How does glass transition from a liquid to its familiar solid state? How does this common material transport heat and sound? And what microscopic changes occur when a glass gains rigidity as it cools? A team of researchers at NYU's Center for Soft Matter Research offers a theoretical explanation for these processes in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Our understanding of glasses as they change state is relatively limited. This is because, unlike other materials such as metals, their constituent particles--which can be as small as a billionth of a meter ...

People who see their group as more homogenous - for instance, the more one thinks Americans are similar to each other - are less likely to be influenced by external terrorist threat alerts, according to research from NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. "Among people who viewed their group to be homogeneous, external threat did not translate to higher perceived threat, and they did not influence beliefs about the legitimacy of the U.S. military intervention in Iraq," said study author Rezarta Bilali, assistant professor of psychology and ...

ANN ARBOR--The medical community may be inadvertently creating a new generation of illegal, recreational drug users by prescribing anti-anxiety or sleep medications to teenagers, say University of Michigan researchers. Teens prescribed anxiety or sleep medications are up to 12 times more likely to abuse those drugs than those who had never had a prescription, either by using someone else's prescription pills or to get high or experiment, according to a study from the U-M School of Nursing. Nearly 9 percent of the 2,745 adolescent study participants had received ...

A team of scientists from Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute and IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center have developed a prototype DNA reader that could make whole genome profiling an everyday practice in medicine. "Our goal is to put cheap, simple and powerful DNA and protein diagnostic devices into every single doctor's office," said Stuart Lindsay, an ASU physics professor and director of Biodesign's Center for Single Molecule Biophysics. Such technology could help usher in the age of personalized medicine, where information from an individual's complete DNA ...

SAN FRANCISCO (November 24, 2014) --A team of scientists, including researchers from the California Academy of Sciences, has reconstructed a detailed "tree of life" for turtles. The specifics of how turtles are related--to one another, to other reptiles, and even to dinosaurs--have been hotly debated for decades. Next generation sequencing technologies in Academy labs have generated unprecedented amounts of genetic information for a thrilling new look at turtles' evolutionary history. These high-tech lab methods revolutionize the way scientists explore species origins and ...

Members of the public in sub-Saharan Africa who are carriers of the hereditary disease sickle cell disease must be educated aggressively through public health campaigns to raise awareness of the risks of parenting offspring with the disease if their partner is also a carrier, according to research published in the International Journal of Medical Engineering and Informatics. There are many physical and emotional public health components of sickle cell disease, explains William Ebomoyi of the Department of Health Studies College of Health Sciences, Chicago State University, ...

A collaboration between NEC Electronics Samsung and several academic centres in China and Iran, is investigating how software-defined cellular networking might be used to give smart phone users the next generation of super-superfast broadband, 5G. They provide details in the International Journal of Communication Networks and Distributed Systems. Currently, the fourth generation of mobile phone connection technology, 4G, in as far as it has been adopted provides broadband-type connectivity for enabled devices such as smart phones, tablet computers, laptops and other gadgets ...

WOODS HOLE, Mass.--David Johnson was standing in a salt marsh on the northern Massachusetts coast when he saw a fiddler crab, Uca pugnax, nearly 50 miles north of its supposed natural range. The migration north of this charismatic crab with the big, waving claw may be yet another sign of climate change. Johnson, then a scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) Ecosystems Center, has published his observations in the Journal of Crustacean Biology. The fiddler crab is an attention-getting crustacean; the males have an oversized claw that they use to attract a ...

VIDEO: The most detailed aerodynamic simulation of hummingbird flight conducted to date demonstrates that it achieves its aerobatic abilities through a unique set of aerodynamic forces more closely aligned to those... Click here for more information. The sight of a tiny hummingbird hovering in front of a flower and then darting to another with lightning speed amazes and delights. But it also leaves watchers with a persistent question: How do they do it? Now, the most detailed, ...

Over a million US military veterans lacked healthcare coverage in 2012, according to new estimates published in The Lancet. While many people believe that all veterans are covered by the Veterans Affairs health care system, less than half (8.9 million) of the 22 million veterans in the US are covered by VA health benefits, and most veterans are covered by private health insurance. Uninsured veterans are more likely to be young, single, African American, and veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the authors of this viewpoint estimate that universal health coverage ...

There has been a growing concern that modern society is increasingly lonely. In 2006, a New York Times article "The Lonely American Just Got a Bit Lonelier" highlighted research that shows a decline in social engagement--people are less likely to join clubs, have fewer close friends, and are less likely to perceive others as trustworthy. However, studies have also shown an increase in extraversion and self-esteem, which suggests loneliness is decreasing. In an effort to study the societal trend of loneliness, researchers from the University of Queensland and Griffith ...

Abnormal connections between neurons are the likely cause of motor coordination issues seen in autism spectrum disorder. Using a mouse model of autism, scientists from the University of Chicago identified a malfunctioning neural circuit associated with reduced capacity for motor learning. This appears to arise from an inability to eliminate unneeded neural connections in the brain. They report their findings Nov. 24 in Nature Communications. "We have identified synaptic abnormalities that may play a role in motor problems typically seen in children with autism," said ...

