Astrophysicists at UC San Diego have measured the minute gravitational distortions in polarized radiation from the early universe and discovered that these ancient microwaves can provide an important cosmological test of Einstein's theory of general relativity. These measurements have the potential to narrow down the estimates for the mass of ghostly subatomic particles known as neutrinos. The radiation could even provide physicists with clues to another outstanding problem about our universe: how the invisible "dark matter" and "dark energy," which has been undetectable ...

Over a million American students misuse prescription drugs or take illegal stimulants to increase their attention span, memory, and capacity to stay awake. Such "smart drugs" become more and more popular due to peer pressure, stricter academic requirements, and the tight job market. But young people who misuse them risk long-term impairments to brain function, warn Kimberly Urban at the University of Delaware and Wen-Jun Gao at Drexel University College of Medicine, USA, in a NIH-funded review published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. The ...

WASHINGTON D.C. May 13, 2014 -- People standing on a beach often feel the water tugging the sand away from under their feet. This is the undertow, the current that pulls water back into the ocean after a wave breaks on the beach. Large storms produce strong undertows that can strip beaches of sand. By predicting how undertows interact with shorelines, researchers can build sand dunes and engineer other soft solutions to create more robust and sustainable beaches. "Formulation of the Undertow Using Linear Wave Theory," a new paper in the journal Physics of Fluids, clears ...

WASHINGTON D.C. May 13, 2014 -- The ability to transfer a gene or DNA sequence from one animal into the genome of another plays a critical role in a wide range of medical research—including cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and diabetes. But the traditional method of transferring genetic material into a new cell, called "microinjection," has a serious downside. It involves using a small glass pipette to pump a solution containing DNA into the nucleus of an egg cell, but the extra fluid can cause the cell to swell and destroy it—resulting in a 25 to 40 percent cell death rate. Now, ...

A new study by The University of Manchester has shed light on why athletes are more likely to have abnormal heart rhythms. Elderly athletes with a lifelong history of training and competing in endurance events like marathons, triathlons and iron man challenges can have heart rhythm disturbances, known as arrhythmias. The Manchester research in rodents, funded by the British Heart Foundation, shows molecular changes in the heart's pacemaker occur in response to exercise training. The finding, reported in Nature Communications, overturns the commonly held belief that ...

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 13, 2014—New research published online today in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (EEPA), a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association, finds weak to nonexistent relationships between state-administered value-added model (VAM) measures of teacher performance and the content or quality of teachers' instruction. Based on their results, the authors question whether VAM data will be useful in evaluating teacher performance and shaping classroom instruction. VIDEO: Co-author Morgan S. Polikoff discusses key findings ...

University of Central Florida physicist Zenghu Chang has done it again. For a third time this year, his research group has published an article in a Nature journal. This time, Chang and his team have developed a new ultrafast light source for observing electron motion in molecules – made up of nuclei and electrons – at the point before the nuclei start to move. By being able to observe what actually happens, scientists can begin to understand how an electron interacts with other electrons, which may help improve the efficiency of solar cells. "The charge migration that ...

Men who have been incarcerated and released are more than twice as likely to die prematurely as those who have not been imprisoned, according to a new study published by Georgia State University criminologist William Alex Pridemore. Former prisoners are more likely to die early from infectious and respiratory diseases, drug overdoses and homicides. Causes of this "mortality penalty" include increased exposure to diseases like TB and HIV, the prolonged stress of the prison environment, the disruption of important social bonds and, upon release, the struggle to reintegrate ...

We're often told to "forgive and forget" the wrongs that we suffer – it turns out that there may be some scientific truth behind the common saying. A study from researchers at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland shows that the details of a transgression are more susceptible to forgetting when that transgression has been forgiven. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "It is well established that learning to forgive others can have positive benefits for an individual's physical and mental health," ...

Firefighters are currently battling the Signal Fire in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. The fire was reported by the Signal Peak Lookout Tower Sunday (May 11) in the afternoon and is located approximately 15 miles north of Silver City. It is currently estimated to be 4,700 acres. The Southwest Area Incident Management Team assumed command of the fire Monday at 6:00 p.m. The cause of the fire is thought to be human either a careless camper or arson, but the investigation is still ongoing. Residents in the vicinity of Signal Peak have evacuated. The firefighters ...

One in three women around the world have experienced physical or sexual violence from a partner. Although domestic violence is associated with a range of adverse health impacts, even after the abuse has ended, it is not easily identified by health care professionals, prompting some countries, notably the United States, to introduce screening programmes in healthcare settings. A new study, published online by the BMJ today [13 May], has found no evidence to support domestic violence screening. Researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Melbourne, La Trobe and Columbia ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Surgery patients covered by Medicaid come into their operations with worse health, do worse afterward, stay in the hospital longer and find themselves back in the hospital more often than those covered by private insurance, a new analysis by University of Michigan Medical School researchers finds. In fact, people with Medicaid coverage were twice as likely as other patients to have certain health risk factors before they had surgery, the researchers report in JAMA Surgery. They also had many more emergency operations, experienced two-thirds more complications ...

Deadly skin cancers in mice shrank in response to a new treatment that may complement other "immunotherapies" developed recently to boost the body's own defenses against disease threats, according to a new study published by UC San Francisco researchers in the May 2014 edition of the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Using a mouse version of a human drug that is popular for treating osteoporosis, the UCSF researchers discovered a way to manipulate the thymus, a gland situated at the base of the neck above the heart, to alter its activity so that some of the specialized ...

