Over the past several decades, the progress in micro fabrication technology has revolutionized the world in such fields as computing, signal processing, and automotive manufacturing. Making various types of instruments smaller is another example of how the use of this technology has produced significant advancements. One such instrument is the gas chromatography system used in a number of scientific, medical, and industrial settings to separate and analyze dangerous, volatile organic compounds in gases, liquids, and solids. For the past several years, Masoud Agah, an ...

Amsterdam, April 13, 2015 - The taste and color of your wine depends on the methods used to produce it and the chemicals added during production, says research published in Analytical Chemistry Research. The researchers behind the study say wine bottles should carry information about what the manufacturers add during processing - including sugars and acids. In the study, Dr. Heli Sirén and her colleagues from the University of Helsinki, Finland, analyzed the chemical profiles of eight Pinot Noir wines from different regions - the USA, France, New Zealand and Chile. ...

VTT is the first in the world to have developed a drug test printed on paper. VTT used antibodies - produced by methods of molecular biology - as morphine sensing molecules when creating this printing technology-based morphine test. Using printing technology to manufacture rapid tests enables high production volumes and low production costs. A paper-based test enables a rapid analysis of whether a compound - in this case, morphine - is present in a given sample. Possible future applications of the developed test include drug testing at workplaces and in connection with ...

PHILADELPHIA - Emergency department patients have misperceptions about opioid dependence and want more information about their pain management options, according to a new study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The study, published online in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, found that patients seen in the emergency department for acute pain expressed a desire for better communication from physicians about their pain management options, along with discussion of the risks of opioid dependence. The study used semi-structured ...

BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA - The latest issue of the journal Neurophotonics features a tribute to the brilliance and originality of Lawrence (Larry) Cohen as well as reports on the latest advances in voltage-sensitive dyes and multiple-site optical recording methods enabled by the work of Cohen and his team. Their research has paved the way for advances in functional imaging of the electrical activity of live tissue in real time, say journal editors. Neurophotonics is published by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. All articles in the journal are ...

Low weight at birth increased the risk of disability pension among men, reveals a new Finnish study published in the PLoS One. Around 20% of the cohort members born in 1934-44 retired on a disability pension between 1971 and 2011. Early exit from the workforce due to a disability pension might be related to non-optimal growth during the fetal period, says Docent Mikaela von Bonsdorff from the University of Jyväskylä. The leading causes of disability pension are mental disorders, musculoskeletal disorders and cardiovascular diseases. Low birth weight was ...

Neuherberg, March 13, 2015. Elastases of white blood cells are involved in tissue destruction and can thus cause various diseases. Scientists from the Helmholtz Zentrum München have discovered a new isoform which could be involved both in the pathogenesis of diseases such as pulmonary emphysema as well as in the failure of some therapy approaches. The results of the study have just been published in the journal Nature Communications. A delicate balance of elastases and elastase inhibitors provides for regular tissue formation and destruction in the body. A perturbation ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Researchers studying the commonly used pain reliever acetaminophen found it has a previously unknown side effect: It blunts positive emotions. In the study, participants who took acetaminophen reported less strong emotions when they saw both very pleasant and very disturbing photos, when compared to those who took placebos. Acetaminophen, the main ingredient in the over-the-counter pain reliever Tylenol, has been in use for more than 70 years in the United States, but this is the first time that this side effect has been documented. Previous research ...

Richard III may have kept his severe scoliosis hidden until death Body of a king part of propaganda of power 'Crookback Richard' myth and the treatment of his corpse linked Last month saw the mortal remains of King Richard III reinterred at Leicester Cathedral, more than two years after University of Leicester archaeologists discovered his skeleton in a car park in August 2012. The body of a mediaeval monarch was always under scrutiny, and Richard III's was no exception. In death, however, his body became subject to new forms of examination and interpretation: stripped ...

Scientists from the Institute of Food Research have found evidence for a mechanism by which certain food compounds could help protect our health. Dietary studies have shown that people who eat the largest amounts of fruit and vegetables have a reduced risk of developing chronic conditions, such as heart disease and cancer. There could be several reasons for this. Some fruit and vegetables naturally contain high amounts of compounds called polyphenols, which could provide protective health benefits. In this study, Dr Paul Kroon and his team at IFR have shown that polyphenols ...

Burying the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, has been mooted as one geoengineering approach to ameliorating climate change. To be effective, trapping the gas in geological deposits would be the for the very long term, thousands of years. Now, a team in Brazil, writing in the International Journal of Global Warming has reviewed the risk assessments for this technology and suggests a lack of knowledge means we should be cautious of turning to this method rather than finding sustainable ways to reduce emissions at their source. Maísa ...

The human immune system can handle large bursts of HIV activity and so it should be possible to cure HIV with a 'kick and kill' strategy, finds new research led by UCL, the University of Oxford and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The 'kick and kill' strategy aims to cure HIV by stimulating the immune system with a vaccine, then re-awakening dormant HIV hiding in white blood cells with a chemical 'kick' so that the boosted immune system can identify and kill them. While this approach is promising in theory, it was previously unclear whether the human ...

Silicon based chips and transistors have been at the heart of all electronic devices since the 1950s. Driven by economic and environmental factors, and by the need for renewable energy resources, there is currently an enormous scientific and technological interest in transitioning away from silicon based electronics to new organic electronic devices. Just like living organisms, organic electronics use carbon in complex molecules as their key functional component. These new organic electronic devices are less expensive, more environmentally friendly and better recyclable ...