Adult survivors of retinoblastoma, a type of eye cancer that usually develops in early childhood, have few cognitive or social problems decades following their diagnosis and treatment. That's the conclusion of a study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The findings offer good news for patients, but it's important to continue to monitor for long-term effects as the brain changes throughout life. While most children with retinoblastoma are successfully cured, little is known about the long-term health of survivors. ...

ATLANTA--Promoting healthy gut microbiota, the bacteria that live in the intestine, can help treat or prevent metabolic syndrome, a combination of risk factors that increases a person's risk for heart disease, diabetes and stroke, according to researchers at Georgia State University and Cornell University. Their findings are published in the journal Gastroenterology. The study, a follow-up to the research team's previous paper in Science, uses an improved technical approach, making the results more significant. The research team includes Dr. Andrew Gewirtz, a professor ...

A gene associated with schizophrenia plays a role in brain development and may help to explain the biological process of the disease, according to new Rutgers research. In the study, published in Biological Psychiatry, Bonnie Firestein, professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, says too much protein expressed by the NOS1AP gene, which has been associated with schizophrenia, causes abnormalities in brain structure and faulty connections between nerve cells that prevent them from communicating properly. Firestein's research indicates that an overabundance ...

Being in a position of power can fundamentally change the way you speak, altering basic acoustic properties of the voice, and other people are able to pick up on these vocal cues to know who is really in charge, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. We tend to focus on our words when we want to come across as powerful to others, but these findings suggest that basic acoustic cues also play an important role: "Our findings suggest that whether it's parents attempting to assert authority over ...

Babies start breathing in the womb, inhaling and exhaling irregularly at first, and then gradually more and more, until the day when they're born and have to do it all the time. But premature babies sometimes have trouble. They stop breathing periodically, sometimes for 20 or 30 seconds at a time. Sometimes they're fine, and sometimes they're not, and doctors struggle to help them. That may soon change, however, thanks to a two-month-old patient at UConn Health with a rare connexin mutation, and his doctor's willingness to call for help. The resulting collaboration between ...

Repeat suicide attempts and deaths by suicide were roughly 25 percent lower among a group of Danish people who underwent voluntary short-term psychosocial counseling after a suicide attempt, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health-led research suggests. The findings are believed to be the first to show that talk therapy-focused suicide prevention actually works, averting future suicide attempts in this very high-risk population. Although just six-to-ten talk therapy sessions were provided, researchers found long-term benefits: Five years after the counseling ...

Over a million US military veterans lacked healthcare coverage in 2012, according to new estimates published in The Lancet. While many people believe that all veterans are covered by the Veterans Affairs health care system, less than half (8.9 million) of the 22 million veterans in the US are covered by VA health benefits, and most veterans are covered by private health insurance. Uninsured veterans are more likely to be young, single, African American, and veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the authors of this viewpoint estimate that universal health coverage ...

Changes to the structure of the protein histone H3.3 may play a key role in silencing genes that regulate cancer cell growth, according to a study led by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published online this month in the journal Nature Communications. According to the authors, this is the first study to identify this protein as a key regulator in cellular senescence, a process in which cells stop multiplying. Cellular senescence has garnered significant scientific interest of late because it may be one key to prevent the initiation ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Doubling or even nearly tripling saturated fat in the diet does not drive up total levels of saturated fat in the blood, according to a controlled diet study. However, increasing levels of carbohydrates in the diet during the study promoted a steady increase in the blood of a fatty acid linked to an elevated risk for diabetes and heart disease. The finding "challenges the conventional wisdom that has demonized saturated fat and extends our knowledge of why dietary saturated fat doesn't correlate with disease," said senior author Jeff Volek, a professor ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Women with symptoms of serious mental illness are significantly less likely to receive three routine cancer screenings - Pap tests, mammograms and clinical breast exams - than women in the general population, despite being at elevated risk for medical comorbidities and early death, a new study indicates. Women who reported symptoms of serious psychological distress - such as feelings of hopelessness and depression - during the past 30 days were 41 percent less likely to have received Pap tests during the preceding two-year period, University of Illinois ...

Research published today found that the investigational drug patiromer decreased high potassium levels and maintained normal potassium levels in patients with chronic kidney disease. The results of a multicenter trial appear in the New England Journal of Medicine. Elevated potassium, a condition called hyperkalemia, increases the risk of death in high-risk patients and limits the use of several types of drugs, called RAAS (renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system) inhibitors, commonly used to control hypertension and cardiovascular disease and prevent kidney disorders. "Patients ...

The exclusive club of explorers who have discovered a rare new species of life isn't restricted to globetrotters traveling to remote locations like the Amazon rainforests, Madagascar or the woodlands of the Congo River basin. Just ask professor John Nelson and alumnus Douglas Rayner -- they're having their membership cards stamped with a long-hidden plant found nowhere but South Carolina. The new species, dubbed Stachys caroliniana, makes its debut on the international botanical stage next week with a peer-reviewed publication describing its unique characteristics. It ...

A study by a Wayne State University and Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Medical Center research team is shedding new light on the troubling question of whether the drugs often given to HIV-positive pregnant women can cause significant long-term heart problems for the non-HIV-infected babies they carry. The study recently published in the journal AIDS shows that while the HIV medications have been successful in helping to prevent the transmission of the virus from mother to infant, they are associated with persistently impaired development of heart muscle and ...