Boulder, CO, USA — The last ten years have been a remarkable time for great earthquakes. Since December 2004 there have been no less than 18 quakes of Mw8.0 or greater – a rate of more than twice that seen from 1900 to mid-2004. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost and massive damage has resulted from these great earthquakes. But as devastating as such events can be, these recent great quakes have come with a silver lining: They coincide with unprecedented advances in technological and scientific capacity for learning from them. "We previously had ...

Even though they are not hungry, children as young as three will find high-energy treats too tempting to refuse, new QUT research has found. In a study of three and four year olds, 100 per cent of children opted for a sweet or savory snack despite eating a filling healthy lunch only 15 minutes prior. Nutrition researcher Holly Harris, from QUT's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, said the results highlighted the health risks for children frequently confronted with an abundance of energy-dense, high-calorie foods. Ms Harris's study, published in the journal ...

Recreational fishermen prize large trophy fish. Commercial fishing gear targets big fish. After all, larger fish feed the egos of humans as well as their bellies. A new compilation of research from around the world now shows that big, old, fat, fertile, female fish – known as BOFFFFs to scientists – are essential for ensuring that fishery stocks remain sustainable. "Information on many different kinds of freshwater and marine fish tell the same story," says lead author Dr. Mark Hixon of the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. "The loss of big fish decreases ...

You are what you eat, unless you're not quite sure what you ate. A new paper by Jinan Banna and Marie Kainoa Fialkowski of the University of Hawai'i at Manoa's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources and Marilyn Townsend of the University of California, Davis' College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences takes a critical look at how faulty self-reporting of the food we eat can lead to incorrect conclusions about whether we are meeting dietary recommendations for certain essential nutrients. Banna's study is the first to examine how accounting for the ...

A new study by researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) identifies a new signaling pathway that contributes to the development and progression of inflammatory bone erosion, which occurs in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Rheumatoid arthritis is a systemic inflammatory autoimmune disease that affects millions of adults worldwide. Bone erosion in joints is a major cause of disability in RA patients. The study, titled "RBP-J imposes a requirement for ITAM-mediated costimulation of osteoclastogenesis," was published online in the Journal of Clinical Investigation ...

Philadelphia, PA (October 21, 2014) — Binge drinking in early adulthood is associated with an increased likelihood of high blood pressure in males, while low to moderate alcohol use in early adulthood is associated with a decreased likelihood of hypertension in females. The findings come from a study that will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2014 November 11¬–16 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA. While studies have found that drinking alcohol can raise blood pressure in adults, little is known about the links between alcohol use ...

When we talk about global carbon fixation –"pumping" carbon out of the atmosphere and fixing it into organic molecules by photosynthesis – proper measurement is key to understanding this process. By some estimates, almost half of the world's organic carbon is fixed by marine organisms called phytoplankton – single-celled photosynthetic organisms that account for less than one percent of the total photosynthetic biomass on Earth. Dr. Assaf Vardi, a marine microbiologist of the Weizmann Institute's Plant Sciences Department, and Prof. Ilan Koren, a cloud ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed new software that estimates how much farther electric vehicles can drive before needing to recharge. The new technique requires drivers to plug in their destination and automatically pulls in data on a host of variables to predict energy use for the vehicle. "Electric cars already have range-estimation software, but we believe our approach is more accurate," says Dr. Habiballah Rahimi-Eichi, a postdoctoral researcher at NC State and lead author of a paper on the work. "Existing technologies estimate remaining ...

Ordinary over the counter painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs purchased from pharmacies may also be effective in the treatment of people suffering of depression. This is shown by the largest ever meta-analysis that has just been published by a research group from Aarhus University in the American scientific journal JAMA Psychiatry. The meta-analysis is based on 14 international studies with a total 6,262 patients who either suffered from depression or had individual symptoms of depression. Up to 15 per cent of the Danish population can expect to suffer from depression ...

PHILADELPHIA – (Oct. 21, 2014) – A team of scientists, led by researchers at The Wistar Institute, has identified a possible explanation for why middle-aged adults were hit especially hard by the H1N1 influenza virus during the 2013-2014 influenza season. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offer evidence that a new mutation in H1N1 viruses potentially led to more disease in these individuals. Their study suggests that the surveillance community may need to change how they choose viral strains that go into seasonal ...

HUNTSVILLE, TX (10/21/14) -- One out of every five female students experience stalking victimization during their college career, but many of those cases are not reported to police, according to a study by the Crime Victims' Institute (CVI) at Sam Houston State University. The rate of stalking on college campuses is higher than those experienced by the general public, according to research. Many of the victims fail to report the incidents because they feel the situation was too minor, feared revenge, saw it as a private or personal matter, or thought police would not ...

Russian scientists have developed a theoretical model of quantum memory for light, adapting the concept of a hologram to a quantum system. These findings from Anton Vetlugin and Ivan Sokolov from St. Petersburg State University in Russia are published in a study in EPJD. The authors demonstrate for the first time that it is theoretically possible to retrieve, on demand, a given portion of the stored quantised light signal of a holographic image – set in a given direction in a given position in time sequence. This is done by shaping the control field both in space ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Researchers have created a cellular probe that combines a tarantula toxin with a fluorescent compound to help scientists observe electrical activity in neurons and other cells. The probe binds to a voltage-activated potassium ion channel subtype, lighting up when the channel is turned off and dimming when it is activated. This is the first time researchers have been able to visually observe these electrical signaling proteins turn on without genetic modification. These visualization tools are prototypes of probes that could some day help ...

