Nearly 2 million people throughout the Great Plains and California above aquifer sites contaminated with natural uranium that is mobilized by human-contributed nitrate, according to a study from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Data from roughly 275,000 groundwater samples in the High Plains and Central Valley aquifers show that many Americans live less than two-thirds of a mile from wells that often far exceed the uranium guideline set by the Environmental Protection Agency. The study reports that 78 percent of the uranium-contaminated sites were linked to the ...

Philadelphia, PA, August 17, 2015 -- Peripherally inserted central catheters (PICCs), a type of IV typically inserted in a vein in the arm, are frequently used by healthcare professionals to obtain long-term central venous access in hospitalized patients. While there are numerous benefits associated with PICCs, a potential complication is deep vein thrombosis (DVT), or blood clots, in upper limbs. A new study of more than 70,000 patients in 48 Michigan hospitals indicates that PICC use is associated not only with upper-extremity DVT, but also with lower-extremity DVT. The ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - More than 20 million years ago, a short struggle took place in what is now the Dominican Republic, resulting in one animal getting its leg bitten off by a predator just before it escaped. But in the confusion, it fell into a gooey resin deposit, to be fossilized and entombed forever in amber. The fossil record of that event has revealed something not known before - that salamanders once lived on an island in the Caribbean Sea. Today, they are nowhere to be found in the entire Caribbean area. The never-before-seen and now extinct species of salamander, ...

Irvine, Calif., August 17, 2015 - A woman's weight at birth, education level and marital status pre-pregnancy can have repercussions for two generations, putting her children and grandchildren at higher risk of low birth weight, according to a new study by Jennifer B. Kane, assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine. The findings are the first to tie social and biological factors together using population data in determining causes for low birth weight. "We know that low-birth-weight babies are more susceptible to later physical and cognitive ...

A miniature device that combines optogenetics - using light to control the activity of the brain - with a newly developed technique for wirelessly powering implanted devices is the first fully internal method of delivering optogenetics. The device dramatically expands the scope of research that can be carried out through optogenetics to include experiments involving mice in enclosed spaces or interacting freely with other animals. The work is published in the Aug. 17 edition of Nature Methods. "This is a new way of delivering wireless power for optogenetics," said ...

Two Florida laws, enacted to combat prescription drug abuse and misuse in that state, led to a small but significant decrease in the amount of opioids prescribed the first year the laws were in place, a new study by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers suggests. One measure created a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, a database that tracks individual prescriptions, including patient names, dates and amounts prescribed, so physicians can be on the lookout for excesses associated with addiction and illicit use. Another addresses so-called "pill ...

Children with parents or caregivers currently serving in the military had a higher prevalence of substance use, violence, harassment and weapon-carrying than their nonmilitary peers in a study of California school children, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics. While most young people whose families are connected to the military demonstrate resilience, war-related stressors, including separation from parents because of deployment, frequent relocation and the worry about future deployments, can contribute to struggles for some of them, according ...

Menlo Park, Calif. -- Scientists have revealed never-before-seen details of how our brain sends rapid-fire messages between its cells. They mapped the 3-D atomic structure of a two-part protein complex that controls the release of signaling chemicals, called neurotransmitters, from brain cells. Understanding how cells release those signals in less than one-thousandth of a second could help launch a new wave of research on drugs for treating brain disorders. The experiments, at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser at the Department of Energy's SLAC National ...

Adversity during the first six years of life was associated with higher levels of childhood internalizing symptoms, such as depression and anxiety, in a group of boys, as well as altered brain structure in late adolescence between the ages of 18 and 21, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics. Both altered brain structure and an increased risk of developing internalizing symptoms have been associated with adversity early in life. Edward D. Barker, Ph.D., of King's College London, and coauthors examined how adverse experiences within the first six ...

Legislative efforts by the state of Florida to reduce prescription drug abuse and diversion appear to be associated with modest decreases in opioid prescribing and use, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine. Prescription opioids provide necessary pain relief to millions of Americans but rates of opioid diversion, addiction and overdose deaths have soared since the mid-2000s. Florida was at the epicenter of this problem. In 2010, the Florida legislature addressed so-called pill mills or rogue pain management clinics where prescription drugs ...

Presymptomatic patients with the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) consumed more daily calories but had lower body-mass index (BMI) than those individuals without ALS in a study in the Netherlands that also looked at risk for the disease and associations with food and alcohol intake, according to an article published online by JAMA Neurology. The cause of ALS is poorly understood. Diet is highly modifiable but previous studies have not identified a consistent nutrient that modifies susceptibility to ALS and contradictory results exist for the ...

Prior to the advent of human-caused global warming in the 19th century, the surface layer of Earth's oceans had undergone 1,800 years of a steady cooling trend, according to a new study. During the latter half of this cooling period, the trend was most likely driven by large and frequent volcanic eruptions. An international team of researchers reported these findings in the August 17, 2015 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. The study also indicates that the coolest temperatures occurred during the Little Ice Age--a period that spanned the 16th through 18th centuries ...

CHICAGO --- Some stressful experiences - such as chronic childhood abuse - are so overwhelming and traumatic, the memories hide like a shadow in the brain. At first, hidden memories that can't be consciously accessed may protect the individual from the emotional pain of recalling the event. But eventually those suppressed memories can cause debilitating psychological problems, such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or dissociative disorders. A process known as state-dependent learning is believed to contribute to the formation of memories that ...

