering new information about the targeted protein. The international team of researchers co-led by Dr Natalie Borg from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Monash University, and Dr Rhoel Dinglasan from the Malaria Research Institute at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, USA, focused on a protein in the Anopheles mosquito midgut called AnAPN1. The research, published in the journal ...

Restricting teenagers from driving unsupervised at night, and introducing strict penalties and other licensing requirements, could reduce crashes significantly, according to research. Published in Health Affairs, the study by researchers from Monash University and Harvard Medical School, shows that driving laws that eliminate or deter unsupervised night driving by people younger than 18 achieve substantial reductions in car crashes. Car crashes are the leading cause of death among people aged 15-19 worldwide. In the US, where the study was based, teen drivers experience ...

This news release is available in German. Speech is produced in the human cerebral cortex. Brain waves associated with speech processes can be directly recorded with electrodes located on the surface of the cortex. It has now been shown for the first time that is possible to reconstruct basic units, words, and complete sentences of continuous speech from these brain waves and to generate the corresponding text. Researchers at KIT and Wadsworth Center, USA present their "Brain-to-Text" system in the scientific journal Frontiers in Neuroscience (doi: 10.3389/fnins.2015.00217). ...