To feed the world's growing population--expected to reach nine billion by the year 2050--we will have to find ways to produce more food on less farmland, without causing additional harm to the remaining natural habitat. A feature review, to be published on December 16th in the Cell Press journal Trends in Plant Science, points the way to intensifying agriculture sustainably by fixing weaknesses that have sprung up quite by accident in the process of traditional crop breeding over the course of thousands of years. Michael G. Palmgren of the University of Copenhagen and ...

New Haven, Conn. -- An analysis of the ongoing Ebola outbreak reveals that transmission of the virus occurs in social clusters, a finding that has ramifications for case reporting and the public health. Prior studies of Ebola transmission were based on models that assumed the spread of infection occurred between random pairs of individuals. However, because transmission of the virus happens most often in hospitals, households, and funeral settings, Yale researchers, and an international team of co-authors, investigated the possibility of clustered transmission, or spread ...

(SALT LAKE CITY)--In addition to incurring serious dental problems, memory loss and other physical and mental issues, methamphetamine users are three times more at risk for getting Parkinson's disease than non-illicit drug users, new research from the University of Utah and Intermountain Healthcare shows. The researchers also observed that women who use methamphetamine may be nearly five times more likely to get Parkinson's disease compared to women who don't use drugs. Although findings suggest the risk in women may be higher than that in men, additional studies are ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - Researchers have understood very little about how blood and lymphatic vessels form in the mammalian gut - until now. A new Cornell University study reports for the first time how arteries form to supply the looping embryonic gut with blood, and how these arteries guide development of the gut's lymphatic system. The study, published online Dec. 4 as the cover story of the journal Developmental Cell, provides a new avenue to explore treatments to prevent cancer metastasis and gut-specific lymphatic diseases. Lymphatic vessels are the main channels for spreading ...

WASHINGTON D.C., December 16, 2014 -- Although currently available diagnostic screening systems for breast cancer like X-ray computed tomography (CT) and mammography are effective at detecting early signs of tumors, they are far from perfect, subjecting patients to ionizing radiation and sometimes inflicting discomfort on women who are undergoing screening because of the compression of the breast that is required to produce diagnostically useful images. A better, cheaper, and safer way to look for the telltale signs of breast cancer may be with microwaves, said Neil ...

WASHINGTON D.C., December 16, 2014 -- What do you get when you wrap a thin sheet of the "wonder material" graphene around a novel multifunctional sulfur electrode that combines an energy storage unit and electron/ion transfer networks? An extremely promising electrode structure design for rechargeable lithium-sulfur batteries. Lithium-sulfur batteries are of great commercial interest because they boast theoretical specific energy densities considerably greater than those of their already-well-established cousin, lithium ion batteries. In the journal APL Materials, from ...

Analysts at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have used statistical analyses and detailed case studies to better understand why solar market policies in certain states are more successful. Their findings indicate that while no standard formula for solar implementation exists, a combination of foundational policies and localized strategies can increase solar photovoltaic (PV) installations in any state. In the report, "The Effect of State Policy Suites on the Development of Solar MarketsPDF," NREL researchers examined a variety of policy- ...

People who occupy the extreme ends of the political spectrum, whether liberal or conservative, may be less influenced by outside information on a simple estimation task than political moderates, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research, conducted by psychological scientists Mark J. Brandt and Anthony Evans of Tilburg University and Jarret T. Crawford of The College of New Jersey, suggests that because political extremists hold their own beliefs to be superior to the beliefs of others, ...

New Rochelle, NY, December 16, 2014-Consuming caffeinated or sugary drinks can affect the body's metabolism, causing changes in heart and respiratory rate and weight gain. The results of a new study exploring whether individuals respond differently to caffeinated drinks that do or do not contain sugar and to sugar alone are published in Journal of Caffeine Research: The International Multidisciplinary Journal of Caffeine Science, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Caffeine Research website ...

Eliminating health disparities between races is a goal of many groups and organizations, but a team of sociologists suggests that finding the reasons for the differences in the timing of black and white deaths may be trickier than once thought. Life expectancies for black people are shorter and more uncertain, on average, than to those of whites, according to Glenn Firebaugh, Roy C. Buck Professor of American Institutions and professor of sociology and demography, Penn State. A higher lifespan variability -- the variability in the ages at which people die -- among blacks ...

Unauthorized immigrants who previously have been removed from the United States are more than 2.5 times more likely to be rearrested after leaving jail, and are likely to be rearrested much more frequently than those who have never been removed, according to a new RAND Corporation study. The findings generally support strategies adopted by federal immigration authorities and some law enforcement agencies to focus their immigration enforcement efforts on immigrants who previously have been removed, who are viewed as posing a bigger criminal threat. Researchers studied ...

Unlike in mathematics, it is rare to have exact solutions to physics problems. "When they do present themselves, they are an opportunity to test the approximation schemes (algorithms) that are used to make progress in modern physics," said Michael Strickland, Ph.D., associate professor of physics at Kent State University. Strickland and four of his collaborators recently published an exact solution in the journal Physical Review Letters that applies to a wide array of physics contexts and will help researchers to better model galactic structure, supernova explosions ...

