An intervention that uses music and games to help preschoolers learn self-regulation skills is helping prepare at-risk children for kindergarten, a new study from Oregon State University shows. Self-regulation skills - the skills that help children pay attention, follow directions, stay on task and persist through difficulty - are critical to a child's success in kindergarten and beyond, said OSU's Megan McClelland, a nationally recognized expert in child development and a co-author of the new study. "Most children do just fine in the transition to kindergarten, but ...

We are all familiar with the hassles that accompany air travel. We shuffle through long lines, remove our shoes, and carry liquids in regulation-sized tubes. And even after all the effort, we still wonder if these procedures are making us any safer. Now a new type of security detection that uses terahertz radiation is looking to prove its promise. Able to detect explosives, chemical agents, and dangerous biological substances from safe distances, devices using terahertz waves could make public spaces more secure than ever. But current terahertz sources are large, multi-component ...

You're at a slumber party with your friends. One friend asks "if a guy at school asked you out, but you weren't really attracted to him, would you go?" You laugh and shake your head no: "Why would I, if he's not my type?" Or imagine you're at school, sitting in the cafeteria. A guy who you think is attractive but who has some unsuitable personality traits comes up and asks you out. You say yes, even though what you really meant to say was no. "Why did I do that?" you wonder. According to new research from the University of Toronto and Yale University, rejecting unsuitable ...

As an actress, producer, director and theatre arts lecturer at The University of Texas at Arlington, Julienne Greer knows the techniques that help draw people's deepest emotions to the surface. Now, she's building on her experience and research to help scientists and robotics engineers better understand the human experience so that they can build more responsive robots. Greer, who holds a master's degree in media arts and a doctorate in humanities, recently authored the paper, "Building emotional authenticity between humans and robots." In it, she referenced a robot named ...

OAKLAND, Calif., Nov. 21, 2014 -- Digoxin, a drug commonly used to treat heart conditions, was associated with a 71 percent higher risk of death and a 63 percent higher risk of hospitalization among adults with diagnosed atrial fibrillation and no evidence of heart failure, according to a Kaiser Permanente study that appears in the current online issue of Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology. Digoxin is a drug derived from digitalis, which has been used for more than a century for heart-rate control in patients with atrial fibrillation, and it remains commonly ...

Patients who receive more cells get significant benefits. That's a key lesson emerging from a clinical trial that was reported this week at the American Heart Association meeting in Chicago. In this study, doctors treated heart attack patients with their own bone marrow cells, selected for their healing potential and then reinjected into the heart, in an effort to improve the heart's recovery. In the PreSERVE-AMI phase II trial, physicians from 60 sites treated 161 patients, making the study one of the largest to assess cell therapy for heart attacks in the United States. ...

Scientists have identified four new genes associated with the severe food allergy eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE). Because the genes appear to have roles in other allergic diseases and in inflammation, the findings may point toward potential new treatments for EoE. "This research adds to the evidence that genetic factors play key roles in EoE, and broadens our knowledge of biological networks that may offer attractive targets for therapy," said study leader Hakon Hakonarson, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Applied Genomics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia ...

Study says leopards stay surprisingly close to homes Leopard home range around humans can be comparable to world's best protected areas Article available from PLOS ONE NEW YORK (November 21, 2014) - In the first-ever GPS-based study of leopards in India, led by WCS and partners has delved into the secret lives of these big cats, and recorded their strategies to thrive in human-dominated areas. The study concludes that leopards in human areas are not always 'stray' or 'conflict' animals but residents, potentially requiring policy makers to rethink India's leopard-management ...

November 21, 2014 -- A study conducted by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health shows that obesity costs the U.S. $8.65 billion per year as a result of absenteeism in the workplace --more than 9% of all absenteeism costs. The consequences of obesity among the working population go beyond healthcare and create a financial challenge not only for the nation but for individual states as well. Findings are published online in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The study is the first to provide state-level estimates of obesity-attributable ...

Lugano/Geneva, Switzerland, 21 November 2014 - New evidence that immune checkpoint inhibitors may work in glioblastoma and brain metastases was presented today by Dr Anna Sophie Berghoff at the ESMO Symposium on Immuno-Oncology 2014 in Geneva, Switzerland. The novel research shows that brain metastases have dense concentrations of tumour infiltrating lymphocytes, providing an immunoactive environment. Moreover, both primary and secondary brain cancers often exhibit high expression of the immunosuppressive factor programmed cell death ligand 1 (PDL1), which can be inhibited ...

One of the most mysterious forms of life may turn out to be a rich and untapped source of antibacterial drugs. The mysterious life form is Archaea, a family of single-celled organisms that thrive in environments like boiling hydrothermal pools and smoking deep sea vents which are too extreme for most other species to survive. "It is the first discovery of a functional antibacterial gene in Archaea," said Seth Bordenstein, the associate professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt University who directed the study, "You can't overstate the significance of the antibiotic ...

Prison policies vary on treating transgendered inmates, which could put inmates and institutions at risk. Gina Gibbs, a University of Cincinnati criminal justice doctoral student, will present a synopsis of the legal issues posed by such inmates at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology. The national conference runs from Nov. 19-22 in San Francisco. At the center of the debate are Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment, widely varying policies on the treatment of transgendered populations and, Gibbs says, court crackdowns ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Retired baseball stars Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro each had Hall of Fame-worthy numbers, each hitting more than 500 home runs. All three also were tarred by allegations of steroid use. Their stories, however, received very different treatment over 12 years of national television news coverage, says University of Illinois professor Brian Quick, lead author on a paper about that coverage and its effects, published online Nov. 20 by the journal Communication Research. "We found that Bonds received more than twice as many negative stories ...

