Bilingual children pose unique challenges for clinicians, and, until recently, there was little research on young bilinguals to guide clinical practice. In the past decade, however, research on bilingual development has burgeoned, and the scientific literature now supports several conclusions that should help clinicians as they assess bilingual children and advise their parents. In an article recently published in Seminars in Speech and Language, Erika Hoff, Ph.D., a professor of psychology in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science at Florida Atlantic University, ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - One of the most common complaints about hospitals is the noise. Patients complain that they can't sleep soundly in the environment of multiple monitors, paging systems, wheelchairs and gurneys, and carts that squeak. Ongoing efforts at the University of Michigan Health System are making the hospital quieter, and the hospital has tested sound panels designed to dial down noise. During a pilot study, strategically placed sound acoustic panels helped diffuse sound in the hallways around patient rooms. The modest 3-4 sound decibel drop is recognizable ...

When researchers dream about electronics of the future, they more or less dream of pouring liquids into a beaker, stirring them together and decanting a computer out onto the table. This field of research is known as self-assembling molecular electronics. But, getting chemical substances to self-assemble into electronic components is just as complicated as it sounds. Now, a group of researchers has published their breakthrough within the field. The group consists of first-year nanoscience students from the University of Copenhagen. Thomas Just Sørensen, an associate ...

This news release is available in German. Two growth-promoting groups of substances, or phytohormones, the gibberellins and the brassinosteroids, are used independently of each other for the breeding and production of crop plants. A team of scientists at Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now discovered that the two act in concert - without brassinosteroids, a plant is unable to produce gibberellins. For their current investigations, a research group at the Technical University of Munich, supported by scientists from the Helmholtz Zentrum Munich and the TU Braunschweig ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- With every breath you take, microbes have a chance of making it into your lungs. But what happens when they get there? And why do dangerous lung infections like pneumonia happen in some people, but not others? Researchers at the University of Michigan Medical School have started to answer these questions by studying the microbiome of the lungs - the community of microscopic organisms are in constant contact with our respiratory system. By studying these bacterial communities, and how they change in illness, they hope to pave the way for new ways ...

Troubling questions about multiracial congregations' potential to address racial inequality are raised by a new national study done by researchers at Baylor University, the University of Southern California and the University of Chicago. The study -- "United by Faith? Race/Ethnicity, Congregational Diversity, and Explanations of Racial Inequality" -- is published in the journal Sociology of Religion. "We find little evidence that multiracial congregations promote progressive racial views among attendees of any race or ethnicity," the researchers wrote. Views of minorities ...

BOSTON, Aug. 17, 2015 --Native North Americans have long adorned themselves and their homes with fragrant sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata), a native plant used in traditional medicine, to repel biting insects, and mosquitoes in particular. Now, researchers report that they have identified the compounds in sweetgrass that keep these bugs at bay. The team will describe their approach in one of more than 9,000 presentations at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, taking place here through Thursday. Mosquitoes ...

BOSTON, Aug. 17, 2015 -- Hand-written letters and printed photos seem quaint in today's digital age. But there's one thing that traditional media have over hard drives: longevity. To address this modern shortcoming, scientists are turning to DNA to save unprecedented amounts of digital data for posterity. One team has demonstrated that DNA they encapsulated can preserve information for at least 2,000 years, and they're now working on a filing system to make it easier to navigate. The researchers present their work today at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the ...

BOSTON, Aug. 17, 2015 -- A blood clot is a dangerous health situation with the potential to trigger heart attacks, strokes and other medical emergencies. To treat a blood clot, doctors need to find its exact location. But current clinical techniques can only look at one part of the body at a time, slowing treatment and increasing the risk for complications. Now, researchers are reporting a method, tested in rats, that may someday allow health care providers to quickly scan the entire body for a blood clot. The team will describe their approach in one of more than 9,000 ...

BOSTON, Aug.17, 2015 -- In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers have determined that natural sunlight triggers the release of smog-forming nitrogen oxide compounds from the grime that typically coats buildings, statues and other outdoor surfaces in urban areas. The finding confirms previous laboratory work using simulated sunlight and upends the long-held notion that nitrates in urban grime are "locked" in place. The scientists will present their findings based on field studies conducted in Leipzig, Germany, and Toronto, Canada, at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition ...

New Internet-based technology may aid criminal justice agencies through tools such as better criminal databases, remotely conducted criminal trials and electronic monitoring of parolees in the community, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Top criminal justice priorities for new Internet tools include developing a common criminal history record that can be shared across agencies, developing real-time language translation tools and improved video displays for law enforcement officers to adapt to changing needs, according to the analysis. "The criminal justice ...

During the deer's breeding season, or rut, the researchers from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and ETH Zürich, played male fallow deer (bucks) in Petworth Park in West Sussex, a variety of different calls that had been digitally manipulated to change the pitch and length and analysed their responses. The bucks treated lower pitched and longer calls as more threatening, by looking towards source of the call sooner and for longer, than others. Fallow bucks attracted the attention of the researchers because of their intriguing calling behaviour. Males are silent ...

BOSTON, Aug. 16, 2015 -- Sunlight can be brutal. It wears down even the strongest structures, including rooftops and naval ships, and it heats up metal slides and bleachers until they're too hot to use. To fend off damage and heat from the sun's harsh rays, scientists have developed a new, environmentally friendly paint out of glass that bounces sunlight off metal surfaces -- keeping them cool and durable. The researchers present their work today at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS, the world's largest scientific ...

