BATON ROUGE - LSU Psychology Professor Megan H. Papesh was part of a research team whose study appeared in the online-first edition of the Journal of Neuroscience on Wednesday, April 1. The research, jointly conducted by scientists from the Barrow Neurological Institute and Arizona State University, involves recording single-neuron activity in the brains of epilepsy patients who require electrodes implanted to monitor seizures. With the electrodes in place, processes such as perception and memory can be studied at the level of individual neurons. The research focused ...

As man-made threats to coral reefs mount and interest in conserving reef ecosystems grows, scientists have turned to studying extremely remote and uninhabited reefs in an effort to understand what coral reefs would be like in the absence of humans. A number of islands and atolls in the Pacific Ocean remain virtually untouched by human influence, situated hundreds of kilometers from the nearest human populations. A study published today by scientists at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa (UHM) School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), the National ...

MADISON, Wis. - Clearing grasslands to make way for biofuels may seem counterproductive, but University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers show in a study today (April 2, 2015) that crops, including the corn and soy commonly used for biofuels, expanded onto 7 million acres of new land in the U.S. over a recent four-year period, replacing millions of acres of grasslands. The study -- from UW-Madison graduate student Tyler Lark, geography Professor Holly Gibbs, and postdoctoral researcher Meghan Salmon -- is published in the journal Environmental Research Letters and addresses ...

Use of a class of insecticides, called neonicotinoids, increased dramatically in the mid-2000s and was driven almost entirely by the use of corn and soybean seeds treated with the pesticides, according to researchers at Penn State. "Previous studies suggested that the percentage of corn acres treated with insecticides decreased during the 2000s, but once we took seed treatments into account we found the opposite pattern," said Margaret Douglas, graduate student in entomology. "Our results show that application of neonicotinoids to seed of corn and soybeans has driven ...

Delving into the world of the extremely small, researchers are exploring how biodegradable nanoparticles can precisely deliver anticancer drugs to attack neuroblastoma, an often-deadly children's cancer. By bringing together experts in pediatric oncology with experts in nanotechnology, researchers at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia aim to thread the needle of delivering effective doses of cancer-killing agents while avoiding toxicity in healthy tissues. The team's new research shows that this approach inhibits tumor growth and markedly prolongs survival in animal ...

DENVER - Exercise and physical activity should be considered as therapeutic options for lung cancer as they have been shown to reduce symptoms, increase exercise tolerance, improve quality of life, and potentially reduce length of hospital stay and complications following surgery for lung cancer. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States with an estimated 160,000 deaths each year and worldwide there are 1.4 million deaths. In the last two decades lung cancer therapy has improved, but the overall 5-year survival rate is still quite low at 17%. ...

A particular molecular pathway permits stem cells in pediatric bone cancers to grow rapidly and aggressively, according to researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and its Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center. In normal cell growth, the Hippo pathway, which controls organ size in animals, works as a dam, regulating cell proliferation. What the researchers found is that the transcription factor of a DNA binding protein called sex determining region Y box 2, or Sox2 for short, which normally maintains cell self-renewal, actually releases the floodgates in the Hippo ...

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. (April 2, 2015) - No home is perfect, but dysfunction in the home is now revealed to be especially dangerous for children at risk for asthma. A new study shows that children exposed to just one adverse childhood experience (ACE) had a 28 percent increased chance of developing asthma than those with no ACEs. The study, published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific publication of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), used data from the National Survey of Children's Health. The survey drew from ...

Globally, residential development is a leading driver of natural resource consumption, native species decline and fossil fuel emissions. Today, residential development covers one out of every four acres of the land in the United States, and is predicted to more than double by 2100. In many communities, local governments and planners are adopting sustainable development practices to address residential development impacts on human well-being and the environment. These sustainable development practices include considerations of a healthy environment, a robust economy, ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Unlike some conditions, heart failure must be managed by patients taking prescriptions for the rest of their lives. Individuals who do not take their heart medication as prescribed have increased risks of mortality and hospitalization and higher health care costs. Numerous interventions have been designed to increase patients' adherence to medications; yet, no research has determined what intervention techniques are most effective. Now, a University of Missouri researcher found that interventions to encourage patients to take their medications as prescribed ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue researchers have identified a new class of chemical insecticides that could provide a safer, more selective means of controlling mosquitoes that transmit key infectious diseases such as dengue, yellow fever and elephantiasis. Known as dopamine receptor antagonists, the chemicals beat out the neurotransmitter dopamine to lock into protein receptors that span the mosquito cell membrane. Disrupting the mechanics of dopamine - which plays important roles in cell signaling, movement, development and complex behaviors - eventually leads to the ...

The snow is almost gone in the northeast and that means baseball season cannot be far behind. Like most seasons, some teams look like they will continue to dominate their competition while others may spring some surprises. This is the 18th year that NJIT Mathematical Sciences Professor and Associate Dean Bruce Bukiet has published his model's projections of how the standings should look at the end of the regular season. Over the years, Bukiet has applied mathematical analysis to compute the number of regular season games each Major League Baseball team should win. Though ...