The genetic abnormality that drives the bone cancer Ewing sarcoma operates through two distinct processes - both activating genes that stimulate tumor growth and suppressing those that should keep cancer from developing. These findings by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators, published in the November issue of Cancer Cell, may lead to new therapies targeting these aberrant mechanisms. The second most common bone cancer in children and young adults, Ewing sarcoma is caused by a chromosomal translocation - switching of genetic segments between two different ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. - 'Tis the season of plenty of food and drink. While celebrating should be joyful, for some women, it's not. All the holiday temptations can add another layer to an already complicated biological process. It's well known that women undergo hormonal changes every month due to the menstrual cycle. These changes can cause women to eat more, which is a natural, biological occurrence. However, Michigan State University Foundation Professor Kelly Klump has found that the increased food intake causes some women to become much more preoccupied with their ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - In the fight against global warming, carbon capture - chemically trapping carbon dioxide before it releases into the atmosphere - is gaining momentum, but standard methods are plagued by toxicity, corrosiveness and inefficiency. Using a bag of chemistry tricks, Cornell materials scientists have invented low-toxicity, highly effective carbon-trapping "sponges" that could lead to increased use of the technology. A research team led by Emmanuel Giannelis, the Walter R. Read Professor of Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, has ...

HOUSTON -- (Dec. 16, 2014) -- In one of the most comprehensive laboratory studies of its kind, Rice University scientists traced the uptake and accumulation of quantum dot nanoparticles from water to plant roots, plant leaves and leaf-eating caterpillars. The study, one of the first to examine how nanoparticles move through human-relevant food chains, found that nanoparticle accumulation in both plants and animals varied significantly depending upon the type of surface coating applied to the particles. The research is available online in the American Chemical Society's ...

This news release is available in German. A research team at Bielefeld University has succeeded in teaching the only robot of its kind in the world how to walk. Its first steps have been recorded in a video. You can watch them in Bielefeld University's latest posting on 'research_tv'. The robot is called Hector, and its construction is modelled on a stick insect. Inspired by the insect, Hector has passive elastic joints and an ultralight exoskeleton. What makes it unique is that it is also equipped with a great number of sensors and it functions according to a biologically ...

DURHAM, N.C. - Duke University scientists have developed new forensic tracers to identify coal ash contamination in water and distinguish it from contamination coming from other sources. "These new tools can be used by federal and state regulatory agencies to monitor the environmental effects of coal ash and determine whether it has or hasn't impacted the environment," said Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment. "They can be used to trace the coal ash effluents to their source, even in watersheds where ...

Washington, D.C.--New work from Carnegie's Ivan Naumov and Russell Hemley delves into the chemistry underlying some surprising recent observations about hydrogen, and reveals remarkable parallels between hydrogen and graphene under extreme pressures. Their work is the cover story in the December issue of Accounts of Chemical Research. Hydrogen is the most-abundant element in the cosmos. With only a single electron per atom, it is deceptively simple. As a result, hydrogen has been a testing ground for theories of the chemical bond since the birth of quantum mechanics ...

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (12/16/2014)--A new study by an international team of researchers shows for the first time that people may inherit some of the intestinal bacteria that cause Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, collectively know as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The study, recently published in Genome Medicine, also confirmed that antibiotics could worsen the imbalance in the gut microbes. About 1.6 million Americans suffer from Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, according to the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America. Understanding the causes of these ...

AMHERST, Mass. - In a follow-up to her earlier studies of learning in infancy, developmental psychologist Lisa Scott and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are reporting that talking to babies in their first year, in particular naming things in their world, can help them make connections between what they see and hear, and these learning benefits can be seen as much as five years later. "Learning in infancy between the ages of six to nine months lays a foundation for learning later in childhood," Scott says. "Infants learn labels for people and things ...

WASHINGTON, DC--December 16, 2014--Using mathematical modeling, researchers at New York and Vanderbilt universities have shown that commensal bacteria that cause problems later in life most likely played a key role in stabilizing early human populations. The finding, published in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, offers an explanation as to why humans co-evolved with microbes that can cause or contribute to cancer, inflammation, and degenerative diseases of aging. The work sprung from a fundamental question in biology ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- In the first real-world trial of the impact of patient-controlled access to electronic medical records, almost half of the patients who participated withheld clinically sensitive information in their medical record from some or all of their health care providers. Should patients control who can see specific information in their electronic medical records? How much control should they have? Can doctors and other clinicians provide safe, high-quality care when a patient's preference may deny members of the medical team from seeing portions of the electronic ...

BALTIMORE, MD (Dec. 16, 2014)--With a unique, multi-faceted approach, researchers at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development (LIBD) have quantified the effect of previously unidentified anomalies in genetic expression that determine how the human brain develops from its earliest stages. Their work, published online December 15th in Nature Neuroscience, offers a novel technique for identifying biological markers in brain development that associate with risk for neurodevelopmental disorders such as schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Using state-of-the-art ...

The mortality of larval Pacific oysters in Northwest hatcheries has been linked to ocean acidification. Yet the rate of increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the decrease of pH in near-shore waters have been questioned as being severe enough to cause the die-offs. Now, a new study of Pacific oyster and Mediterranean mussel larvae found that the earliest larval stages are sensitive to saturation state, rather than carbon dioxide (CO2) or pH (acidity) per se. Saturation state is a measure of how corrosive seawater is to the calcium carbonate shells made by ...