Findings from Nationwide Children's Hospital physicians demonstrate that headaches increase in fall in children, a trend that may be due to back-to-school changes in stress, routines and sleep. Although it may be difficult for parents to decipher a real headache from a child just wanting to hold onto summer a little longer and avoid going back to school, there is a variety of other common triggers including poor hydration and prolonged screen time that could contribute to a child's discomfort. "When we saw many of our families and patients in clinic, the families would ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Medicare Part D provides help to beneficiaries struggling with the cost of prescriptions drugs, but the plan's coverage gap hits some populations harder than others, particularly African-Americans age 65 and older. Reaching, or even approaching, the gap affects access to medication and influences whether those medications are taken as prescribed. "Don't assume that the existence of Part D means that people aren't having a difficult time affording their meds," says Louanne Bakk, an assistant professor in the University at Buffalo School of Social Work. "There ...

SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 14, 2015 - Software may appear to operate without bias because it strictly uses computer code to reach conclusions. That's why many companies use algorithms to help weed out job applicants when hiring for a new position. But a team of computer scientists from the University of Utah, University of Arizona and Haverford College in Pennsylvania have discovered a way to find out if an algorithm used for hiring decisions, loan approvals and comparably weighty tasks could be biased like a human being. The researchers, led by Suresh Venkatasubramanian, ...

Discovered in 1982, Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a disease-causing bacterium that survives in our stomachs despite the harsh acidic conditions. It is estimated that one in two people have got it, though most won't ever experience any problems. Even so, it is considered one of the most common bacterial infections worldwide and a leading cause of dyspepsia, peptic ulceration and gastric cancer. Through unique evolutionary adaptations, H. pylori is able to evade the antiseptic effect of our stomach acid by hiding within the thick acid-resistant layer of mucus that ...

Washington, DC - August 14, 2015 - Tungsten is exceptionally rare in biological systems. Thus, it came as a huge surprise to Michael Adams, PhD., and his collaborators when they discovered it in what appeared to be a novel enzyme in the hot spring-inhabiting bacterium, Caldicellulosiruptor bescii. The researchers hypothesized that this new tungstoenzyme plays a key role in C. bescii's primary metabolism, and its ability to convert plant biomass to simple fermentable sugars. This discovery could ultimately lead to commercially viable conversion of cellulosic (woody) biomass ...

What hap­pens when a drought in Florida estu­aries causes a rise in the salt levels in water? Fewer wild oys­ters appear on restau­rant menus, for starters. New research from North­eastern Uni­ver­sity marine and envi­ron­mental sci­ences pro­fessor David Kimbro and grad­uate stu­dent Hanna Gar­land, pub­lished in PLOS ONE, links the dete­ri­o­ra­tion of oyster reefs in Florida's Matanzas River Estuary (MRE) to a pop­u­la­tion out­break of car­niv­o­rous conchs and ...

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Aug. 14, 2015 - Another barrier to commercially viable biofuels from sources other than corn has fallen with the engineering of a microbe that improves isobutanol yields by a factor of 10. The finding of the Department of Energy's BioEnergy Science Center, published in the journal Metabolic Engineering, builds on results from 2011 in which researchers reported on the first genetically engineered microbe to produce isobutanol directly from cellulose. Isobutanol is attractive because its energy density and octane values are much closer to gasoline and ...

Americans favor diplomatic and economic strategies over military involvement in foreign policy, according to a new national survey conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Americans also question whether or not the United States should be the world's chief problem solver, even as a myriad of issues across the globe are identified as important for the next president to address. The nationwide poll of 1,167 adults collected data from June 25 to July 7 using AmeriSpeak, the probability-based panel of NORC at the University of Chicago. Interviews ...

Early-stage Non-small-cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) is asymptomatic and difficult to detect since no blood test for NSCLC is currently available. In a new study, Chen-Yu Zhang and Chunni Zhang's group at Nanjing Advanced Institute for Life Sciences, Nanjing University identified a panel of five serum microRNAs (miRNAs) as the potential biomarker for NSCLC diagnosis. The study is published this week in the journal EBioMedicine. MiRNAs are a family of small, single-stranded non-coding RNAs that are critical regulators of numerous diseases, and their expression patterns have ...

Researchers at Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) and the University of Washington have published a new study focused on the public health implications of climate change. The article explores climate change impacts on human health in the U.S. Gulf Coast and has implications for this and other coastal regions that are particularly vulnerable to climate change. The study appears in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (August 11, 2015). The Open Access article is available here: http://bit.ly/1gAVqVe This ...

Rockville, Md. -- A new study may have unlocked understanding of a mysterious part of the brain -- with implications for neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's. The results, published in Translational Vision Science & Technology (TVST), open up new areas of research in the pursuit of neuroprotective therapies. Glaucoma is a neurodegenerative disease where patients lose seemingly random patches of vision in each eye. This random pattern of vision loss is in stark contrast to loss from a brain tumor or stroke, which causes both eyes to develop blind spots in the ...

The liver is unique among organs in its ability to regenerate after being damaged. Exactly how it repairs itself remained a mystery until recently, when researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health discovered a type of cell in mice essential to the process. The researchers also found similar cells in humans. When healthy liver cells are depleted by long-term exposure to toxic chemicals, the newly discovered cells, known as hybrid hepatocytes, generate new tissue more efficiently than normal liver cells. Importantly, they divide and grow without causing cancer, ...