Is it worth having birds in the city? If you live in Seattle or Berlin, the answer is yes, to the tune of $120 million and $70 million a year for each city, respectively. A new study published last month in the journal Urban Ecosystems tries to determine what economic value residents in two comparable cities place on having birds in their backyards and parks. Researchers at the University of Washington and Humboldt State University compared two types of common birds - finches and corvids - in both cities, asking residents how much they would pay to conserve the species ...

This news release is available in French. The sudden closures of big-box stores like Future Shop and Target may make it seem like online shopping is killing real-world stores. But shoppers are actually engaging in "web-to-store" shopping -- buying offline after comparing prices online. New research from Concordia University's John Molson School of Business shows this consumer behaviour has important implications for retailers. When setting in-store prices or offering price-matching guarantees, offline retailers should focus more on online retailer ratings than on ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Identifying discrimination is a necessary first step toward confronting and ultimately eliminating the stain of prejudice, yet victims may be unlikely to recognize some types of discrimination unless they have higher self-esteem, according to the results of a new study by two University at Buffalo psychologists. The study's results highlight the density of the discrimination target's burden, faced first with bigotry and then with the onus of pointing out that behavior. Attributing personal fate to another person's prejudice, however, is not easy and significant ...

NEW YORK, NY (April 6, 2015) --A cellular defect that can impair the body's ability to handle high glucose levels and could point the way to a potential new treatment for diabetes has been identified by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers. The CUMC team found that ryanodine receptor type 2 (RyR2) calcium channels in insulin-producing cells play an important and previously underappreciated role in glucose balance. RyR2 channels control intracellular calcium release. When leaky, they were found to reduce insulin release from the pancreas, resulting in ...

MAYWOOD, IL - In 1993, neurologists Harold P. Adams Jr., MD, and Jose Biller, MD, and colleagues proposed a new way to classify strokes. It became known as the TOAST classification. Twenty-two years later, the TOAST classification remains an effective and easy-to-use system that is routinely employed in stroke studies around the world, Drs. Adams and Biller report in the journal Stroke, published online ahead of print. Dr. Adams is a professor of neurology and director of Cerebrovascular Disease at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. Dr. Biller is chair ...

Yes, while breastfeeding is the optimal first food for a baby, it's not as simple to say that it will protect all children from becoming obese. Recent studies show that factors such as whether a child's mother is obese, the quality of her milk and the socio-economic conditions a baby is born into also have an influence. This is according to Jessica Woo and Lisa Martin of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in the US, who reviewed relevant breastfeeding studies in Springer's journal Current Obesity Reports. Because it is notoriously difficult to treat obesity, ...

Conduction and thermal radiation are two ways in which heat is transferred from one object to another: Conduction is the process by which heat flows between objects in physical contact, such as a pot of tea on a hot stove, while thermal radiation describes heat flow across large distances, such as heat emitted by the sun. These two fundamental heat-transfer processes explain how energy moves across microscopic and macroscopic distances. But it's been difficult for researchers to ascertain how heat flows across intermediate gaps. Now researchers at MIT, the University ...

MISSOULA - University of Montana researchers have good news for endurance athletes hankering for a burger and fries after an intense workout: Dig in. In moderation, that is. A new study, recently published by the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, found there was no significant difference in glycogen recovery when cyclists ate fast food after a workout versus when they ingested traditional sports supplements such as Gatorade, Powerbar and Clif products. Brent Ruby, director of UM's Montana Center for Work Physiology and Exercise Metabolism, ...

Elder abuse is common, affecting an estimated 5%-10% of seniors; raising awareness among physicians is key to helping address the issue, according to a review in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Although there is little evidence on screening for elder abuse and effective interventions, there should not be inaction on the part of health care professionals. "Despite the lack of robust evidence to support recommendations, clinicians still need an approach to this relatively common problem," writes Dr. Xuyi Mimi Wang, a geriatric medicine fellow at McMaster ...

In rare cases, children can develop anaphylactic allergies to previously tolerated foods after receiving blood products via transfusion, report the authors of a case study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "It is very unusual to identify someone who experienced passive transfer of allergy from blood products," says Dr. Julia Upton, The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Toronto, Ontario. "Importantly, this condition has an excellent prognosis and typically resolves within a few months." Blood donors who have food allergies can transfer immunoglobulin ...

Although sexual dysfunction is not a specific symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), it is a frequent complaint among trauma survivors. The Journal of Sexual Medicine review finds that PTSD-related biological and cognitive processes may contribute to the development of sexual dysfunction following traumatic stress. The authors note that trauma exposure can profoundly rupture an individual's sense of safety and the ability to trust and feel connected to others. It may result in an association of arousal with threat. "It is clear that PTSD is associated with ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The gases used to knock out surgery patients are accumulating in the Earth's atmosphere, where they make a small contribution to climate change, report scientists who have detected the compounds as far afield as Antarctica. Over the past decade, concentrations of the anesthetics desflurane, isoflurane and sevoflurane have been rising globally, the new study finds. Like the well-known climate warmer carbon dioxide, anesthesia gases allow the atmosphere to store more energy from the Sun. But unlike carbon dioxide, the medical gases are extra potent in ...

