Frequent travel is damaging to health and wellbeing, according to new study
2015-08-05
Researchers from the University of Surrey and Lund University (Sweden) investigated how frequent, long-distance travel is represented in mass and social media. They found that the images portrayed do not take into account the damaging side effects of frequent travel such as jet-lag, deep vein thrombosis, radiation exposure, stress, loneliness and distance from community and family networks.
Instead, the study found that those with 'hypermobile' lifestyles were often seen as having a higher social status. By assessing how first-class flights, 'must-see' destinations and ...
Robo-whiskers mimic animals exploring their surroundings
2015-08-05
Many mammals, including seals and rats, rely on their whiskers to sense their way through dark environments. Inspired by these animals, scientists working at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Illinois' Advanced Digital Sciences Centre in Singapore have developed a robotic 'whisker' tactile sensor array designed to produce tomographic images by measuring fluid flow.
The results are published today (Wednesday 05 August) in the journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics.
"When it is dark, whiskers play a key role for animals in exploring, hunting or even just ...
England still struggling to close the gap in cancer survival
2015-08-05
Cancer survival in England remains lower than countries with similar healthcare systems, according to a new Cancer Research UK funded study published in the British Journal of Cancer today.
Cancer survival in England has steadily improved but the gap in survival remains.
The research, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, compared survival for colon, breast, lung, ovarian, rectal and stomach cancers in England, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden between 1995 and 2009, and survival trends in England up to 2012*. It included more than 1.9 million ...
Flowers can endanger bees
2015-08-05
RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Despite their beauty, flowers can pose a grave danger to bees by providing a platform of parasites to visiting bees, a team of researchers has determined.
"Flowers are hotspots for parasite spread between and within pollinator populations," said Peter Graystock, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Entomology at the University of California, Riverside and a member of the research team. "Both the flower and bee species play a role in how likely parasite dispersal will occur."
The study, published online in the Proceedings of the Royal Society ...
Artificial intelligence improves fine wine price prediction
2015-08-05
The price fluctuation of fine wines can now be predicted more accurately using a novel artificial intelligence approach developed by researchers at UCL. The method could be used to help fine wine investors make more informed decisions about their portfolios and encourage non-wine investors to start looking at wine in this manner and hence increase the net trade of wine. It is expected that similar techniques will be used in other 'alternative assets' such as classic cars.
Co-author, Dr Tristan Fletcher, an academic at UCL and founder of quantitative wine asset management ...
Regular consumption of spicy foods linked to lower risk of death
2015-08-05
This is an observational study so no definitive conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect, but the authors call for more research that may "lead to updated dietary recommendations and development of functional foods."
Previous research has suggested that beneficial effects of spices and their bioactive ingredient, capsaicin, include anti-obesity, antioxidant, anti-inflammation and anticancer properties.
So an international team led by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences examined the association between consumption of spicy foods as part of ...
Cosmological 'lost' lithium: An environmental solution
2015-08-05
In the beginning there were four "fundamental" elements besides Hydrogen- not Earth, Air, Fire, or Water, but rather Helium 3, Helium 4, Deuterium and Lithium-7, four "light" isotopes produced by primordial nucleosynthesis (during the Big Bang). The four elements remain, but the calculations simply do not add up. The "metal-poor" stars are celestial bodies composed of mainly primitive material. Based on the Standard Cosmological Model - the most accepted theory today to explain the universe - scientists have calculated how much Li7 should be in them, but the measurements ...
Consolidating consciousness
2015-08-05
The permanence of memories has long thought to be mediated solely by the production of new proteins. However, new research from the University of Alberta has shown that the electrical activity of the brain may be a more primary factor in memory solidification.
"It's not just protein synthesis, long the dominant biological model, but also 'offline' memory rehearsal in the brain that leads to memory solidification," says Clayton Dickson, psychology professor at the University of Alberta and one of the authors of the new study. "Although the protein synthesis idea is entrenched ...
Key protein drives 'power plants' that fuel cells in heart and other key body systems
2015-08-04
Case Western Reserve University scientists have discovered that a protein called Kruppel-like Factor 4 (KLF4) controls mitochondria -- the "power plants" in cells that catalyze energy production. Specifically, they determined KLF4's pivotal role through its absence -- that is, the mitochondria malfunction without enough of the protein, which in turn leads to reduced energy. This decline is particularly problematic in the heart because lower energy can lead to heart failure and death.
The researchers' findings appear in the August edition of The Journal of Clinical Investigation ...
