TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Reading bedtime stories, engaging in conversation and eating nightly dinners together are all positive ways in which parents interact with their children, but according to new research, none of these actions have any detectable influence on children's intelligence later in life. Florida State University criminology professor Kevin Beaver examined a nationally representative sample of youth alongside a sample of adopted children from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and found evidence to support the argument that ...

New Rochelle, NY, October 30, 2014—Oligonucleotide-based therapeutics present unique challenges when it comes to testing their potential to cause reproductive and developmental harm. New consensus guidelines for toxicity testing that take into consideration the combined chemical and biological characteristics of these novel biopharmaceuticals are presented in Nucleic Acid Therapeutics, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. publishers. The article is available free on the Nucleic Acid Therapeutics website until November 30, 2014. Joy Cavagnaro, Access ...

Philadelphia, PA, October 30, 2014 – Bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract fulfill many vital functions and are critical for digestion. Yet, these same bacteria can induce strong inflammatory responses by the immune system if they penetrate the gut and enter the bloodstream. Although acute inflammation is a natural response to protect the body, chronic or systemic inflammation is linked to numerous disorders and diseases. Prior research has established the involvement of inflammatory processes in the development of psychiatric disorders, including major depression ...

New York | Heidelberg, 30 October 2014 Why is it that you can feel sad up to 240 times longer than you do feeling ashamed, surprised, irritated or even bored? It's because sadness often goes hand in hand with events of greater impact such as death or accidents. You need more time to mull over and cope with what happened to fully comprehend it, say Philippe Verduyn and Saskia Lavrijsen of the University of Leuven in Belgium. Their research, published in Springer's journal Motivation and Emotion, is the first to provide clear evidence to explain why some emotions last a longer ...

Boston, MA — Nearly half (48%) of firearm retailers in New Hampshire displayed materials from a firearm suicide prevention campaign generated by a coalition of gun owners and public health professionals, according to a new study led by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers. It is the first collaboration between firearm retailers and public health professionals around suicide prevention. The study appeared online October 28, 2014 in Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. Following a spate of suicides in 2009 in New Hampshire involving recently-purchased ...

New Haven, Conn. – For their latest discovery, Yale astronomers and the Planet Hunters program have found a low-mass, low-density planet with a punctuality problem. The new planet, called PH3c, is located 2,300 light years from Earth and has an atmosphere loaded with hydrogen and helium. It is described in the Oct. 29 online edition of The Astrophysical Journal. The elusive orb nearly avoided detection. This is because PH3c has a highly inconsistent orbit time around its sun, due to the gravitational influence of other planets in its system. "On Earth, these effects ...

Chicago, October 30, 2014—Patients at high-risk for developing lung cancer are more likely to receive low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) screening when their primary care provider is familiar with guideline recommendations for LDCT screening for lung cancer, according to research presented today at the 2014 Chicago Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology. The Symposium is sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) and ...

They live in the cold, dark depths of the oceans, are often exposed to strong currents and provide a stable base for diverse and colourful ecosystems: Stony corals of the species Lophelia pertusa are considered excellent reef-builders. According to the latest findings of researchers from the Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, the University of Glasgow and the United States Geological Survey, even genetically different individuals are able to fuse their skeletons. On an expedition with the German submersible JAGO and the research ...

Circadian clocks regulate functions ranging from alertness and reaction time to body temperature and blood pressure. New research published in the November 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal further adds to our understanding of the circadian rhythm by suggesting that the suprachiasmaticus nucleus (SCN) clock, a tiny region of the hypothalamus considered to be the body's "master" timekeeper, is not necessary to align body rhythms with the light-dark cycle. This challenges and disproves the commonly held notion that circadian rhythms were strictly organized in a hierarchical ...

If it seems like more people are allergic to, or intolerant of, more and different kinds of foods than ever before, there might be a reason why. A new research published in November 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal, scientists show, for the first time, that there is a link between perinatal exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA) at low doses and the risk to develop food intolerance in later life. This research involving rats suggests that early life exposure at a dose significantly below the current human safety limit set by the FDA affects developing immune systems, predisposing ...

Engineers routinely face tradeoffs as they design robotic limbs – weight vs. speed, ease of control vs. fluidity. A new hybrid fluid transmission developed at Disney Research Pittsburgh promises to eliminate some of those tradeoffs, making possible robot arms that are light enough to move swiftly and gracefully, yet with precise control. The transmission consists of antagonist pairs of rolling diaphragm cylinders – similar to traditional hydraulic cylinders, but sealed with a rubber diaphragm instead of sliding seals and valves. The result is a system that ...

A new research report published in the November 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal suggests that being overweight might be better in the long term than being underweight. Before you reach for that box of Twinkies, however, it's important to note that this discovery only applies to the weight of newborn babies in relation to risk of future disease. "These findings support the hypothesis that common long-term variation in the activity of genes established in the womb may underpin links between size at birth and risk for adult disease," said Claire R. Quilter, Ph.D., study ...

Delivering life-saving drugs across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) might become a little easier thanks to a new report published in the November 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal. In the report, scientists describe an antibody, called "FC5," is one-tenth the size of a traditional antibody and able to cross the BBB. Moreover, FC5 uses the same pathways as nutrients that the brain needs to survive, allowing it to "smuggle" larger antibodies across the barrier. Like a Lego building block, FC5 connects into many types of antibody designs, helping them reach their disease targets ...

