MADISON, Wis. — Bigger is better, if you're a leatherback sea turtle. For the first time, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Florida Atlantic University (FAU), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have measured the forces that act on a swimming animal and the energy the animal must expend to move through the water. A surprising finding: Longer, slender turtles are less efficient swimmers than more rotund turtles, which get better stroke for their buck. By taking these measurements, the research team — led by UW-Madison's ...

Heparin, the life saving blood thinner used in major surgeries and treatment of heart diseases, is a complicated drug but a research team from the University of British Columbia has set out to make its use a lot safer by developing a universal antidote. Heparin's blood thinning action often requires an antidote to reverse its effect before serious bleeding issues arise especially in the case of major surgical procedures. Finding an approved drug to reverse the blood thinning effect of heparin is complicated because there are about a dozen approved heparin products ...

Maggot infestations, rotting carcasses, unidentifiable gunk in the kitchen sink – how much your brain responds to disgusting images could predict whether you are liberal or conservative. In a study to be published in an upcoming issue of Current Biology, an international team of scientists led by Virginia Tech reports that the strength of a person's reaction to repulsive images can forecast their political ideology. "Disgusting images generate neural responses that are highly predictive of political orientation even when those neural responses don't correspond ...

Sleep apnea may affect your ability to form new spatial memories, such as remembering where you parked your car, new research led by NYU Langone Medical Center sleep specialists suggests. The study, published online Oct. 29 in Journal of Neuroscience, demonstrates through the playing of a specific video game that disruption of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep as a consequence of sleep apnea impairs spatial memory in humans even when other sleep stages are intact. Spatial memory is utilized for everyday tasks, such as remembering the location of a favorite restaurant, ...

Wind shear has kicked in and has been pushing clouds and showers away from Tropical Cyclone Nilofar's center. NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image that showed the effects of the shear on Oct. 29. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of Tropical Cyclone Nilofar on Oct. 29 at 09:00 UTC (5 a.m. EDT). Tropical Cyclone Nilofar is moving through the Arabian Sea. The image shows that clouds were being pushed to the northeast of the center of the storm, from strong southwesterly wind shear. On Oct. 29 at 1500 UTC ...

In the largest study of its kind to date, researchers have used DNA sequencing to uncover dozens of genes that heighten the risk for autism. Joseph Buxbaum, Ph.D., Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City, Mark Daly, Ph.D., Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, and their colleagues examined more than 14,000 DNA samples from affected children, parents and unrelated people. They identified changes in 107 genes that are likely to contribute to the risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) – a jump from the nine genes implicated in earlier studies using these ...

Small differences in as many as a thousand genes contribute to risk for autism, according to a study led by Mount Sinai researchers and the Autism Sequencing Consortium (ASC), and published today in the journal Nature. The new study examined data on several types of rare, genetic differences in more than 14,000 DNA samples from parents, affected children, and unrelated individuals – by far the largest number to date – to dramatically expand the list of genes identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Most of the genes that contribute to autism remain ...

A research group led by Anne Dutrey from the Laboratory of Astrophysics of Bordeaux, France, and the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) observed the distribution of dust and gas in a binary star system called GG Tau-A. It was recently discovered that one of GG Tau-A's components is itself a double star. This object is only a few million years old and lies approximately 460 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus. Like a wheel in a wheel, GG Tau-A contains a large, outer disk encircling the entire system as well as an inner disk around the main central ...

Mouse lemurs can live at least eight years in the wild – twice as long as some previous estimates, a long-term longitudinal study finds. PLOS ONE published the research on brown mouse lemurs (Microcebus rufus) led in Madagascar by biologist Sarah Zohdy, a post-doctoral fellow in Emory University's Department of Environmental Sciences and the Rollins School of Public Health. Zohdy conducted the research while she was a doctoral student at the University of Helsinki. "It's surprising that these tiny, mouse-sized primates, living in a jungle full of predators that ...

A team led by the Lawrence Livermore scientists has created a new kind of ion channel based on short carbon nanotubes, which can be inserted into synthetic bilayers and live cell membranes to form tiny pores that transport water, protons, small ions and DNA. These carbon nanotube "porins" have significant implications for future health care and bioengineering applications. Nanotube porins eventually could be used to deliver drugs to the body, serve as a foundation of novel biosensors and DNA sequencing applications, and be used as components of synthetic cells. Researchers ...

A study led by investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has identified a potential target for therapies to treat cocaine addiction. In their study receiving advance online publication in Molecular Psychiatry, the investigators find evidence that changing one amino acid in a subunit of an important receptor protein alters whether cocaine-experienced animals will resume drug seeking after a period of cocaine abstinence. Increasing expression of the enzyme responsible for that change within the ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — To understand the extent to which human activities are polluting Earth's atmosphere and oceans, it's important to distinguish human-made pollutants from compounds that occur naturally. A recent study co-authored by a Brown University professor does just that for ammonium, a compound that is produced by human activities like agriculture, as well as by natural processes that occur in the ocean. The research, based on two years of rainwater samples taken in Bermuda, suggests that ammonium deposited over the open ocean comes almost ...

