The majority of the United States' poor aren't sitting on street corners. They're employed at low-paying jobs, struggling to support themselves and a family. In the past, differing definitions of employment and poverty prevented researchers from agreeing on who and how many constitute the "working poor." But a new study by sociologists at BYU, Cornell and LSU provides a rigorous new estimate. Their work suggests about 10 percent of working households are poor. Additionally, households led by women, minorities or individuals with low education are more likely to be ...

A new study led by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego indicates a steady population trend for blue whales and an upward population trend for fin whales in Southern California. Scripps marine acoustician Ana Širović and her colleagues in the Marine Bioacoustics Lab and Scripps Whale Acoustic Lab intermittently deployed 16 High-frequency Acoustic Recording Packages (HARPs)--devices that sit on the seafloor with a suspended hydrophone (an underwater microphone)--to collect acoustic data on whales off Southern California from 2006-2012. ...

MINNEAPOLIS - A new study suggests that errors on memory and thinking tests may signal Alzheimer's up to 18 years before the disease can be diagnosed. The research is published in the June 24, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. "The changes in thinking and memory that precede obvious symptoms of Alzheimer's disease begin decades before," said study author Kumar B. Rajan, PhD, with Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. "While we cannot currently detect such changes in individuals at risk, we were able to ...

"Hydraulic fracturing" (or fracking) and "environmentally friendly" often do not appear in the same sentence together. But as the United States teeters on the precipice of a shale gas boom, Northwestern University professor Fengqi You is exploring ways to make the controversial activity easier on the environment -- and the wallet. "Shale gas is promising," said You, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. "No matter if you like it or not, it's already out there. The question we want ...

Over 50 leading doctors and academics including Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of The BMJ, have signed an open letter published in The Guardian today calling on the Wellcome Trust to divest from fossil fuel companies. The letter is part of The Guardian's "Keep it in the Ground" Campaign that is urging the world's two biggest charitable funds -- the Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation -- to move their money out of fossil fuels. It reads: "Divestment rests on the premise that it is wrong to profit from an industry whose core business threatens human and planetary health, ...

EDMONTON, Alberta, June 25 -- Working towards the ultimate goal to develop therapeutics to treat diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS, and BSE (Mad Cow Disease), University of Alberta scientists Michael Woodside, Hao Yu, and Derek Dee are investigating the physical principles underlying the formation of misfolded protein aggregates. The aggregates of misfolded proteins -- proteins that clump together in the "wrong" structure -- feature prominently in these fatal degenerative diseases. "This is the big mystery we're trying to solve," says Woodside, a professor ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana University cancer researchers found that a particular microRNA may be a potent therapeutic agent against pancreatic cancer. The research was published June 22 in the journal Scientific Reports. Led by Janaiah Kota, Ph.D., assistant professor of medical and molecular genetics at the IU School of Medicine and a researcher at the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center, the researchers found that restoring missing microRNA-29 (miR-29) in pancreatic cancer stromal cells reduced the viability and growth of the cancerous cells. A thick ...

A new study published in the Articles in Advance section of Transportation Science, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), improves how air traffic managers cope with unexpected delays and provides them with more predictable ways to manage arrival traffic at airports with adverse weather. The study, Incorporating Predictability into Cost Optimization for Ground Delay Programs, is by Yi Liu and Mark Hansen of the University of California, Berkeley. Ms. Liu received honorable mention for her research in the 2013 INFORMS ...

Scientists from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich and the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics can image the optical properties of individual nanoparticles with a novel microscope. Nanomaterials play an essential role in many areas of daily life. There is thus a large interest to gain detailed knowledge about their optical and electronic properties. Conventional microscopes get beyond their limits when particle size falls to the range of a few 10 nanometers where a single particle provides only a vanishingly small signal. As a consequence, many investigations ...

The American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), in partnership with the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and in collaboration with the International Antiviral Society-USA (IAS-USA), created online Recommendations for Testing, Managing, and Treating Hepatitis C in 2014 to aid practitioners treating patients infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV). Now an update to the Guidance, with a summary of recommendations regarding treatment with direct-acting antiviral drugs, is published in the AASLD journal, Hepatology. HCV is a blood-borne virus ...

(Philadelphia, PA) - In a life-threatening situation, the heart beats faster and harder, invigorated by the fight-or-flight response, which instantaneously prepares a person to react or run. Now, a new study by researchers at Temple University School of Medicine (TUSM) shows that the uptick in heart muscle contractility that occurs under acute stress is driven by a flood of calcium into mitochondria--the cells' energy-producing powerhouses. Researchers have long known that calcium enters mitochondria in heart muscle cells, but the physiological role of that process was ...

When neurons become active, they call for an extra boost of oxygenated blood -- this change in the presence of blood in different regions of the brain is the basis for functional brain scans. However, what controls this increase or decrease in blood supply has been a long-standing debate. In a paper published on June 25 in Neuron, Yale University scientists present the strongest evidence yet that smooth muscle cells surrounding blood vessels in the brain are the only cells capable of contracting to control blood vessel diameter and thus regulate blood flow. This basic ...

