Rice is a main food source for more than half of the global population and is a model plant for genome-based research. Since the turn of the century, Chinese scientists have embarked on a "Long March" toward more intricate understanding of the complex agronomic traits of rice, spurred in part by the completion of the draft genome sequence of the indica variety 93-11 and a fine sequence analysis of chromosome 4 of the japonica variety Nipponbare. These researchers "have made crucial contributions to international efforts in sequencing the rice genome," report Jianru Zuo ...

Being subjected to abuse during childhood entails a markedly increased risk of developing obesity as an adult. This is the conclusion of a meta-analysis carried out on previous studies, which included a total of 112,000 participants. The analysis was conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, and has been published in the journal Obesity Reviews. "The study clearly shows that difficult life events leave traces which can manifest as disease much later in life. The mechanisms behind this process include stress, negative patterns of thought and emotions, ...

A research project which counts with the participation of the University of Granada has revealed new data on the climate change that took place in the Iberian Peninsula around the mid Holocene (around 6.000 years ago), when the amount of atmospheric dust coming from the Sahara increased. The data came from a study of the sediments found in an Alpine lake in Sierra Nevada (Granada) This study, published in the journal Chemical Geology, is based on the sedimentation of atmospheric dust from the Sahara, a very frequent phenomenon in the South of the Iberian Peninsula. This ...

Researchers have found that British Muslim women who wear a hijab generally have more positive body image, are less reliant on media messages about beauty ideals, and place less importance on appearance than those who do not wear a hijab. These effects appear to be driven by use of a hijab specifically, rather than religiosity. "While we shouldn't assume that wearing the hijab immunizes Muslim women from negative body image, our results do suggest that wearing the hijab may help some women reject prescriptive beauty ideals," said Dr. Viren Swami, lead author of the British ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research suggests that professional baseball pitchers with poor core stability are more likely to miss 30 or more days in a single season because of injury than are pitchers who have good control of muscles in their lower back and pelvis. In the study, 347 pitchers were assessed for lumbopelvic control during spring training. Pitchers with more tilt in their pelvis as they raised a leg to step up were up to three times more likely to miss at least 30 days – cumulative, not consecutive – during the season than were pitchers who showed minimal tilt ...

All human cells contain essentially the same DNA sequence – their genetic information. How is it possible that shapes and functions of cells in the different parts of the body are so different? While every cell's DNA contains the same construction master plan, an additional regulatory layer exists that determines which of the many possible DNA programs are active. This mechanism involves modifications of genome-bound histone proteins or the DNA itself with small chemical groups (e.g. methylation). It acts on top of the genetic information and is thus called 'epi'-genetic ...

A new study, led by researchers at the University of Warwick in the UK and the Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany, and just published in the Journal Early Human Development, has found that both the length of time spent in hospital after birth and the use of mechanical ventilation are key indicators of reduced mathematical ability in preterm children. Mathematic abilities are crucial for lifelong academic attainment. Impairments in mathematic abilities are common in very preterm children. Earlier studies of children who are born very preterm (before 32 weeks of gestational ...

If you think losing weight is enough to prevent Type 2 diabetes, don't get your hopes up. A new research report in September 2014 issue of The FASEB Journal, suggests that you don't have to be overweight to develop Type 2 diabetes. This study compared genetically identical twins-one heavier and one leaner-and found that after eating a fast-food meal, the circulating metabolites, including those related to Type 2 diabetes, were found in both individuals at the same levels. These findings suggest that the onset of this type of diabetes is largely influenced by genetic factors ...

BEER-SHEVA, ISRAEL…September 2, 2014 – Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have developed a new program that automates classification of personality traits of prominent individuals -- both friend and foe -- according to a paper soon to be published in the American Intelligence Journal. "This new field, termed 'Computational Personality,' gives us the ability to better understand the minds of military and political leaders, which is an important aspect of strategic intelligence," explains BGU Prof. Yair Neuman of the Homeland Security Institute. "Psychologists ...

Human breast milk is considered the most ideal source of nutrition for infants and it should have played a critical role in the evolution and civilizations of human beings. Unlike our intuitive perception, human milk contains a large number of bacterial species, including some opportunistic pathogens of humans. This phenomenon comes as no surprise to scientists and physicians. Indeed, the existence of milk microbiome is considered to be the result of co-evolutionary and co-adaptive interactions between the microbiome and human host. Furthermore, the dynamic balance in ...

Researchers who analyzed media coverage of the suicide of a national actress in South Korea and its impact on subsequent suicides found that the number of suicide-related articles surged around 80 times in the week after a suicide compared with the week prior. Many articles (37.1%) violated several critical items on the World Health Organization suicide reporting guidelines, like containing a detailed suicide method. The investigators estimated that there were approximately 430 excess suicides during the 4 weeks after her death due to media coverage. "This figure is ...

Air pollution regulations over the last decade in Taiyuan, China, have substantially improved the health of people living there, accounting for a greater than 50% reduction in costs associated with loss of life and disability between 2001 and 2010, according to researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) at the Mailman School of Public Health, the Shanxi Medical University, the Center of Diseases Control and Prevention of Taiyuan Municipality, and Shanghai Fudan University School of Public Health. The study is the first to document the ...

Most nurses in their work care for patients who are dying. A study of more than 200 students has shown that many nurses in training feel unprepared and anxious when faced with the prospect of meeting patients during end-of-life care. Scientists from the Sahlgrenska Academy have interviewed 222 nursing students at the University of Gothenburg, the University of Skövde and the Ersta Sköndal University College. The interviews dealt with their thoughts about caring for dying patients, their ideas about how to support and meet the patient in dialogue, and their own feelings ...

