This news release is available in German. A drunken sailor staggers onto a square with lots of streetlamps on it. Sometimes he will run into one of the lamps, change his direction and keep moving. Does the time he spends on this square depend on the number of streetlamps? The surprising answer is: no. No matter whether there is a streetlamp on every square meter or whether the distance between the lamps is large: on average, the drunken sailor will always spend the same amount of time on the square. Calculations at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) ...

Neither quantum computers nor quantum cryptography will become prevalent technologies without memory systems able to manipulate quantum information easily and effectively. The Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw has recently made inroads into popularizing quantum information technologies by creating an atomic memory with outstanding parameters and an extremely simple construction. Following years of tests in physics laboratories, the first quantum technologies are slowly emerging into wider applications. One example is quantum cryptography - an encryption ...

The ocean is undergoing global changes at a remarkable pace and we must change with it to attain our best possible future ocean, warns the head of The University of Western Australia's Oceans Institute. One of the global leaders in ocean science, Professor Carlos Duarte has shared his insights on the future of the world's oceans in a paper published in the international open-access journal Frontiers in Marine Science. In the paper Professor Duarte explains the grand challenge researchers face in addressing global change and the future state of the ocean. "The ocean ...

This news release is available in German. Just four months after the final data package from the GOCE satellite mission was delivered, researchers are laying out a rich harvest of scientific results, with the promise of more to come. A mission of the European Space Agency (ESA), the Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) provided the most accurate measurements yet of Earth's gravitational field. The GOCE Gravity Consortium, coordinated by the Technische Universität München (TUM), produced all of the mission's data products including ...

The value of a piece of chocolate cake can change. Someone who happens to be on a diet is more likely to choose a fruit dessert and judge the calorie-laden cake as unhealthy. Previous studies have shown that a specific network in the brain is active when a person must decide between various choices that vary depending on context. They emphasize the interaction between neurons in two brain areas of the prefrontal cortex - the controlling area on the front side of the brain. Prefrontal cortex shows increased activity in all decisions Sarah Rudorf and Todd Hare of the ...

On 24 October 2014, Sweden called off the hunt for a submarine after a week-long underwater search in the Stockholm archipelago. Triggered by a reported sighting of a Russian submarine, the alleged 'invasion' had been widely anticipated by military specialists and the media. "Our assessment is that in the inner archipelago there was a plausible foreign underwater operation," Rear Adm. Anders Grenstad commented, "But we believe that what has violated Swedish waters has left." "Whatever was there could not have been a conventional submarine," Grenstad said, but a "craft ...

This news release is available in Japanese. The deep ocean seems so remote that it is difficult to imagine any sort of human-generated change making an impact on deep-sea life. It is even more difficult to collect or examine evidence from the deep ocean to determine what those impacts might be. Enter the barnacle; a hard, sessile creature that looks like a tiny volcano and attaches to rocks, boat bottoms, and other hard substrates, where it filters ocean water to feed on tiny organisms. The barnacle holds clues about how climate change is affecting the deep ocean. ...

KNOXVILLE - Warfare not only hastened human technological progress and vast social and political changes, but may have greatly contributed to the evolutionary emergence of humans' high intelligence and ability to work together toward common goals, according to a new study from the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS). How humans evolved high intelligence, required for complex collaborative activities, despite the various costs of having a big brain has long puzzled evolutionary biologists. While the human brain represents only about two ...

Published in the journal Nature, the discovery could revolutionise fuel cells and other hydrogen-based technologies as they require a barrier that only allow protons - hydrogen atoms stripped off their electrons - to pass through. In addition, graphene membranes could be used to sieve hydrogen gas out of the atmosphere, where it is present in minute quantities, creating the possibility of electric generators powered by air. One-atom thick material graphene, first isolated and explored in 2004 by a team at The University of Manchester, is renowned for its barrier properties, ...

NGC 3532 is a bright open cluster located some 1300 light-years away in the constellation of Carina(The Keel of the ship Argo). It is informally known as the Wishing Well Cluster, as it resembles scattered silver coins which have been dropped into a well. It is also referred to as the Football Cluster, although how appropriate this is depends on which side of the Atlantic you live. It acquired the name because of its oval shape, which citizens of rugby-playing nations might see as resembling a rugby ball. This very bright star cluster is easily seen with the naked eye ...

Jülich, 26 November 2014 - In metals such as copper or aluminium, so-called conduction electrons are able to move around freely, in the same way as particles in a gas or a liquid. If, however, impurities are implanted into the metal's crystal lattice, the electrons cluster together in a uniform pattern around the point of interference, resembling the ripples that occur when a stone is thrown into a pool of water. Scientists in Jülich have, with the help of computer simulations, now discovered a combination of materials that strengthens these Friedel oscillations ...

The Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) has succeeded for the first time in describing the complex relationships within an ecosystem in unprecedented detail. For their work, carried out in collaboration with US and Luxembourg partners, their model ecosystem was a "biological wastewater treatment plant". In it live numerous species of bacteria which are involved in the wastewater purification process. LCSB director Prof. Dr. Rudi Balling stresses the medical importance of these research efforts: "Bacterial ecosystems also play a major role in our health. ...

