CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Cyberattacks loom as an increasingly dire threat to privacy, national security and the global economy, and the best way to blunt their impact may be a public-private partnership between government and business, researchers say. But the time to act is now, rather than in the wake of a crisis, says a University of Illinois expert in law and technology. According to a study by Jay Kesan, the H. Ross and Helen Workman Research Scholar at the College of Law, an information-sharing framework is necessary to combat cybersecurity threats. "Cybersecurity is ...

Most people know children learn many skills simply by watching people around them. Without explicit instructions youngsters know to do things like press a button to operate the television and twist a knob to open a door. Now researchers have taken this further, finding that children as young as age 2 intuitively use mathematical concepts such as probability to help make sense of the world around them. In a study led by researchers at the University of Washington, toddlers could tell the difference between two different ways an experimenter played a game, with one strategy ...

Updates from NWTfire.com report that there are 133 active fires in the North Slave Region of the Northwest Territories. No new fires reported in the past 24 hours. Fire danger is moderate to high. Smoke may be an issue in some communities. The Birch Lake Complex of fires are in an area approximately 80 km south of Behchoko and extending to within 30 km north of Fort Providence. Four crews will be working on hot spots and mopping up at Moraine Point this week. Mop-up continues many areas of complex's fire perimeter. The total fire complex area is estimated at 650,000 ...

A parasitic fungus that reproduces by manipulating the behavior of ants emits a cocktail of behavior-controlling chemicals when encountering the brain of its natural target host, but not when infecting other ant species, a new study shows. The findings, which suggest that the fungus "knows" its preferred host, provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, according to researchers. "Fungi are well known for their ability to secrete chemicals that affect their environment," noted lead author Charissa de Bekker, a Marie Curie Fellow in ...

There's a certain type of biomolecule built like a nano-Christmas tree. Called a glycoconjugate, it's many branches are bedecked with sugary ornaments. It's those ornaments that get all the glory. That's because, according to conventional wisdom, the glycoconjugate's lowly "tree" basically holds the sugars in place as they do the important work of reacting with other molecules. Now a chemist at Michigan Technological University has discovered that the tree itself—called the scaffold—is a good deal more than a simple prop. "We had always thought that all the biological ...

People with cognitive impairment are significantly more likely to have a stroke, with a 39% increased risk, than people with normal cognitive function, according to a new study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "Given the projected substantial rise in the number of older people around the world, prevalence rates of cognitive impairment and stroke are expected to soar over the next several decades, especially in high-income countries," writes Dr. Bruce Ovbiagele, Chair of the Department of Neurology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, ...

A new study indicates that there is no apparent benefit to arthroscopic knee surgery for age-related tears of the meniscus in comparison with nonsurgical or sham treatments. The study, published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal), provides evidence that middle-aged or older patients with mild or no osteoarthritis of the knee may not benefit from the procedure. As people age, the meniscus in the knee thins and becomes less flexible and more susceptible to tearing. When the meniscus tears, it can cause pain and mechanical symptoms. Arthroscopic knee surgery ...

Their study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) today, says middle-aged or older patients with mild or no osteoarthritis of the knee may not benefit from the procedure of arthroscopic knee surgery. Each year more than four million such keyhole surgeries are performed worldwide for degenerative meniscus tears. Doctors need to be carefully weighing the costs and benefits when deciding who should undergo such surgery, says Dr. Moin Khan, principal investigator for the study and research fellow in orthopedic surgery in the Michael G. DeGroote School ...

August 25, 2014 – Individuals with greater amounts of yellow pigment in the eye may be better able to see distant objects in hazy conditions, suggests a study in the September 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. Increased macular pigment (MP) may help in filtering out "blue haze," thus making distant objects more visible, according to the experimental study by Laura M. Fletcher, MS, and colleagues of University of Georgia, ...

Tempe, Ariz. (Aug. 25, 2014) - Parents naturally comfort their children when they are scared, but new research shows that some reactions may actually reinforce their children's feelings of anxiety. A new Arizona State University study shows that parents whose children suffer from anxiety often fall into the "protection trap" that may influence their child's behavior. The paper, "Variations in the Influence of Parental Socialization of Anxiety among Clinic Referred Children," was published in the journal, "Child Psychiatry and Human Development," by ASU graduate student ...

The Happy Camp Complex of fires began as a lightning strike on August 12, 2014. Currently the fire has consumed 22,670 acres and is 20% contained. There are close to 2,000 personnel working on this fire at present. It consists of many small fires and a number of large ones. Most of the small fires have been contained and only account for about 100 acres. An inversion layer settled over the fire area throughout the morning and early afternoon on August 24, keeping fire activity moderate. As the inversion lifted in the afternoon, fire activity continued to the south. ...

Many Americans need extraordinary willpower to avoid becoming obese – or to slim down if they already weigh too much. For members of minority groups, maintaining a healthy weight can be that much harder according to new research led by Luis Rivera, an experimental social psychologist at Rutgers University-Newark. Rivera says it is common for minorities in the United States to endure negative stereotypes, pervasive messages that suggest those groups are inferior, and that these attitudes can prevent people from doing what is needed to care for their health. "When you ...

URBANA, Ill. – Two University of Illinois scientists are contributing to World Health Organization (WHO) efforts to fortify condiments and seasonings for use in countries with widespread micronutrient deficiencies. "In some countries where these deficiencies are widespread, there is consistent use—almost a daily dose—of certain condiments and seasonings, such as soy sauce in Southeast Asia, at all socioeconomic levels, and there's a real opportunity to correct deficiencies by fortifying these food items," said Luis A. Mejia, a U of I adjunct professor in food science ...