This news release is available in German. One lesson that policymakers and financial regulators have drawn from the financial market crisis is that banks need to be backed by more equity. But banks have found it hard to increase their core capital positions - in other words, the equity available to them long-term. Since 2009, this has led European banks to increasingly deploy an instrument that allows them to convert debt into equity in times of need: contingent convertible bonds, also known as CoCo bonds. Banks issue these bonds at fixed interest rates - as is normal ...

Gases don't conduct heat as well as solids do. Cellular or aerated concretes take advantage of this effect, which experts call "gas-phase insulation". The heat barrier is achieved by air encased in the cavities of the concrete. But gas-phase insulation has far greater potential than keeping our homes warm. It can also be used to protect turbine engine and waste incinerator components when subjected to intense heat. All you need to do is transfer this effect to a coating that is just a few hundred micrometers thick. Temperature differences of over 400 degrees Celsius Scientists ...

The fixed combination of canagliflozin with metformin (trade name: Vokanamet) has been approved since April 2014 for adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus in whom diet and exercise do not provide adequate glycaemic control. The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) now examined in a dossier assessment whether the new drug combination offers an added benefit over the appropriate comparator therapy. No such added benefit can be derived from the dossier, however, because the manufacturer did not present any suitable data for any of the possible ...

Lugano/Geneva, Switzerland, 21 November 2014 - The possibilities for personalised vaccines in all types of cancer are revealed today in a lecture from Dr Harpreet Singh at the ESMO Symposium on Immuno-Oncology 2014 in Geneva, Switzerland. "One of the biggest hurdles in cancer immunotherapy is the discovery of appropriate cancer targets that can be recognised by T-cells," said Singh, who is scientific coordinator of the EU-funded GAPVAC phase I trial which is testing personalised vaccines in glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive brain cancer. "In the GAPVAC trial ...

Public health researchers from the University of Adelaide have evaluated international breast cancer guidelines, finding that there is potential to improve surveillance of breast cancer survivors from both a patient and health system perspective. International guidelines recommend annual follow-up mammograms for every woman after treatment for early breast cancer, regardless of the risk of her cancer returning. There is also no strong evidence to support annual mammography compared with other possible mammography schedules. In a paper published in the journal Value ...

VIDEO: Powered lower limb prosthetics hold promise for improving the mobility of amputees, but errors in the technology may also cause some users to stumble or fall. New research from the... Click here for more information. Powered lower limb prosthetics hold promise for improving the mobility of amputees, but errors in the technology may also cause some users to stumble or fall. New research examines exactly what happens when these technologies fail, with the goal of developing ...

Bethesda, MD (Nov. 21, 2014) -- Cirrhosis and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) are two serious liver conditions with limited pharmacological treatments. The December issues of AGA's journals -- Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology and Gastroenterology -- highlight important updates into treatments for these two debilitating diseases. For access to any of these studies, or to speak with the study authors, please contact media@gastro.org or call 301-272-1603. Promising Probiotic for Liver Disease A study published in Gastroenterology1 found that, over a ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Don't get along with your boss? Your job performance may actually improve if the two of you can come to grips with the poor relationship. A new study led by Michigan State University business scholars finds that workers are more motivated if they and their supervisors see eye-to-eye about a bad relationship than if they have different views about their relationship. The findings are published in the Academy of Management Journal. "Seeing eye-to-eye about the employee-supervisor relationship is equally, if not more important than the actual quality ...

SCOTTSVILLE, SOUTH AFRICA-- Worldwide, drought conditions, extreme temperatures, and high soil saline content all have negative effects on tomato crops. These natural processes reduce soil nutrient content and lifespan, result in reduced plant growth and yield, and ultimately translate to lower profits for tomato producers. As an alternative to unsustainable practices such as the use of synthetic fertilizers, producers are looking to environment-friendly soil ameliorants such as verimcompost leachate, an organic liquid produced from earthworm-digested material and casts ...

TUSCON, AZ - Soil solarization, a process that uses solar radiation to rid the soil of pests, is most common in regions with high solar radiation and high temperatures during the summer season. An alternative to soil fumigation, the process is used either alone or in combination with fumigants. To accomplish solarization, solar radiation is used to passively heat moist soil covered with clear plastic sheeting, with the goal of increasing soil temperatures to the point where they are lethal to soilborne organisms. The effectiveness of solarization is based on the actual ...

Quebec City, November 21, 2014--Scientists from Université Laval, the University of British Columbia and the University of Oxford have discovered a natural resistance gene against spruce budworm in the white spruce. The breakthrough, reported in The Plant Journal, paves the way to identifying and selecting naturally resistant trees to replant forests devastated by the destructive pest. A research team composed of professors Éric Bauce, Joerg Bohlmann and John Mackay as well as their students and postdocs discovered the gene in spruces that had remained relatively ...

Employees who work at small, locally owned businesses have the highest level of loyalty to their employers -- and for rural workers, size and ownership of their company figure even more into their commitment than job satisfaction does, according to Baylor University researchers. Higher levels of commitment are associated with less absenteeism, lower turnover and less seeking of jobs outside the company. The study -- "Small, local and loyal: How firm attributes affect workers' organizational commitment" -- is published in the journal Local Economy. "It's an interesting ...