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 ...

Ann Arbor, MI, July 8, 2015 - Nearly 800,000 people in the U.S. suffer a stroke each year. Stroke is responsible for one out of every 19 deaths in the U.S. and it is a leading cause of disability. A new study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that secondhand smoke (SHS) increases the risk of stroke by about 30 percent for nonsmokers. Using data from the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study, a national, population-based, longitudinal study investigating cardiovascular disease events and mortality endpoints ...

New York, 9 July - Investing up to 3.5% of a nation's GDP in science, technology and innovation - including basic science and education - is a key benchmark for advancing sustainable development effectively, leading experts say. In papers released July 9 in New York, international scientists advising UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon say closing the gap between developed and developing countries depends on first closing international science, technology and innovation (STI) investment gaps. According to the UN SG's 26-member Scientific Advisory Board: "While a target ...

Scientific journals should insist on more robust experimental processes, say biologists after reviewing nearly 900,000 experiments. The team found that non-blind experiments - that is, where scientists knew which samples they were recording - averaged a 27 per cent stronger result than blind trials. However their review suggests that less than one in four experiments used blind data recording. "We found that non-blind papers tended to exaggerate differences between the experimental group and the control group," said lead researcher Dr Luke Holman, from the Research ...

Long-time smokers and past smokers now have a more accurate way of detecting whether or not they have lung cancer thanks to a comprehensive lung cancer screening program that uses CT scan technology at Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City. The program is based on the findings of the National Lung Screening Trial, a study that compared CT scans and standard chest X-rays in detecting lung cancer. CT scans use X-rays to obtain a multiple-image scan of the entire chest, while a standard chest X-ray produces a single image of the whole chest. Results from the study ...

An international team of researchers has discovered how legumes are able to tell helpful and harmful invading bacteria apart. The research has implications for improving the understanding of how other plants, animals and humans interact with bacteria in their environment and defend themselves against hostile infections. These findings can have profound implications for both agricultural research and medical science. Their study, which changes the understanding of carbohydrates as signal molecules, is newly published in the leading international journal Nature. Legumes ...

ORLANDO, FL - An athlete's use of silicone ankle sleeves (SAS) and lace-up ankle braces (LAB) during sports participation can improve neuromuscular control, according to research presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL. "Athletes often use prophylactic sleeves or braces, and this study used markerless motion analysis to determine whether these support aids are beneficial," said lead author Seth L. Sherman, MD, from the University of Missouri - Columbia Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. The study ...

ORLANDO, FL - Surgeons making reconstruction choices for an injured ACL can consider both bone-tendon-bone grafts and hamstring autografts as equally viable options in regards to healing, as reported in research today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL. "We compared the graft-tunnel motion of patients receiving either kind of graft, and noted both groups had similar graft motion at six weeks and one year from surgery, both ranged between 1-2 mm," commented Justin W. Arner, MD, from the University of Pittsburgh ...

A new study by UCLA scientists adds to the understanding of the genetic architecture of schizophrenia. Past research has shown the impact of commonly occurring genetic variants on a person's risk of developing schizophrenia. This new study focused instead on rare coding mutations that affect protein function. It found that patients with schizophrenia have a higher-than-normal share of these mutations. "While we cannot point to specific mutations that play a causal role in schizophrenia, we show that schizophrenia patients collectively have more of these mutations than ...

More than a third of overweight or obese teenagers don't see themselves as being too heavy and think their weight is about right, according to a Cancer Research UK study published today in the International Journal of Obesity. The study* used data from around 5,000 13-15-year-olds who were asked about their weight and if they thought they were too heavy, about right or too light. Researchers then checked their answers against their Body Mass Index (BMI)** -- to see whether the reality matched the teenagers' perceptions of themselves. Almost three-quarters (73 per ...

Public attitudes towards mental illness and levels of healthcare spending may explain the huge variation in antidepressant use across Europe, according to a new study by researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King's College London. The study, published today in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found that antidepressants were prescribed more often and used more regularly in countries with higher levels of healthcare spending. In addition, beliefs that people with a mental illness are 'dangerous' were associated with higher ...

The UK government's investments in private hospital chains in developing countries, in the form of 'beyond aid' approaches, could actually be hindering inclusive development and need greater scrutiny, argue experts in The BMJ this week. 'Beyond aid' policies aim to address underlying causes of poverty, and focus on the use of loans and equity investments to support the growth of private companies. As part of this strategy, tens of millions of pounds have been committed by the Department for International Development's investment arm, CDC Group, to private hospitals and ...

CHICAGO --- A phase II clinical trial led by Northwestern Medicine investigators shows that a new psoriasis drug called guselkumab has greater efficacy than the current standard of care for the chronic skin condition. In the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, investigators compared guselkumab to adalimumab, the most common medication currently used to treat psoriasis. "Research like this study is leading to a series of new medications that promise high levels of response for an increasing number of patients," said first author Kenneth Gordon, ...

The cost of having a baby can vary by almost $10,000 depending on which hospital is chosen, Yale School of Medicine researchers have found in a study published in the July issue of the journal Health Affairs. Childbirth is the leading cause of hospital admission in the United States, but there has been little research on the cost of delivery in hospitals across the country. To seek some answers, the Yale research team, led by Xiao Xu, assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at Yale School of Medicine, studied data from the ...

MIAMI - New research on tropical coral reef ecosystems showed that releasing larvae more often is beneficial for a species' network. The study on reproductive strategies is critical to assess the conservation of coral reef ecosystems worldwide. Researchers from the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science used a computer model developed by UM Rosenstiel School scientist Claire Paris, known as the Connectivity Modeling System to track larval movements of three distinct reef species - the Carribean sea plume (Anthiellogorgia elisebeathae), ...

Cancer cells defy the rules by which normal cells abide. They can divide without cease, invade distant tissues and consume glucose at abnormal rates. Now a study by University of Pennsylvania researchers implicates defects in mitochondria, the energy-production centers of cells, as playing a key role in the transition from normal to cancerous. When the Penn scientists disrupted a key component of mitochondria, otherwise normal cells took on characteristics of cancerous tumor cells. The research is published in the journal Oncogene and was led by members of the lab of ...

Boulder, Colo., USA - Submarine landslides, also known as mass transport deposits (MTDs), are common in marine environments and pose risks to coastal communities and offshore infrastructure. This new 332-point database presented by Lorena Moscardelli and Lesli Wood is drawn from studies of multiple MTDs around the world. Understanding these MTDS, they write, will help determine the extent of ancient submarine landslides and contribute to the development geo-models for forecasting future submarine slides. FEATURED ARTICLE Morphometry of mass transport deposits as a predictive ...