Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a technique that allows ultrasound to penetrate bone or metal, using customized structures that offset the distortion usually caused by these so-called "aberrating layers." "We've designed complementary metamaterials that will make it easier for medical professionals to use ultrasound for diagnostic or therapeutic applications, such as monitoring blood flow in the brain or to treat brain tumors," says Tarry Chen Shen, a Ph.D. student at NC State and lead author of a paper on the work. "This has been difficult ...

A new database developed by the University of Cantabria (Spain) provides data on sea level variation due to atmospheric changes in the south of Europe between 1948 and 2009. Over the last two decades sea levels have increased in the Mediterranean basin. "The meteorological sea level or meteorological tide component is the variation of the sea level as a result of atmospheric changes or more specifically, changes in the atmospheric pressure and the wind at the sea surface," Alba Cid explains to SINC, Alba being the lead author of the study published in the journal 'Climate ...

Patients affected by Parkinson's disease often show marked changes in body weight: they may gain or lose a lot of weight depending on the stage of the disease, or they may put on up to ten kilos after deep brain stimulation (a treatment to alleviate the symptoms). This situation considerably worsens the quality of life of a person who is already suffering from heavily disabling motor disorders, so it is important to understand what are the factors that cause it. "The body weight and eating habits of Parkinson's patients change as the disease progresses", explains Marilena ...

The limited coverage that American female athletes get in the media is one of many subtle forms of gender biases they have to cope with. The little exposure they do get often focuses more on their attire, or how attractive, sexy or ladylike they are than on their actual athletic prowess. In the long run, this influences their performance in sports. This is the view of Emily Kaskan and Ivy Ho of the University of Massachusetts Lowell in the US, published in a review in Springer's journal Sex Roles. Kaskan and Ho looked at how pervasive small subtle biases and stereotyping ...

November 20, 2014 - Changes in the lipid layer of the eyes' natural tear film may contribute to the common problem of contact lens discomfort, reports a study in the December issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. Applying a liposomal eyelid spray appears to reduce drying of the tear film and help make wearing contact lenses more comfortable, according to the pilot study by Fiona Stapleton, PhD, FAAO, of University of New ...

Ice-free pavement. "Smart snowplows." Vegetable juice ice-melt. Cold-climate researchers at Washington State University are clearing the road with green alternatives to the salt, sand and chemicals typically used for highway snow and ice control. As a nation, "we are kind of salt addicted, like with petroleum, as it's been so cheap and convenient for the last 50 years," said Xianming Shi, associate professor in civil and environmental engineering. This winter, road salt is in short supply across the northern states and in some regions prices have increased by 10 ...

Powerful clues have been discovered about why the human immune system, metabolism, stress response, and other life functions are so different from those of the mouse. A new, comprehensive study of the mouse genome by an international group of researchers including Penn State University scientists reveals striking similarities and differences with the human genome. The study may lead to better use of mouse models in medical research. The findings are reported by the Mouse ENCODE Consortium online on November 19, 2014 and in print on November 20 in the study's main paper ...

Case Western Reserve researchers have identified a protein mutation that alters specific gender-related tissue in males before birth and can contribute to the development of cancer as well as other less life-threatening challenges. The discovery marks the latest in a series of findings related to the protein SRY (sex-determining region on the Y chromosome), which serves as a master switch for ensuring typical human male maturation. In this case, however, the mutation prevents the protein from folding properly and in turn impairs the protein's ability to direct the appropriate ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. - November 19, 2014) Gene therapy developed at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, University College London (UCL) and the Royal Free Hospital has transformed life for men with a severe form of hemophilia B by providing a safe, reliable source of the blood clotting protein Factor IX that has allowed some to adopt a more active lifestyle, researchers reported. The results appear in the November 20 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine. In this study, participants received one of three doses of gene therapy that used a modified adeno-associated ...

Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (NTU Singapore) has invented a unique biomarker with two exceptional functions. First, it lights up when it detects tumour cells to allow scientists to take a better look. And it can also release anti-cancer drugs at the same time to the specific cells. This new biomarker, which has immense potential for drug development, is made from a nanophosphor particle, ten thousand times smaller than a grain of sand. NTU Singapore associate professors Zhang Qichun and Joachim Loo have found a way to make the nanoparticle light up ...

SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 20, 2014 - University of Utah engineers have developed a polarizing filter that allows in more light, leading the way for mobile device displays that last much longer on a single battery charge and cameras that can shoot in dim light. Polarizers are indispensable in digital photography and LCD displays, but they block enormous amounts of light, wasting energy and making it more difficult to photograph in low light. The Utah electrical and computer engineering researchers created the filter by etching a silicon wafer with nanoscale pillars and holes ...

Researchers in Japan have revealed the mechanism that determines the direction of the transportation of eggs in the fallopian tube. Fallopian tubes, or oviducts, connect the ovaries and uterus. They are also the place where the egg and sperm meet and fertilization occurs, in addition the tubes have the ability to carry the eggs/embryos to the uterus. Because of these important roles they are an absolutely essential part of the reproductive system. The luminal cells of the fallopian tubes have cilia (hair-like structures) on their surfaces, and by the ciliary movement ...

