PITTSBURGH, June 17 -- Regardless of chronological age, people who live in neighborhoods with high crime, noise and vandalism are biologically more than a decade older than those who do not, according to a study led by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh. The findings were published online today in PLOS One. Strong research evidence supports that living in disadvantaged neighborhoods has an unfavorable impact on mental and physical health, explained lead author Mijung Park, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.N., assistant professor, University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing. ...

High in the sky where the cirrus ice crystal clouds form, jet contrails draw their crisscross patterns. Now researchers have found that these elevated ice cloud trails can influence temperatures on the ground and affect local climate, according to a team of Penn State geographers. "Research done regarding September 2001, during the three days following 9-11 when no commercial jets were in the sky, suggested that contrails had an effect," said Andrew M. Carleton, professor of geography. "But that was only three days. We needed to look longer, while jets were in the air, ...

Scientists at UCL have observed how a widespread polar wind is driving gas from the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan. The team analysed data gathered over seven years by the international Cassini probe, and found that the interactions between Titan's atmosphere, and the solar magnetic field and radiation, create a wind of hydrocarbons and nitriles being blown away from its polar regions into space. This is very similar to the wind observed coming from the Earth's polar regions. Titan is a remarkable object in the Solar System. Like Earth and Venus, and unlike any other ...

(WASHINGTON, June 18, 2015) - New research published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), concludes that a blood clot in an abdominal vein may be an indicator of undiagnosed cancer. The study also suggests that these clots predict poorer survival in patients with liver and pancreatic cancer. Compared to the general population, individuals who develop blood clots in their legs (deep-vein thrombosis, or DVT) or lungs (pulmonary embolism, or PE) are two to four times more likely to be diagnosed with cancer within the next year. ...

Global warming leads to the ice sheets on land melting and flowing into the sea, which consequently rises. New calculations by researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute show that the sea level in Northern Europe may rise more than previously thought. There is a significant risk that the seas around Scandinavia, England, the Netherlands and northern Germany will rise by up to about 1½ meters in this century. The results are published in a special issue of the scientific journal Climate Research. Sea level rise is a significant threat to the world's coastal areas, ...

Astronomers making a detailed, multi-telescope study of a nearby galaxy have discovered a magnetic field coiled around the galaxy's main spiral arm. The discovery, they said, helps explain how galactic spiral arms are formed. The same study also shows how gas can be funneled inward toward the galaxy's center, which possibly hosts a black hole. 'This study helps resolve some major questions about how galaxies form and evolve,' said Rainer Beck, of the Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR), in Bonn, Germany. The scientists studied a galaxy called IC 342, some ...

Patients seeking certainty in genetic tests often receive a perplexing result. Many learn they carry a 'variant of unknown significance' of a disease-linked gene. Such variants might -- or equally might not -- increase disease risk. A study published in the June issue of the journal Genetics characterized nearly 2000 variants of the breast cancer-associated gene BRCA1, demonstrating the potential of a new approach for sorting out which variants are harmful and which are harmless. Because genetic tests increasingly use more comprehensive multi-gene and whole-genome sequencing ...

ALLENDALE, Mich. -- A Grand Valley State University biology professor and her team of scientists have determined new information about an endangered species in the U.S., which could impact its protection under the Endangered Species Act. The study, "Two Tickets to Paradise: Multiple Dispersal Events in the Founding of Hoary Bat Populations in Hawai'i," was recently published in PLOS ONE at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127912. The study, led by Amy Russell, associate professor of biology at Grand Valley, reveals that the Hawaiian ...

(Philadelphia, PA) - A little more than a decade ago, researchers discovered that all cells secrete tiny communications modules jammed with an entire work crew of messages for other cells. Today, a team of researchers, led by stem cell researcher Raj Kishore, PhD, Director of the Stem Cell Therapy Program at the Center for Translational Medicine at Temple University School of Medicine (TUSM), is harnessing the communications vesicles excreted by stem cells and using them to induce the damaged heart to repair itself. Their research is the June 19 cover story in the leading ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- An international team of scientists has found some of the best evidence yet that Venus, Earth's nearest neighbor, is volcanically active. In combing through data from the European Space Agency's Venus Express mission, the scientists found transient spikes in temperature at several spots on the planet's surface. The hotspots, which were found to flash and fade over the course of just a few days, appear to be generated by active flows of lava on the surface. "We were able to show strong evidence that Venus is volcanically, and thus ...

Currently, there are more than 350 million type 2 diabetics and according to the World Health Organization (WHO) by 2030 it will be the 7th leading cause of death worldwide. The hallmark of type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance, which is initially compensated for by an increase in beta cell size (responsible for producing insulin). However, the beta cells of such patients will eventually collapse and die, leading to full blown type 2 diabetes. Researchers from the Laboratory of Cancer Metabolism at IDIBELL, led by Sara Kozma, have shown in animal models that inhibition ...

NEW YORK (June 18, 2015) - Proper laundering and handling are important in achieving and maintaining the hygienically-clean quality of healthcare fabrics and textiles delivered to the point of care, according to a new review that highlights evidence-based strategies to inhibit potentially serious contamination. The review, based on findings and recommendations from peer-reviewed studies, as well as current standards and guidelines, is published online in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA). ...

Over 35 million people worldwide are currently infected by HIV. Antiviral therapies can keep the virus from multiplying. However, no drug can cure infection so far, because various cell types continue to carry the virus in a latent, i.e. quiescent, state. Scientists of Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen have now established a model for latent HIV infection of brain cells. The researchers used this model to identify various compounds that affect latency of the virus in the brain. This study was published in the journal AIDS. "Chronic infection is caused by long-lived cells with ...

