Researchers map regional droughts from space which can affect the livelihood of millions of people in West Africa Soil moisture observations can map land degradation with more accuracy than typical rainfall data as soil moisture directly leads to plant growth Study shows that the land conditions across much of West Africa have improved between 1982-2012 based on soil moisture observations A group of international researchers led by the Centre for Landscape and Climate Research at the University of Leicester have used space satellite technology to identify regions ...

PITTSBURGH--We know that bacteriophages are viruses that infect and replicate within bacteria. We know that they are the most abundant organisms on Earth. But we don't know much about their genetic architecture. A team of professional scholars and budding scientists--chiefly college freshmen--have joined forces under the aegis of SEA-PHAGES (Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science), which is run jointly by the University of Pittsburgh and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, to study the little-known genetics of bacteriophages. ...

May 11, 2015--With rates of prescription drug overdose at an all-time high, researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health found that among individuals who visited the emergency department, the risk of subsequently dying from prescription drug overdose increased markedly based on how many times they visited the ER. Relative to patients with one or fewer trips to the ER in the previous year, the risk of dying from prescription drug overdose was five times the rate for those with two visits, 17 times for those with three visits, and 48 times for those ...

A research collaboration between the universities of Oslo and Aarhus has resulted in the development of a new method with diagnostic potential. The new method that combines phase extraction with an enzymatic reaction may eventually be used for an improved and faster screening analysis of isatin as a potential indicator of stress and neurological disorders. Isatin is a small organic molecule found in low concentrations in different tissues and is excreted with the urine via the blood stream. Isatin is supposedly a degradation product from the neurotransmitters, e.g. dopamine ...

WASHINGTON, May 11, 2015 -- More than 25 million people rely on Adderall™ and other similar drugs to help treat narcolepsy, depression and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). But how does amphetamine, the active ingredient in Adderall™, work? This week, Reactions explains how amphetamine helps you focus. Check out the video here: https://youtu.be/MeJRBsghMt8. INFORMATION:Subscribe to the series at http://bit.ly/ACSReactions, and follow us on Twitter @ACSreactions to be the first to see our latest videos. The American Chemical Society is ...

Physicians treating hospitalized patients for conditions unrelated to the kidneys should pay close attention to common blood and urine tests for kidney function in order to prevent incidental injury to the organs that help cleanse the body of toxins, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health-led research suggests. The findings, published this month in two studies in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, suggest that while being older, male, African-American or having diabetes are risk factors for developing acute kidney injury, the strongest risk factor is ...

An international group of scientists has proposed that fallout from hundreds of nuclear weapons tests in the late 1940s to early 1960s could be used to mark the dawn of a new geological age in Earth history - the Anthropocene. The study, led by Dr Colin Waters of the British Geological Survey, published new research in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The research involved 10 members of the Anthropocene Working Group that is chaired by Professor Jan Zalasiewicz of the Department of Geology at the University of Leicester and Gary Hancock, a world expert on plutonium ...

May 11, 2015 - What are the most influential studies on surgery of the lower (lumbar) spine? The "top 100" research papers in lumbar spine are counted down in a special review in the May 15 issue of Spine, published by Wolters Kluwer. Dr. Samuel K. Cho and colleagues of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City, performed a literature review to analyze and quantify the most important research papers on lumbar spine surgery. Their results raise some interesting "questions, trends and observations"--including the finding that the two most-cited studies ...

The water flea has genetically adapted to climate change. Biologists from KU Leuven, Belgium, compared 'resurrected' water fleas -- hatched from 40-year-old eggs -- with more recent specimens. The project was coordinated by Professor Luc De Meester from the Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology, Evolution and Conservation. The water flea has genetically adapted to climate change. Biologists from KU Leuven, Belgium, compared 'resurrected' water fleas - hatched from forty-year-old eggs - with more recent specimens. The project was coordinated by Professor Luc De Meester from the ...

What does space experimentation have in common with liquid cocktails? Both help in understanding what happens when multiple fluids are mixed together and subjected to temperature change - a phenomenon ubiquitous in nature and industrial applications such as oil fluids contained in natural reservoirs. The latest experimental data performed in zero gravity on the International Space Station is now available in the newly published Topical Issue of EPJ E. The results constitute the first set of highly accurate and broadly validated data on the thermodiffusion effects that occur ...

MADISON -- Mike Graham knows that fluid dynamics can reveal much about how the flow of blood helps and hinders individual blood cells as they go about their work. Graham, the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor and Harvey D. Spangler Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at UW-Madison, established a theoretical basis for these ideas by creating complex computer stimulations that show how relatively stiff white blood cells and platelets interact with more flexible red blood cells. As the different cells collide during blood flow, white cells tend to be ...

Volcanoes are considered chaotic systems. They are difficult to model because the geophysical and chemical parameters in volcanic eruptions exhibit high levels of uncertainty. Now, Dmitri V. Alexandrov and colleagues from the Ural Federal University in Ekaterinburg, in the Russian Federation, have further extended an eruption model -- previously developed by other scientists -- to the friction force at work between the volcanic plug and volcanic conduit surface. The results, published in EPJ B, provide evidence that volcanic activity can be induced by external noises that ...

