Just two hours of extra physical activity each week can improve school performance. This has been shown by a study of approximately 2,000 twelve-year-olds carried out by scientists at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg. The scientists Lina Bunketorp Käll, Michael Nilsson and Thomas Linden, at the Centre for Brain Repair and Rehabilitation at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, have tested the hypothesis that increased physical activity stimulates learning and improves school performance. In the study, published in the scientific periodical ...

Wherever you are right now: squeeze your glutes. Feel that? You just also contracted your pelvic floor too, whether you wanted to or not. Scientists studying the source of chronic abdominal and pelvic floor pain found an unexpected connection in the brain between the pelvic floor – the muscle responsible for, among other things, keeping you from peeing your pants – and various muscles throughout the body. They've found some evidence for a link as far away as the toes (try tapping a toe and see if you feel the clench), but the strongest link so far is with ...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14, 2014—Astronomers Chih-Hao Li and David Phillips of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics want to rediscover Venus—that familiar, nearby planet stargazers can see with the naked eye much of the year. Granted, humans first discovered Venus in ancient times. But Li and Phillips have something distinctly modern in mind. They plan to find the second planet again using a powerful new optical device installed on the Italian National Telescope that will measure Venus' precise gravitational pull on the sun. If they succeed, their first-of-its-kind ...

U.S. college students do better than their counterparts in the United Kingdom when it comes to physical activity, a healthy diet and less smoking, according to new research published in the latest issue of the journal Education and Health. "Among U.S. students, we see greater consumption of fruits and vegetables, more participation in organized sports, and less smoking," said American University Prof. Stacey Snelling, a lead study author. "Participation in organized sports and exercise could reflect the more formal focus on physical activity at the college level that ...

First-hand experience of extreme weather often makes people change their minds about the realities of climate change. That's because people are simply more aware of an extreme weather event the closer they are to its core, and the more intense the incidence is. So says Peter Howe of Utah State University in the US, who led a study in Springer's journal Climatic Change Letters about people's ability to accurately recall living through extreme weather events. It also focused on how people's proximity to such events – the so-called "shadow of experience" – aids ...

Ithaca, N.Y.—They are some of the brightest, loudest, oddest-looking, least-understood birds on the planet. Some have bulbous crests, long fleshy wattles, or Elvis-worthy pompadours in addition to electric blue, deep purple, or screaming orange feathers. But thanks to a comprehensive new evolutionary "tree of life" generated for the tropical cotinga family of South America, the door is now open to new discoveries about the more than 60 species in this amazingly diverse group of birds. "Our study provides comprehensive insight into how nearly all the cotinga species ...

New Rochelle, NY, October 14, 2014—For the 5-15% of patients with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) who will have lingering physical, behavioral, or cognitive problems 3 to 6 months after their injury, identification of this at-risk population is essential for early intervention. Existing models used to predict poor outcomes after mTBI are unsatisfactory, according to a new study, and new, more relevant predictive factors are different than those used in cases of moderate or severe TBI, as described in the study published in Journal of Neurotrauma, a peer-reviewed ...

VIDEO: Some children with advanced retinoblastoma are not good candidates for conventional intraocular ophthalmic infusion therapy -- too often making removal of the eye the only viable treatment for saving their... Click here for more information. CINCINNATI – Doctors at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center have developed a new technique for treating the eye cancer retinoblastoma to improve the odds for preventing eye loss, blindness or death in children with ...

Tropical Storm Gonzalo intensified into a hurricane late on Monday, Oct. 14 and is expected to become a major hurricane as it moves toward Bermuda. NASA's Aqua satellite saw powerful thunderstorms within the center of the storm that were dropping heavy rainfall. At 5 pm EDT, on Oct. 13 Gonzalo had become a hurricane. At that time, the center of the storm was just 20 miles southeast of St. Martin. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted that maximum sustained winds had increased to near 75 mph (120 kph) and additional strengthening was forecast. Gonzalo continued moving ...

Astronomy & Astrophysics is publishing the spectacular discovery of meteorite fragments 20 years after the corresponding bolide was seen in the skies of the Czech Republic. This discovery was made possible by reanalyzing the trajectory, which moved the impact line by 330 meters. Interestingly, the meteorites found on the ground are of different types, pointing to a parent asteroid of heterogeneous composition. Collisions of meter-sized meteoroids with the Earth's atmosphere are relatively rare, occurring about 40 times a year. They cause very spectacular events, known ...

Swedish and Chinese researchers show how a unique nano-alloy composed of palladium nano-islands embedded in tungsten nanoparticles creates a new type of catalysts for highly efficient oxygen reduction, the most important reaction in hydrogen fuel cells. Their results are published in the scientific journal Nature Communications. The world's rapidly growing demand for energy and the requirement of sustainable energy production calls for an urgent change in today's fossil fuel based energy system. Research groups worldwide work intensively to develop novel advanced energy ...

Numerous fires (marked with red dots) are burning in the Ukraine, likely as a result of regional agricultural practices. The body of water at the lower left of this true-color Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image is the Sea of Azov. The Sea is bordered by Ukraine to the northwest, west and southwest and by Russia to the northeast, east, and southeast. To its left is the Black Sea. The location, widespread nature, and number of fires suggest that these fires were deliberately set to manage land. Farmers often use fire to return nutrients to the soil ...