ANN ARBOR--University of Michigan researchers have discovered a biomarker that may be a potentially important breakthrough in diagnosing and treating prostate cancer. Biomarkers in the body are analogous to the warning lights in cars that signal something might need repairing. In our bodies, they indicate if something's wrong or if we're about to get sick or if we're predisposed to certain illnesses. "(In the context of prostate cancer) there's a big interest in trying to find biomarkers to discriminate between aggressive and nonaggressive disease," said Renny Franceschi, ...

As part of the PlanetS National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR), astronomers from the Universities of Geneva (UNIGE) and Bern, Switzerland, have come to measure the temperature of the atmosphere of an exoplanet with unequalled precision, by crossing two approaches. The first approach is based on the HARPS spectrometer and the second consists of a new way of interpreting sodium lines. From these two additional analyses, researchers have been able to conclude that the HD189733b exoplanet is showing infernal atmospheric conditions: wind speeds of more than 1000 kilometres ...

A new study indicates that vaccinating 12-year-old boys against the humanpapilloma virus (HPV) may be a cost-effective strategy for preventing oropharyngeal squamous cell cancer, a cancer that starts at the back of the throat and mouth, and involves the tonsils and base of the tongue. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study provides important information about HPV vaccination, which has proven effective against HPV-related disease in both sexes but remains controversial, especially in males. Many western countries ...

This news release is available in Portuguese. Cancer patients are more likely to get infections. Pneumonia is the most frequent type of infection in this group and a frequent cause of ICU admission and mortality. A study conducted by researchers from the D'Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR) in partnership with Brazilian hospitals and universities analyzed the factors associated with severe pneumonia in hospitalized cancer patients and suggests that more personalized treatment protocols can reduce mortality in these patients. Until now, there was a consensus ...

Telomeres are short stretches of repeated nucleotides that protect the ends of chromosomes. In somatic cells, these protective sequences become shorter with each cellular replication until a critical length is reached, which can trigger cell death. In actively replicating cells such as germ cells, embryonic stem cells, and blood stem cells of the bone marrow, the enzyme telomerase replenishes these protective caps to ensure adequate replication. Cancer cells also seem to have the ability to activate telomerase, which allows them to keep dividing indefinitely, with ...

Washington, D.C. - April 10, 2015 - Human norovirus may infect our canine companions, according to research published online April 1 in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology. That raises the possibility of dog-to-human transmission, said first author Sarah Caddy, VetMB, PhD, MRCVS, a veterinarian and PhD student at the University of Cambridge, and Imperial College, London, UK. Norovirus is the leading cause of food-borne illness in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). ...

CHICAGO (April 9, 2015): The Affordable Care Act (ACA) allowed millions of young adults to retain health care coverage through their parents' insurance plans, but new research finds that many young African-American and Hispanic adults who need coverage for trauma care may not get it. The results of the study are published online as an "article in press" in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons and will appear in a print edition later this year. Before the dependent care provision of the Affordable Care Act became law in September 2010, approximately 30 percent ...

Certain types of supernovae, or exploding stars, are more diverse than previously thought, a University of Arizona-led team of astronomers has discovered. The results, reported in two papers published in the Astrophysical Journal, have implications for big cosmological questions, such as how fast the universe has been expanding since the Big Bang. Most importantly, the findings hint at the possibility that the acceleration of the expansion of the universe might not be quite as fast as textbooks say. The team, led by UA astronomer Peter A. Milne, discovered that type ...

Middle-aged people who are underweight (with a Body Mass Index [BMI] less than 20 kg/m2 [1]) are a third more likely to develop dementia than people of similar age with a healthy BMI, according to new research published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal. The findings, which come from the largest ever study to examine the statistical association between BMI and dementia risk, also show that middle-aged obese people (BMI greater than 30 kg/m2) are nearly 30% less likely to develop dementia than people of a healthy weight, contradicting findings from some previous ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Researchers at UC Davis have found that a gene, which is not active in some mothers, produces a breast milk sugar that influences the development of the community of gut bacteria in her infant. The sugars produced by these mothers, called "secretors," are not digested by the infant, but instead nourish specific bacteria that colonize the babies' guts soon after birth. Mothers known as "non-secretors" have a non-functional fucosyltransferase 2 (FUT2) gene, which alters the composition of their breast milk sugars and changes how the microbial community, ...

BOSTON (April 9, 2015)- Making small, consistent changes to the types of protein- and carbohydrate-rich foods we eat may have a big impact on long-term weight gain, according to a new study led by researchers at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy at Tufts University. The results were published on-line this week in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Based on more than 16 years of follow-up among 120,000 men and women from three long-term studies of U.S. health professionals, the authors first found that diets with a high glycemic load (GL) from ...

MENLO PARK, Calif.-- Smartphones and other personal electronic devices could, in regions where they are in widespread use, function as early warning systems for large earthquakes according to newly reported research. This technology could serve regions of the world that cannot afford higher quality, but more expensive, conventional earthquake early warning systems, or could contribute to those systems. The study, led by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey and published April 10 in the inaugural volume of the new AAAS journal Science Advances, found that the sensors ...