Coordinated effort by health care facilities can prevent many hospital-acquired infections
2015-08-04
(SALT LAKE CITY)--By coordinating with state health departments and communicating with each other about patients with C. difficile and antibiotic-resistant infections, hospitals, long-term acute-care facilities and nursing homes could reduce the number of such hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) by an estimated 619,000 cases in the next five years, a new Centers for Disease Control 9 (CDC)-led report has found.
As highlighted in the CDC's monthly Vital Signs monthly report, published on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2015, mathematical modeling was used to project the number of infections ...
The ghostly remnants of galaxy interactions uncovered in a nearby galaxy group
2015-08-04
This news release is available in Japanese.
Astronomers using the Subaru Telescope's Hyper Suprime-Cam prime-focus camera recently observed the nearby large spiral galaxy M81, together with its two brightest neighbors, M82 and NGC3077. The results of their observations are deep, super wide-field images of the galaxies and their populations of young stars. As part of a Galactic Archaeology study, the team discovered that the spatial distribution of the young stars around these galaxies follows very closely that of their distribution of neutral hydrogen. "This ...
World's quietest gas lets physicists hear faint quantum effects
2015-08-04
Physicists at the University of California, Berkeley, have cooled a gas to the quietest state ever achieved, hoping to detect faint quantum effects lost in the din of colder but noisier fluids.
While the ultracold gas's temperature - a billionth of a degree above absolute zero - is twice as hot as the record cold, the gas has the lowest entropy ever measured. Entropy is a measure of disorder or noise in a system; a record low temperature gas isn't necessarily the least noisy.
"This 'lowest entropy' or 'lowest noise' condition means that the quantum gas can be used to ...
Skipping follow up with pulmonologist after COPD hospitalization could be risky business
2015-08-04
Glenview, Ill. (August 4, 2015)--Researchers have found the risk for hospital readmission to be nearly three times higher after COPD exacerbation if a follow-up visit to a pulmonologist is skipped. The Israeli study published today in the journal CHEST The Association Between Hospital Readmission and Pulmonologist Follow-up Visits in Patients With COPD examined the impact of a pulmonologist follow-up visit during the month after discharge from the hospital on reducing readmissions.
COPD exacerbations account for 500,000 hospital admissions and $18 billion in direct health-care ...
Case study reveals therapy to reduce sarcoidosis symptoms in 5q-myelodysplastic syndrome
2015-08-04
Glenview, Ill. (August 4, 2015) -- A case study published in the August issue of the journal CHEST found lenalidomide treatments may have an immediate effect in the treatment of sarcoidosis-related symptoms. Sarcoidosis, a disease that involves abnormal collections of inflammatory cells that can form nodules in various organs, can affect individuals from all racial and age groups. To date, no optimal therapies have been effective in managing this condition.
This finding was reported in the case of a 71-year-old woman with a long-standing history of refractory pulmonary ...
Projected benefits of high BP treatment in China
2015-08-04
An expanded program of treatment for hypertension could prevent about 800,000 cardiovascular disease (CVD) events every year in China, according to a modeling study published this week in PLOS Medicine. The predictions of this simulation, reported by Andrew Moran of Columbia University and colleagues, indicate that such a program should also be borderline cost-effective, provided low cost essential anti-hypertensive drugs are used.
Hypertension is the leading cardiovascular risk factor in China, the world's most populous country. About 325 million adults in China have ...
How to trust what your customers say about your brand
2015-08-04
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY'S HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS- Marketers would love to get inside the consumer brain. And now they can. Researchers at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business are using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to see if what people say about brands matches what they are actually thinking.
In their paper, "From 'Where' to 'What': Distributed Representations of Brand Associations in the Human Brain (Journal of Marketing Research: August 2015, Vol. 52, No. 4), co-authors Ming Hsu and Leif Nelson, Berkeley-Haas marketing professors, and Yu-Ping ...
Keeping algae from stressing out
2015-08-04
While most people might know some algae as "pond scum," to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), they are tiny organisms that could provide a source of sustainable fuels. Like plants, they can convert light into energy-rich chemical compounds; unlike plants, they require less space and don't need arable soil to grow.
Some algae like Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (or "Chlamy," as it's known to its large research community) produce energy-dense oils or lipids when stressed, and these lipids can then be converted into fuels. However, researchers walk a fine line in not killing ...