Revisiting original types and DNA analysis exposed hidden diversity in minute non-biting midges. Two species new to science were discovered and one misapprehended species was removed by following the traces back to the source in Brussels. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. "Nobody suspected a mystery until we solved it", says Elisabeth Stur, the senior author of the paper describing the misconception. - "Maybe even some will be upset that we discovered this long lasting misidentification". It all started with Elisabeth Stur and Torbjørn ...

Scientists at the University of Southampton think that Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) of invasive organisms holds the key to furthering our understanding of ecological and evolutionary processes. In a review of recent studies published in Current Zoology, the researchers say the technique is underutilised in the field of invasion biology. They believe NGS has the potential to transform our understanding of why non-native species adapt and thrive in new environments, often at the expense of their indigenous competitors. The key to the success of biological invasions ...

New research conducted by archaeologists from the University of York and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, in collaboration with members of Tel Aviv University, reveals striking insights into the living conditions and dietary choices of those who lived during the Middle Pleistocene some 300,000 - 400,000 years ago. The article, published in Quaternary International, describes the study in which samples of plaque were extracted from the teeth of three Lower Palaeolithic hominins who lived in Qesem Cave, Israel. Conducting optical and chemical analyses on the ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Researchers at the University at Buffalo have discovered a previously unknown neural pathway that can regulate changes made in the brain due to cocaine use, providing new insight into the molecular basis of cocaine addiction. "Addiction is a life-long affliction manifested by episodes of relapse, despite prolonged abstinence," says Amy Gancarz, PhD, lead author of the study, which was published on June 1 in an Advance Online Publication in Nature Neuroscience. "There is a need to more fully understand the long-term molecular changes in the brain involved ...

This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a gathering of four cosmic companions. This quartet forms part of a group of galaxies known as the Hickson Compact Group 16, or HCG 16 -- a galaxy group bursting with dramatic star formation, tidal tails, galactic mergers and black holes. This quartet is composed of (from left to right) NGC 839, NGC 838, NGC 835, and NGC 833 -- four of the seven galaxies that make up the entire group. They shine brightly with their glowing golden centres and wispy tails of gas [1], set against a background dotted with much more distant ...

A new study led by Vanderbilt University Medical Center investigators found new diagnoses of prostate cancer in the U.S. declined 28 percent in the year following the draft recommendation from the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) against routine PSA screening for men. The new research, led by first author Daniel Barocas, M.D., MPH, assistant professor of urological surgery and medicine, was posted online in the June 15 issue of The Journal of Urology in advance of publication. In October 2011, the USPSTF issued a draft guideline discouraging ...

Researchers at Monash University have found physical differences in the brains of people who respond emotionally to others' feelings, compared to those who respond more rationally, in a study published in the journal NeuroImage. The work, led by Robert Eres from the University's School of Psychological Sciences, pinpointed correlations between grey matter density and cognitive and affective empathy. The study looked at whether people who have more brain cells in certain areas of the brain are better at different types of empathy. "People who are high on affective empathy ...

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY'S HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS--Working women are "leaning in" and supporting more females in leadership roles, but a new study finds that having a female manager doesn't necessarily equate to higher salaries for female employees. In fact, women can sometimes take an earnings hit relative to their male colleagues when they go to work for a female manager. "Agents of Change or Cogs in the Machine? Re-examining the Influence of Female Managers on the Gender Wage Gap"(American Journal of Sociology, forthcoming) is co-authored by Sameer B. Srivastava, ...

This news release is available in German. Researchers have used ultra-short pulses of X-rays to film shock waves in diamonds. The study headed by DESY scientists opens up new possibilities for studying the properties of materials. Thanks to the extremely bright and short X-ray flashes, the researchers were able to follow the rapid, dynamic changes taking place in the shock wave with a high spatial as well as a high temporal resolution. The team around DESY physicist Prof. Christian Schroer is presenting its results in the journal Scientific Reports. "With our experiment ...

In the current context of Global Change, sustainable and responsible exploitation of the Oceans can be realised only through a deep understanding of the Ocean processes and of the associated ecosystems spanning every latitude of Planet Earth. This is the key concept advocated by a new position paper from the European Science Foundation. Sailing through Changing Oceans analyses long-term, mid-term and short-term climatic changes and associates a number of key processes and impacts from Antarctica to the Arctic via the Atlantic, which highly affect ecosystems and need to ...

National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers and their colleagues have developed a "placenta-on-a-chip" to study the inner workings of the human placenta and its role in pregnancy. The device was designed to imitate, on a micro-level, the structure and function of the placenta and model the transfer of nutrients from mother to fetus. This prototype is one of the latest in a series of organ-on-a-chip technologies developed to accelerate biomedical advances. The study, published online in the Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine, was conducted by an interdisciplinary ...

OTTAWA & TORONTO - Jessie is a five-year-old girl who doesn't like foods with much texture or flavour. She prefers to eat foods that don't require lots of chewing, like soup, pasta, or oatmeal. Jessie has difficulty eating a range of foods and her mother struggles daily with getting her to consume the nutrients she needs to grow and thrive. Jessie is the smallest child in her class and has been severely underweight for two years. Jason is a 10-year-old boy who was not a picky eater at all, until he nearly choked on a hot dog eight months ago. The hot dog dislodged and ...