Is your inbox burning you out? Then take heart - research from the University of British Columbia suggests that easing up on email checking can help reduce psychological stress. Some of the study's 124 adults -- including students, financial analysts medical professionals and others -- were instructed to limit checking email to three times daily for a week. Others were told to check email as often as they could (which turned out to be about the same number of times that they normally checked their email prior to the study). These instructions were then reversed for ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Geckos, found in places with warm climates, have fascinated people for hundreds of years. Scientists have been especially intrigued by these lizards, and have studied a variety of features such as the adhesive toe pads on the underside of gecko feet with which geckos attach to surfaces with remarkable strength. One unanswered question that has captivated researchers is: Is the strength of this adhesion determined by the gecko or is it somehow intrinsic to the adhesive system? In other words, is this adhesion a result of the entire animal initiating ...

An efficient method to harvest low-grade waste heat as electricity may be possible using reversible ammonia batteries, according to Penn State engineers. "The use of waste heat for power production would allow additional electricity generation without any added consumption of fossil fuels," said Bruce E. Logan, Evan Pugh Professor and Kappe Professor of Environmental Engineering. "Thermally regenerative batteries are a carbon-neutral way to store and convert waste heat into electricity with potentially lower cost than solid-state devices." Low-grade waste heat is an ...

New Rochelle, NY, December 3, 2014--Hereditary angioedema (HAE), a rare genetic disease that causes recurrent swelling under the skin and of the mucosal lining of the gastrointestinal tract and upper airway, usually first appears before 20 years of age. A comprehensive review of the therapies currently available to treat HAE in adults shows that some of these treatments are also safe and effective for use in older children and adolescents. Current and potential future therapies are discussed in a Review article in a special issue of Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, and Pulmonology, ...

Typhoon Hagupit continues to intensify as it continued moving through Micronesia on Dec. 3 triggering warnings. NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead and captured an image of the strengthening storm while the Rapidscat instrument aboard the International Space Station provided information about the storm's winds. The International Space Station-RapidScat instrument monitors ocean winds to provide essential measurements used in weather predictions, including hurricanes. "RapidScat measures wind speed and direction over the ocean surface and captured an image of Hagupit ...

This news release is available in French. Quebec City, December 3, 2014--Researchers at Université Laval's Faculty of Science and Engineering and Centre for Optics, Photonics and Lasers have developed smart textiles able to monitor and transmit wearers' biomedical information via wireless or cellular networks. This technological breakthrough, described in a recent article in the scientific journal Sensors, clears a path for a host of new developments for people suffering from chronic diseases, elderly people living alone, and even firemen and police officers. A ...

Researchers at North Carolina State University have for the first time mapped human disease-causing pathogens, dividing the world into a number of regions where similar diseases occur. The findings show that the world can be separated into seven regions for vectored human diseases - diseases that are spread by pests, like mosquito-borne malaria - and five regions for non-vectored diseases, like cholera. Interestingly, not all of the regions are contiguous. The British Isles and many of its former colonies, such as the United States and Australia, have similar diseases ...

Good news on the panda front: Turns out they're not quite as delicate - and picky - as thought. Up until now, information gleaned from 30 years worth of scientific literature suggested that pandas were inflexible about habitat. Those conclusions morphed into conventional wisdom and thus have guided policy in China. But a Michigan State University (MSU) research associate has led a deep dive into aggregate data and emerged with evidence that the endangered animal is more resilient and flexible than previously believed. Vanessa Hull is a postdoctoral research associate ...

Irvine, Calif., Dec. 3, 2014 - High fecal counts frequently detected at so-called "baby beaches" may not be diaper-related. UC Irvine researchers found that during summer months, small drainpipes emptying into enclosed ocean bays have a disproportionate impact on calmer waters. The findings were published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. Researchers have long known that creeks and tributaries foul coastal waters with major winter storm runoff. But dry seasons like the one that just concluded can spell potential peril, too. Runoff from watering ...

When it comes to getting out of a tricky situation, we humans have an evolutionary edge over other primates. Take, as a dramatic example, the Apollo 13 voyage in which engineers, against all odds, improvised a chemical filter on a lunar module to prevent carbon dioxide buildup from killing the crew. UC Berkeley scientists have found mounting brain evidence that helps explain how humans have excelled at "relational reasoning," a cognitive skill in which we discern patterns and relationships to make sense of seemingly unrelated information, such as solving problems in unfamiliar ...

Scientists have developed a new light-sensitive film that could one day form the basis of a prosthetic retina to help people suffering from retinal damage or degeneration. Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers collaborated with colleagues from Tel Aviv University and Newcastle University in the research, which was published in the journal Nano Letters. The retina is a thin layer of tissue at the inner surface of the eye. Composed of light-sensitive nerve cells, it converts images to electrical impulses and sends them to the brain. Damage to the retina from macular ...

A new research brief from the US2010 Project probes the status of minorities in American suburbs. Suburbs in 2010 were as racially and ethnically diverse as were central cities in 1980, and that diversity is still increasing. Yet minorities are not finding equal access to the American dream in the suburbs where they live, a lesson illustrated recently by Ferguson, MO. Suburbia has always been less segregated than central cities. Segregation is slowly declining between suburban blacks and whites, but has stayed about the same for Hispanics and Asians over three decades. ...