Giving robots a more nimble grasp
2015-08-04
Most robots on a factory floor are fairly ham-handed: Equipped with large pincers or claws, they are designed to perform simple maneuvers, such as grabbing an object, and placing it somewhere else in an assembly line. More complex movements, such as adjusting the grasp on an object, are still out of reach for many industrial robots.
Engineers at MIT have now hit upon a way to impart more dexterity to simple robotic grippers: using the environment as a helping hand. The team, led by Alberto Rodriguez, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and graduate student ...
Parents' preconception exposure to environmental stressors can disrupt early development
2015-08-04
Washington, DC-Even before a child is conceived, the parents' exposure to environmental stressors can alter the way genes are expressed and ultimately harm the child's health when those genes are passed down to the next generation, according to a new article published in the Endocrine Society's journal Endocrinology.
Exposure to environmental stressors such as endocrine-disrupting chemicals, psychological stress and malnutrition may result in disadvantageous epigenetic "reprogramming" that can echo through multiple generations. When these stressors disrupt early developmental ...
Ukranian physicists uprooted by war, behemoth telescopes that cost a billion dollars or more, and more
2015-08-04
WASHINGTON D.C., August 4, 2015 -- The following articles are freely available online from Physics Today, the world's most influential and closely followed magazine devoted to physics and the physical science community.
You are invited to read, share, blog about, link to, or otherwise enjoy:
1) IS PHYSICS RESEARCH ANOTHER CASUALTY OF UKRAINIAN CONFLICT?
David Kramer of Physics Today discusses the negative impact that the conflict in eastern Ukraine has had on physicists and students forced to relocate from their homes and universities.
"More than 25 universities and ...
Dental coverage for patients with Medicaid may not prevent tooth-related ER visits
2015-08-04
More than 2 percent of all emergency department visits are now related to nontraumatic dental conditions, according to a study by researchers at Stanford University, the University of California-San Francisco, Truven Health Analytics and the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Although the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act has made millions of low-income and rural Americans eligible for health insurance, many states don't provide dental coverage for adults under their Medicaid programs. Paying for dental insurance on the individual market ...
Can habitat protection save our disappearing bats?
2015-08-04
This news release is available in French. In summertime, bats are a common feature in the night sky, swooping around backyards to gobble up mosquitos. Bats also help with crops: they act as a natural pesticide by feeding on harmful insects.
But these winged mammals are now under threat. As agricultural intensification expands across the world, the conversion of their natural habitats has caused a dramatic decline in population. North American bats are also plagued with white-nose syndrome, an emerging infectious disease that's decimating their numbers.
"Many bat ...
Opioid use and sexual violence among drug-using young adults in NYC
2015-08-04
The nonmedical use of prescription opioids (POs) has become an area of increasing public health concern in the United States and rates of use are particularly high among young adults. In the past decade, an emerging "epidemic" of nonmedical PO use has been reported. Among young adults, self-reported use is 11% and overdose deaths involving POs now exceed deaths involving heroin and cocaine combined. Sexual violence is also a serious problem in the United States receiving increased national attention, and the relationship between substance use and sexual violence is well ...
Precariously balanced rocks provide clues for unearthing underground fault connections
2015-08-04
Irvine, Calif., Aug. 4, 2015 - Stacked in gravity-defying arrangements in the western San Bernardino Mountains, near the San Andreas Fault, granite boulders that should have been toppled by earthquakes long ago resolutely remain. In exploring why these rocks still stand, researchers have uncovered connections between Southern California's San Jacinto and San Andreas faults that could change how the region plans for future earthquakes.
In a study to be published online Aug. 5 in Seismological Research Letters, Lisa Grant Ludwig, associate professor of public health at ...
Precariously balanced rocks suggest San Jacinto, San Andreas may have ruptured together
2015-08-04
SAN FRANCISCO-- Stacked in gravity-defying arrangements in the western San Bernardino Mountains, granite boulders that should have been toppled long ago by earthquakes are maintaining a stubborn if precarious balance. In puzzling out why these rocks still stand, researchers have uncovered connections between Southern California's San Jacinto and San Andreas faults that could change how the region plans for future earthquakes.
In their study published online August 5 in Seismological Research Letters (SRL), Lisa Grant Ludwig of University of California, Irvine and colleagues ...
[1] ... [2535]
[2536]
[2537]
[2538]
[2539]
[2540]
[2541]
[2542]
2543
[2544]
[2545]
[2546]
[2547]
[2548]
[2549]
[2550]
[2551]
... [8514]
Press-News.org - Free Press Release Distribution service.