Our brains are constantly barraged with sensory information, but have an amazing ability to filter out just what they need to understand what's going on around us. For instance, if you stand perfectly still in a room, and that room rotates around you, it's terrifying. But stand still in a room and turn your eyes, and the same visual input feels perfectly normal. That's thanks to a complex process in our brain that tell us when and how to pay attention to sensory input. Specifically, we ignore visual input caused by our own eye movements. Now, researchers at The Rockefeller ...

Skygazers at northern latitudes are familiar with the W-shaped star pattern of Cassiopeia the Queen. This circumpolar constellation is visible year-round near the North Star. Tucked next to one leg of the W lies a modest 5th-magnitude star named HD 219134 that has been hiding a secret. Astronomers have now teased out that secret: a planet in a 3-day orbit that transits, or crosses in front of its star. At a distance of just 21 light-years, it is by far the closest transiting planet to Earth, which makes it ideal for follow-up studies. Moreover, it is the nearest rocky ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Shifts in trade winds and ocean currents powered a resurgence of endangered Galápagos penguins over the past 30 years, according to a new study. These changes enlarged a cold pool of water the penguins rely on for food and breeding - an expansion that could continue as the climate changes over the coming decades, the study's authors said. The Galápagos Islands, a chain of islands 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) west of mainland Ecuador, are home to the only penguins in the Northern Hemisphere. The 48-centimeter (19-inch) tall black and white ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Even after centuries of earnest oaths and laws, the debate about whether money compromises medicine remains unresolved, observes Dr. Eli Adashi in a new paper in the AMA Journal of Ethics. The problem might not be truly intractable, he said, but recent reforms will likely make little progress or difference. "This is one of those things we have to appreciate as being with us for a long time," said Adashi, former dean of medicine and biological sciences at Brown University. "It will probably be with us forever. It's probably not entirely ...

Soldiers who served in the glaring desert sunlight of Iraq and Afghanistan returned home with an increased risk of skin cancer, due not only to the desert climate, but also a lack of sun protection, Vanderbilt dermatologist Jennifer Powers, M.D., reports in a study published recently in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. "The past decade of United States combat missions, including operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, have occurred at a more equatorial latitude than the mean center of the United States population, increasing the potential for ultraviolet irradiance ...

PHILADELPHIA - Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have devised an entirely new approach to vaccines - creating immunity without vaccination. The study, published in Scientific Reports, demonstrated that animals injected with synthetic DNA engineered to encode a specific neutralizing antibody against the dengue virus were capable of producing the exact antibodies necessary to protect against disease, without the need for standard antigen-based vaccination. Importantly, this approach, termed DMAb, was rapid, protecting animals ...

With Congress currently debating the repeal of mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) for meat and poultry - federal law in the US since 2002 - new research from the Sam W. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas shines a spotlight on how COOL labeling affects consumers' purchase decisions. In "A COOL Effect: The Direct and Indirect Impact of Country-of-Origin Disclosures on Purchase Intentions for Retail Food Products," appearing in the September issue of the Journal of Retailing, Marketing Professors Elizabeth Howlett and Scot Burton, along with ...

Researches from the Laboratory of Nanooptics and Plasmonics at the MIPT Center of Nanoscale Optoelectronics have developed a new method for optical communication on a chip, which will give a possibility to decrease the size of optical and optoelectronic elements and increase the computer performance several tenfold. According to their article published in Optics Express, they have proposed the way to completely eliminate energy losses of surface plasmons in optical devices. "Surface plasmon polaritons have previously been proposed to be used as information carriers for ...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3, 2015 -- Strawberries are sweet, juicy and delightful. Unfortunately, an expiring federal pesticide exemption could mean 2016 will be the end of strawberries in the U.S. How can we protect our strawberries from pests and comply with federal fumigant standards? In this Speaking of Chemistry video, Sophia Cai explains the problem and some possible solutions. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/noaec9-BmwU. Speaking of Chemistry is a production of Chemical & Engineering News, a weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society. The program features fascinating, ...

(WASHINGTON, August 3, 2015) - The first protein engineered to help control bleeding episodes in patients with severe von Willebrand disease (vW disease) has been shown to be safe and effective, according to results of a Phase III trial. Study data were published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology When a blood vessel becomes damaged, a protein called von Willebrand factor (vWF) helps stop bleeding by guiding clot-forming platelets to the injury. vWF serves as the "glue" that helps platelets stick to a wound. Approximately 1 percent ...

Researchers at Northwestern University are using a novel dimensional method for distinguishing misbehavior that is expectable in early childhood versus that which is cause for clinical concern. Their study is published in the August 2015 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Using a survey developed by the researchers to enhance precision of clinical identification in early childhood the Multidimensional Assessment Profile of Disruptive Behavior (MAP-DB), scientists obtained mothers' reports of their preschoolers' irritability ...

The World Glacier Monitoring Service, domiciled at the University of Zurich, has compiled worldwide data on glacier changes for more than 120 years. Together with its National Correspondents in more than 30 countries, the international service just published a new comprehensive analysis of global glacier changes in the Journal of Glaciology. In this study, observations of the first decade of the 21st century (2001-2010) were compared to all available earlier data from in-situ, air-borne, and satellite-borne observations as well as to reconstructions from pictorial and written ...