A first year Environmental Science student at The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC) has had a literature review of the Southeast Asian monsoon published in the academic journal Geoscience Frontiers. Her research concluded that future climate warming could lead to a 15 day delay in the monsoon onset in Southeast Asia by the start of the next century. Yen Yi Loo investigated how global and regional temperature and rainfall anomalies affect rainfall patterns and the South East Asian Monsoon. She also highlighted how increased rainfall intensity in the last ...

Scientists from The University of Manchester – part of the Manchester Cancer Research Centre - have demonstrated the potential of a drug to improve the effectiveness of radiotherapy in stopping tumour growth. There is increasing interest in using the body's own immune system to attack tumour cells – a strategy that can be very effective without the side effects associated with conventional chemotherapy. Skin cancers have been successfully treated using a topical cream, imiquimod, which recruits immune cells through a molecule known as toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7), a ...

The benefit of therapeutic arthroscopy with lavage and possible debridement for the treatment of arthrosis of the knee joint (gonarthrosis) is not proven. There was no hint, indication or proof of benefit of therapeutic arthroscopy in comparison with non-active comparator interventions, e.g. sham surgery, for any patient-relevant outcome. From the active comparator therapies, only the injection of glucocorticoids into the knee joint produced worse results than arthroscopy for the outcome "global assessment of the symptoms of gonarthrosis". This was the result of the ...

A study by the Columbia University Nova York, in collaboration with the Catalan Institute of Oncology , Belvitge Biomedical Research Institute (ICO-IDIBELL) has identified two new genes that lead to more aggressive forms of prostate cancer. The work done by Alvaro Aytes under the direction of Cory Abate-Shen , director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center of the Columbia University, has been published in the latest issue of Cancer Cell. Prostate cancer Prostate cancer is the most common in men in Europe( accounts for 20% of all male tumors). The incidence ...

Frankfurt am Main, Germany, May 12, 2014. Hydrogen sulphide (H2S) is a potent inhibitor of aerobic respiration. However populations of shortfin molly fish managed to colonise springs with high concentrations of dissolved hydrogen sulphide. In a new study researchers from LOEWE Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F) and the Goethe University Frankfurt present evidence of genetic changes minimizing the harmful effects of H2S which enable the fish to survive in this deleterious environment. The study provides insight into the molecular mechanisms of this key adaptation ...

A new study by scientists at the University of York and the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science has demonstrated that nature reserves and other areas specially protected for wildlife, as well as being vital for native species, are very important for helping European birds to expand their ranges into Britain naturally. The catch is that protected areas are also at increasing risk of invasion by species that have been introduced from further afield. The research, published in the journal Diversity and Distributions, explores how the UK's special places for nature have ...

Controversy over what sparked the Younger Dryas, a brief return to near glacial conditions at the end of the Ice Age, includes a theory that it was caused by a comet hitting the Earth. As proof, proponents point to sediments containing deposits they believe could result only from a cosmic impact. Now a new study disproves that theory, said archaeologist David Meltzer, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. Meltzer is lead author on the study and an expert in the Clovis culture, the peoples who lived in North America at the end of the Ice Age. Meltzer's research team ...

Chemists in the College of Arts and Sciences have figured out how to control multiple bacterial behaviors—potentially good news for the treatment of infectious diseases and other bacteria-associated issues, without causing drug resistance. Yan-Yeung Luk, associate professor of chemistry, has spearheaded the discovery, in conjunction with his research lab at Syracuse University and the Wang Lab at SUNY Upstate Medical University. Their findings are the subject of a forthcoming article in the journal ChemBioChem (John Wiley & Sons Inc.). "Since the discovery of the first ...

In a major scientific review of research on e-cigarettes, UC San Francisco scientists found that industry claims about the devices are unsupported by the evidence to date, including claims that e-cigarettes help smokers quit. The review marks the first comprehensive assessment of peer-reviewed published research into the relatively new phenomenon of electronic cigarettes. The devices, which are rapidly gaining a foothold in popular culture particularly among youth, are marketed as a healthier alternative to tobacco smoking, as an effective tool to stop smoking, ...

A team of researchers from USC and NYU has developed and patented a small molecule that interferes with cancer progression with minimal side effects. The molecule prevents two critical proteins from interacting by mimicking the surface topography of one protein – like wearing a mask – which tricks the other protein into binding with it. This stops a so-called "transcription factor" that controls the transcription of genetic information. That transcription factor is what would have created an aberrant gene expression, contributing to the cancer growth. Because of the ...

Much like using dimmer switches to brighten or darken rooms, biochemists have identified a protein that can be used to slow down or speed up the growth of brain tumors in mice. Brain and other nervous system cancers are expected to claim 14,320 lives in the United States this year. The results of the preclinical study led by Eric J. Wagner, Ph.D., and Ann-Bin Shyu, Ph.D., of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and Wei Li, Ph.D., of Baylor College of Medicine appear in the Advance Online Publication of the journal Nature. "Our work ...

Children delivered by cesarean section and those given antibiotics during early infancy appear more prone to developing allergic inflammation of the esophagus — the muscular tube that connects the mouth to the stomach — according to results of a study by investigators from the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and Harvard Medical School. The findings, published online May 2 in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, reveal that early antibiotic treatment and C-section delivery may somehow precipitate disease development by altering a child's microbiota ...