This news release is available in Japanese. In the race to produce highly stretchable conductors, researchers have developed a new technique that aligns sheets of layered carbon nanotubes along stretched rubber cores, creating an extremely flexible conductive fiber. From pacemaker leads to flexible displays and batteries, there is a growing need for fibers that don't lose their conductivity upon repeated stretching, twisting or flexing. The challenge has been to create a conductive material that is highly elastic, but that maintains a high level of ...

Scientists have identified a critical function of what they believe to be schizophrenia's "Rosetta Stone" gene that could hold the key to decoding the function of all genes involved in the disease. The breakthrough has revealed a vulnerable period in the early stages of the brain's development that researchers hope can be targeted for future efforts in reversing schizophrenia. In a paper published today in the journal Science, neuroscientists from Cardiff University describe having uncovered the previously unknown influence of a gene in ensuring healthy brain development. The ...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Do you have gender "faultlines" in your organization? New research suggests that such fissures appear when gender differences solidify into cliques. And this tends to occur when members of one gender share other demographic traits and professional interests, such as age, job responsibilities and time served. For example, the men in one organization might be young techies, while the women might tend to be middle-aged marketers. Or vice versa. What's important is that several qualities align in addition to gender, creating a stronger sense of in-group ...

ANN ARBOR--A new University of Michigan study finds that teens using marijuana for medical reasons are 10 times more likely to say they are hooked on marijuana than youth who get marijuana illegally. The study is the first to report on a nationally representative sample of 4,394 high school seniors and their legal or illegal medical marijuana use as it relates to other drug use. In the study, 48 teens had medical marijuana cards, but 266 teens used medical marijuana without a card. Carol Boyd, the study's lead author and professor at the U-M School of Nursing, said ...

MADISON, Wis. -- University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers have developed a new approach to structuring the catalysts used in essential reactions in the chemical and energy fields. The advance offers a pathway for industries to wean themselves off of platinum, one of the scarcest metals in the earth's crust. In an effort to reduce the catalysis world's dependence on this highly reactive and versatile -- but also quite expensive -- metal, UW-Madison chemical engineering Professor Manos Mavrikakis and his collaborators have turned to the nanoscale structure of particles, ...

MADISON, Wis. -- If you have two working eyes, you are live streaming two images of the world into your brain. Your brain combines the two to produce a view of the world that appears as though you had a single eye -- like the Cyclops from Greek mythology. And that's a good thing, as the combination of the two images makes for a much more useful impression of the world. With one eye shut, catching a ball or parking a car become far more difficult. "If you're reaching out with your hand, you want to aim not at where things appear to be, but where they are," says Bas Rokers, ...

Everybody grieves the death of a loved one, and the process helps most mourners adjust to their loss. "Charlie Brown was right," said Christopher Layne, a psychologist and researcher at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. "There is good grief." But for some people, bereavement becomes a problem in itself, prolonging suffering and impairing functioning. For grieving children and adolescents persistent complex bereavement disorder can derail social and academic development at a time when children and adolescents need to master skills and form ...

PULLMAN, Wash.--Washington State University scientists have found that glyphosate, the main ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, does not accumulate in mother's breast milk. Michelle McGuire, an associate professor in the WSU School of Biological Sciences, is the lead researcher of the study, the first to have its results independently verified by an accredited, outside organization. Her findings, presented at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Conference on July 23 in Big Sky, Mont., show that glyphosate, the most used weed-killing chemical ...

Sometimes consumers might appreciate a pop-up ad that reflects the merchandise they were recently browsing online, and sometimes they just might decide to spike it and thereafter avoid the seller that placed the ad. Retailers can learn about this behavior in the September 2015 issue of the Journal of Retailing. In "The Importance of Trust for Personalized Online Advertising," Marketing Professors Alexander Bleier, of Boston College's Carroll School of Management, and Maik Eisenbeiss, of the University of Bremen, show how trust in a particular vendor affects the degree ...

When Tropical Depression 12W formed on the northeastern tip of the Philippines in the Luzon Region, NASA's Aqua satellite captured infrared data on the newborn storm. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured infrared data on Tropical Depression 12W. AIRS data showed some cloud top temperatures were as cold as -63F/-53C on July 23 at 5:17 UTC (1:17 a.m. EDT). Cloud top temperatures that cold have been shown to generate heavy rainfall. Tropical Depression 12W (TD12W) formed at 0900 UTC (5 a.m. EDT) on July 23 ...

Fairfax, Va., July 22, 2015 - The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) is concerned about proposed additional payment cuts to radiation therapy detailed in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) proposed Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS), released July 8, 2015, which will take effect on January 1, 2016. Freestanding centers estimate that the combined impact of the Medicare proposals would result in a five to seven percent reduction in payment for radiation oncology services at community-based centers, although the cuts will vary and could ...

Tropical Storm Felicia was born early on July 23 in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, over 400 miles southwest of Baja California's southern tip. NOAA's GOES-West satellite provided an infrared image of the newborn storm. Previously known as tropical low pressure area "System 99E," the storm finally developed after days of remaining unorganized. NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured an image of Tropical Storm Felicia on July 23, 2015 at 15:45 UTC (11:45 a.m. EDT). Satellite imagery shows that a curved band of thunderstorms are wrapping around the southern quadrant of the storm. The ...