In a recent study, females with eating disorders in late adolescence were more likely to have lower levels of educational attainment and personal income in early adulthood. They were also less likely to own a home. These associations were not seen in males. Disordered eating behaviors may set some individuals on a different trajectory whereby they do not have the same life chances or opportunities for success in adulthood. "Although the negative physical and mental health consequences of eating disorders have been well documented, much less is known about the adult ...

Sustainable rooftop technologies--including green roofs, white roofs, and solar photovoltaic panels--can provide great environmental benefits, but studies of these technologies often look only at their use in hot climates and do not assess their full environmental consequences. A new study that compares the technologies in the cold Canadian climate shows that photovoltaic panels demonstrate the highest environmental performance in all impact categories considered and is the preferred option from an environmental perspective. Green roofs result in fewer beneficial environmental ...

The number of gorillas and chimpanzees in Central Africa continues to decline due to hunting, habitat loss, and disease, combined with a widespread lack of law enforcement and corruption in the judicial process, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, Wildlife Conservation Society, WWF, and partners in a new conservation plan. A new report--titled "Regional Action Plan for the Conservation of Western Lowland Gorillas and Central Chimpanzees 2015-2025"--outlines the growing number of threats to these great apes across six range countries, including ...

Uninsured cancer patients are asked to pay anywhere from two to 43 times what Medicare would pay for chemotherapy drugs, according to a new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Researchers led by Stacie Dusetzina, an assistant professor in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy and the Gillings School of Global Public Health, reviewed newly available Medicare data on what physicians charged for chemotherapy drugs delivered intravenously in 2012. Uninsured patients who did not negotiate the billed amounts could expect to pay $6,711 for an infusion of ...

TAMPA, Fla. - Lung cancer is the second most common type of cancer and the number one cause of cancer-related mortality. It is estimated that more than 158,000 people will die from lung cancer in the United States this year. Many scientists believe that targeting a type of cell called a cancer stem cell may be necessary to completely cure lung cancer. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers discovered a novel mechanism that plays an important role in the maintenance of lung cancer stem cells. This finding may lead to new potential therapeutic targets. Cancer stem cells are ...

Among a sample of veterans in Connecticut, a substantial number had individuals listed as next of kin who were not nuclear family members, according to a study in the April 7 issue of JAMA. State default consent statutes do not universally recognize such persons as decision makers for incapacitated patients. For patients who lose capacity and have no legally appointed surrogate decision maker, most states have laws that specify a hierarchy of persons who may serve as surrogate decision makers by default. A patient's spouse is usually given priority, followed by adult ...

WASHINGTON D.C., April 7, 2015 - As we approach the miniaturization limits of conventional electronics, alternatives to silicon-based transistors--the building blocks of the multitude of electronic devices we've come to rely on--are being hotly pursued. Inspired by the way living organisms have evolved in nature to perform complex tasks with remarkable ease, a group of researchers from Durham University in the U.K. and the University of São Paulo-USP in Brazil is exploring similar "evolutionary" methods to create information processing devices. In the Journal of ...

PHILADELPHIA - In a study involving more than 31,000 women with cancer-causing mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, researchers at The Basser Center for BRCA, the Abramson Cancer Center, and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania identified mutations that are associated with significantly different risks of breast and ovarian cancers. Authors say the results - which show that some mutations confer higher risks of breast cancer, while other mutations show higher risks of ovarian cancer - may lead to more effective cancer risk assessment, care ...

Bodies found in a 200 year-old Hungarian crypt have revealed the secrets of how tuberculosis (TB) took hold in 18th century Europe, according to a research team led by the University of Warwick. A new study published in Nature Communications details how samples taken from naturally mummified bodies found in an 18th century crypt in the Dominican church of Vác in Hungary have yielded 14 tuberculosis genomes, suggesting that mixed infections were common when TB was at peak prevalence in Europe. The research team included collaborators from the Universities of Warwick ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- In the four years following the 2008 recession, the coal industry lost more than 49,000 jobs, while the natural gas, solar and wind industries together created nearly four times that amount, according to a new Duke University study. A county-by-county geographical analysis of the losses and gains shows that few new jobs were added in regions hardest hit by coal's decline, particularly counties in southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. "Our study shows it has not been a one-for-one replacement," said senior author Lincoln Pratson. "The counties ...

ROSEMONT, Ill.--A new study appearing in the April issue of The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery (JBJS), found that most patients who underwent surgery to repair and rebuild an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear, showed significant improvement in physical function at two years, which continued for at least six years following surgery. Younger patient age, lower body mass index (BMI), and having the remnants of the torn ACL completely excised during surgery, were among the strongest predictors of positive, long-term outcome. With over 200,000 incidents per year in the ...

It is well known that bumblebees and other pollinators can tell the difference between plants that will provide them with nectar and pollen and those that won't. However, until now little has been known about how the arrangement of flowers affects their decision making. Researchers from the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences at Queen Mary University of London, taught bumblebees to distinguish between two visually clearly different feeder types, one type containing food while the other did not. They found that bees were able to quickly learn the feeder types containing ...

A particular genetic mutation combined with an urban environment increases the risk of severe disease in children infected with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), an international team of investigators has found. RSV infects half of the infants in the world every year, and 1 percent to 2 percent of infected infants are hospitalized for severe disease. The study, reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, identifies a specific sub-population of children who are more likely to be hospitalized because of RSV infection, said Fernando Polack, M.D., Cesar Milstein ...