Small classes, especially in the first four years of school, can have an important and lasting impact on student achievement, a new report shows. In a review of over 100 papers from 1979-2014, education expert Dr David Zyngier from Monash University's Faculty of Education looked at whether the conclusions reached on the effect of smaller class sizes still hold true today. "The question of class size continues to attract the attention of educational policymakers and researchers alike," Dr Zyngier said. "Many argue that much of Australia's increased expenditure on education ...

Real freedom, gender-based violence, terrorism laws, and asylum seekers' rights are all considered in a report released today on vital human rights issues in Australia and around the world. The 2014 Castan Human Rights Report, by Monash University's Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, highlights the Centre's research and its relevance to some of the most important human rights issues facing society. A key finding of the report is that freedom in Australia is being undermined. Director of the Castan Centre Professor Sarah Joseph said the recent narrow debate on the ...

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. (May 1, 2014) – Some of the 26 million Americans with asthma may also be prone to bone loss. According to a study published today in the May issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, there seems to be association between asthma and a decrease in bone mineral density. "We know prolonged use of corticosteroids in the treatment of asthma is a risk factor of osteoporosis, but we haven't had definite data showing the relationship between asthma itself and bone loss," ...

PORTLAND, Ore. — People with multiple sclerosis who for one year followed a plant-based diet very low in saturated fat had much less MS-related fatigue at the end of that year — and significantly less fatigue than a control group of people with MS who didn't follow the diet, according to an Oregon Health & Science University study being presented today at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting in Philadelphia, Pa. The study was the first randomized-controlled trial to examine the potential benefits of the low fat diet on the management of MS. The study found ...

If you think the 1930s drought that caused The Dust Bowl was rough, new research looking at tree rings in the Rocky Mountains has news for you: Things can get much worse in the West. In fact the worst drought of this century barely makes the top 10 of a study that extended Utah's climate record back to the year 1429. With sandpaper and microscopes, Brigham Young University professor Matthew Bekker analyzed rings from drought-sensitive tree species. He found several types of scenarios that could make life uncomfortable in what is now the nation's third-fastest-growing ...

Researchers at University of California, Santa Barbara, in collaboration with Rice University, have recently demonstrated a rapid synthesis technique for large-area Bernal (or AB) stacked bilayer graphene films that can open up new pathways for digital electronics and transparent conductor applications. The invention also includes the first demonstration of a bilayer graphene double-gate field-effect transistor (FET), showing record ON/OFF transistor switching ratio and carrier mobility that could drive future ultra-low power and low-cost electronics. Graphene is ...

Australia's coastline has been struck by up to 145 possible tsunamis since prehistoric times, causing deaths previously unreported in the scientific literature, a UNSW Australia study has revealed. The largest recorded inundation event in Australia was caused by an earthquake off Java in Indonesia on 17 July 2006, which led to a tsunami that reached up to 7.9 metres above sea level on land at Steep Point in Western Australia. The continent was also the site of the oldest known tsunami in the world - an asteroid impact that occurred 3.47 billion years ago in what is now ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Out on the edge of the universe, 75,000 light years from us, a galaxy known as Segue 1 has some unusual properties: It is the faintest galaxy ever detected. It is very small, containing only about 1,000 stars. And it has a rare chemical composition, with vanishingly small amounts of metallic elements present. Now a team of scientists, including an MIT astronomer, has analyzed that chemical composition and come away with new insights into the evolution of galaxies in the early stages of our universe — or, in this case, into a striking lack of evolution ...

LIVERPOOL, UK – 30 April 2014: Scientists at the University of Liverpool have shown how the travel and socialisation patterns of people in Southern China can give greater insight into how new diseases such as bird flu may spread between populations. Southern China is one of the most important regions of the planet for the development and spread of new diseases in humans. In recent years a combination of high population density, frequent contact between humans and animals and the developed transport links in the region have given rise to diseases such as SARS and avian ...

Children who spend significant time outdoors could have a stronger sense of self-fulfillment and purpose than those who don't, according to new Michigan State University research linking children's experiences in nature with how they define spirituality. In the study, published recently in the Journal of the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, children who played outside five to 10 hours per week said they felt a spiritual connection with the earth, and felt their role is to protect it. "These values are incredibly important to human development and well-being," ...

CHICAGO (May 1, 2014)—When it comes to buying a mouthguard, parents who want to reduce their child's risk of a sports-related concussion should visit a dentist instead of a sporting goods store. High school football players wearing store-bought, over-the-counter (OTC) mouthguards were more than twice as likely to suffer mild traumatic brain injures (MTBI)/concussions than those wearing custom-made, properly fitted mouthguards, reports a new study in the May/June 2014 issue of General Dentistry, the peer-reviewed clinical journal of the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD). "Researchers ...

In a new report published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, scientists lay the groundwork for the development of novel tumor therapies that may help rid the body of cancer by inhibiting the recruitment of a specific suppressive immune cell type called "regulatory T-cells." The approach described in the report shows that an immune molecule, called interleukin-27, promotes the recruitment of regulatory T-cells. This suggests that by stopping IL-27's immunosuppressive function, cancer therapies can more effectively activate other T-cells to attack and destroy cancer tumors. "Our ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. -- Alaska's seismic network records thousands of quakes produced by glaciers, capturing valuable data that scientists could use to better understand their behavior, but instead their seismic signals are set aside as oddities. The current earthquake monitoring system could be "tweaked" to target the dynamic movement of the state's glaciers, suggests State Seismologist Michael West, who will present his research today at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America (SSA). "In Alaska, these glacial events have been largely treated as ...

