Washington, D.C. - November 19, 2014 - Lumosity is presenting new research today at the 2014 Society for Neuroscience conference on how lifestyle factors such as sleep, mood and time of day impact cognitive gameplay performance. The study, titled "Estimating sleep, mood and time of day effects in a large database of human cognitive performance," analyzed over 60 million data points from 61,407 participants and found that memory, speed, and flexibility tasks peaked in the morning, while crystallized knowledge tasks such as arithmetic and verbal fluency peaked in the afternoon. ...

An international team of scientists, coordinated by a researcher from the U. of Granada, has found that seed dormancy (a property that prevents germination under non-favourable conditions) was a feature already present in the first seeds, 360 million years ago. Seed dormancy is a phenomenon that has intrigued naturalists for decades, since it conditions the dynamics of natural vegetation and agricultural cycles. There are several types of dormancy, and some of them are modulated by environmental conditions in more subtle ways than others. In an article published in the ...

Quasars are galaxies with very active supermassive black holes at their centres. These black holes are surrounded by spinning discs of extremely hot material that is often spewed out in long jets along their axes of rotation. Quasars can shine more brightly than all the stars in the rest of their host galaxies put together. A team led by Damien Hutsemékers from the University of Liège in Belgium used the FORS instrument on the VLT to study 93 quasars that were known to form huge groupings spread over billions of light-years, seen at a time when the Universe ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- A widely presumed problem of aging is that the brain becomes less flexible -- less plastic -- and that learning may therefore become more difficult. A new study led by Brown University researchers contradicts that notion with a finding that plasticity did occur in seniors who learned a task well, but it occurred in a different part of the brain than in younger people. When many older subjects learned a new visual task, the researchers found, they unexpectedly showed a significantly associated change in the white matter of the brain. ...

Professor Dan Davis and his team at the Manchester Collaborative Centre for Inflammation Research, working in collaboration with global healthcare company GSK, investigated how different types of immune cells communicate with each other - and how they kill cancerous or infected cells. Their research has been published in Nature Communications. Professor Davis says: "We studied the immune system and then stumbled across something that may explain why some drugs don't work as well as hoped. We found that immune cells secrete molecules to other cells across a very small ...

A recent study by an Indiana University researcher has found that adolescents' alcohol use is influenced by their close friends' use, regardless of how much alcohol they think their general peers consume. Jonathon Beckmeyer, assistant professor in the Department of Applied Health Science at the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington and author of the study, said his research generally focuses on the onset of teen alcohol use and how their social relationships shape those experiences. "We've known for a long time that friends and peers have an influence on individual ...

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 19, 2014 -- Hox genes are master body-building genes that specify where an animal's head, tail and everything in between should go. There's even a special Hox gene program that directs the development of limbs and fins, including specific modifications such as the thumb in mice and humans. Now, San Francisco State University researchers show that this fin- and limb-building genetic program is also utilized during the development of other vertebrate features. The discovery means this ancient genetic program is employed in a variety of features beyond ...

A new study, published online in Brain: A Journal of Neurology today, followed 43,368 individuals in Sweden for an average of 12.6 years to examine the impact of physical activity on Parkinson's disease risk. It was found that "a medium amount" of physical activity lowers the risk of Parkinson's disease. Karin Wirdefeldt of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and her colleagues used the Swedish National March Cohort to analyse comprehensive information on physical activity of all kinds. They assessed household and commuting activity, occupational activity, leisure ...

A new study led by researchers at King's College London in collaboration with the US Consortium of Food Allergy Research and the University of Dundee has found a strong link between environmental exposure to peanut protein during infancy (measured in household dust) and an allergic response to peanuts in children who have eczema early in life. Around two per cent of school children in the UK and the US are allergic to peanuts. Severe eczema in early infancy has been linked to food allergies, particularly peanut allergy. The study, published in the Journal of Allergy ...

New research on a number of Canadian lakes show that historical acid deposits as a result of industry have greatly reduced calcium levels in the water - dramatically impacting populations of calcium-rich plankton such as Daphnia water fleas that dominate these ecosystems. Falling calcium levels mean Daphnia cannot get the nutrients they need to survive and reproduce, and are consequently consuming less food and becoming more susceptible to predators, leaving more algae for other organisms to feed on. This has left a small jelly-clad organism called Holopedium to take ...

People with airway diseases, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), have a higher incidence of inflammatory bowel disease, such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, according to the findings of a new study. The research, which is published online today (19 November 2014) in the European Respiratory Journal, is the first population-based study to examine the association between airway diseases and the incidence of bowel disease. The news comes on World COPD Day, which aims to improve awareness and care of COPD. The results showed that ...

Researchers from the University of East Anglia (UEA) are a step closer to enhancing the generation of clean energy from bacteria. A report published today shows how electrons hop across otherwise electrically insulating areas of bacterial proteins, and that the rate of electrical transfer is dependent on the orientation and proximity of electrically conductive 'stepping stones'. It is hoped that this natural process can be used to improve 'bio batteries' which could produce energy for portable technology such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops - powered by human ...

People taking part in this year's Flusurvey, the UK's biggest crowd-sourced study of influenza will for the first time be offered a swab to confirm if their symptoms are caused by a flu virus or not as part of a new collaboration with i-sense. Data from social media and internet searches will also be combined with Flusurvey, allowing flu trends to be monitored across the UK more accurately and earlier than ever before. Flusurvey scientists at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine will analyse weekly information relating to symptoms, provided in an online questionnaire ...

