Despite impressive medical strides, cancer remains a leading killer and overwhelming burden to healthcare systems, causing well over a half million fatalities per year with a projected cost of $174 billion by 2020, according to the National Cancer Institute. Reducing the human and economic toll will require diagnosis and intervention at early stages of illness, when the best prognosis for a cure exists. In recent years, aggressive research and substantial financial investments have been directed at discovering pre-symptomatic indicators of cancer, known as biomarkers. ...

Lithium-ion batteries could benefit from a theoretical model created at Rice University and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that predicts how carbon components will perform. The model is based on intrinsic characteristics of materials used as battery electrodes. These include limitations on quantum capacitance (the ability of the material to absorb charge) and the material's absolute Fermi level, which determines how many lithium ions may bond to the electrodes. Subtle changes in the structure, chemistry and shape of an electrode will alter how strongly lithium ...

BEND, Ore. – Girls and young women who post sexy or revealing photos on social media sites such as Facebook are viewed by their female peers as less physically and socially attractive and less competent to perform tasks, a new study from Oregon State University indicates. "This is a clear indictment of sexy social media photos," said researcher Elizabeth Daniels, an assistant professor of psychology who studies the effect of media on girls' body image. Daniels' findings are based on an experiment she conducted using a fictitious Facebook profile. "There is so much ...

(PHILADELPHIA) – Pulmonary inflammation can cause shallow breathing and the lungs to become brittle in patients who experience multiple blood transfusions, sepsis, lung surgery and acute lung trauma. This complication can leave patients on ventilators, which can further traumatize the lungs, and often results in a mortality rate of 30 to 40 percent. To date, no medication has been successful at preventing or mitigating the damage caused by lung inflammation. Now, a multidisciplinary research team led by David Eckmann, MD, PhD, Horatio C. Wood Professor of Anesthesiology ...

TORONTO, July 14, 2014—Babies born to mothers who immigrated to Ontario from other countries have significantly lower rates of cerebral palsy than those of Canadian-born mothers, especially those from the Caribbean and East Asia, new research has found. "Predicting who is at highest risk of having a child with CP remains an international priority," said lead author Dr. Joel Ray, who notes that CP rates have not declined much over the last decade. CP is the most common motor disability in childhood and appears by the age of four. The underlying injury to the brain with ...

ST. LOUIS – Children with developmental disabilities are at higher risk for abuse and neglect from parents than children developing at a typical rate. So far, there was little evidence of specific parental behaviors that were associated with the risk, but a SLU study finds inappropriate expectations and lack of empathy play a significant role in triggering the risk. Debra Zand, Ph.D., associate professor of pediatrics at Saint Louis University and the principal investigator of the project, conducted the study in a small group of parents in St. Louis with 67 participants. ...

As government agencies recommend greater consumption of seafood for its health benefits, a new analysis led by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future urges medical and public health professionals to consider the environmental and health impact of seafood sourcing, particularly aquaculture, or the farming of fish, shellfish and crustaceans. The paper appears in the July 2014 issue of the Journal of Current Environmental Health Reports. Nearly half of all seafood consumed around the world comes from fish farms. Increasing seafood consumption has ...

Getting more people to eat seafood because it's a healthier option will need careful planning to ensure that the expansion of the aquaculture sector does not pose a risk to the environment. Business leaders in the sector should not aim only for profits, but rather embrace the principles of the One Health model that sees the health of humans being interwoven with that of animals and the environment. The model brings together experts from various fields to develop sustainable operations that ensure adequate human nutrition, and healthy environments, say Juan Gormaz of the ...

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP Satellite passed over Typhoon Rammasun early on July 14 and captured a visible image of the storm that showed large bands of thunderstorms wrapping into the center as it approached the central Philippines. When NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over Rammasun on July 14 at 04:20 UTC, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard took a visible image of the storm. The VIIRS instrument showed large, thick bands of powerful thunderstorms wrapping into the low-level center of circulation. The largest band extended from the ...

Circulating tumor cells spread ovarian cancer through the bloodstream, homing in on a sheath of abdominal fatty tissue where it can grow and metastasize to other organs, scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center report in Cancer Cell. "This completely new way of thinking about ovarian cancer metastasis provides new potential avenues to predict and prevent recurrence or metastasis," said senior author Anil Sood, M.D., professor of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine and Cancer Biology. The researchers found the circulating tumor cells ...

The once-powerful Super Typhoon Neoguri weakened to a tropical storm when it dropped heavy rainfall over southern Japan during the week of July 7, 2014. NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite measured that soaking from its orbit in space and data was used to create a maps showing the rainfall totals. Heavy rainfall from Neoguri fell on land that was already soaked earlier this month by a slow moving seasonal frontal system. Neoguri was reported to have caused up to five deaths and 50 injuries in Japan. Rainfall ...

Modern office workers are expected to multitask regularly, often juggling multiple projects and priorities over the course of a day. Studies have shown that the typical employee in an office environment is interrupted up to six times per hour, but how does that impact the finished product? New research published in Human Factors evaluates how ongoing interruptions can negatively affect the quality of work. "People don't realize how disruptive interruptions can be," said Cyrus Foroughi, coauthor of "Do Interruptions Affect Quality of Work?" and a PhD candidate at George ...