Engineers at the University of California, San Diego have determined for the first time the impact of a ring-shaped vortex on transporting blood flow in normal and abnormal ventricles within the human heart. They worked with cardiologists at the Non-Invasive Cardiology Laboratory at Gregorio Marañon Hospital, in Madrid, Spain. In order to make the study possible, researchers have developed a novel ultrasound technology that makes screening cheaper and much easier, making it possible to reach a large number of people and even infants. Intra-ventricular flow imaging ...

VIDEO: AHCC (Active Hexose Correlated Compound) is a natural immune-modulating compound derived from a unique fraction of specially-cultured medicinal mushroom mycelia which has been clinically shown to strengthen the body's immune... Click here for more information. (October 29, 2014, Beaverton, OR) New research presented at the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) 11th International Conference in Houston, TX showed for the first time that it is possible to eliminate HPV ...

Many factors, both genetic and environmental, have been blamed for increasing the risk of a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Some, such as a family history of schizophrenia, are widely accepted. Others, such as infection with Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite transmitted by soil, undercooked meat and cat feces, are still viewed with skepticism. A new study by Gary Smith, professor of population biology and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine, used epidemiological modeling methods to determine the proportion of schizophrenia cases that ...

Some of the same chemical reactions that occur in the atmosphere as a result of smog and ozone are actually taking place in your house while you are cleaning. A researcher in Drexel's College of Engineering is taking a closer look at these reactions, which involve an organic compound -called limonene- that provides the pleasant smell of cleaning products and air fresheners. His research will help to determine what byproducts these sweet-smelling compounds are adding to the air while we are using them to remove germs and odors. Secondary organic aerosols (SOAs) are microscopic ...

By remotely "combing" the atmosphere with a custom laser-based instrument, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in collaboration with researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), have developed a new technique that can accurately measure—over a sizeable distance—amounts of several of the major "greenhouse" gases implicated in climate change. The technique potentially could be used in several ways to support research on atmospheric greenhouse gases. It can provide accurate data to support ...

The way a person's brain responds to a single disgusting image is enough to reliably predict whether he or she identifies politically as liberal or conservative. As we approach Election Day, the researchers say that the findings reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on October 30 come as a reminder of something we all know but probably don't always do: "Think, don't just react." P. Read Montague of Virginia Tech says he was initially inspired by evidence showing that an individual's political affiliation is almost as heritable as height. Montague and his ...

Cancer suffers who lose their hair as a consequence of chemotherapy will benefit from a major research project that will improve the scalp cooling technology that prevents hair loss. The research is being now underway and is being pioneered by global scalp cooling manufacturing company, Paxman Coolers, of Fenay Bridge, Huddersfield, in conjunction with the biology department of the University of Huddersfield. The research will be led by key researcher Omar Hussain, who has a background in the pharmacology of cancer treatment, which he will use towards his PhD. Omar ...

Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have validated an EEG test to study and treat schizophrenia. The findings, published in two separate studies, offer a clinical test that could be used to help diagnose persons at risk for developing mental illness later in life, as well as an approach for measuring the efficacies of different treatment options. One of the studies, reported online Oct. 23 in Schizophrenia Research, shows that schizophrenia patients don't register subtle changes in reoccurring sounds as well as others and that this deficit ...

Increasingly, cancer care respects the fact that a patient's body is only part of the system that requires treatment. Over a third of cancer patients experience psychosocial distress – the mental health consequences of their conditions. And, increasingly, care providers are exploring phone- and internet-based interventions to help cancer patients navigate mental health challenges. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study recently published in the journal Psycho-Oncology asks an important question: after decades of use and study, can we definitely show that remote ...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29, 2014—Scientists and science fiction writers alike have dreamt of aircrafts that are propelled by beams of light rather than conventional fuels. Now, a new method for improving the thrust generated by such laser-propulsion systems may bring them one step closer to practical use. The method, developed by physicists Yuri Rezunkov of the Institute of Optoelectronic Instrument Engineering, Russia and Alexander Schmidt of the Ioffe Physical Technical Institute in Saint Petersburg, Russia is described today in The Optical Society's (OSA) journal Applied ...

Your next pair of spandex pants could be made out of corn — or, more precisely, from dextrose derived from corn. This option is part of a new wave, albeit a small one, of consumer goods that are being produced from plants rather than petroleum-based materials. But a complete transition to a biobased economy won't be easy, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society. Melody M. Bomgardner, a senior editor at C&EN, notes that a range of companies, from start-up firms to industrial giants, have ...

Researching the safety of nanoparticles is all the rage. Thousands of scientists worldwide are conducting research on the topic, examining the question of whether titanium dioxide nanoparticles from sun creams can get through the skin and into the body, whether carbon nanotubes from electronic products are as hazardous for the lungs as asbestos used to be or whether nanoparticles in food can get into the blood via the intestinal flora, for instance. Public interest is great, research funds are flowing – and the number of scientific projects is skyrocketing: between ...

New Rochelle, October 29, 2014 –Cities around the world are increasingly making urban data freely available to the public. But is the content or structure of these vast data sets easy to access and of value? A new study of more than 9,000 data sets from 20 cities presents encouraging results on the quality and volume of the available data and describes the challenges and benefits of analyzing and integrating these expanding data sets, as described in an article in Big Data, the highly innovative, peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The Open ...