Do you consider yourself a conscientious person? Then sign up for a fixed-rate mortgage. Neurotic? You'll probably opt for home ownership over renting. According to a new study published in the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, personality traits are strong indicators of real-estate decisions. The research, by Dr. Danny Ben-Shahar of Tel Aviv University's Faculty of Management and doctoral candidate Roni Golan of the Technion Institute of Technology, finds a correlation between personality and individual real estate choices, and a follow-up study by the ...

Those wishing to prove themselves as "doers" must not only be hands-on and demonstrate proactive behavior but also have social acumen and a feel for favorable opportunities. Those who rely on personal initiative alone will quickly be standing there as an isolated troublemaker. This is what psychologists from the University of Bonn and their colleagues from Florida State University (USA) have discovered through surveying a variety of occupational categories. The results have been published online in the renowned "Journal of Management". The printed version will be published ...

Learning from others and innovation have undoubtedly helped advance civilization. But these behaviours can carry costs as well as benefits. And a new study by an international team of evolutionary biologists sheds light on how one particular cost - increased exposure to parasites - may affect cultural evolution in non-human primates. The results, published Dec. 3, 2014, in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggest that species with members that learn from others suffer from a wider variety of socially transmitted parasites, while innovative, exploratory ...

This news release is available in German. (Jena/Germany) Jena scientists have been successful in producing highly specific nanoparticles. Depending on the bound dye the particles are guided to the liver or to the kidney and deliver their payload of active ingredients directly to the targeted tissue. Moreover, the dyes enable the tracking of the transport processes by intravital microscopy or, in a non-invasive way, by multi spectral optoacoustic tomography. The reduction of cholesterol production induced by siRNA served as the proof-of-principle for the developed ...

What do lasers, neural networks, and spreading epidemics have in common? They share a most basic feature whereby an initial pulse can propagate through a medium - be it physical, biological or socio-economic, respectively. The challenge is to gain a better understanding - and eventually control - of such systems, allowing them to be applied, for instance to real neural systems. This is the objective of a new theoretical study published in EPJ B by Clemens Bachmair and Eckehard Schöll from the Berlin University of Technology in Germany. Ultimately, with a better theoretical ...

New research from the University of Adelaide has helped to shed light on the complexities of child sleep, and could lead to improved diagnosis of children with sleep-related breathing problems. For his PhD in the University's School of Medical Sciences, Scott Coussens has been investigating how to accurately measure the level of sleep disturbance being experienced by children, to show whether or not they require treatment. "Quality sleep is extremely important for children, especially at critical times of development. It can impact on the health of the brain and plays ...

New Rochelle, NY, December 3, 2014--Are adolescents who view pornography or music videos more likely to engage in sexting, in which they share sexually explicit content via text, photo, or video using cell phones, email, or social networking sites? A study of the media consumption and sexting behavior of more than 300 teens is published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking website. In "The Associations ...

Plastic waste is one of today's major environmental concerns. Most types of plastic do not biodegrade but break up into ever smaller pieces while remaining a polymer. Also, most types are made from oil, a rapidly dwindling resource. But there are promising alternatives, and one of them is polylactic acid (PLA): it is biodegradable and made from renewable resources. Manufacturers use PLA for disposable cups, bags and other sorts of packaging. The demand for PLA is constantly rising and has been estimated to reach about one megaton per year by 2020. The research groups ...

Planets orbiting close to low-mass stars -- easily the most common stars in the universe -- are prime targets in the search for extraterrestrial life. But new research led by an astronomy graduate student at the University of Washington indicates some such planets may have long since lost their chance at hosting life because of intense heat during their formative years. Low-mass stars, also called M dwarfs, are smaller than the Sun, and also much less luminous, so their habitable zone tends to be fairly close in. The habitable zone is that swath of space that is just ...

People in the country's unhappiest communities spend about a quarter of the month so far down in the dumps that it can harm their productivity, according to economists. "This is a real concern not just in the United States, but across the world," said Stephan Goetz, professor of agricultural economics and regional economics, Penn State, and director of the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development. "Poor mental health can result in considerable economic costs, including losses of billions of dollars to lower productivity and this doesn't even include the staggering ...

PHILADELPHIA--Quitting smoking sets off a series of changes in the brain that Penn Medicine researchers say may better identify smokers who will start smoking again--a prediction that goes above and beyond today's clinical or behavioral tools for assessing relapse risk. Reporting in a new study published this week in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, James Loughead, PhD, associate professor of Psychiatry, and Caryn Lerman, PhD, a professor of Psychiatry and director of Penn's Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Nicotine Addiction, found that smokers who relapsed ...

Recent research from the Met Office and the University of East Anglia (UEA) suggests breaking the existing global and UK temperature records is much more likely due to human influence on the climate. Early Figures Suggest Global Record Possible The global mean temperature for January to October based on the HadCRUT4 dataset (compiled by the Met Office and UEA's Climatic Research Unit) is 0.57 °C (+/- 0.1) above the long-term (1961-1990) average. This is consistent with the statement from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) today. With two months of data still ...

Researchers at the Mechanobiology Institute at the National University of Singapore have comprehensively described the network of proteins involved in cell-cell adhesions, or the cadherin interactome. This work was published in Science Signaling (Guo et al. E-cadherin interactome complexity and robustness resolved by quantitative proteomics, Science Signaling, 02 Dec 2014, Vol 7, Issue 354). Unlocking the complexity of cell adhesion Many biological processes depend on the ability of cells to stick to one another. The formation of multicellular organisms and precise ...