17.08.2015: Glaciers in Central Asia experience substantial losses in glacier mass and area. Along the Tien Shan, Central Asia's largest mountain range, glaciers have lost 27% of their mass and 18% of their area during the last 50 years. An international research team led by the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and including the institute of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) at Rennes University in particular, estimated that almost 3000 square kilometres of glaciers and an average of 5.4 gigatons of ice per year have been lost since ...

Lueneburg. Sustainability Scientists at Leuphana University of Lueneburg have devised a simple screening-based predicting procedure for region-specific environmental risks caused by veterinary antibiotics (VA). This procedure, called Usage Pattern-based Exposure Screening (UPES), makes use of utilization patterns of antibiotics in animal husbandry. By improving targeting, it enables the identification of particularly problematic antibiotic substances. It also enables the implementation of more advanced risk prediction tests, for example with the help of soil and water ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- We've all seen dewdrops form on spider webs. But what if they flung themselves off of the strands instead? Researchers at Duke University and the University of British Columbia have now observed this peculiar phenomenon, which could benefit many industrial applications. As long as the strands are moderately hydrophobic and relatively thin, small droplets combining into one are apt to dance themselves right off of the tightrope. The discovery could form the basis of new coalescer technologies for water purification, oil refining and more. The findings ...

Seasonal water shortages already occur in the Central Andes of Peru and Bolivia. By the end of the century, precipitation could fall by up to 30% according to an international team of researchers led by the University of Zurich. In a first for this region, the team compared current climate data with future climate scenarios and data extending back to pre-Inca times. The population in the Central Andes already faces water shortages today. Now geographers at the University of Zurich have collaborated with Swiss and South American researchers to show that precipitation in ...

Over a 10 year period, the time that babies receive genetic testing after being diagnosed with diabetes has fallen from over four years to under two months. Pinpointing the exact genetic causes of sometimes rare forms of diabetes is revolutionising healthcare for these patients. Babies with diabetes are now being immediately genetically tested for all possible 22 genetic causes while previously they would only get genetic testing years after diabetes was diagnosed and then the genes would be tested one at a time. Crucially, this means that the genetic diagnosis is made ...

Scientists on the Dark Energy Survey, using one of the world's most powerful digital cameras, have discovered eight more faint celestial objects hovering near our Milky Way galaxy. Signs indicate that they, like the objects found by the same team earlier this year, are likely dwarf satellite galaxies, the smallest and closest known form of galaxies. Satellite galaxies are small celestial objects that orbit larger galaxies, such as our own Milky Way. Dwarf galaxies can be found with fewer than 1,000 stars, in contrast to the Milky Way, an average-size galaxy containing ...

We may view our memory as being essential to who we are, but new findings suggest that others consider our moral traits to be the core component of our identity. Data collected from family members of patients suffering from neurodegenerative disease showed that it was changes in moral behavior, not memory loss, that caused loved ones to say that the patient wasn't "the same person" anymore. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "Contrary to what you might think -- and what generations of philosophers ...

WASHINGTON, August 17, 2015 -- Almost all of us have used some type of odor eliminator like Febreze to un-stink a room. These sprays can work wonders, but how do they actually work? Do they really remove the smell or just mask it? We explain the chemistry of odor elimination in this week's Reactions video. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/sNIIxzR-d_Q. Subscribe to the series at http://bit.ly/ACSReactions, and follow us on Twitter @ACSreactions to be the first to see our latest videos. INFORMATION: The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered ...

This news release is available in German. Their results have now been published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports (doi:10.1038/srep13008) and could point the way toward improvements in hybrid solar cells. The system they investigated is based on conventional n-type silicon wafers coated with the highly conductive polymer mixture PEDOT:PSS and displays a power conversion efficiency of about 14 %. This combination of materials is currently extensively investigated by many teams in the research community. "We systematically surveyed the characteristic curves, ...

Millions of tons of road salt are applied to streets and highways across the United States each winter to melt ice and snow and make travel safer, but the effects of salt on wildlife are poorly understood. A new study by biologists from Case Western Reserve University suggests exposure to road salt, as it runs off into ponds and wetlands where it can concentrate--especially during March and early April, when frogs are breeding--may increase the size of wood frogs, but also shorten their lives. Wood frog tadpoles exposed to road salt grew larger and turned into ...

In addition to melting icecaps and imperiled wildlife, a significant concern among scientists is that higher Arctic temperatures brought about by climate change could result in the release of massive amounts of carbon locked in the region's frozen soil in the form of carbon dioxide and methane. Arctic permafrost is estimated to contain about a trillion tons of carbon, which would potentially accelerate global warming. Carbon emissions in the form of methane have been of particular concern because on a 100-year scale methane is about 25-times more potent than carbon dioxide ...

Magnetism in nanoscale layers only a few tens of atoms thick is one of the foundations of the big data revolution - for example, all the information we download from the internet is stored magnetically on hard disks in server farms dotted across the World. Recent work by a team of scientists working in Singapore, The Netherlands, USA and Ireland, published on 14 August 2015 in the prestigious journal, Science, has uncovered a new twist to the story of thin-film magnetism. The team from the National University of Singapore (NUS) - Mr Li Changjian, a graduate student from ...