The incidence of bicycle accidents has increased significantly in the U.S. in recent years, with many serious injuries occurring among riders older than 45, according to a new study led by UC San Francisco. The researchers used a national injury surveillance database to study trends in bicycle injuries from 1998 to 2013. They found that the rate of hospital admissions associated with bicycle injuries more than doubled during that timeframe, especially with head and torso injuries. Altogether, the proportion of injuries occurring to riders above age 45 rose 81 percent, ...

KNOXVILLE--The ancestry of man's best friend may be more complicated than its furry coat and soulful eyes betray. Understanding the evolutionary history of the domesticated dog may ultimately help protect endangered wolves, according to a study from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Vladimir Dinets, research assistant professor of psychology, has published an overview examining the confusing and often misunderstood system used to classify dogs and related animals such as wolves and jackals. He has proposed a logical and scientifically sound classification scheme ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- As governments and industries expand their use of high-decibel seismic surveys to explore the ocean bottom for resources, experts from eight universities and environmental organizations are calling for new global standards and mitigation strategies. Their goal is to minimize the amount of sound the surveys produce and reduce risks the surveys and other underwater human noise pollution poses to vulnerable marine life. Firms and agencies conducting the surveys would benefit from these new measures, the experts assert, because instead of having to navigate ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Social interaction could be the mechanism that allows animals living in groups to synchronize their activities, whether it's huddling for warmth or offering protection from predators. This social presence affects the daily rhythm of activity and rest, and the larger the group, the greater the likelihood of synchronization, according to a study published recently in the journal Biology Letters. "At least in mice, and perhaps in other animals, this study shows quite dramatic synchrony amongst groups of animals that can only be explained by social interactions," ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Economic well-being for low-income families in the U.S. is often determined by federal measures that establish basic requirements for essentials such as food, shelter and clothing, but a new study by a University at Buffalo research team suggests that such a definition is unrealistically narrow. To help families move out of poverty, the existing perspective of economic well-being and its short-term focus on basic needs should reflect possibilities for long-term stability, including a savings plan, rather than day-to-day survival, says Yunju Nam, an associate ...

To arrange for an interview with a researcher, please contact the Communications staff member identified at the end of each tip. For more information on ORNL and its research and development activities, please refer to one of our media contacts. If you have a general media-related question or comment, you can send it to news@ornl.gov. MATERIALS - Solar bake test for NASA ... To test an instrument for a spacecraft that will fly closer to the sun than any before, engineers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of California-Berkeley used ORNL's powerful ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- In her hit single, Carly Rae Jepsen may have sung, "Here's my number, so call me maybe." But according to a new research study from Indiana University, she might be more successful in finding love if she asked him to send her an email. The research, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, suggests that, in this digital age, an email can be more effective in expressing romantic feelings than leaving a voicemail message. Previous research and conventional wisdom suggested the opposite, that a voicemail message ...

September 1, 2015 - What's the "safe" amount of fat to remove in patients undergoing liposuction? Rather than a hard-and-fast rule, the answer depends on the patient's body mass index (BMI), according to a report in the September issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). "Our study shows that liposuction is associated with a very low complication rate, with major complications occurring in less than 1 in 1,000 patients," comments ASPS Member Surgeon John Y.S. Kim of Northwestern ...

ANN ARBOR--Studies using yeast genetics have provided new, fundamental insights into the cell-division cycle, researchers at the University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute report. Findings published Aug. 31 in the journal eLife show that an organelle known as the vacuole, which performs a variety of cellular housekeeping functions, plays an essential role in the initiation of the cell-division cycle. The cell-division cycle, also known simply as the cell cycle, is the series of events inside a cell that leads to its division. "The yeast vacuole has a counterpart ...

In use for more than a century, inhaled anesthetics like nitrous oxide and halothane have made modern surgery possible. Now, in experiments in mice, researchers at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere have added to evidence that certain so-called "volatile" anesthetics -- commonly used during surgeries -- may also possess powerful effects on the immune system that can combat viral and bacterial infections in the lung, including influenza and pneumonia. A report on the experiments is published in the September 1 issue of the journal Anesthesiology. The Johns Hopkins and University ...

Tropical Depression 14E was born in the Eastern Pacific Ocean early on September 1 when NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed overhead and looked at it in infrared light. Infrared light shows temperature, which is helpful in determining cloud top temperatures of the thunderstorms that make up a tropical cyclone line Tropical Depression 14E (TD 14E). The colder the storm, the higher they stretch into the troposphere (lowest layer of the atmosphere) and the stronger the storms tend to be. On September 1 at 0900 UTC (5 a.m. EDT), NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed ...

Hurricane Ignacio is staying far enough away from the Hawaiian Islands to not bring heavy rainfall or gusty winds, but is still causing rough surf. Infrared satellite data on September 1 shows that wind shear is adversely affecting the storm and weakening it. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite gathers infrared data that reveals temperatures. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Ignacio on September 1 at 11:41 UTC (7:41 a.m. EDT), the AIRS data and showed some high, cold, strong thunderstorms surrounded the center ...

EUGENE, Ore. - Sept. 1, 2015 - The University of Oregon's Kelly Sutherland has seen the future of under-sea exploration by studying the swimming prowess of tiny jellyfish gathered from Puget Sound off Washington's San Juan Island. In a paper with four colleagues in the Sept. 2 issue of the journal Nature Communications, Sutherland details how a tiny type of jellyfish - colonial siphonophores - swim rapidly by coordinating multiple water-shooting jets from separate but genetically identical units that make up the animal. Information on the biomechanics of a living organism ...

