Career and family, often seen as competing parts of life, can actually complement each other, and when young people's goals for the future encompass family and career, the outcome is more likely to be success in both arenas, according to Penn State researchers. "I'm really interested in career development, but also how that interacts with family life," says Bora Lee, postdoctoral scholar, human development and family studies. "I was interested in how adolescents weighed their goals within work and family domains." The researchers used selected records from a larger ...

New York | Heidelberg, 4 November 2014 -- Through the ages, women have suffered greatly because of wars. Consequently, to protect themselves and their offspring, our female ancestors may have evolved survival strategies specific to problems posed by warfare, says Michelle Scalise Sugiyama of the University of Oregon in the US. Her findings, based on the comprehensive analysis of traditional stories from across the world, are published in Springer's journal Human Nature. The work is of interest because research to date has focused on the problems warfare poses for men, and ...

This news release is available in German. Children and chimpanzees often follow the group when they want to learn something new. But do they actually forego their own preferences in order to fit in with their peers? In direct comparisons between apes and children, a research team from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and Jena University has found that the readiness to abandon preferences and conform to others is particularly pronounced in humans – even in two-year-old children. Interestingly, the number of peers presenting ...

Forestry experts of the French Institute for Agricultural Research INRA together with technicians from NEIKER-Tecnalia and the Chartered Provincial Council of Bizkaia felled radiata pine specimens of different ages in order to find out their resistance to gales and observe the force the wind needs to exert to blow down these trees in the particular conditions of the Basque Country. This experience is of great interest for the managers of forests and will help them to manage their woodlands better and incorporate the wind variable into decisions like the distribution ...

A University of Tennessee, Knoxville, study finds that nonprofit organizations aiming to protect biodiversity show little evidence of responding to economic signals, which could limit the effectiveness of future conservation efforts. The study is published this week in the academic journal Ecology and Evolution and can be read at http://bit.ly/1t8fT24. The relationship between economic conditions and conservation efforts is complicated. On the one hand, funding for conservation depends on a booming economy, which swells state coffers and increases membership dues, ...

Only forty per cent of the notable increase in autism cases that has been registered during the past few decades is due to causes that are as yet unknown. The majority of the increase – a total of sixty per cent – can now be explained by two combined factors: changes in the diagnostic criteria and in the registration to the national health registers. This is shown by a new study of disease prevalence among all individuals born in Denmark in the period 1980-1991, a total of 677,915 individuals. The results have recently been published in the medical journal ...

If you can uniformly break the symmetry of nanorod pairs in a colloidal solution, you're a step ahead of the game toward achieving new and exciting metamaterial properties. But traditional thermodynamic -driven colloidal assembly of these metamaterials, which are materials defined by their non-naturally-occurring properties, often result in structures with high degree of symmetries in the bulk material. In this case, the energy requirement does not allow the structure to break its symmetry. In a study led by Xiang Zhang, director of Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences ...

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have managed to reconstruct the early stage of mammalian development using embryonic stem cells, showing that a critical mass of cells – not too few, but not too many – is needed for the cells to being self-organising into the correct structure for an embryo to form. All organisms develop from embryos: a cell divides generating many cells. In the early stages of this process, all cells look alike and tend to aggregate into a featureless structure, more often than not a ball. Then, the cells begin to 'specialise' into ...

Los Angeles, CA (November 4, 2014) How does an individual's happiness level reflect societal conditions? A new article out today in the first issue of Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences (PIBBS) finds that similar to how GDP measures the effectiveness of economic policies, happiness can and should be used to evaluate the effectiveness of social policies. Authors Shigehiro Oishi and Ed Diener examined research evaluating the effectiveness of policy related to unemployment rate, tax rate, child care, and environmental issues to determine if it's possible ...

Los Angeles, CA (November 4, 2014) The growing disparity in economic inequality has become so stark that even Janet Yellen, Federal Reserve chairwoman, recently expressed concern. Interestingly, new research has discovered that American citizens desire an unequal, but more equal distribution of wealth and income. Lower levels of this "unequality" are associated with decreased unethical behavior and increased motivation and labor productivity. This study is published today in the inaugural issue of Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences (PIBBS). "People ...

Los Angeles, CA (November 4, 2014) With so much attention to curriculum and teaching skills to improve student achievement, it may come as a surprise that something as simple as how a classroom looks could actually make a difference in how students learn. A new analysis finds that the design and aesthetics of school buildings and classrooms has surprising power to impact student learning and success. The paper is published today in the inaugural issue of Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences (PIBBS). Surveying the latest scientific research, Sapna Cheryan, ...

SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 4, 2014 – University of Utah engineers have developed a new type of carbon nanotube material for handheld sensors that will be quicker and better at sniffing out explosives, deadly gases and illegal drugs. A carbon nanotube is a cylindrical material that is a hexagonal or six-sided array of carbon atoms rolled up into a tube. Carbon nanotubes are known for their strength and high electrical conductivity and are used in products from baseball bats and other sports equipment to lithium-ion batteries and touchscreen computer displays. Vaporsens, ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — We celebrate our triumphs over adversity, but let's face it: We'd rather not experience difficulty at all. A new study ties that behavioral inclination to learning: When researchers added a bit of conflict to make a learning task more difficult, that additional conflict biased learning by reducing the influence of reward and increasing the influence of aversion to punishment. This newly found relationship between conflict and reinforcement learning suggests that the circuits in the frontal cortex that calculate the degree of ...