NEW YORK—The keyword term a consumer uses in their search engine query can predict the likelihood that they will click on an organic or paid advertisement. That's according to new research by Columbia Business School that takes a unique look at a consumer's behavior between the keyword search and the point-of-click. The new information may give marketers the edge in converting even more consumer clicks on their sites. The research, "Consumer Click Behavior at a Search Engine: The Role of Keyword Popularity," published in this month's Journal of Marketing Research gives ...

Satellite data showed that Lowell had ceased its life as a tropical cyclone over the past weekend. By Saturday, August 23 at 11 p.m. EDT, the once mighty and huge Tropical Storm Lowell degenerated into a remnant low pressure area. At that time, the center of post-tropical cyclone Lowell was located near latitude 24.7 north and longitude 127.4 west. That's about 1,110 miles (1,790 km) west of the southern tip of Baja California, Mexico. The post-tropical cyclone was moving toward the northwest near 8 mph (13 kph) and maximum sustained winds decreased to 25 mph (55 kph). NOAA's ...

The National Hurricane Center expected Marie to become a major hurricane (Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale) and it did. On August 24, when NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead, Marie reached Category 4 hurricane status and maintained strength on August 25. Marie continues to cause dangerous surf along the west coast of Mexico. The MODIS instrument (or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) aboard NASA's Aqua satellite took a visible picture of Hurricane Marie as it reached Category 4 hurricane status off the west coast of Mexico ...

Hurricane Marie is a powerhouse in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and because it is close to Tropical Storm Karina, Karina is being weakened by wind shear from the larger, more powerful storm. NOAA's GOES-East satellite captured the tiny storm near Hurricane Marie today. On August 23, Karina had strengthened into a hurricane and by the next day wind shear had weakened the storm back into a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds near 70 mph (110 kph). Satellite data on August 24 gave Karina the classic appearance of a sheared tropical cyclone, showing the strongest storms ...

The third tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season formed near the southeastern Bahamas on Sunday, August 24. NASA's Aqua satellite and NOAA's GOES-East satellites provided imagery of the storm's birth and movement. System 96L lingered in the eastern Caribbean over the last couple of days and on Saturday, August 23, became a tropical depression. That depression strengthened into a tropical storm during the morning of August 24. A GOES-East satellite image was taken at 9:30 a.m. EDT on August 24 showed Cristobal as a rounded area of clouds north of Hispaniola (Haiti ...

New Rochelle, NY, August 25, 2014— Nearly 1 in 6 adults worldwide may suffer from chronic constipation and, over time, the disorder can cause serious complications. Auriculotherapy, a form of acupuncture that involves stimulating targeted points on the outer ear, may help in managing constipation. Evidence from numerous clinical studies published between 2007-2013 that evaluated the effectiveness of auriculotherapy in treating patients with constipation is presented and discussed in a Review article in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, a peer-reviewed ...

For "credence services" such as auto-repair, healthcare, and legal services, the benefit to the customers for the service is difficult to assess before and even after the service. A new study in a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) finds that in a credence services market, when more service providers care about the customer's well-being, society as whole may actually be worse off. The study titled, "Signaling through Pricing by Service Providers with Social Preferences," is by Baojun Jiang (Washington University in ...

To get the most enjoyment out of our dollar, science tells us to focus our discretionary spending on trips over TVs, on concerts over clothing, since experiences tend to bring more enduring pleasure than do material goods. New research shows that the enjoyment we derive from experiential purchases may begin before we even buy. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. This research offers important information for individual consumers those who are trying to "decide on the right mix of material and experiential ...

Rice University researchers have created a CMOS-compatible, biomimetic color photodetector that directly responds to red, green and blue light in much the same way the human eye does. The new device was created by researchers at Rice's Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) and is described online in a new study in the journal Advanced Materials. It uses an aluminum grating that can be added to silicon photodetectors with the silicon microchip industry's mainstay technology, "complementary metal-oxide semiconductor," or CMOS. Conventional photodetectors convert light into ...

New Rochelle, NY, August 25, 2014—In a closed-loop control approach to managing type 1 diabetes, glucose sensors placed under the skin continuously monitor blood sugar levels, triggering the release of insulin from an implantable insulin pump as needed. The aim of this closed-loop insulin delivery system is improved control of blood glucose levels throughout the day and night. But a new study in adults and adolescents found that mean blood glucose levels remained at safe levels 53-82% of the time, according to the results published in Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics ...

HOUSTON – (Aug. 25, 2014) – With approximately 50 million scientific papers available in public databases– and a new one publishing nearly every 30 seconds – scientists cannot know about every relevant study when they are deciding where to take their research next. A new tool in development by computational biologists at Baylor College of Medicine and analytics experts at IBM research and tested as a "proof-of-principle" may one day help researchers mine all public medical literature and formulate hypotheses that promise the greatest reward when pursuing new scientific ...

Alexandria, Va. — The rapid proliferation of 3-D printing technology in the early 2000s sent ripples of excitement through the tech world and beyond, but the high price of printers put them out of reach for most academic researchers and hobbyists. Now, more affordable printers have broken this barrier, and geoscientists have started testing the waters. From the delicate geometry of a crystal lattice to the sweeping strata of an anticline, geology is an inherently 3-D discipline. Three-dimensional printing offers the chance to make those structures replicable, communicable ...