At a median follow-up of 10.9 years, an EORTC study has shown that irradiation of regional nodes in patients with stage I, II, or III breast cancer has a marginal effect on overall survival, the primary endpoint (at 10 years, overall survival was 82.3 % for regional irradiation versus 80.7% for no regional irradiation, (HR=0.87 (95%CI: 0.76, 1.00), p=0.06). The results published in the New England Journal of Medicine also showed that disease-free survival, distant-disease-free survival, and breast cancer mortality were significantly improved. Side effects were very limited, ...

People often mimic each other's facial expressions or postures without even knowing it, but new research shows that they also mimic the size of each other's pupils, which can lead to increased trust. The findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reveal that participants who mimicked the dilated pupils of a partner were more likely to trust that partner in an investment game, but only when the partner was part of the same ethnic group. "People generally underestimate the importance of pupils, despite the fact ...

Skin cancer is the most common of all cancers, and melanoma, which accounts for 2% of skin cancer cases, is responsible for nearly all skin cancer deaths. Melanoma rates in the US have been rising rapidly over the last 30 years, and although scientists have managed to identify key risk factors, melanoma's modus operandi has eluded the world of medical research. A new Tel Aviv University study published in Molecular Cell sheds light on the precise trigger that causes melanoma cancer cells to transform from non-invasive cells to invasive killer agents, pinpointing the precise ...

Money can be a significant source of conflict in relationships, particularly during stressful times. New research from North Carolina State University details techniques romantic couples can use to address financial uncertainty, highlighting the importance of communication in managing uncertainty and reducing stress. "Regardless of income level, I found that couples are uncertain about money--whether that's how to put food on the table or whether to sell a second home," says Lynsey Romo, an assistant professor of communication at NC State. "During tough financial times, ...

Compact optical transmission possibilities are of great interest in faster and more energy-efficient data exchange between electronic chips. One component serving this application is the Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) which is able to convert electronic signals into optical signals. Scientists of the KIT and the ETH in Zurich developed a plasmonic MZM of only 12.5 micrometers length which converts digital electrical signals into optical signals at a rate of up to 108 gigabit per second, and presented this device in the "Nature Photonics" scientific journal. (DOI 10.1038/nphoton.2015.127). "Optical ...

The first comprehensive study of its kind finds weight cycling, repeated cycles of intentional weight loss followed by regain, was not associated with overall risk of cancer in men or women. The study by American Cancer Society investigators is the largest to date to investigate weight cycling with cancer risk. It appears early online in the American Journal of Epidemiology. The authors of the report found weight cycling was not associated with overall risk of cancer in men or women after adjusting for body mass index and other factors. Weight cycling was also not associated ...

The brain is amazingly complex, with around 86 billion nerve cells. The challenge for researchers to create bench-top brain tissue from which they can learn about how the brain functions, is an extremely difficult one. Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) have taken a step closer to meeting this challenge, by developing a 3D printed layered structure incorporating neural cells, that mimics the structure of brain tissue. The value of bench-top brain tissue is huge. Pharmaceutical companies spend millions of dollars testing therapeutic ...

Medications commonly used to treat dementia could result in harmful weight loss, according to UC San Francisco researchers, and clinicians need to account for this risk when prescribing these drugs to older adults, they said. Their study appears online and in the August issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. "This is very relevant to patient care because unintentional weight loss in older adults is associated with many adverse outcomes, including increased rates of institutionalization and mortality, a decline in functional status, and poorer quality ...

This news release is available in French. TORONTO/MONTREAL - Cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common cause of physical disability in children. It has historically been considered to be caused by factors such as birth asphyxia, stroke and infections in the developing brain of babies. In a new game-changing Canadian study, a research team from The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) has uncovered strong evidence for genetic causes of cerebral palsy that turns experts' understanding ...

Picky eating among children is a common but burdensome problem that can result in poor nutrition for kids, family conflict, and frustrated parents. Although many families see picky eating as a phase, a new study from Duke Medicine finds moderate and severe picky eating often coincides with serious childhood issues such as depression and anxiety that may need intervention. According to the study, published August 3 in the journal Pediatrics, more than 20 percent of children ages 2 to 6 are selective eaters. Of them, nearly 18 percent were classified as moderately picky. ...

PULLMAN, Wash.--Washington State University researchers say environmental factors are having an underappreciated effect on the course of disease and evolution by prompting genetic mutations through epigenetics, a process by which genes are turned on and off independent of an organism's DNA sequence. Their assertion is a dramatic shift in how we might think of disease and evolution's underlying biology and "changes how we think about where things come from," said Michael Skinner, founding director of the Center for Reproductive Biology in WSU's School of Biological Sciences. Skinner ...

Abstinence is the best way to avoid drug addiction. But in many societies, drug use is the norm, not the exception, especially by youth. What keeps the majority of users from becoming addicted? How drugs are taken has something to do with it, according to pharmacology researchers at the University of Montreal. "Why do some drug users become addicts? The amount of drugs they take over time is one factor, but the speed with which the substance enters and exits the brain can be just as important," explained Professor Anne-Noël Samaha, who supervised the study into how ...

Parents who joke and pretend with their children are teaching them important life skills, research by the University of Sheffield has revealed. The study showed that children as young as 16 months old naturally learn the difference between joking and pretending by picking up on their parents' cues. It also showed understanding the difference between the two allows children the opportunity to learn, imagine, bond, and think in abstract ways. Researchers from the University's Department of Psychology carried out two studies; one involved parents being asked to joke ...