WASHINGTON - In the workplace, age matters - but hiring or promoting based on age-related mental abilities can be a minefield, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. Older executives bring valuable skills to the job, such as higher "crystallized intelligence," which includes verbal ability and knowledge born of experience, according to a study published in APA's Journal of Applied Psychology. But compared with their younger counterparts, older executives show marked declines in "fluid intelligence," which involves the ability to ...

WORCESTER, MA - A novel molecule designed by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the University of Virginia inhibits progression of a hard-to-treat form of recurring acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in patient tissue. The small molecule is one of the first designed to specifically target a cancer-causing transcription factor. Previously thought to be an undruggable target, this strategy may be used to design other novel molecules that can specifically inhibit cancer-causing transcription factors. Details of the work were published in Science. Transcription ...

The tobacco industry and regulatory authorities should support more relevant and less costly in vitro toxicology testing methods over unreliable animal testing, according to a review of research advances published this week in the comment pages of the peer-reviewed scientific journal Alternatives to Laboratory Animals The article by researchers from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) comes as the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee prepares to evaluate ...

Philadelphia, PA, April 1, 2015 - The rapid rise in popularity of energy drinks (EDs), particularly among adolescents (aged 10-19 years) and young adults, has serious implications for cardiac health. In an article published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, researchers focus on the pharmacology of EDs, adverse reactions to them, and how the marketing of these drinks as a means to relieve fatigue and improve physical and cognitive performance may be ignoring real dangers. An international research team led by Fabian Sanchis-Gomar, PhD, MD, of the Research Institute ...

While research shows that nearly all coral reef locations in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico will experience bleaching by mid-century, a new study showing in detail when and where bleaching will occur shows great variety in the timing and location of these harmful effects. The new research published today in Global Change Biology by NOAA scientists and colleagues provides the first fine-scale projections of coral bleaching, an important planning tool for managers. "Our new local-scale projections will help resource managers better understand and plan for the effects ...

A new genomic analysis of tissue from patients with prostate cancer has added more evidence that cells within metastases from such tumors can migrate to other body parts and form new sites of spread on their own. Results of the analysis undermine anew long-held beliefs that cells with metastatic potential originate solely from the original or primary site of a cancer, according to the scientists who performed the study. "The idea that metastatic tumors can seed and establish other metastatic tumors in patients is different from traditional theories that the primary ...

As part of an effort to understand how an experimental drug for atherosclerosis causes the build-up of fat in the liver, scientists have developed a computer model that can predict how the rate at which liver stores fat in response to various situations. Being able to model liver fat storage gives researchers a way to predict the side effects of drugs and environmental factors at much earlier stages in the research and drug development process, possibly reducing the number of experiments involving animal models. Additionally, this computer simulation helps describe all ...

While testosterone replacement therapies may be controversial in males, new research in The FASEB Journal may extend this controversy to females too. That's because research involving mice, appearing in the April 2015 issue, suggests that there is an association between low levels of androgens (which includes testosterone), and atherosclerosis and obesity in females. "We hope that our study will contribute to intensified research efforts on the definition of androgen deficiency in women (e.g. which levels of androgens in the blood should be considered too low?), the ...

Jacksonville, Fla. (April 1, 2015) - Training pediatric primary care providers to screen and assess depression and suicide risk in adolescent patients improved providers' confidence and knowledge of these conditions and increased frequency of screenings for this critical patient population. The study, published in the May/June issue of Academic Pediatrics, demonstrates an effective tool for improving recognition of adolescent depression. "Adolescent depression is woefully underrecognized and undertreated," said Elise Fallucco, MD, a lead author of the study and child ...

The name sounds like something Marvin the Martian might have built, but the "nanomechanical plasmonic phase modulator" is not a doomsday device. Developed by a team of government and university researchers, including physicists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the innovation harnesses tiny electron waves called plasmons. It's a step towards enabling computers to process information hundreds of times faster than today's machines. Computers currently shuttle information around using electricity traveling down nanoscale metal wires. Although ...

Annapolis, Md -- New research published today in Nature Communications provides insight into how large-scale deforestation could impact global food production by triggering changes in local climate. In the study, researchers from the United States and China zero in on albedo (the amount of the sun's radiation reflected from Earth's surface) and evapotranspiration (the transport of water into the atmosphere from soil, vegetation, and other surfaces) as the primary drivers of changes in local temperature. The research is the first global analysis of the effects of forest ...

If you want the benefits of medical marijuana without the "unwanted side effects" of cannabis, new research should leave you on a high note. According to a research report appearing in the April 2015 issue of The FASEB Journal, fenofibrate, also known by the brand name Tricor®, may benefit a wide range of health issues, such as pain, appetite stimulation, nausea, as well as immune and various psychiatric and neurological conditions. This suggests that fenofibrate may be the starting point for a new class of cannabis-like drugs to treat these types of conditions. "By ...

The Pacific Northwest is dotted by small, low-lying, coastal cities where populations tend to cluster. These communities can be isolated and are susceptible to devastation from major storms that bring substantial wind, waves and storm surge. With climate change, it is anticipated that storms will only become more frequent and intense, signifying a need to understand how the areas will be affected. David Hill, a researcher at Oregon State University, is focused on the hydrology and hydrodynamics in coastal areas, which represent the boundary between terrestrial and marine ...