Chinese scientists have reared beef rich in the beneficial fatty acids associated with fish oils. The study in Springer's journal Biotechnology Letters also highlights the scientific challenges that remain. The team from Northwest A&F University and the National Beef Cattle Improvement Centre, both in Yangling (Shaanxi), successfully introduced a gene into foetal cells from Luxi Yellow cattle, a Chinese breed with a high beef yield. The fat1 gene, isolated from a nematode worm, codes for desaturase enzymes that are involved in the conversion of n-6 to n-3 polyunsaturated ...

How much food your dining companion eats can have a big influence on how much you consume, a UNSW Australia-led study concludes. This psychological effect, known as social modelling, leads people to eat less than they normally would if alone when their companion consumes a small amount of food. Study lead author, Associate Professor Lenny Vartanian of the UNSW School of Psychology, says that in social situations the appropriate amount of food to eat can be unclear. "Internal signals like hunger and feeling full can often be unreliable guides. In these situations people ...

An international consortium of scientists led by a group from the University of Leicester has announced a new advance in understanding the mechanisms of cancer and how to target it more effectively with new treatments. Two papers published in the same issue of the world-leading Journal of Cell Biology have arisen from research work led by Professor Andrew Fry at the University of Leicester. Both papers suggest that new understanding of the mechanics of cell division can reveal new targets for cancer therapy. Professor Fry, who is Director of Research in the College ...

Geoscientists have, for the first time, discovered the origins of Australia's two largest basins: Lake Eyre and the Murray-Darling Basin. The research also implies that in 30 million years' time both basins will cease to exist. Monash University geoscientist Associate Professor Wouter Schellart, and his colleague Professor Wim Spakman from Utrecht University, have discovered how the floor of an entire ocean basin that was destroyed 70 to 50 million years ago off the North coast of New Guinea is currently located at 800-1200km depth below Central and South-eastern Australia. Using ...

New scanning methods which map the wiring of the brain could provide a valuable new tool to predict people at risk of schizophrenia, according to a new study. Scientists have long known that the symptoms of schizophrenia are partly explained by disordered connectivity in the brain. Now, a team of scientists from Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, Kings College London and the University of Bristol, have, for the first time, used Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to identify how the ...

Myopia or short-sightedness is becoming more common across Europe, according to a new study led by King's College London. The meta-analysis of findings from 15 studies by the European Eye Epidemiology Consortium found that around a quarter of the European population is short-sighted but it is nearly twice as common in younger people, with almost half (47 per cent) of the group aged between 25 and 29 years affected. The analysis of studies covering over 60,000 people, which was published today in the journal Ophthalmology, also found a strong link between myopia and level ...

New research suggests the use of hookah steam stones - commonly considered a safer alternative to cigarette smoking - could be leaving users with a dangerous, false sense of security. The findings out of the University of Cincinnati/Agilent Technologies Metallomics Center of the Americas are published this month in the Microchemical Journal. An analysis led by Amberlie Clutterbuck, a doctoral student in the UC Department of Chemistry, found residues of toxic metals that included chromium, arsenic and cadmium following several simulated hookah/steam stones smoking scenarios. Clutterbuck's ...

Philadelphia, PA, May 11, 2015 -- Dopamine is the chemical messenger in the brain most closely associated with pleasure and reward. Recent scientific advances now shed light on precise roles for dopamine in the reward process. A new paper published in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry implicates dopamine in a person's ability to be motivated by delayed rewards. People like immediate reinforcement and tend to devalue rewards that are substantially delayed in time. As a result, people will often opt for smaller immediate rewards as opposed to larger delayed rewards ...

Even with the best available treatments, the median survival of patients with metastatic, hormone-refractory prostate cancer is only two to three years. Driven by the need for more effective therapies for these patients, researchers at VCU Massey Cancer Center and the VCU Institute of Molecular Medicine (VIMM) have developed a unique approach that uses microscopic gas bubbles to deliver directly to the cancer a viral gene therapy in combination with an experimental drug that targets a specific gene driving the cancer's growth. Recently published in the journal Oncotarget, ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Scientists at Oregon State University have developed a faster, more accurate method to assess cancer risk from certain common environmental pollutants. Researchers found that they could analyze the immediate genetic responses of the skin cells of exposed mice and apply statistical approaches to determine whether or not those cells would eventually become cancerous. The study focused on an important class of pollutants known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, that commonly occur in the environment as mixtures such as diesel exhaust and cigarette ...

Swollen lymph nodes are often the earliest sign of metastatic spread of cancer cells. Now cancer researchers and immunologists at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet have discovered how cancer cells can infiltrate the lymphatic system by 'disguising' themselves as immune cells (white blood cells). The researchers hope that this finding, which is published in the scientific journal Oncogene, will inform the development of new drugs. The main reason why people die of cancer is that the cancer cells spread to form daughter tumours, or metastases, in vital organs, such as the ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A study by researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center found that a workplace mindfulness-based intervention reduced stress levels of employees exposed to a highly stressful occupational environment. Members of a surgical intensive care unit at the large academic medical center were randomized to a stress-reduction intervention or a control group. The 8-week group mindfulness-based intervention included mindfulness, gentle stretching, yoga, meditation and music conducted in the workplace. Psychological and biological markers of stress ...

Individuals who had cancer as a child may be at increased risk of being obese due to the therapies they received during their youth. The finding comes from a new study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The study's results suggest the need for effective counseling and weight loss interventions for certain childhood cancer survivors. Previous research has shown that obesity rates are elevated in childhood cancer survivors who were exposed to cranial radiation, which is used to prevent or delay the spread of cancer ...