David King, clinical lecturer in paediatrics at the University of Sheffield, says medical professionals and consumers need to be aware that such devices "have no proved use in safeguarding infants or detecting health problems, and they certainly have no role in preventing [sudden infant death syndrome] SIDS." Wearable devices for infants are a growing industry worldwide. Devices that attach to a newborn baby to monitor its vital signs are marketed by several US companies at a cost of around $200 to $300 to give parents "peace of mind" about their baby's health. One ...

The authors say their findings are applicable to law enforcement work outside the US and support the view that stressful work related activities can "trigger" sudden cardiac death.   Law enforcement is a dangerous occupation. In 2011-2012, the fatality rate among US patrol officers was 15-16 per 100,000 full time workers - about 3-5 times the national average for private sector employees.   Some evidence suggests that cardiovascular disease is higher among police officers than the general population, but data about the impact of specific on duty activities ...

Observational studies have suggested that lower levels of vitamin D are associated with increased mortality, but whether low vitamin D concentrations are a cause of increased mortality or simply a consequence of poor health is thus unclear. This is an important question, say the authors, as millions of people worldwide are regularly taking vitamin D supplements, presumably with the aim of preventing diseases and hopefully living longer. Genetic variants have been reliably associated with circulating concentrations of vitamin D, a marker of vitamin D status. So a research ...

Boston, MA -- Police officers in the United States face roughly 30 to 70 times higher risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) when they're involved in stressful situations--suspect restraints, altercations, or chases--than when they're involved in routine or non-emergency activities, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA). It is the first study to provide data that demonstrates the impact of stressful duties on on-duty SCD. The researchers also found that physical training activities--which police don't consider ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- A national effort to shave minutes off emergency heart attack treatment time has increased the chance that each patient will survive, a new study suggests. But yet the survival rate for all patients put together hasn't budged. It seems like a paradox. But wait, say the authors of the new report: the paradox vanishes with more detailed analysis of exactly who has been getting this treatment. Far more people are getting emergency angioplasty and stents for heart attacks now than before. That number now includes more people with more complicated health ...

Barcelona, Spain: A phase I trial of the first drug designed to inhibit the cancer-causing activity of a mutated enzyme known as isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) 1, which is involved in cell metabolism, has shown clinical activity in patients with advanced acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) with the IDH1 mutation. Professor Daniel Pollyea, M.D. will tell the 26th EORTC-NCI-AACR [1] Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Barcelona, Spain, today (Wednesday) that early results from the phase 1 clinical trial of the drug AG-120, an oral, selective and potent inhibitor ...

Barcelona, Spain: Researchers have found that patients with an advanced form of kidney cancer, for which there is no standard treatment and a very poor prognosis, respond well to a combination of two existing anti-cancer drugs. Dr Ramaprasad Srinivasan, head of the Molecular Cancer Therapeutics Section, Urologic Oncology Branch, of the National Cancer Institute in Maryland, USA, will tell the 26th EORTC-NCI-AACR [1] Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Barcelona, Spain, today (Wednesday) that the combination of bevacizumab and erlotinib produced ...

Barcelona, Spain: Results from a trial of the anti-cancer drug galeterone show that it is successful in lowering prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels in men with a form of prostate cancer that is resistant to treatment with hormone therapy (castration-resistant prostate cancer or CRPC). Associate professor Mary-Ellen Taplin, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, USA, will tell the 26th EORTC-NCI-AACR [1] Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Barcelona, Spain, today (Wednesday) that galeterone was well tolerated by patients in the ARMOR2 trial, ...

VIDEO: New research from the University of Copenhagen and Copenhagen University Hospital shows that low blood vitamin D levels increase mortality. The study included 96,000 Danes and was recently published in... Click here for more information. Vitamin D deficiency is generally associated with an increased risk of poor bone health. However, recent studies have shown that low levels of this important vitamin also involve an increased risk of other diseases and higher mortality ...

A brief coping strategies therapy which provides stress relief and emotional support for people caring for relatives with dementia can reduce depression and anxiety and improve wellbeing at no extra cost to standard care, new research published in The Lancet Psychiatry suggests. The study led by Gill Livingston, Professor of Psychiatry of Older People at University College London in the UK, found that family caregivers receiving the START (STrAtegies for RelaTives) programme were seven times less likely to develop clinically significant depression than those given usual ...

A new diagnostic technique -- resulting from monitoring thousands of courtship calls from songbirds -- can be used to safely map the human brain during complex neurosurgery, according to research from Neuroscientists at NYU Langone Medical Center and elsewhere. The mapping process, first tested in zebra finches, involves gently placing a miniature electrical cooling device at different locations on a small region of the songbirds' brains. This slows down processing of complex neural behaviors, such as a birdsong or human speech. In a report prepared for the Society ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Holiday shopping can be mentally exhausting for anyone. But a new Duke University study finds that older adults seem to need extra brainpower to make shopping decisions -- especially ones that rely on memory. The study appearing Nov. 19 in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests that older shoppers use an additional brain area to remember competing consumer products and choose the better one. "The study gives a bright picture, actually," said lead author Nichole Lighthall, a postdoctoral researcher in Roberto Cabeza's lab at Duke's Center for Cognitive ...