Students taking traditional, in-class science courses reported higher perceived learning gains than students enrolled in online distance education science courses. Notably, African-American students taking traditional science courses self-reported greater affective and psychomotor learning gains than students taking online science courses. These are the key findings of a new study co-authored by a Clemson University researcher and published in the most recent issue of Black History Bulletin. The purpose of the study, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation ...

This news release is available in Spanish. PHILADELPHIA (September 4, 2014) – Scientists have discovered and described a new supermassive dinosaur species with the most complete skeleton ever found of its type. At 85 feet (26 m) long and weighing about 65 tons (59,300 kg) in life, Dreadnoughtus schrani is the largest land animal for which a body mass can be accurately calculated. Its skeleton is exceptionally complete, with over 70 percent of the bones, excluding the head, represented. Because all previously discovered supermassive dinosaurs are known only from relatively ...

SUMMIT, N.J. (Sept. 4, 2014) – Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG) today announced that data from FIRST (MM-020/IFM 07-01)—an open-label phase III randomized study of continuous REVLIMID (lenalidomide) in combination with dexamethasone in patients newly diagnosed with multiple myeloma (NDMM) who are not candidates for stem cell transplant—have been published in the Sept. 4 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Initial findings, including that the trial had met its primary endpoint of progression free survival (PFS), were reported during the plenary session at the ...

New York | Heidelberg, 4 September 2014 -- Periodic chain-like nanostructures are widely used in nanoelectronics. Typically, chain elements include the likes of quantum rings, quantum dots, or quantum graphs. Such a structure enables electrons to move along the chain, in theory, indefinitely. The trouble is that some applications require localised electrons—these are no longer in a continuous energy spectrum but in a discrete energy spectrum, instead. Now, a new study by Russian scientists identifies ways of disturbing the periodicity of a model nanostructure to obtain ...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2014 — Football season is here, and along with thousands of lost hours of productivity from fantasy teams, there's a renewed discussion on the impact of head injuries on players. This week's Speaking of Chemistry focuses on a brain disorder called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), whose symptoms include memory loss, depression and aggressive or violent behavior. Current detection methods can only identify CTE after a patient has died, leaving many NFL players with a diagnosis that came too late. Now doctors are developing a way to spot CTE in ...

Research from North Carolina State University shows that a type of modified titania, or titanium dioxide, holds promise as an electrical insulator for superconducting magnets, allowing heat to dissipate while preserving the electrical paths along which current flows. Superconducting magnets are being investigated for use in next-generation power generating technologies and medical devices. Regular conductors conduct electricity, but a small fraction of that energy is lost during transmission. Superconductors can handle much higher currents per square centimeter and lose ...

A new study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests that normal-weight nutrition and exercise counselors report feeling significantly more successful in getting their obese patients to lose weight than those who are overweight or obese. A report on the findings, published online Sept. 4 in the journal Obesity, suggests that patients may be more receptive to those who "practice what they preach." "Our research shows that the personal weight of health professionals matters when assessing their perceived level of success in helping ...

When factoring in what is now known about breast cancer biology and heterogeneity, breast conserving therapy (BCT) may offer a greater survival benefit over mastectomy to women with early stage, hormone-receptor positive disease, according to research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The study findings defy the conventional belief that the two treatment interventions offer equal survival, and show the need to revisit some standards of breast cancer practice in the modern era. The research was presented at the 2014 Breast Cancer Symposium by ...

Despite its acceptance as standard of care for early stage breast cancer almost 25 years ago, barriers still exist that preclude patients from receiving breast conserving therapy (BCT), with some still opting for a mastectomy, according to research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The study, to be presented at the 2014 Breast Cancer Symposium, finds that those barriers that still exist are socio-economic, rather than medically-influenced. Meeghan Lautner, M.D., formerly a fellow at MD Anderson, now at The University of Texas San Antonio, will present ...

RESTON, VA – In a paper published today in the journal PLOS One, investigators with the American Institute of Biological Sciences report findings from an analysis of the research output from a series of biomedical research grants funded after undergoing a scientific peer review process. The results, reported in 'The Validation of Peer Review Through Research Impact Measures and the Implications for Funding Strategies,' offer insights for future research on peer review and potential models for increasing research productivity. "Some form of peer review is used at the ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Infant rhesus monkeys receiving different diets early in life develop distinct immune systems that persist months after weaning, a study by researchers from UC Davis, the California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC) at UC Davis and UC San Francisco have shown. The study, which compares breast- and bottle-fed infants, appears online September 3 in Science Translational Medicine. While the researchers expected different diets would promote different intestinal bacteria (microbiota), they were surprised at how dramatically these microbes shaped ...

New research shows that liver injury caused by herbals and dietary supplements increased from 7% to 20% in a U.S. study group over a ten-year period. According to the study published in Hepatology, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, liver injury caused by non-bodybuilding supplements is most severe, occurring more often in middle-aged women and more frequently resulting in death or the need for transplantation than liver injury from bodybuilding supplements or conventional medications." Nearly half of all adult Americans consume herbal ...

RNA-sequencing allows measuring the gene expression of humans or other organisms. The method has recently become very popular in bioscience and medical research, and it is being adopted to clinical applications. Compared to previous methods, RNA-sequencing enables the study of alternative gene isoforms or transcripts, which are formed for example through the process of alternative splicing. The analysis of the large amount of data produced by RNA-sequencing requires many advanced computational methods. Analysis of transcript level data is especially demanding and the ...