HOUSTON – (Nov. 4, 2014) – Rice University scientists who want to gain an edge in energy production and storage report they have found it in molybdenum disulfide. The Rice lab of chemist James Tour has turned molybdenum disulfide's two-dimensional form into a nanoporous film that can catalyze the production of hydrogen or be used for energy storage. The versatile chemical compound classified as a dichalcogenide is inert along its flat sides, but previous studies determined the material's edges are highly efficient catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction ...

HOUSTON – (Nov. 4, 2014) – A majority of Madagascar's 101 species of lemurs are threatened with extinction, and that could have serious consequences for the rainforests they call home. A new study by Rice University researchers shows the positive impacts lemurs can have on rainforest tree populations, which raises concerns about the potential impact their disappearance could have on the region's rich biodiversity. A large proportion of trees in Madagascar's rainforest have fruits eaten by lemurs. Lemurs in turn disperse the seeds of their fruit trees throughout ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Researchers using coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) have found a close association between high-risk coronary artery plaque and a common liver disease. The study, published online in the journal Radiology, found that a single CT exam can detect both conditions. Previous research has shown that CCTA can detect high-risk coronary artery plaque, or plaque prone to life-threatening ruptures. For the new study, researchers looked at associations between high-risk plaque and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a condition characterized ...

Over eighty percent of breast cancer patients in the United States use complementary therapies following a breast cancer diagnosis, but there has been little science-based guidance to inform clinicians and patients about their safety and effectiveness. In newly published guidelines from the Society for Integrative Oncology, researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center with colleagues at MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Michigan, Memorial Sloan Kettering, and other institutions in the U.S. ...

PHILADELPHIA - Two new studies from the Abramson Cancer Center and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania offer hope for breast cancer survivors struggling with cancer-related pain and swelling, and point to ways to enhance muscular strength and body image. The studies appear in a first of its kind monograph from the Journal of the National Cancer Institute Monographs focusing on integrative oncology, which combines a variety of therapies, some non-traditional, for maximum benefit to cancer patients. In the first study, A Hybrid Effectiveness-Implementation ...

Chestnut Hill, MA (November 4, 2014): Whether it's politics in the United States or violent conflict in the Mideast, the roots of the vitriol and intractability begin to grow not from a hatred of the other side, but from a misunderstanding of what's motivating the other side. According to a new study co-authored by a Boston College neuroscientist, not only does this misunderstanding pose a barrier to solutions, but it can be corrected through financial incentives. The research involved the participation of almost 3,000 people: Israelis and Palestinians in the Mideast, ...

Over half the smokers using the Liverpool Stop Smoking Service have tried electronic cigarettes (51.3 per cent). Of these, nearly half had used them within the past month and are considered current users (45.5 per cent). The data* – presented at the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference in Liverpool today (Tuesday) – also highlights that smokers are more likely to try e-cigarettes if they feel more confident that the products are safer than tobacco smoking. Researchers from the University of Liverpool quizzed more than 320 smokers from ...

Swallowing a sponge on a string could replace traditional endoscopy as an equally effective but less invasive way of diagnosing a condition that can be a forerunner of oesophageal cancer. The results of a Cancer Research UK trial involving more than 1,000 people are being presented today (Tuesday) at the National Cancer Research Institute's annual conference in Liverpool. The trial invited more than 600 patients with Barrett's Oesophagus – a condition that can sometimes lead to oesophageal cancer – to swallow the Cytosponge and to undergo an endoscopy. ...

Shift work, like chronic jet lag, is known to disrupt the body's internal clock (circadian rhythms), and it has been linked to a range of health problems, such as ulcers, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and some cancers. But little is known about its potential impact on brain function, such as memory and processing speed. The researchers therefore tracked the cognitive abilities of more than 3000 people who were either working in a wide range of sectors or who had retired, at three time points: 1996; 2001; and 2006. Just under half (1484) of the sample, ...

Around one in five patients with chest pain will have no obvious signs of coronary artery disease after investigation, and their symptoms are unlikely to have a physical cause. But it is not always clear who these patients are, and they often undergo extensive and expensive tests to find out that nothing is wrong with their hearts. The German authors therefore wanted to test the prevalence of physical and mental symptoms in 253 patients who had been investigated for chest pain/shortness of breath/palpitations and found to have no coronary artery disease. The type ...

Philadelphia, November 4, 2014 -- In a new evidence-based clinical practice guideline published today in Annals of Internal Medicine, the American College of Physicians (ACP) recommends that people who have had a kidney stone increase their fluid intake to achieve at least two liters of urine per day to prevent another kidney stone from forming. If increased fluid intake fails to reduce the formation of stones, ACP recommends adding medication with a thiazide diuretic, citrate, or allopurinol. "Increased fluid intake spread throughout the day can decrease stone recurrence ...

1. ACP kidney stone guidelines offer another reason to drink more water, less soda Dietary changes including increased fluid intake are among recommendations in ACP's new evidence-based guideline People who have had a kidney stone should increase their fluid intake to achieve at least two liters of urine per day to prevent a recurrence, according to a new evidence-based clinical practice guideline from the American College of Physicians (ACP) being published in Annals of Internal Medicine. A kidney stone occurs when tiny crystals in urine stick together to form a stone. ...