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite detected fires burning in Western Australia on October 14, 2014. Matching these hot spots up to the the prescribed fire burns on Western Australia's parks and wildlife site: http://www.dpaw.wa.gov.au/management/fire/prescribed-burning/burns these fires are most likely prescribed burns used to limit bushfire outbreaks. According to the Government of Australia's Department of Parks and Wildlife, "Prescribed burning is the process of planning and applying fire to a predetermined area, under ...

Pancreatic cancer likely takes between 10 and 20 years to develop, providing the potential for a very "broad window" of intervention if detected early, which may be possible for people who inherit a predisposition, say Australian clinical researchers. Dr Jeremy Humphris and Professor Andrew Biankin1, from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research, analysed medical histories and tumour samples taken from a cohort of 766 pancreatic cancer patients, operated on between 1994 and 20122. Roughly 9% of these patients had a first-degree relative (parent or sibling) with ...

Montreal, October 14, 2014 — By 2040, there will be more than three times the number of Americans aged 80+ than there were in 2000. Condo towers crowding city skylines seem to reflect builders' hopes that the grey set will head to urban centres for increased services and better transit options. But new research from Concordia University suggests that the opposite is more likely to occur. In a study recently published in the Journal of Transport Geography, researcher Zachary Patterson uses census data to map seniors' moving habits. What emerges is a clear pattern: ...

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Extra-Tropical Storm Vongfong on Oct. 4 as it was moving away from Hokkaido, Japan, the northernmost of the big islands. Vongfong transitioned into an extra-tropical storm early on Oct. 4 as its core changed from warm to cold. The MODIS or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Vongfong over Japan on Oct. 14 at 03:15 UTC as it was southeast of the island of Hokkaido, Japan. The image showed that south of the center of circulation was almost devoid ...

Magnetic materials form the basis of most hard disc drives as they are able to store data. A team from the University of Sheffield's Faculty of Engineering have been investigating whether they could also be used to perform calculations, and so take on the role of a computer's central processing unit (CPU). Lead researcher, Dr Tom Hayward, explains: "Magnetic materials are useful for data storage because they can retain information without consuming energy. A computer built around a CPU made of magnetic materials should be much more power efficient than existing technologies, ...

Philadelphia, PA, October 14, 2014 – Over the past decades, we have seen numerous tragic examples where the failure of institutions to meet the needs of infants for social contact and stimulation has led to the failure of these infants to thrive. Infancy and childhood are critical life periods that shape the development of the cortex. A generation of research suggests that enriched environments, full of interesting stimuli to explore, promote cortical development and cognitive function. In contrast, deprivation and stress may compromise cortical development and ...

ST. LOUIS, MO – October 13, 2014 –A team of scientists led by Thomas Brutnell, Ph.D., director of the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center have developed a new way of identifying genes that are important for photosynthesis in maize, and in rice. Their research helps to prioritize candidate genes that can be used for crop improvement and revealed new pathways and information about how plants fix carbon. The findings, published in "Comparative analyses of C4 and C3 photosynthesis in developing leaves of ...

LA JOLLA, CA—October 13, 2014—A new study by scientists from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and other institutions suggests a cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. "Our work supports a common theme whereby loss of protein stability leads to disease," said John A. Tainer, professor of structural biology at TSRI and senior scientist at Berkeley Lab, who shared senior authorship of the new research with TSRI Professor Elizabeth Getzoff. Getzoff, Tainer and ...

Twenty years ago, biologists Kathy Boyer and Joy Zedler, then researchers at San Diego State University, speculated that too many insects feeding on cordgrass in the marshes of San Diego Bay could endanger the grass, and in turn endanger the bay wildlife that relies on it. Picking up where Boyer and Zedler left off, SDSU biologist Jeremy Long is currently further exploring the dimensions of this relationship. What he's found so far suggests that it's not a simple as saying too many insects spell death for a host plant. Instead, his research suggests a complex interplay ...

Philadelphia, PA, October 13, 2014 – There has been much interest in the potential for using probiotic bacteria for treating skin diseases and other disorders. Japanese researchers have now found that milk that has been fermented using a probiotic dairy starter can also benefit the skin of young healthy women, reports the Journal of Dairy Science®. Probiotics have been defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization-World Health Organization as "live microorganisms which, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit to the host." "Although ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell University researchers have uncovered details of how the deadly Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) enters host cells, and offer possible new avenues for treatment. The study, appearing online this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, discovered that a common protease enzyme known as furin activates the MERS-CoV to fuse with cell membranes and enter host cells. The researchers, Gary Whittaker, Cornell professor of virology, and Jean Millet, a postdoctoral associate in Whittaker's lab, suggest ...

Hawai'i's sea turtles are afflicted with chronic and often lethal tumors caused by consuming non-native algae "superweeds" along coastlines where nutrient pollution is unchecked. The disease that causes these tumors is considered the leading cause of death in endangered green sea turtles. The new research was just published in the scientific journal PeerJ. Turtles that graze on blooms of invasive seaweeds end up with a diet that is rich in a particular amino acid, arginine, which promotes the virus that creates the tumors. Scientists at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa ...

Skin cancer is one of the biggest fears for one in two outdoor workers and when the boss and staff work together the sun safe message gets through, a QUT study has found. The study, which found more than 50 per cent of outdoor workers rated UV radiation exposure at work as one of their biggest concerns, also identified how a workplace intervention could improve workers' behaviours and attitudes towards sun protection to reduce their risk of skin cancer. QUT in collaboration with Cancer Council Queensland and Curtin University worked with 14 Queensland outdoor workplaces ...