Being "average" is often considered a bad thing, but new research suggests that averageness wins when people assess the trustworthiness of a face. The research indicates that, while typical-looking faces aren't seen as the most attractive, they are considered to be the most trustworthy. The new findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "Face typicality likely indicates familiarity and cultural affiliation - as such, these findings have important implications for understanding social perception, including cross-cultural ...

ITHACA, N.Y. - Since 1998, hundreds and sometimes thousands of dead eider ducks have been washing up every year on Cape Cod's beaches in late summer or early fall, but the reasons behind these cyclic die-offs have remained a mystery. A team of scientists from Cornell, Tufts University, University of Georgia, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have pinned down one of the agents responsible: a pathogen they're calling Wellfleet Bay virus (WFBV). Their findings shed light on why eider ducks (also called common eiders) die on Cape Cod every ...

NEW YORK, NY -- Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have developed new technology that can assess the location and impact of a brain injury merely by tracking the eye movements of patients as they watch music videos for less than four minutes, according to a study published Friday on-line in the Journal of Neurosurgery. The study suggests that the use of eye tracking technology may be a potential biological marker for assessing brain function and monitoring recovery for patients with brain injuries. Led by Uzma Samadani, MD, PhD, chief of neurosurgery at New ...

GALVESTON, Texas -- In the largest study to date evaluating outcomes of Hispanic women with endometrial uterine cancer, researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have found that Hispanic women in the United States were significantly less likely to survive the cancer than non-Hispanic white women. A total of 69,764 women diagnosed with endometrial cancer between 2000 and 2010 were included in this study of public-use data from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program. The study is available online in the ...

A team of researchers from the University of California, San Diego have demonstrated a way to emit and control quantum light generated using a chip made from silicon--one of the most widely used materials for modern electronics. The UC San Diego researchers recently described their new device's performance online in the journal Nature Communications, available via Open Access . The researchers say practical applications of quantum optics will seem more feasible if devices for generating and controlling these photons can be manufactured using conventional materials ...

It's the most basic of ways to find out what something does, whether it's an unmarked circuit breaker or an unidentified gene -- flip its switch and see what happens. New remote-control technology may offer biologists a powerful way to do this with cells and genes. A team at Rockefeller University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is developing a system that would make it possible to remotely control biological targets in living animals -- rapidly, without wires, implants or drugs. Today (December 15) in the journal Nature Medicine, the team describes successfully ...

BOSTON (Dec. 16, 2014) -- Extra vitamin E protected older mice from a bacterial infection that commonly causes pneumonia. Microbiologists and nutrition researchers from Tufts University report that the extra vitamin E helped regulate the mice's immune system. The findings, published online in advance of print in the The Journal of Immunology, show promise for studies investigating the effects of vitamin E and infection in humans. Older adults over age 65 are at high risk for developing pneumonia, an inflammation of the lungs typically caused by infection. The most common ...

A scientific team at UBC and Providence Health Care have genetically engineered mice with less wrinkled skin, despite repeated exposure to wrinkle-inducing ultraviolet (UV) light. The youthful-looking mice were bred without the gene that produces Granzyme B, an enzyme that immune cells use to destroy harmful pathogens. The UBC-Providence team, led by Professor David Granville and postdoctoral fellow Leigh Parkinson, found that Granzyme B also does harm: When produced and released by skin cells in response to UV light, it triggers the breakdown of collagen, a structural ...

ANN ARBOR--A set of eight hurricane-forecast satellites being developed at the University of Michigan is expected to give deep insights into how and where storms suddenly intensify--a little-understood process that's becoming more crucial to figure out as the climate changes, U-M researchers say. The Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System is scheduled to launch in fall 2016. At the American Geophysical Union Meeting in San Francisco this week, U-M researchers released estimates of how significantly CYGNSS could improve wind speed and storm intensity forecasts. CYGNSS--said ...

Contrary to popular belief, new research suggests that some employees adapt well to pressures caused by changes in the workplace. Pay cuts, reduced working hours, fewer training and promotion opportunities are just a few of the measures organisations employ to combat economic downturn and industry competition. Where previous research has suggested cut backs result in a demotivated and unhappy workforce, experts from Monash University and The University of Iowa say this might not necessarily be the case. A new study published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational ...

A global fleet of composite planes could reduce carbon emissions by up to 15 percent, but the lighter planes alone will not enable the aviation industry to meet its emissions targets, according to new research. The study, by the Universities of Sheffield, Cambridge and UCL (University College London), is the first to carry out a comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) of a composite plane, such as the Boeing Dreamliner 787 or Airbus 350, and extrapolate the results to the global fleet. The LCA covers manufacture, use and disposal, using publicly available information ...

A team of Chinese and Italian scientists has joined efforts to provide a key to the understudied phaleratus group of blister beetles. During their research the scientists have also discovered a new species from the genus Hycleus, which they named after Marco Polo, as a tribute to their collaboration during the Ph.D. studies. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. The phaleratus group to which the new species Hycleus marcipoli belongs, is part of the Meloidae family commonly known as the blister beetle family. The representatives of this group get ...