Although the van der Waals force was discovered around 150 years ago, it is still difficult to quantify when predicting the behaviour of solids, liquids, and molecules. Precise measurements were only possible up to now for single atoms or macroscopic objects. However, the van der Waals forces are particularly important at intermediate size, where they crucially co-determine the behaviour of complex molecules, such as biomolecules and proteins. They are also responsible for the functioning of certain adhesives and are the reason why geckos can adhere so amazingly well to ...

This news release is available in French. The way people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) gather information - not the judgement process itself - might explain why they gain different perceptions from peoples' faces, according to a new study from Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies and the University of Montreal. "The evaluation of an individual's face is a rapid process that influences our future relationship with the individual," said Baudouin Forgeot d'Arc, lead author of the study. "By studying these judgments, we wanted to better understand how people with ...

The precise movements of a young hammerhead shark have been tracked for the first time and are published in the open access journal Animal Biotelemetry. The study, which ran over a 10-month period, reveals important gaps in current efforts to protect these endangered sharks and suggests key locations that should be protected to help the survival of the species. Hammerhead sharks, which have recently received new protections from the UN Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, are experiencing drastic population declines in excess of 90% in ...

The expression of a gene involved in female birds' color vision is linked to the evolution of colorful plumage in males, reports a new study from the University of Chicago. The findings, published Nov. 26 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, confirm the essential role of female color perception in mate selection and sexual dimorphism. "This is the first time an aspect of the visual system in birds has been directly associated with plumage evolution," said Natasha Bloch, PhD, who authored the study while a graduate student in ecology & evolution at the University ...

Deaf teenagers have better reading skills if they were identified as deaf by the time they were nine months old, research from the University of Southampton has shown. The Southampton team has been studying the development of a group of children who were identified with permanent childhood hearing impairment (PCHI) at a very early age in a pilot screening programme conducted in Southampton and London in the 1990s. Follow up assessments when the children were aged eight showed those who were screened at birth had better language skills than those children who were not ...

Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) - the most common acquired heart disease in children in many countries of the world - is being neglected and poorly treated, according to new findings from the Global Rheumatic Heart Disease Registry (the REMEDY study), published online today (Wednesday) in the European Heart Journal [1]. RHD accounts for up to 1.4 million deaths every year, with the highest numbers of people affected by it and dying occurring in low and middle-income countries. It is triggered by rheumatic fever (RF) that can be prevented and controlled. RF is preceded by ...

The potential to quickly diagnose children with type 1 diabetes before the onset of serious illness could be achieved using a simple, non-invasive breath test, according to new research published today. In one of the most comprehensive breath-based studies of children with type 1 diabetes performed to date, a team of researchers from Oxford, UK have linked a sweet-smelling chemical marker in the breath with a build-up of potentially harmful chemicals in the blood that accumulate when insulin levels are low. It is hoped these results--linking an increased level of breath ...

University of Adelaide-led research will help pinpoint the impact of waves on sea ice, which is vulnerable to climate change, particularly in the Arctic where it is rapidly retreating. Published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A, the research reports the first laboratory experiments testing theoretical models of wave activity in frozen oceans. "Sea ice is both an indicator and agent of climate change," says project leader Dr Luke Bennetts, Research Fellow in the School of Mathematical Sciences. "Sea ice covering the ocean surface is white and efficiently ...

Researchers have found that the spread of an exotic honey bee parasite -now found worldwide - is linked not only to its superior competitive ability, but also to climate, according to a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The team of researchers, including Myrsini Natsopoulou from the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, who co-led the research alongside Dr. Dino McMahon from Queen's University Belfast, believes that the parasite could become more prevalent in the UK in the future and their findings demonstrate the importance ...

Taking folic acid before conception significantly reduces the risk of small for gestational age (SGA) at birth, suggests a new study published today (26 November) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG). This UK population-based study and systematic review assessed the effect of timing of folic acid supplementation during pregnancy on the risk of the baby being SGA at birth, defined as birth weight less than the 10th centile or in the lowest 10% of babies born. Being small for gestational age is associated with increased neonatal morbidity ...

The Institute of Medicine defines health literacy as the degree to which a person is able to obtain, understand, and process basic health information and services, so that s/he can make appropriate decisions about his/her health. Low levels of health literacy among older adults are associated with poorer self-care, particularly of long term conditions, higher than average use of emergency care services, low levels of preventive care, and an overall increased risk of death. The most important factor governing a decline in health literacy in later years is thought to ...

Respiratory infections are likely to have an influential role, the findings suggest. And the evidence is simply not strong enough to warrant changes to current guidance on the use of this medicine, say the researchers. The use of paracetamol during pregnancy and/or a child's early life has been implicated in the development of childhood asthma, prompting concerns to be raised about the drug's continued use during these periods. The researchers wanted to find out if the available evidence was sufficient to rule out the role of common respiratory infections, which paracetamol ...

The most comprehensive international comparison of cancer survival to date, covering countries that are home to two-thirds of the world's population, shows extremely wide differences in survival between countries. The CONCORD-2 study, published in The Lancet, reports 5-year survival estimates for 25.7 million cancer patients diagnosed with one of 10 common cancers [1] and 75 000 children diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia between 1995 and 2009, using individual patient data from 279 cancer registries in 67 countries [2]. Even after researchers had adjusted ...