Athens, Ga. – Human eyes naturally contain yellow pigment in the macula, a spot near the center of the retina responsible for high-resolution vision. Those with more yellow in their macula may have an advantage when it comes to filtering out atmospheric particles that obscure one's vision, commonly known as haze. According to a new University of Georgia study, people with increased yellow in their macula could absorb more light and maintain better vision in haze than others. Billy Hammond, UGA professor of brain and behavioral sciences and director of the Vision Sciences ...

SUMMIT, N.J. (Sept. 4, 2014) – Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG) today announced that data from FIRST (MM-020/IFM 07-01)—an open-label phase III randomized study of continuous REVLIMID (lenalidomide) in combination with dexamethasone in patients newly diagnosed with multiple myeloma (NDMM) who are not candidates for stem cell transplant—have been published in the Sept. 4 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Initial findings, including that the trial had met its primary endpoint of progression free survival (PFS), were reported during the plenary session at the ...

Methods have been developed to try to identify and correct for bias in the fossil record but new research from the Universities of Bristol and Bath, suggests many of these correction methods may actually be misleading. The study, led by Dr Alex Dunhill, formerly at the Universities of Bristol and Bath and now at the University of Leeds, explored the rich and well-studied fossil record of Great Britain. Professional geological work has been done in the British Isles for over 200 years and the British Geological Survey (dating from the 1830s) has amassed enormous, detailed ...

Researchers in Japan have engineered a membrane with advanced features capable of removing harmful greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Their findings, published in the British journal Nature Communications, may one day contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions and cleaner skies. Greenhouse gases, originating from industrial processes and the burning of fossil fuels, blanket the earth and are the culprits behind current global warming woes. The most abundant among them is carbon dioxide, which made up 84% of the United State's greenhouse gases in 2012, and can linger ...

Reducing sedentary activity appears to lengthen telomeres, which sit on the end of chromosomes, the DNA storage units in each cell, the findings show. Telomeres are important because they stop chromosomes from 'fraying' or clumping together and 'scrambling' the genetic codes they contain, performing a role similar to the plastic tips on the end of shoelaces, to which they have been likened. Longevity and a healthy lifestyle have been linked to telomere length, but whether physical activity can make any difference, is not clear. The researchers therefore analysed the ...

The rapid increase in rates of type 2 diabetes* in low- and middle-income countries where tuberculosis (TB) is endemic could hamper global efforts to control and eliminate TB, according to a new three-part Series about TB and diabetes, published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. The Series indicates that 15% of adult TB cases worldwide are already attributable to diabetes. These diabetes-associated cases correspond to over 1 million cases a year, with more than 40% occurring in India and China alone. If diabetes rates continue to rise out of control, the present ...

Most living mammals are active at night (or nocturnal), and many other mammal species are active during twilight conditions. It has long been thought that the transition to nocturnality occurred at about the same time as mammals evolved, around 200 million years ago. This thinking was based on on features such as the large brains of mammals (good for processing information from senses like hearing, touch, and smell) and the details of light-sensitive chemicals in the eyes of mammals. It turns out that nocturnal activity might have a much older origin among ancient mammal ...

VIDEO: Columbia researchers discuss how e-cigarettes may promote illicit drug use and addiction. Click here for more information. NEW YORK, NY (September 3, 2014)—Like conventional cigarettes, electronic cigarettes (or e-cigarettes) may function as a "gateway drug"—a drug that lowers the threshold for addiction to other substances, such as marijuana and cocaine—according to the 120th Shattuck lecture, presented to the Massachusetts Medical Society by Columbia researchers ...

Prostate cancer patients whose tumors contain a shortened protein called AR-V7, which can be detected in the blood, are less likely to respond to two widely used drugs for metastatic prostate cancer, according to results of a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. If large-scale studies validate the findings, the investigators say men with detectable blood levels of AR-V7 should avoid these two drugs and instead take other medicines to treat their prostate cancer. A report on the work is described online Sept. 3 in the New England Journal of ...

Bottom Line: Airline pilots and cabin crews appear to have twice the incidence of melanoma as the general population. Author: Martina Sanlorenzo, M.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues. Background: Melanoma is a common cancer in the United States; in 2014, 76,100 people will be diagnosed with the skin cancer and 9,710 people will die. Several studies have suggested a higher incidence of melanoma in pilots and flight crew. Flight-based workers are thought to have a greater occupational hazard risk of melanoma because of increased altitude-related ...

Bottom Line: A diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) appears to be associated with higher rates of schizophrenia and schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Authors: Sandra M. Meier, Ph.D., of Aarhus University, Denmark, and colleagues. Background: OCD and schizophrenia are distinct and infrequently overlapping disorders. But some studies have suggested higher rates of co-existing illness with the two disorders in patients. How the Study Was Conducted: The authors assessed the potential relationship between the two disorders using data from Danish registers. ...

Parents of twins often tell them apart through subtle differences such as facial expression, moles, voice tone and gait. Similarly, physicians treating women with endometrial cancer must be able to distinguish between different versions of this disease form that, on the surface, appear the same. With endometrial cancer, the most common gynecological cancer in the western world and the fourth most prevalent in the U.S., it can literally be a matter of life and death. Mortality rates from this cancer have nearly tripled in the last 25 years and are thought to be attributed ...