Washington D.C., September 2, 2014 – A study published in the September 2014 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that children and adolescents diagnosed with a psychiatric diagnosis had an increased risk of developing diabetes if they were exposed to antipsychotics. Using data from the nationwide Danish registers, a group of researchers led by Dr. René Ernst Nielsen, Psychiatry, Aalborg University Hospital, Denmark, studied 48,299children and adolescents with psychiatric disorders to document the frequency and possible ...

WASHINGTON, September 2, 2014 — Best-selling author Sam Kean stops by Reactions this week to debunk the myth of the Megalodon, the 50-foot super shark that, despite what "Shark Week" may lead you to believe, is long extinct. Learn all about it at http://youtu.be/KhFygIoW_MA. Kean's book, "The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements," is getting the Reactions treatment in a 10-episode video series produced for the newly launched American Association of Chemistry Teachers (AACT). In this ...

We like to document the exciting and momentous occasions in our lives, but new research suggests there is value in capturing our more mundane, everyday experiences, which can bring us unexpected joy in the future. "We generally do not think about today's ordinary moments as experiences that are worthy of being rediscovered in the future. However, our studies show that we are often wrong: What is ordinary now actually becomes more extraordinary in the future — and more extraordinary than we might expect," explains psychological scientist and lead researcher Ting Zhang ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — How well patients recover from cancer surgery may be influenced by more than their medical conditions and the operations themselves. Family conflicts and other non-medical problems may raise their risk of surgical complications, a Mayo Clinic study has found. Addressing such quality-of-life issues before an operation may reduce patients' stress, speed their recoveries and save health care dollars, the research suggests. The study specifically looked at colon cancer patients, and found that patients with a poor quality of life were nearly three times likelier ...

This news release is available in Spanish. The solar panels we see tend to be rigid and black. Organic photovoltaic technology, by contrast, enables more translucent and more flexible solar panels in a range of colours to be manufactured. But this technology needs to meet certain requirements if it is to be accepted on the market: greater efficiency, longer duration and low production cost. So this research has set out "to analyse the capacity new materials have to absorb solar energy as well as to seek appropriate strategies to move from the lab to actual operations," ...

This news release is available in Spanish. Researchers at the University of Granada have found, through an experiment conducted on rats, that hyperproteic diets could be beneficial for bones, which would be of great use for groups with bone disease problems, such as the elderly or post-menopausic females. Their research has also revealed that vegetal protein—in the case of the present study, soy protein—is preferable to animal protein (such as whey protein), since the former increased the level of calcium in bones by as much as seven per cent. In an article published ...

New research involving mice suggests that the key to more youthful immune function might already be in your medicine cabinet. In a report published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology scientists show that macrophages from the lungs of old mice had different responses to Mycobacterium tuberculosis than macrophages from young mice, but these changes were reversed by ibuprofen. "Inflammation in old age can have significant consequences on immune function," said Joanne Turner, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Department of Microbial Infection and Immunity ...

Barcelona, Spain – Tuesday 2 September 2014: Coffee increases the risk of prediabetes in young adults with hypertension who are slow caffeine metabolisers, according to results from the HARVEST study presented at ESC Congress today by Dr Lucio Mos from Italy. People who drank more than three cups of coffee per day doubled their risk of prediabetes. Dr Mos said: "Lifestyle factors are very important for the prognosis of young people with hypertension. In a previous analysis of HARVEST (Hypertension and Ambulatory Recording VEnetia STudy) we found that coffee was a risk ...

The Lancet is pleased to announce that the following papers will be published to coincide with presentation at the ESC Congress 2014, taking place in Barcelona, Spain, 30 August – 3 September 2014: Ultrathin strut biodegradable polymer sirolimus-eluting stent versus durable polymer everolimus-eluting stent for percutaneous coronary revascularisation (BIOSCIENCE): a randomised, single-blind, non-inferiority trial, Windecker et al Refinements in stent design affecting strut thickness, surface polymer, and drug release have improved clinical outcomes of drug-eluting stents. ...

BOSTON (September 2, 2014) — In the battle between our immune systems and cholera bacteria, humans may have an unknown ally in bacteria-killing viruses known as phages. In a new study, researchers from Tufts University, Massachusetts General Hospital, Partners In Health, Haiti's National Public Health Laboratory, and elsewhere, report that phages can force cholera bacteria to give up their virulence in order to survive. Importantly, the study — published in eLife — found that cholera's mutational escape from phage predation occurs during human infection. First author ...

Passerine birds, also known as perching birds, that migrate by night tend to fly faster in spring than they do in autumn to reach their destinations. This seasonal difference in flight speed is especially noticeable among birds that only make short migratory flights, says researcher Cecilia Nilsson of Lund University in Sweden, in Springer's journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. Nilsson, in a group led by professor Thomas Alerstam, used a tracking radar to measure over three years the speed by which birds flew over Falsterbo Peninsula, a bird migratory hot spot ...

Vertical nanowires could be used for detailed studies of what happens on the surface of cells. The findings are important for pharmaceuticals research, among other applications. A group of researchers from Lund University in Sweden have managed to make artificial cell membranes form across a large number of vertical nanowires, known as a 'nano-forest'. All communication between the interior of a cell and its surroundings takes place through the cell membrane. The membrane is a surface layer that holds the cell together and that largely comprises lipids, built of fatty ...