Analysis of clinical samples from suspected Lassa fever cases in Sierra Leone showed that about two-thirds of the patients had been exposed to other emerging diseases, and nearly nine percent tested positive for Ebola virus. The study, published in this month's edition of Emerging Infectious Diseases, demonstrates that Ebola virus has been circulating in the region since at least 2006—well before the current outbreak. First author Randal J. Schoepp, Ph.D., recently returned from Liberia and Sierra Leone, where he spent six weeks helping to set up an Ebola testing laboratory ...

WHAT: Scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have identified genetic markers associated with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), an inflammatory disease characterized by high levels of immune cells called eosinophils in the esophagus. Their findings suggest that several genes are involved in the development of EoE, which can cause difficulty eating and often is associated with food allergies. The findings also may help explain why the disease specifically affects the esophagus. The work was supported in part by the Consortium of Food Allergy Research, ...

A group of leading brain injury specialists look back on 40 years of the Glasgow Coma Scale and outline the continuing role of the scale in research and clinical practice, in a new Personal View published in The Lancet Neurology. The Personal View is published on the 40th anniversary of the Glasgow Coma Scale's introduction in a 1974 Lancet article*. Since this seminal publication, the Glasgow Coma Scale has provided a practical method for bedside assessment of impairment of conscious level, the clinical hallmark of acute brain injury. The scale was designed to be ...

To arrange for an interview with a researcher, please contact the Communications staff member identified at the end of each tip. For more information on ORNL and its research and development activities, please refer to one of our media contacts. If you have a general media-related question or comment, you can send it to news@ornl.gov. MATERIALS – Rare earth substitute … An alloy discovered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory holds great promise for permanent magnets as the material retains its magnetic properties at higher temperatures yet contains no rare-earth elements. ...

Buying keywords of a popular competitors' brand names on search engines such as Google and Bing can backfire according to a new study in the Articles in Advance section of Marketing Science, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). Firms buy specific keywords, including competitors' brand names, on search engines to reach consumers searching for those words. Online advertisements employing such keywords are called search ads. Sometimes a brand such as Nissan Altima will buy search ads to reach customers who conduct a ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – New research suggests that use of antibiotics is still prevalent among terminal patients who have chosen hospice care as an end-of-life option, despite little evidence that the medications improve symptoms or quality of life, and sometimes may cause unwanted side effects. The use of antibiotics is so engrained in contemporary medicine that 21 percent of patients being discharged from hospitals directly to a hospice program leave with a prescription for antibiotics, even though more than one fourth of them don't have a documented infection during their ...

This news release is available in German. Many animals exhibit segmental patterns that manifest themselves during development. One classical example is the sequential and rhythmic formation the segmental precursors of the backbone, a process that has been linked to the ticking of an oscillator in the embryo – the "segmentation clock". Until now, this patterning process was thought to be determined simply by the time scale of genetic oscillations that periodically trigger new segment formation. However, this week in the journal Science, Max Planck researchers suggest ...

WASHINGTON, July 14, 2014 — Chances are those dollars in your pocket have a trace of cocaine on them. Don't worry — most bank notes in the U.S. do. Your cash also contains invisible ink and has likely been through a washing machine before it came out of the ATM. For more, watch this week's Reactions episode, which features a stack of chemistry facts about the almighty dollar. The video is available at http://youtu.be/bAIwFaPycaU. Subscribe to the series at Reactions YouTube, and follow us on Twitter @ACSreactions to be the first to see our latest videos. The American ...

Together with the company Tissuegnostics, the pathologist Lukas Kenner and his colleagues have developed a software that is able to identify cancer cells in tissue sections and demonstrate the presence of specific biomarkers on cells. The overall information provides a precise picture of the disease and leads to the most suitable treatment. According to the results of the study, "Two independent pathologists concur with each other only in regard of every third diagnosis." "The recently developed software offers, for the first time, the option of eliminating the so-called ...

The public perception that No Child Left Behind has increased burnout and lowered job satisfaction among teachers is unfounded, according to a recent study co-authored by UT Dallas researcher Dr. James R. Harrington. The study, which was published online in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association, found that, overall, the accountability pressures of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) did not have much of an impact on teachers' job satisfaction or commitment to the profession. NCLB is the latest version ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (July 14, 2014)—In the 2,500+ years that have passed since acupuncture was first used by the ancient Chinese, it has been used to treat a number of physical, mental and emotional conditions including nausea and vomiting, stroke rehabilitation, headaches, menstrual cramps, asthma, carpal tunnel, fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis, to name just a few. Now, a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials which is being published this month in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS), indicates that acupuncture can affect the severity ...

In the movie "Terminator 2," the shape-shifting T-1000 robot morphs into a liquid state to squeeze through tight spaces or to repair itself when harmed. Now a phase-changing material built from wax and foam, and capable of switching between hard and soft states, could allow even low-cost robots to perform the same feat. The material — developed by Anette Hosoi, a professor of mechanical engineering and applied mathematics at MIT, and her former graduate student Nadia Cheng, alongside researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization and Stony ...

A research team from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has developed a novel, tunable nanoantenna that paves the way for new kinds of plasmonic-based optomechanical systems, whereby plasmonic field enhancement can actuate mechanical motion. "Recently, there has been a lot of interest in fabricating metal-based nanotextured surfaces that are pre-programmed to alter the properties of light in a specific way after incoming light interacts with it," explained Kimani Toussaint, an associate professor of mechanical science and engineering who led the research. ...