Researchers in the Division of Hematology, Oncology and Blood & Marrow Transplantation at Children's Hospital Los Angeles have shown greatly improved outcomes in using stem cell transplantation to treat patients with a serious but very rare form of chronic blood cancer called juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML). Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) involves the transplantation of stem cells from a donor, which may be derived from bone marrow, peripheral blood or umbilical cord blood. The recipient's immune system is usually destroyed with radiation ...

Researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have accurately mapped out the movement of the devastating 7.8-magnitude Nepal earthquake that killed over 9,000 and injured over 23,000 people. Scientists have determined that the earthquake was a rupture consisting of three different stages. The study could help a rapidly growing region understand its future seismic risks. The Himalayan region is particularly prone to earthquakes and this study will serve as an important benchmark for understanding where future earthquakes may occur, especially ...

SEDE BOQER, Israel...July 23, 2015 - Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and University of Western Australia researchers have developed a new process to develop few-layer graphene for use in energy storage and other material applications that is faster, potentially scalable and surmounts some of the current graphene production limitations. Graphene is a thin atomic layer of graphite (used in pencils) with numerous properties that could be valuable in a variety of applications, including medicine, electronics and energy. Discovered only 11 years ago, graphene is one ...

The physical symptoms of weakness and fatigue from multiple sclerosis (MS) can rock a person's confidence and ability to engage in what he or she feels is important, from being a good parent and friend to taking up a hobby, according to Matthew Plow, assistant professor from Case Western Reserve University's Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing. To help people with MS maintain autonomy and independence, a team of researchers set out to determine what factors prevented individuals from undertaking and enjoying the activities they believe are most important to live fulfilling ...

Researchers at the University of Birmingham have made a breakthrough in understanding how mutated genes in leukaemia reprogram blood stem cells and send them spiralling out of control. The findings help to explain the early development of leukaemia, representing the essential first step to developing new treatments for patients based on these findings. A study, published in Cell Reports by Professors Peter Cockerill and Constanze Bonifer, investigated the role of one specific mutation in the FLT3 gene found in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). AML is diagnosed in ...

Researchers add a new twist to the more than century old biological principles of Mendelian inheritance - describing a small group of cells in pregnant mothers that promote genetic fitness and multi-generational reproductive health. Scientists at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center report their findings online July 23 in Cell. The study suggests a scientific basis for developing new therapies to promote reproductive health and prevent pregnancy complications like prematurity and stillbirth, according to Sing Sing Way, MD, PhD, senior author and pediatrician ...

When does aging really begin? Two Northwestern University scientists now have a molecular clue. In a study of the transparent roundworm C. elegans, they found that adult cells abruptly begin their downhill slide when an animal reaches reproductive maturity. A genetic switch starts the aging process by turning off cell stress responses that protect the cell by keeping important proteins folded and functional. The switch is thrown by germline stem cells in early adulthood, after the animal starts to reproduce, ensuring its line will live on. While the studies were conducted ...

Highly-social zebra finches learn foraging skills from their parents. However, new research has found that when juvenile finches are exposed to elevated stress hormones just after hatching, they will later switch strategies and learn only from unrelated adult birds - ignoring their parents' way of doing things and instead gaining foraging skills from the wider network of other adult finches. Researchers say that spikes in stress during early development may act as a cue that their parents are doing something wrong, triggering the young birds to switch their social learning ...

If you find yourself downing that extra piece of chocolate fudge cake even though you're not hungry, it might be the absence of a hormone in your brain that's causing you to overeat purely for pleasure. In a new Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School study published in Cell Reports, researchers found that when the hormone glucagon like peptide-1 (GLP-1) was reduced in the central nervous system of laboratory mice, they overate and consumed more high fat food. "The mice in which the GLP-1 deficiency was induced ate beyond the need for calories and showed an increase ...

A new study by researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine reveals a protein's critical - and previously unknown -- role in the development and progression of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a fast-growing and extremely difficult-to-treat blood cancer. The finding offers a novel target for better treating AML, and possibly other cancers, by cutting off the ability of tumors to access nearby cellular players that feed its growth. The study was published July 23 in Cell Stem Cell. "The work really focuses on trying to understand the dependence ...

Alexandria, VA - EARTH Magazine takes you to Le Mans, France, to cover how the World Endurance Competition (WEC) race series is transforming automotive efficiency in both high-performance racing and the commercial automotive industries. EARTH's latest feature explores the science behind efficiency upgrades used by three major racing competitors: Porsche, Audi and Toyota. Using physics and cutting-edge materials results in a "fascinating case study of how unbridled competition can produce unique, innovative and extraordinary solutions to engineering barriers once thought ...

CHAPEL HILL, NC (July 23, 2015) - For years, a crisis has been brewing in molecular biology. The problem is that antibodies--research tools used to identify key proteins at work in a cell--aren't always what they seem. Unreliable antibodies have led to numerous instances of false findings, failed experiments, and wasted money and samples. Enter the Histone Antibody Specificity Database, a newly launched online portal that lets scientists find the right antibodies for their research with a much higher degree of confidence than ever before. Rather than relying on the claims ...

It's well known that being socially connected promotes a person's overall and psychological health. A new study from the University of Rochester now shows that the quantity of social interactions a person has at 20--and the quality of social relationships that person has at age 30--can benefit her well-being later in life. People with poor social connections have been shown to be at an increased risk for early mortality. "In fact," said lead author Cheryl Carmichael, who conducted the research as a PhD candidate in psychology at the University of Rochester, "having ...