WOODS HOLE, MASS.--Marine animals that swim by jet propulsion, such as squid and jellyfish, are not uncommon. But it's rare to find a colony of animals that coordinates multiple jets for whole-group locomotion. This week in Nature Communications, scientists report on a colonial jellyfish-like species, Nanomia bijuga, that uses a sophisticated, multi-jet propulsion system based on an elegant division of labor among young and old members of the colony. This locomotive solution, the team suggests, could illuminate the design of underwater distributed-propulsion vehicles. "This ...

Here's another discovery to bolster the case for medical marijuana: New research in mice suggests that THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, may delay the rejection of incompatible organs. Although more research is necessary to determine if there are benefits to humans, this suggests that THC, or a derivative, might prove to be a useful antirejection therapy, particularly in situations where transplanted organs may not be a perfect match. These findings were published in the September 2015 issue of The Journal of Leukocyte Biology. "We are excited to demonstrate for ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Forgiveness is a complex process, one often fraught with difficulty and angst. Now, researchers in the University of Missouri College of Human Environmental Sciences studied how different facets of forgiveness affected aging adults' feelings of depression. The researchers found older women who forgave others were less likely to report depressive symptoms regardless of whether they felt unforgiven by others. Older men, however, reported the highest levels of depression when they both forgave others and felt unforgiven by others. The researchers say their ...

Police officers face an elevated risk of being injured in a collision when they are sitting in a stationary car as compared to low-speed driving, as well as when they are responding to an emergency call with their siren blaring as compared to routine patrol, according to a new RAND Corporation study. In addition, officers face a higher risk of being injured in a crash when they are riding a motorcycle compared to a driving a car, driving solo compared to having a second officer in the car, or not wearing a seatbelt compared to wearing a seatbelt. The findings provide ...

With a name like "Alcoholic Liver Disease," you may not think about vitamin A as being part of the problem. That's exactly what scientists have shown, however, in a new research report appearing in the September 2015 issue of The FASEB Journal. In particular, they found that chronic alcohol consumption has a dramatic effect on the way the body handles vitamin A. Long-term drinking lowers vitamin A levels in the liver, which is the main site of alcohol breakdown and vitamin A storage, while raising vitamin A levels in many other tissues. This opens the doors for novel treatments ...

The study, published today at Nature Methods (the most prestigious journal for the presentation of results in methods development), proposes the use of two plant protein epitopes, named inntags, as the most innocuous and stable tagging tools in the study of physical and functional interactions of proteins. Proteins and peptides of various sizes and shapes have been used since the early 80s to tag proteins with many different purposes, ranging from affinity purification to fluorescence-based microscopic detection in whole organisms. However, tagging strategies used nowadays ...

Imagine being in a car with the gas pedal stuck to the floor, heading toward a cliff's edge. Metaphorically speaking, that's what climate change will do to the key group of ocean bacteria known as Trichodesmium, scientists have discovered. Trichodesmium (called "Tricho" for short by researchers) is one of the few organisms in the ocean that can "fix" atmospheric nitrogen gas, making it available to other organisms. It is crucial because all life -- from algae to whales -- needs nitrogen to grow. A new study from USC and the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic ...

If you have diabetes and cancer, here's some hope. In a new research report appearing in the September 2015 issue of The FASEB Journal, scientists reveal a newly discovered tissue- and organ-specific mechanism that regulates blood vessel growth, and when inhibited reduced the growth of tumors in diabetic mice. In addition to the treatment of the diabetes-related cancers, the approach may be also used to treat other diabetic complications that are associated with the increased blood vessel growth, like retinopathy or nephropathy for example. "Complications of diabetes ...

Costs for spinal fusion vary substantially by region, with costs being lowest in the Midwest and highest in the Northeast, according to the new research by Dr. W. Ryan Spiker and colleagues of University of Utah, Salt Lake City. They write, "This data sheds light on the actual cost of common surgeries throughout the United States, and will allow further progress towards the development of cost effective, value driven care." New Data on 'Actual Costs' of Common Spine Surgeries The researchers analyzed 2012 Medicare data on the costs of two common types of spinal fusion ...

People who are born premature tend to accumulate less wealth as adults, and a new study suggests that this may be due to lower mathematics abilities. The findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, show that preterm birth is associated with lower academic abilities in childhood, and lower educational attainment and less wealth in adulthood. "Our findings suggest that the economic costs of preterm birth are not limited to healthcare and educational support in childhood, but extend well into adulthood," says psychological ...

Research published in the British Dental Journal shows that Brush DJ, an app designed to encourage youngsters to adopt and maintain an effective oral health care routine using evidence-based techniques, is effective in its aims. Brush DJ was launched on the Apple App Store at the end of 2011 and in 2013 it was accepted into the NHS Choices Health Apps Library. By February 2015 Brush DJ, which is free with no advertisements or in-app purchases, had been downloaded on more than 197,000 devices in 188 countries. It can be used with any type of toothbrush. The app plays ...

Electrical and computer engineers at North Carolina State University have developed a new technique for creating less-expensive, low-power embedded systems - the computing devices found in everything from thermostats to automobiles. "Using our techniques, we've been able to create prototype systems with power converters that have a combination of energy efficiency and low cost that - as far as we've been able to tell - is unmatched by anything currently on the market," says Alex Dean, co-author of a paper on the work and an associate professor of electrical and computer ...