WASHINGTON D.C. Aug. 12, 2014 -- If you've ever spent any time watching a gecko, you may have wondered about their uncanny ability to adhere to any surface -- including upside down on ceilings. It turns out the little lizards can turn the "stickiness" of toe hairs on the bottom of their feet on and off, which enables them to run at great speeds or even cling to ceilings without expending much energy. In the Journal of Applied Physics, from AIP Publishing, Oregon State University (OSU) researchers describe their work exploring the subtleties of geckos' adhesion system ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists who sequenced the genome of the Antarctic midge suspect the genome's small size – the smallest in insects described to date – can probably be explained by the midge's adaptation to its extreme living environment. The midge is a small, wingless fly that spends most of its two-year larval stage frozen in the Antarctic ice. Upon adulthood, the insects spend seven to 10 days mating and laying eggs, and then they die. Its genome contains only 99 million base pairs of nucleotides, making it smaller than other tiny reported genomes for the body ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers at Oregon State University have developed a model that explains how geckos, as well as spiders and some insects, can run up and down walls, cling to ceilings, and seemingly defy gravity with such effortless grace. The solution, outlined today in the Journal of Applied Physics, is a remarkable mechanism in the toes of geckos that use tiny, branched hairs called "seta" that can instantly turn their stickiness on and off, and even "unstick" their feet without using any energy. These extraordinary hairs contribute to the ability of geckos to ...

PULLMAN, Wash.—Few animals can boast of being as tough as the Antarctic midge. Its larvae develop over not one but two Antarctic winters, losing nearly half their body mass each time. It endures high winds, salt, and intense ultraviolet radiation. As an adult, the midge gets by without wings and lives for only a week or so before starting its life cycle all over again. And as Joanna Kelley has learned, it does this with the smallest insect genome sequenced so far. "It's tiny," said Kelley, a Washington State University assistant professor, who recently sequenced and analyzed ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Researchers who looked at the impact of discrimination, poverty and stigma on the mental health and relationship quality of transgender women and their male romantic partners found that social and economic marginalization not only takes a psychological toll on each person individually but also appears to undermine them as a couple. It is difficult to be a transgender woman in the United States. Prior research has shown that they generally face high risks of depression, financial hardship, and discrimination, said study lead author Kristi Gamarel, a ...

The majority of children in Quebec's youth protection system who are placed in out-of-home care (family foster care, or in a group or rehabilitation centre) are reunited with their "natural" families within 6 months, according to a study led by Professor Tonino Esposito of University of Montreal's School of Social Work. However, younger children, specifically those aged 2 to 5 years old at initial placement, have the lowest likelihood of returning to live with their natural families over time. "All placed children, irrespective of age, are less likely to return to live ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- In the past half-century, fear of crime in the United States has fueled "white flight" from big cities, become known as a quality of life issue and prompted scholars and law enforcement experts to address ways of reducing this fear. But a study by a Michigan State University criminologist challenges this longstanding theory by arguing that a healthy fear of crime is, in fact, a good thing. The study, published online in the journal Justice Quarterly, suggests adolescents who are more fearful of crime are less apt to become victims and offenders ...

This news release is available in French. Researchers at the University of Montreal and CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre have traced the origins of ADHD, substance abuse and conduct disorder, and found that they develop from the same neurocognitive deficits, which in turn explains why they often occur together. "Psychopathology exists on multiple continua of brain function. Some of these dimensions contribute to a multitude of problems, others contribute to specific problems. Together, they explain patterns of comorbidity such as why ADHD and conduct problems co-occur ...

The loss of eastern hemlock could affect water yield and storm flow from forest watersheds in the southern Appalachians, according to a new study by U.S. Forest Service scientists at the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory (Coweeta) located in Otto, North Carolina. The article was just published online in the journal Ecohydrology. "Eastern hemlock trees have died throughout much of their range due to the hemlock woolly adelgid, an exotic invasive insect," said Steven Brantley, a post-doctoral researcher at Coweeta and lead author of the paper. "Though this insect has decimated ...

The rapid development of miniaturized portable electronic devices, such as micro-electromechanical systems, microrobots and implantable medical devices, has stimulated intense demand for micro-scale power sources. Although miniaturized micro-batteries that store energy by redox reactions provide the most frequently used micro-power source for current portable electronics on chip, their limited lifetime (hundreds or thousands of cycles) and low power density rule out applications that require high power over a short timeframe. Micro-supercapacitors (MSCs) with a short ...

An international team of researchers has taken a significant step towards understanding the fundamental properties of the two-dimensional material silicene by showing that it can remain stable in the presence of oxygen. In a study published today, 12 August, in IOP Publishing's journal 2D Materials, the researchers have shown that thick, multilayers of silicene can be isolated from its parent material silicon and remain intact when exposed to air for at least 24 hours. It is the first time that such a feat has been achieved and will allow scientists to further probe ...

Pneumonia – a severe lung infection – is the most common disease calling for hospital admission. More than one out of ten pneumonia patients die of the disease. Thus it is vital to accurately predict and closely monitor the clinical course. Here, measuring the respiratory rate – the number of breaths a person takes in a minute – provides valuable information. However, far too little use is still being made of this vital sign in clinical practice, as Richard Strauß and co-authors conclude in their recent study in Deutsches Ärzteblatt (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2014; 111: 503). The ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Dangerous brain tumors hijack the brain's existing blood supply throughout their progression, by growing only within narrow potential spaces between and along the brain's thousands of small blood vessels, new research shows for the first time. The findings contradict the concept that brain tumors need to grow their own blood vessels to keep themselves growing – and help explain why drugs that aim to stop growth of the new blood vessels have failed in clinical trials to extend the lives of patients with the worst brain tumors. In fact, trying to ...