Oats contain more fat than other cereals, and oat oil has a unique composition. A new study from Lund University, Härröd Research and Swedish Oat Fiber AB, shows a special oat oil preparation can produce greater satiety. The study followed 34 healthy individuals who were given different quantities of the oat oil preparation as part of a normal breakfast. The researchers found that levels of satiety hormones in the intestines rose more with the oat oil preparation than with the placebo 3-7 hours after the meal (by anything from a tenth to half, depending on the ...

If you planned to sabotage a factory, a recon trip through the premises would probably be much more useful than just peeping in at the windows. Scientists looking to understand - and potentially thwart - the influenza virus have now gone from a similar window-based view to the full factory tour, thanks to the first complete structure of one of the flu virus' key machines. The structure, obtained by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Grenoble, France, allows researchers to finally understand how the machine works as a whole. Published today ...

Shedding pounds is all the rage these days and the global trend toward weight reduction has even spread to the automobile industry. Cars are to get even lighter - using new materials such as ultra-high-strength steels or carbon, and carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRP). But no matter which diet regime and which lightweight components manufacturers choose, they all want the same thing: the best and longest-lasting joining method for vehicle components. Since Duroplast, which often serves as the matrix component for CFRPs, can't be welded, another joining technique is ...

China has made significant progress increasing access to tap water and sanitation services, and has sharply reduced the burden of waterborne and water-related infectious diseases over the past two decades. However, in a study published in the latest edition of Nature Climate Change, researchers from Emory University found that climate change will blunt China's efforts at further reducing these diseases in the decades to come. The study found that by 2030, changes to the global climate could delay China's progress reducing diarrheal and vector-borne diseases by up to seven ...

Faced with declining enrollment and rising costs, some small liberal arts colleges have added professional and vocational majors, a decision University of Iowa researchers say has strengthened rather than undermined the mission of the schools. In fact, students at liberal arts colleges realized virtually the same educational gains, no matter their major, according to the UI report released earlier this month. The only differences were liberal arts major expressed a greater interest in literacy while professional majors scored higher in leadership skills. "Essentially, ...

A collaborative team of leaders in the field of cancer immunology from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has made a key discovery that advances the understanding of why some patients respond to ipilimumab, an immunotherapy drug, while others do not. MSK was at the forefront of the clinical research that brought this CTLA-4 blocking antibody to melanoma patients. A report published online first today in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that in patients who respond to ipilimumab, their cancer cells carry a high number of gene mutations--some of which make ...

Barcelona, Spain: Patients with a form of advanced colorectal cancer that is driven by a mutated version of the BRAF gene have limited treatment options available. However, results from a multi-centre clinical trial suggest that the cancer may respond to a combination of three targeted drugs. Professor Josep Tabernero, head of the medical oncology department at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital and director of the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology, Barcelona, Spain, will tell the 26th EORTC-NCI-AACR [1] Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Barcelona ...

(PHILADELPHIA) - Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that primarily kills motor neurons, leading to paralysis and death 2 to 5 years from diagnosis. Currently ALS has no cure. Despite promising early-stage research, the majority of drugs in development for ALS have failed. Now researchers have uncovered a possible explanation. In a study published November 20th in the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology, researchers show that the brain's machinery for pumping out toxins is ratcheted up in ALS ...

A lot of research has shown that poor regulation of the serotonin system, caused by certain genetic variations, can increase the risk of developing psychiatric illnesses such as autism, depression, or anxiety disorders. Furthermore, genetic variations in the components of the serotonin system can interact with stress experienced during the foetal stages and/or early childhood, which can also increase the risk of developing psychiatric problems later on. In order to better understand serotonin's influence in the developing brain, Alexandre Dayer's team in the Psychiatry ...

Working at the edge of a coal mine in India, a team of Johns Hopkins researchers and colleagues have filled in a major gap in science's understanding of the evolution of a group of animals that includes horses and rhinos. That group likely originated on the subcontinent when it was still an island headed swiftly for collision with Asia, the researchers report Nov. 20 in the online journal Nature Communications. Modern horses, rhinos and tapirs belong to a biological group, or order, called Perissodactyla. Also known as "odd-toed ungulates," animals in the order have, ...

Bremerhaven/Germany, 20 November 2014. Scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) have identified a possible source of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases that were abruptly released to the atmosphere in large quantities around 14,600 years ago. According to this new interpretation, the CO2 - released during the onset of the Bølling/Allerød warm period - presumably had their origin in thawing Arctic permafrost soil and amplified the initial warming through positive feedback. The study now appears ...

The residents of Longyearbyen, the largest town on the Norwegian arctic island archipelago of Svalbard, remember it as the week that the weather gods caused trouble. Temperatures were ridiculously warm - and reached a maximum of nearly +8 degrees C in one location at a time when mean temperatures are normally -15 degrees C. It rained in record amounts. Snow packs became so saturated that slushy snow avalanches from the mountains surrounding Longyearbyen covered roads and took out a major pedestrian bridge. Snowy streets and the tundra were transformed into icy, ...

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass-- Tufts University School of Engineering researchers and collaborators from Texas A&M University have published the first research to use computational modeling to predict and identify the metabolic products of gastrointestinal (GI) tract microorganisms. Understanding these metabolic products, or metabolites, could influence how clinicians diagnose and treat GI diseases, as well as many other metabolic and neurological diseases increasingly associated with compromised GI function. The research appears in the November 20 edition of Nature Communications ...