This news release is available in German. Whether an odor is pleasant or disgusting to an organism is not just a matter of taste. Often, an organism's survival depends on its ability to make just such a discrimination, because odors can provide important information about food sources, oviposition sites or suitable mates. However, odor sources can also be signs of lethal hazards. Scientists from the BMBF Research Group Olfactory Coding at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, have now found that in fruit flies, the quality and intensity of ...

Researchers studied 414 people with severe dementia along with their carers in England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. The study gathered information on quality of life, activities of daily living such as bathing, feeding and dressing and presence of depressive symptoms using standardised measures. In the groups studied, 37% of the 217 people living in the community showed signs of depression compared to 23% of the 197 in care homes. It is one of the few studies comparing similar groups of people living at home and in nursing homes. Professor ...

Some neurons are more active than others, even when they are positioned right next to each other and are one and the same neuron type. Dr. Jean-Sébastien Jouhanneau and Dr. James Poulet of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin Buch have discovered the cause for this phenomenon. They found that the more active neurons in the somatosensory area of the brain respond to a broader receptive field and probably play a particularly important role in our sensory perception. The findings of the researchers, who also work at the NeuroCure Cluster of ...

People and animals have been shown to discriminate between quantities. Lions, chimpanzees and hyenas, for example, will only approach a group of attackers if their own group outnumbers that of the intruders. These animals use numerical information to make decisions about their social life. Testing numerical competence In 2012 Friederike Range and Zsofia Virányi from the Messerli Research Institute at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna showed that wolves are capable of discriminating between different food quantities. In their present study, they asked ...

Stimulants use such as cocaine and amphetamine is associated with a nearly two-fold greater likelihood of suicidal behaviour amongst people who inject drugs, say researchers at the University of Montreal and the CHUM Research Centre. Drug addiction had already been identified as a major risk factor for suicide, and it is in fact the cause of ten percent of deaths among drug users. The data from this groundbreaking study could help develop and evaluate more appropriate suicide prevention efforts in this highly vulnerable population. The researchers were able to explore ...

GPs should consider a more overt discussion with patients when referring them for further investigation of symptoms which may indicate cancer, according to a paper published in the British Journal of General Practice. In an NIHR-funded study, researchers from the Universities of Bristol, Cambridge, Durham and Exeter conducted interviews with patients being referred for possible lung and colorectal cancer. They found that patients were rarely involved in the decision to be referred for investigation and that reasons for referral tended to be couched in non-specific ...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16, 2014 -- It's been a holiday decoration staple for decades, and it turns out that silver stuff hanging from your tree has quite a storied past. Tinsel has been made out of everything from real silver, to lead to other dangerously flammable materials. This week's Speaking of Chemistry decks your halls with the history of tinsel. Check it out at http://youtu.be/fql3aCuu1l0. INFORMATION: Speaking of Chemistry is a production of Chemical & Engineering News, a weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society. The program features fascinating, weird and ...

University of Guelph researchers hope their new discovery will help combat a disease killing honeybee populations around the world. The researchers have found a toxin released by the pathogen that causes American foulbrood disease -- Paenibacillus larvae (P. larvae) -- and developed a lead-based inhibitor against it. The study was published in the December issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The finding provides much-needed insight into how the infection occurs, said Rod Merrill, a professor in Guelph's Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and a ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Newly published research provides the first demonstration of how a genetic mutation associated with a common form of albinism leads to the lack of melanin pigments that characterizes the condition. About 1 in 40,000 people worldwide have type 2 oculocutaneous albinism, which has symptoms of unsually light hair and skin coloration, vision problems, and reduced protection from sunlight-related skin or eye cancers. Scientists have known for about 20 years that the condition is linked to mutations in the gene that produces the OCA2 protein, ...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- It may not be necessary for experienced gastroenterologists to send polyps they remove from a patient's colon to a pathologist for examination, according to a large study conducted by physician researchers at the Jacksonville campus of Mayo Clinic. Their 522-patient study, published in the December issue of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, found that physicians correctly evaluated whether a polyp was precancerous or benign using high-definition optical lenses during a colonoscopy. Their assessment was 96 or 97 percent accurate -- depending on which of ...

There are consequences of the successful efforts worldwide to save beavers from extinction. Along with the strong increase in their population over the past 100 years, these furry aquatic rodents have built many more ponds, establishing vital aquatic habitat. In doing so, however, they have created conditions for climate changing methane gas to be generated in this shallow standing water, and the gas is subsequently released into the atmosphere. In fact, 200 times more of this greenhouse gas is released from beaver ponds today than was the case around the year 1900, estimates ...

Use of cigarettes, alcohol, and abuse of prescription pain relievers among teens has declined since 2013 while marijuana use rates were stable, according to the 2014 Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey, released today by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). However, use of e-cigarettes, measured in the report for the first time, is high. These 2014 results are part of an overall two-decade trend among the nation's youth. The MTF survey measures drug use and attitudes among eighth, 10th, and 12th graders, is funded by NIDA, and is conducted by researchers at the ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Domestic violence can affect children even before they're born, indicates new research by Michigan State University scientists. The study is the first to link abuse of pregnant women with emotional and behavioral trauma symptoms in their children within the first year of life. Symptoms include nightmares, startling easily, being bothered by loud noises and bright lights, avoiding physical contact and having trouble experiencing enjoyment. "For clinicians and mothers, knowing that the prenatal experience of their domestic violence can directly ...