If you think sleep problems and bladder problems are a fact of life in old age, you may be right. A new report appearing in the November 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal, shows that our sleep-wake cycles are genetically connected to our bladder, and disruptions to one may cause problems with the other. This discovery builds on the hypotheses that under normal circumstances, a primary clock located in the brain controls several other peripheral clocks located throughout the body. These peripheral clocks, in turn, control the activity of functional proteins and receptors, ...

TAMPA, Fla. (Oct. 30, 2014) – The current special issue of Technology and Innovation, is devoted to patents that benefit people around the world who live with limited resources, in challenging environments, and are in need of better access to basic needs and improved standards of living, health and infrastructure. The issue includes original articles from winners of the 2013 USPTO Patents for Humanity Awards, aimed at rewarding innovators for deploying patented technologies to address humanitarian needs. Winners featured in the issue include SIGN Fracture Care International, ...

LOS ANGELES (Oct. 29, 2014) – Lou Gehrig's disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, attacks muscle-controlling nerve cells – motor neurons – in the brain, brainstem and spinal cord, leading to progressive weakness and eventual paralysis of muscles throughout the body. Patients typically survive only three to five years after diagnosis. Now, with publication of a study by investigators at the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute, ALS researchers know the effects of the attack are worsened, at least in part, ...

The Swainson's warbler (Limnothlypis swainsonii) is one of the rarest and most secretive songbirds in North America, prized by birdwatchers in the southeastern U.S. hoping to catch a glimpse of it in the wild or hear its beautiful ringing song. With only 90,000 breeding individuals sparsely distributed across 15 states in the U.S., the Swainson's warbler is a species of high conservation concern that, for decades, has left conservationists with little confidence that its populations would ever be fully secure. However, new research published in the Oct. 30 edition of ...

Washington, DC – Exciting results from an innovative, multicultural, five-year initiative, known as the Alliance to Reduce Disparities in Diabetes (Alliance), have been published in ten peer-reviewed articles in the November 2014 supplemental issue of Health Promotion Practice (HPP). The findings reveal that a new model of chronic disease management for vulnerable populations with diabetes shows significant promise in strengthening coordination of care, reducing diabetes health disparities and improving health outcomes. Funded by Merck Foundation, the Alliance ...

WHAT: A mathematical model developed by NIH grantees predicts that women must take the antiretroviral medication Truvada daily to prevent HIV infection via vaginal sex, whereas just two doses per week can protect men from HIV infection via anal sex. This finding helps explain why two large clinical trials testing HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, in women failed to show efficacy. Participants in the VOICE and FEM-PrEP trials of Truvada and tenofovir (another antiretroviral) for HIV prevention were counseled to take one of the medications daily. However, because they ...

Why were dinosaurs covered in a cloak of feathers long before the early bird species Archaeopteryx first attempted flight? Researchers from the University of Bonn and the University of Göttingen attempt to answer precisely that question in their article "Beyond the Rainbow" in the latest issue of the renowned journal Science. The research team postulates that these ancient lizards had a highly developed ability to discern color. Their hypothesis: The evolution of feathers made dinosaurs more colorful, which in turn had a profoundly positive impact on communication, ...

Messenger, transfer, ribosomal... there's more than one type of RNA. The difference lies not only in the sequence of the nucleotides, the "beads" that form the strand, but also in the three-dimensional structure that this long molecule takes on. Computer models are often used to reveal this structure but these tend to be rather complex, and they vary depending on the field of application. A team of SISSA scientists used numerical techniques to develop a new "geometrical" model which has the advantage of being much simpler and faster than those traditionally used as well ...

Researchers from the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group, hosted at LSTM, have conducted an independent review to examine the diagnostic accuracy of the GenoType® MTBDRsl assay for the detection of resistance to second-line anti-tuberculosis drugs. While there are a number of different drugs available to people suffering from tuberculosis (TB), resistance to these drugs is a growing problem. People suffering from a drug-resistant strain of TB are more likely to die from the disease, and require treatment with what are described as "second-line" drugs. These drugs can ...

North Carolina State University researchers have developed a suite of technologies that can be used to enhance communication between dogs and humans, which has applications in everything from search and rescue to service dogs to training our pets. "We've developed a platform for computer-mediated communication between humans and dogs that opens the door to new avenues for interpreting dogs' behavioral signals and sending them clear and unambiguous cues in return," says Dr. David Roberts, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State and co-lead author of a paper ...

New York | Heidelberg, 30 October 2014 Biological membranes are mainly composed of lipid bilayers. Gaining a better understanding of adsorption of solution ions onto lipid membranes helps clarify functional processes in biological cells. Now, a new study provides a quantitative description of the equilibria between lipid membranes and surrounding solution ions. Joanna Kotyńska and Zbigniew Figaszewski from the University of Bialystok, Poland, are the authors of a study describing these findings, just published in EPJ E. In addition to shedding some light on biological ...

CHICAGO --- Intense itching and dry, irritable skin aren't the only problems adults with eczema face. They are at greater risk of accidental bone fractures and other injuries, a new Northwestern Medicine® study has found. This is the first study to find adult eczema is a risk factor for fractures and other injuries. The increased odds of accidental injury could be directly related to the side effects of steroids and sedating antihistamines commonly prescribed to treat the skin disorder or the under-treatment of severe cases, study authors suggest. "Many eczema ...