ANN ARBOR--Economically vulnerable families are increasingly willing to take on debt to maintain a basic standard of living--a situation that can put them into a deep financial hole, according to a new University of Michigan study. Poor families can find it challenging to stay on top of bills to keep the lights on, food on the table and a roof over their head--and they fall into debt, said Kristin Seefeldt, U-M assistant professor of social work and public policy. "Unfortunately, once in debt, getting out was difficult," she said. Trying to replace short-term losses ...

Using ever more energetic lasers, Lawrence Livermore researchers have produced a record high number of electron-positron pairs, opening exciting opportunities to study extreme astrophysical processes, such as black holes and gamma-ray bursts. By performing experiments using three laser systems -- Titan at Lawrence Livermore, Omega-EP at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, and Orion at Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in the United Kingdom -- LLNL physicist Hui Chen and her colleagues created nearly a trillion positrons (also known as anti-matter particles). In previous ...

ANN ARBOR--For decades, scientists have known that ET-743, a compound extracted from a marine invertebrate called a mangrove tunicate, can kill cancer cells. The drug has been approved for use in patients in Europe and is in clinical trials in the U.S. Scientists suspected the mangrove tunicate, which is a type of a sea squirt, doesn't actually make ET-743. But the precise origins of the drug, which is also known as trabectedin, were a mystery. By analyzing the genome of the tunicate along with the microbes that live inside it using advanced sequencing techniques, researchers ...

WASHINGTON -- A national regulatory framework designed to prevent and limit indoor tanning is needed to alleviate the cancer burden and reduce the billions in financial costs from preventable skin cancer, say two Georgetown University public health experts. In their "Viewpoint" published online today in JAMA, Darren Mays, PhD, MPH, and John Kraemer, JD, MPH, explore a regulatory opportunity--similar to the way toy safety standards were achieved--that could help drive strong, national policies regarding indoor tanning. According to "The Surgeon General's Call to Action ...

Psychotic experiences were infrequent in the general population, with an average lifetime prevalence of ever having such an episode estimated at 5.8 percent, according to an article published online by JAMA Psychiatry. Interest in the epidemiologic landscape of hallucinations and delusions has grown because these psychotic experiences (PEs) are reported by a sizable minority of the population. Some have called for more fine-grained analyses of PEs to guide the field. Researcher John J. McGrath, Ph.D., M.D., of the University of Queensland, Australia, and coauthors examined ...

An Internet-based acne education program that included automated counseling was not better than a standard educational website in improving acne severity and quality of life in adolescents, according to an article published online by JAMA Dermatology. Acne vulgaris is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that is prevalent among adolescents. Patient education is an important part of managing acne along with medication. However, the effect of patient education on clinical outcomes is not well characterized in dermatology publications. Researcher April W. Armstrong, M.D., ...

The controversial practice of administering pre-surgery beta-blockers to patients having noncardiac surgery was associated with an increased risk of death in patients with no cardiac risk factors but it was beneficial for patients with three to four risk factors, according to a report published online by JAMA Surgery. Pre-surgery β-blockade is a widely accepted practice in patients having cardiac surgery. But its use in patients at low risk of heart-related events having noncardiac surgery is controversial because of the increased risk of stroke and hypotension (low ...

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (May 27, 2015)-- In what may be the largest study ever conducted on changes in Americans' religious involvement, researchers led by San Diego State University psychology professor Jean M. Twenge found that millennials are the least religious generation of the last six decades, and possibly in the nation's history. The researchers -- including Ramya Sastry from SDSU, Julie J. Exline and Joshua B. Grubbs from Case Western Reserve University and W. Keith Campbell from the University of Georgia -- analyzed data from 11.2 million respondents from four nationally ...

Seeking to advance minimally invasive medical treatments, researchers have proposed using tiny robots, driven by magnetic potential energy from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners. The researchers described the work in a paper presented this week during ICRA, the conference of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society in Seattle. Aaron T. Becker, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Houston, said the potential technology could be used to treat hydrocephalus and other conditions, allowing surgeons to avoid current treatments ...

LOGAN, UT -- Fruit growers in the U.S. Intermountain West (the region including the states of Montana, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado) are faced with challenges that include decreased agricultural land availability, harsh climatic conditions, and significant competition from both domestic production and imports. In order to keep fruit production viable in the region, growers need to adopt strategies that minimize these challenges. The authors of a new report have identified production technologies that can extend the growing season for strawberry crops and result in ...

WASHINGTON (May 27, 2015) --George Washington University (GW) researcher Valerie Hu, Ph.D., has found an important sex-dependent difference in the level of RORA protein in brain tissues of males and females. Specifically, females without autism have a slightly higher level of RORA in the frontal cortex of the brain than males without autism, while the levels of the protein are comparably lower in the brain of both males and females with autism. The new study, published this month by Molecular Autism in a special issue on sex differences in autism, further shows a stronger ...

SHIRAZ, IRAN - Following the introduction of kiwifruit to the world market from New Zealand in the 1950s, increased export of kiwi led to rapid expansion in consumer demand and production. One of the challenges for growers is kiwifruit's short storage life; the popular fruit is susceptible to severe disorders during storage. A new study from Iran recommends treatments that can extend storage life and improve quality in kiwifruit. Shirin Shahkoomahally and Asghar Ramezanian from the Department of Horticultural Science at Shiraz University published the study in the March ...