Some people suffer incipient dementia as they get older. To make up for this loss, the brain's cognitive reserve is put to the test. Researchers from the University of Santiago de Compostela have studied what factors can help to improve this ability and they conclude that having a higher level of vocabulary is one such factor. 'Cognitive reserve' is the name given to the brain's capacity to compensate for the loss of its functions. This reserve cannot be measured directly; rather, it is calculated through indicators believed to increase this capacity. A research project ...

Scientists from Queen's University Belfast have been involved in a groundbreaking discovery in the area of experimental physics that has implications for understanding how radiotherapy kills cancer cells, among other things. Dr Jason Greenwood from Queen's Centre for Plasma Physics collaborated with academics from Italy and Spain on the work on electrons, which has been published in the international journal Science. Using some of the shortest laser pulses in the world, the researchers used strobe lighting to track the ultra-fast movement of the electrons within a nanometer-sized ...

A new study led by researchers at King's College London in collaboration with the University of Manchester and the University of Dundee has found a strong link between exposure to peanut protein in household dust during infancy and the development of peanut allergy in children genetically predisposed to a skin barrier defect. Around 2% 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. A major break-through in the understanding of eczema developed with the discovery ...

Fewer cords, smaller antennas and quicker video transmission. This may be the result of a new type of microwave circuit that was designed at Chalmers University of Technology. The research team behind the circuits currently holds an attention-grabbing record. Tomorrow the results will be presented at a conference in San Diego. Every time we watch a film clip on our phone or tablet, an entire chain of advanced technology is involved. In order for the film to start playing in an even sequence when we press the play button, the data must reach us quickly via a long series ...

An experimental drug currently being trialled for influenza and Ebola viruses could have a new target: norovirus, often known as the winter vomiting virus. A team of researchers at the University of Cambridge has shown that the drug, favipiravir, is effective at reducing – and in some cases eliminating – norovirus infection in mice. Norovirus is the most common cause of gastroenteritis in the UK. For most people, infection causes an unpleasant but relatively short-lived case of vomiting and diarrhoea, but chronic infection can cause major health problems for ...

Amsterdam, October 21, 2014 – Flu vaccines are known to have a protective effect against heart disease, reducing the risk of a heart attack. For the first time, this research, published in Vaccine, reveals the molecular mechanism that underpins this phenomenon. The scientists behind the study say it could be harnessed to prevent heart disease directly. Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. People can reduce their risk of heart disease by eating healthily, exercising and stopping smoking. However, to date there is no vaccine against heart disease. Previous ...

Cosmologists have made the most sensitive and precise measurements yet of the polarization of the cosmic microwave background. The report, published October 20 in the Astrophysical Journal, marks an early success for POLARBEAR, a collaboration of more than 70 scientists using a telescope high in Chile's Atacama desert designed to capture the universe's oldest light. "It's a really important milestone," said Kam Arnold, the corresponding author of the report who has been working on the instrument for a decade. "We're in a new regime of more powerful, precision cosmology." ...

The extinction in the wild of the southern white rhino population could be prevented by letting local communities take responsibility of the animals and giving them permission to harvest horns in a controlled manner through a legal trade. Rhino horn is made of the same material as human hair and fingernails and grows back in 2–3 years. In 2013, more than 1000 rhinos were killed illegally for their horns in South Africa. Rhino horns are being used in Asia for traditional Chinese medicine and personal prestige. Now, a new study based on ecological and socio-economic ...

NASA's newest orbiter at Mars, MAVEN, took precautions to avoid harm from a dust-spewing comet that flew near Mars today and is studying the flyby's effects on the Red Planet's atmosphere. The MAVEN spacecraft -- full name Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution -- reported back to Earth in good health after about three hours of precautions against a possible collision with high-velocity dust particles released by comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring. "We're glad the spacecraft came through, we're excited to complete our observations of how the comet affects Mars, and we're ...

October 20, 2014 – (BRONX, NY) – Rates of depression and anxiety vary widely among different segments of the U.S. Hispanic and Latino population, with the highest prevalence of depressive symptoms in Puerto Ricans, according to a new report from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL). The researchers' findings also suggest that depression and anxiety may be undertreated among Hispanics and Latinos, particularly if they are uninsured. The study was published online in Annals ...

Our species' waking and sleeping cycles – shaped in millions of years of evolution – have been turned upside down within a single century with the advent of electric lighting and airplanes. As a result, millions of people regularly disrupt their biological clocks – for example, shift workers and frequent flyers – and these have been known to be at high risk for such common metabolic diseases as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. A new study published in Cell, led by Weizmann Institute scientists, reveals for the first time that our biological clocks ...

Bethesda, MD (Oct. 21, 2014) — If you are not getting the recommended seven-to-eight hours of sleep each night, you may be at increased risk of developing ulcerative colitis, according to a new study1 in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. "Both short and long durations of sleep have important health implications and are associated with increased overall mortality, cardiovascular disease and cancer," said lead study author Ashwin N. Ananthakrishnan, MD, MPH, Massachusetts ...