ANN ARBOR—In the classic marriage vow, couples promise to stay together in sickness and in health. But a new study finds that the risk of divorce among older married couples rises when the wife—but not the husband—becomes seriously ill. "Married women diagnosed with a serious health condition may find themselves struggling with the impact of their disease while also experiencing the stress of divorce," said Amelia Karraker, a researcher at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, who presents her findings May 1 at the annual meeting of the Population ...

PHILADELPHIA — A new computational model that simulates bone metastasis of prostate cancer has the potential to rapidly assess experimental therapy outcomes and help develop personalized medicine for patients with this disease, according to data published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "Bone remodeling is a balanced and extremely well regulated process that controls the health of our bones and the levels of circulating calcium," said Leah M. Cook, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Tumor Biology at the Moffitt ...

PHILADELPHIA — Vitamin D deficiency was an indicator of aggressive prostate cancer and spread of the disease in European-American and African-American men who underwent their first prostate biopsy because of abnormal prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and/or digital rectal examination (DRE) test results, according to a study published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "Vitamin D is a steroid hormone that is known to affect the growth and differentiation of benign and malignant prostate cells in prostate cell lines and ...

Johns Hopkins researchers say they have successfully used stem cells derived from human body fat to deliver biological treatments directly to the brains of mice with the most common and aggressive form of brain tumor, significantly extending their lives. The experiments advance the possibility, the researchers say, that the technique could work in people after surgical removal of brain cancers called glioblastomas to find and destroy any remaining cancer cells in difficult-to-reach areas of the brain. Glioblastoma cells are particularly nimble; they are able to migrate ...

The butterfly (Dryas iulia) and the bee (Centris sp.) were most likely seeking scarce minerals and an extra boost of protein. On a beautiful December day in 2013, they found the precious nutrients in the tears of a spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus), relaxing on the banks of the Río Puerto Viejo in northeastern Costa Rica. A boat carrying students, photographers, and aquatic ecologist Carlos de la Rosa was passing slowing and quietly by, and caught the moment on film. They watched [and photographed] in barely suppressed excitement for a quarter of an hour while the ...

The present study illustrates, for the hypersonic flows, through the local and marching analysis, the crossover of the mode W and the mode T at O(1) wavenumber and large Görtler number regime. In fact, it is at this wavenumber regime that the instability is most likely to occur. The two approaches are expected to deliver similar results and the marching analysis helps to express the details of the crossover and confirm the result of the local analysis. In fact the study of Görtler instability goes back to the date of the 1940s. Since Görtler's pioneering investigation ...

CHICAGO --- African-American and European-American men at high risk of prostate cancer have greater odds of being diagnosed with an aggressive form of the disease if they have a vitamin D deficiency, according to a new study from Northwestern Medicine® and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Results of the study will be published May 1 in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "Vitamin D deficiency could be a biomarker of advanced prostate tumor progression in large segments of the general population," said Adam ...

BOSTON, MA – A new research study led by Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) published in The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in May, shows an association between midlife and later life sleeping habits with memory; and links extreme sleep durations to worse memory in later life. The study suggests that extreme changes in sleep duration from middle age to older age may also worsen memory function. "Sleep Duration In Midlife and Later Life In Relation to Cognition: The Nurses' Health Study," led by Elizabeth Devore, ScD, instructor in medicine in the Channing ...

A UT Arlington chemistry professor, renowned for his work in the area of chemical separations, is leading an effort to find a more accurate way to measure water content in pharmaceuticals – a major quality issue for drug manufacturers. Daniel W. Armstrong, UT Arlington's Robert A. Welch Chair in Chemistry, says the new technique could be 100 times more sensitive than one of the most popular current methods. "The analysis for water in many consumer products, including drugs, is one of the most required tests done in the world," said Armstrong. "Current methods have many ...

A University of Arizona-led team of physicists has discovered how to change the crystal structure of graphene, more commonly known as pencil lead, with an electric field, an important step toward the possible use of graphene in microprocessors that would be smaller and faster than current, silicon-based technology. Graphene consists of extremely thin sheets of graphite: when writing with a pencil, graphene sheets slough off the pencil's graphite core and stick to the page. If placed under a high-powered electron microscope, graphene reveals its sheet-like structure ...

Tracing where your DNA was formed over 1,000 years ago is now possible due to a revolutionary technique developed by a team of international scientists led by experts from the University of Sheffield. The ground breaking Geographic Population Structure (GPS) tool, created by Dr Eran Elhaik from the University of Sheffield's Department of Animal and Plant Sciences and Dr Tatiana Tatarinova from the University of Southern California, works similarly to a satellite navigation system as it helps you to find your way home, but not the one you currently live in – but rather ...

A variety of cancers are treated with the anti-tumor agent bleomycin, though its disease-fighting properties remain poorly understood. In a new study, lead author Basab Roy—a researcher at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute—describes bleomycin's ability to cut through double-stranded DNA in cancerous cells, like a pair of scissors. Such DNA cleavage often leads to cell death in particular types of cancer cells. The paper is co-authored by professor Sidney Hecht, director of Biodesign's Center for BioEnergetics. The study presents, for the first time, alternative ...