San Francisco and Yaoundé – Lead levels in foods prepared in aluminum pots from Cameroon exceed U.S. guidelines for lead consumption according to a new study published this month. A typical serving contains almost 200 times more lead than California's Maximum Allowable Dose Level (MADL) of 0.5 micrograms per day. Researchers at Ashland University and Occupational Knowledge International tested 29 samples of aluminum cookware made in Cameroon and found almost all had considerable lead content. This cookware is common throughout Africa and Asia and is made from recycled ...

With effective rehabilitation, stroke patients can partially regain their motor control and continue their activities of daily living. Motor function changes in the unaffected hand of stroke patients with hemiplegia. However, these changes are often ignored by clinicians owing to the extent of motor disability of the affected hand. Research group at Shanghai University of Sport, China led by Prof. Zhusheng Yu based on finger tapping frequency and Lind-mark hand function score have found that the motor function of unaffected hands in stroke patients was poorer than that ...

Tongxinluo has been widely used in China for the treatment of acute stroke and for neuroprotection. Research group at Encephalopathy Center, Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, China intragastrically administered Tongxinluo superfine powder suspension or its vehicle to rats for 5 successive days before middle cerebral artery occlusion. There are many advantages of using small animal PET for drug research. First, the results of the study in vitro cannot be directly applied to human studies, while small animal PET imaging methods and results can ...

TEMPE, Ariz. – A team of researchers from Arizona State University and Mayo Clinic is showing how a staple of Earth science research can be used in biomedical settings to predict the course of disease. The researchers tested a new approach to detecting bone loss in cancer patients by using calcium isotope analysis to predict whether myeloma patients are at risk for developing bone lesions, a hallmark of the disease. They believe they have a promising technique that could be used to chart the progression of multiple myeloma, a lethal disease that eventually impacts ...

Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland and even in the fictional world of CBS' "The Big Bang Theory" look to subatomic particles called neutrinos to answer the big questions about the universe. Now, a group of scientists led by a physics professor with the College of Science at Virginia Tech are asking whether the neutrino could provide the world with clues about nuclear proliferation in Iran and other political hotspots. Neutrinos are produced by the decay of radioactive elements, and nuclear reactors produce large amounts of neutrinos that cannot ...

A team of researchers from the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences have developed a new way of using electricity to open the blood-brain-barrier (BBB). The Vascular Enabled Integrated Nanosecond pulse (VEIN pulse) procedure consists of inserting minimally invasive needle electrodes into the diseased tissue and applying multiple bursts of nanosecond pulses with alternating polarity. It is thought that the bursts disrupt tight junction proteins responsible for maintaining the integrity of the BBB without causing damage to the ...

A team of researchers from the Center for Engineering in Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital have developed a novel fluorescence-based assay for sensitive detection of antibodies within microliter volume serum samples. This new assay is at least 50 times more sensitive than the traditional radioimmunoassay (RIA), which is the gold standard currently used in the clinic. This new technology is particularly attractive for immunological assays as it allows: 1) use of very small volumes of sample reagents (5 ¦ÌL), and 2) use of traditional analytical systems such ...

(NEW YORK – August 11) Blood expression levels of genes targeted by the stress hormones called glucocorticoids could be a physical measure, or biomarker, of risk for developing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), according to a study conducted in rats by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published August 11 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). That also makes the steroid hormones' receptor, the glucocorticoid receptor, a potential target for new drugs. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is triggered by a terrifying ...

While in Germany, Partho P. Sengupta, MD, of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai used a computer to perform a robot-assisted trans-Atlantic ultrasound examination on a person in Boston. In another study Kurt Boman, MD, of Umeå University in Sweden in collaboration with Mount Sinai, showed how a cardiologist's video e-consultation, coupled with a remote robot-assisted echocardiogram test, dramatically reduces the waiting time for a diagnosis faced by heart failure patients who live in a rural communities far from the hospital from nearly four months to less than one ...

They are the largest fish in the world but the impact of this majestic and charismatic animal on the economy of the island nation of the Maldives was largely unknown. A new study by scientists of the Maldives Whale Shark Research Programme (MWSRP) reveals that a small group of whale sharks in a single Maldivian Atoll accounts for nearly 3% of the global shark ecotourism and nearly half that of the Maldives'. "The Republic of Maldives hosts one of few known year round aggregation sites for whale sharks", said James Hancock co-author and a director of MWSRP. "We have seen ...

Whether or not humans are the only empathic beings is still under debate. In a new study, researchers directly compared the 'yawn contagion' effect between humans and bonobos (our closest evolutionary cousins). By doing so they were able to directly compare the empathic abilities of ourselves with another species, and found that a close relationship between individuals is more important to their empathic response than the fact that individuals might be from the same species. The ability to experience others' emotions is hard to quantify in any species, and, as a result, ...

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 12, 2014 — Criminals are smuggling an estimated $30 billion in U.S. currency into Mexico each year from the United States, but help could be on the way for border guards, researchers will report here today. The answer to the problem: a portable device that identifies specific vapors given off by U.S. paper money. They will present the new research at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. The meeting features nearly 12,000 reports on new advances in science and other ...