Think the nest of cables under your desk is bad? Try keeping the trillions of connections crisscrossing your brain organized and free of tangles. A new study coauthored by researchers at UC San Francisco and the Freie Universität Berlin reveals this seemingly intractable job may be simpler than it appears. The researchers used high-resolution time-lapse imaging of the developing brains of pupal fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) paired with mathematical simulations to unravel a trick of neural wiring that had stumped neuroscientists for decades. They discovered ...

Adult fruit flies given a cancer drug live 12% longer than average, according to a UCL-led study researching healthy ageing. The drug targets a specific cellular process that occurs in animals, including humans, delaying the onset of age-related deaths by slowing the ageing process. The study published today in Cell and funded by the Max Planck Society and Wellcome Trust shows for the first time that a small molecule drug, which limits the effects of a protein called Ras, can delay the ageing process in animals. The treated fruit flies outlived the control group by staying ...

Boston, MA -- A new study led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health finds that a malaria parasite protein called calcineurin is essential for parasite invasion into red blood cells. Human calcineurin is already a proven target for drugs treating other illnesses including adult rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, and the new findings suggest that parasite calcineurin should be a focus for the development of new antimalarial drugs. "Our study has great biological and medical significance, particularly in light of the huge disease burden of malaria," said ...

LA JOLLA--As a tumor grows, its cancerous cells ramp up an energy-harvesting process to support its hasty development. This process, called autophagy, is normally used by a cell to recycle damaged organelles and proteins, but is also co-opted by cancer cells to meet their increased energy and metabolic demands. Salk Institute and Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) scientists have developed a drug that prevents this process from starting in cancer cells. Published June 25, 2015 in Molecular Cell, the new study identifies a small molecule drug that ...

Washington, DC (June 25, 2015) - Comment sections on websites continue to be an environment for trolls to spew racist opinions. The impact of these hateful words shouldn't have an impact on how one views the news or others, but that may not be the case. A recent study published in the journal Human Communication Research, by researchers at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, found exposure to prejudiced online comments can increase people's own prejudice, and increase the likelihood that they leave prejudiced comments themselves. Mark Hsueh, Kumar Yogeeswaran, ...

June 25 -- During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. combat support hospitals treated at least 650 children with severe, combat-related head injuries, according to a special article in the July issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer. "Given the challenging environment and limited available resources, coalition forces were able to provide quality, timely, and life-saving care to many children" with severe head injuries, write Dr. Paul Klimo, Jr., of Semmes-Murphy Neurologic & Spine ...

A large number of patients use online communication tools such as email and Facebook to engage with their physicians, despite recommendations from some hospitals and professional organizations that clinicians limit email contact with patients and avoid "friending" patients on social media, new research suggests. The findings from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers suggest a disconnect between what patients expect and what physicians -- concerned about confidentiality and being overwhelmed in off-hours -- are willing to do when it comes to online ...

June 25, 2015 - New results in animals highlight a major safety concern regarding a class of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents used in millions of patients each year, according to a paper published online by the journal Investigative Radiology. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer. The study adds to concerns that repeated use of specific "linear"-type gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs) lead to deposits of the heavy-metal element gadolinium in the brain. The results will have a major impact on the multimillion-dollar market for MRI contrast agents, ...

Many patients in the latter stage of Parkinson's disease are at high risk of dangerous, sometimes fatal, falls. One major reason is the disabling symptom referred to as Freezing of Gait (FoG) -- brief episodes of an inability to step forward that typically occurs during gait initiation or when turning while walking. Patients who experience FoG often lose their independence, which has a direct effect on their already degenerating quality of life. In the absence of effective pharmacological therapies for FoG, technology-based solutions to alleviate the symptom and prolong ...

While the use of antiangiogenesis drugs that block the growth of new blood vessels can improve the treatment of some cancers, clinical trials of their ability to prevent the development of new metastases have failed. Now a study from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center may have found at least one reason why. In their paper published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, an MGH research team reports finding that the growth of metastases in lymph nodes -- the most common site of cancer spread -- does not require new blood vessels but instead ...

A good or mediocre appetizer has the potential to significantly change how the main course is enjoyed, according to one Drexel food science professor. Jacob Lahne, PhD, an assistant professor in the Center for Hospitality and Sport Management, recently found that a comparatively good appetizer could make people enjoy the main course less than if it were preceded by a mediocre appetizer. Lahne tested and analyzed subjects' hedonic (liking) responses to a main dish of "pasta aglio e olio" (pasta with garlic and oil) after they had either a good or mediocre bruschetta ...

Nature loves crystals. Salt, snowflakes and quartz are three examples of crystals - materials characterized by the lattice-like arrangement of their atoms and molecules. Industry loves crystals, too. Electronics are based on a special family of crystals known as semiconductors, most famously silicon. To make semiconductors useful, engineers must tweak their crystalline lattice in subtle ways to start and stop the flow of electrons. Semiconductor engineers must know precisely how much energy it takes to move electrons in a crystal lattice. This energy measure is the ...

Scientists from UCL (University College London) have designed a chemical compound that has reduced the growth of pancreatic cancer tumours by 80 percent in treated mice. The compound, called MM41, was designed to block faulty genes. It appears to do this by targeting little knots in their DNA, called quadruplexes, which are very different from normal DNA and which are especially found in faulty genes. The findings, published in Nature Scientific Reports, showed that MM41 had a strong inhibiting effect on two genes -- k-RAS and BCL-2 -- both of which are found in the ...