Women tolerate an unattractive man up to a point, but beware if he misbehaves. Then they'll easily shun him. So says Jeremy Gibson and Jonathan Gore of the Eastern Kentucky University in the U.S., after finding that a woman's view of a man is influenced by how handsome and law-abiding he is. Their study in Springer's journal Gender Issues has significance for those using dating sites or doing jury duty. Discovering how someone can make a positive first impression is an important field of study, because of its role in forming relationships. It is often based on physical ...

A collaboration of physicists and a mathematician has made a significant step toward unifying general relativity and quantum mechanics by explaining how spacetime emerges from quantum entanglement in a more fundamental theory. The paper announcing the discovery by Hirosi Ooguri, a Principal Investigator at the University of Tokyo's Kavli IPMU, with Caltech mathematician Matilde Marcolli and graduate students Jennifer Lin and Bogdan Stoica, will be published in Physical Review Letters as an Editors' Suggestion "for the potential interest in the results presented and on the ...

ALNARP, SWEDEN -- In organic apple orchards, one of the most serious challenges for growers is determining ways to limit weed competition while improving soil quality and ensuring high yields of quality apples. Scientists from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences published a study of orchard floor management systems (HortScience, March 2015) that revealed the benefits of using "sandwich systems" in organic orchards. Ibrahim I. Tahir, Sven-Erik Svensson, and David Hansson investigated different orchard management systems in an organic apple orchard adapted to ...

Worldwide, obesity is becoming more prevalent. According to The World Health Organization, worldwide obesity has nearly doubled since 1980, and in 2008 25% of adults aged 20 and over were overweight, and another 11% were obese. Obesity has been identified as a major source of unsustainable health costs and numerous adverse outcomes, including morbidity and mortality due to hypertension, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and certain types of cancer. Accuracy of body weight perception is an individual's perception of their body weight (normal weight, overweight, ...

About 2.5 billion people worldwide don't have access to sanitary toilets. Latrines are an option for many of those people, but these facilities' overwhelming odors can deter users, who then defecate outdoors instead. To improve this situation, fragrance scientists paired experts' noses and analytical instruments to determine the odor profiles of latrines with the aim of countering the offensive stench. Their report appears in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology. Poor sanitation, including open defecation, is a major public health issue in many low-income ...

Finding out what drugs can be used to treat a patient with tuberculosis (TB) can be can sped up by days or weeks, thanks to a new free online tool. The new TB-Profiler tool, developed by a team of scientists led by Dr Taane Clark at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, analyses and interprets genome sequence data to predict resistance to 11 drugs used for the treatment of TB. This rapid tool only takes a few minutes and means that sequence data can now be used without delay. Importantly, it also removes dependence on specialised bioinformatics skills that ...

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (May 27, 2015) - Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurological condition that affects approximately two percent of people around the world. Although several genes have been linked to multiple concurring conditions of ASD, the process that explains how specific genetic variants lead to behaviors characteristic of the disorder remains elusive. Now, researchers are utilizing animal models to understand how dysfunction of either of two genes associated with ASD, SYNGAP1 and SHANK 3, contributes to risk in ASD. The new findings pinpoint the actual place ...

Every year, an estimated half-million Americans undergo surgery to have a stent prop open a coronary artery narrowed by plaque. But sometimes the mesh tubes get clogged. Scientists report in the journal ACS Nano a new kind of multi-tasking stent that could minimize the risks associated with the procedure. It can sense blood flow and temperature, store and transmit the information for analysis and can be absorbed by the body after it finishes its job. Doctors have been implanting stents to unblock coronary arteries for 30 years. During that time, the devices have evolved ...

One way to help the elderly cross what's known as the "digital divide" is the use of tablets, those smaller, lighter, easy-to-use computers that seem to be taking the place of laptops. New Michigan State University research has found that the use of tablets does make it easier, breaking down some of the barriers that keep seniors from getting connected. In addition to being smaller, lighter and more portable, tablets allow people to maneuver online without having to move and click a mouse. "The dexterity required to control a mouse is really hard for some older adults," ...

An international team of astronomers, including researchers from the University of Cambridge, has identified a young planetary system which may aid in understanding how our own solar system formed and developed billions of years ago. Using the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) at the Gemini South telescope in Chile, the researchers identified a disc-shaped bright ring of dust around a star only slightly more massive than the sun, located 360 light years away in the Centaurus constellation. The disc is located between about 37 and 55 Astronomical Units (3.4 - 5.1 billion miles) ...

The DNA encoding all life on Earth is made of four building blocks called nucleotides, commonly known as "letters," that line up in pairs and twist into a double helix. Now, two groups of scientists are reporting for the first time that two new nucleotides can do the same thing -- raising the possibility that entirely new proteins could be created for medical uses. Their two studies appear in ACS' Journal of the American Chemical Society. Synthetic biologists have been attempting for years to expand on nature's genetic "alphabet," consisting of the nucleotide bases cytosine, ...

With summer nearly here, U.S. consumers might think they have an abundance of sunscreen products to choose from. But across the Atlantic, Europeans will be slathering on formulations that manufacturers say provide better protection against the sun's damaging rays -- and skin cancer -- than what's available stateside, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society. Marc S. Reisch, a senior correspondent at C&EN, reports that sunscreens on the U.S. market do protect users from some ultraviolet-A and ...

Patients treated for an acute respiratory infection by a doctor on a telephone or live video are as likely to be prescribed an antibiotic as patients who are treated by a physician face-to-face for the same illness, according to a new RAND Corporation study. However, the patients treated virtually were more likely to be prescribed a broad-spectrum antibiotic -- concerning since overuse of the drugs increases costs and contributes to antibiotic resistance, according to the study. Researchers say both treatment settings had high rates of inappropriate prescribing for ...