1. Task Force recommends against screening for carotid artery stenosis in general adult population The United States Preventive Services Task Force recommends against screening for asymptomatic carotid artery stenosis in the general adult population, according to a recommendation statement being published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability in the United States and having carotid artery stenosis (a buildup of plaque in the carotid arteries that causes them to narrow) is a risk factor. although it accounts for a smaller number ...

Women who had prenatal and infant/toddler nurse visits at home were less likely to die than women who did not and children whose mothers were visited by nurses were less likely to have died by age 20 from preventable causes. Since 1990, the authors have been conducting a randomized clinical trial of a program of prenatal and infant/toddler home visits by nurses for very low-income, largely black mothers, having their first child. The study assigned 1,138 mothers to 1 of 4 treatment groups: treatment 1 (transportation for prenatal care, n=166), treatment 2 (transportation ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The oxygen-rich surface waters of the world's major oceans are supersaturated with methane – a powerful greenhouse gas that is roughly 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide – yet little is known about the source of this methane. Now a new study by researchers at Oregon State University demonstrates the ability of some strains of the oceans' most abundant organism – SAR11 – to generate methane as a byproduct of breaking down a compound for its phosphorus. Results of the study are being published this week in Nature Communications. It was funded ...

Alexandria, Va. — Tucked high in the Andes Mountains of northern Peru is a remarkable fossil locality: a 39-million-year-old petrified forest preserved in nearly pristine condition: stumps, full trees, leaves and all. With its existence unknown to scientists until the early 1990s — and its significance unbeknownst to villagers — this ancient forest hosts the remains of more than 40 types of trees, some still rooted, that flourished in a lowland tropical forest until they were suddenly buried by a volcanic eruption during the Eocene. Since its discovery a little more than ...

MIAMI – A new study on biological erosion of mesophotic tropical coral reefs, which are low energy reef environments between 30-150 meters deep, provides new insights into processes that affect the overall structure of these important ecosystems. The purpose of the study was to better understand how bioerosion rates and distribution of bioeroding organisms, such as fish, mollusks and sponges, differ between mesophotic reefs and their shallow-water counterparts and the implications of those variations on the sustainability of the reef structure. Due to major advancements ...

Re-examination of a circa 100,000-year-old archaic early human skull found 35 years ago in Northern China has revealed the surprising presence of an inner-ear formation long thought to occur only in Neandertals. "The discovery places into question a whole suite of scenarios of later Pleistocene human population dispersals and interconnections based on tracing isolated anatomical or genetic features in fragmentary fossils," said study co-author Erik Trinkaus, PhD, a physical anthropology professor at Washington University in St. Louis. "It suggests, instead, that ...

GREENWICH, CT, EMBARGOED UNTIL JULY 7, 2014 (3:00 PM EST) -- Scientists have identified the fossilized remains of an extinct giant bird that is likely to have the largest wingspan of any bird ever to have lived. A paper announcing the findings, "Flight Performance of the Largest Volant Bird," was published July 7 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and is authored by Dr. Daniel Ksepka, the newest Curator of Science at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich. With a wingspan of 20 to 24 feet, Pelagornis sandersi was more than twice as big as the Royal ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Scientists have identified the fossilized remains of an extinct giant bird that could be the biggest flying bird ever found. With an estimated 20-24-foot wingspan, the creature surpassed size estimates based on wing bones from the previous record holder -- a long-extinct bird named Argentavis magnificens -- and was twice as big as the Royal Albatross, the largest flying bird today. Scheduled to appear online the week of July 7, 2014, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the findings show that the creature was an extremely efficient ...

Researchers from the University of Oxford, the University of Limerick, and the Harvard School of Public Health have developed a mathematical model to examine online social networks, in particular the trade-off between copying our friends and relying on 'best-seller' lists. The researchers examined how users are influenced in the choice of apps that they install on their Facebook pages by creating a mathematical model to capture the dynamics at play. By incorporating data from the installation of Facebook apps into their mathematical model, they found that users selected ...

A new study published today in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), has found that time of day and sleep deprivation have a significant effect on our metabolism. The finding could be crucial when looking at the best time of day to test for diseases such as cancer and heart disease, and for administering medicines effectively. Researchers from the University of Surrey and The Institute of Cancer Research, London, investigated the links between sleep deprivation, body clock disruption and metabolism, and discovered a clear variation in metabolism ...

Perhaps not everyone knows that oxygen has – quite unusually for such a simple molecule – magnetic properties. The phase diagram of solid oxygen at low temperatures and high pressures shows, however, several irregularities (for example, proper "information gaps" with regard to these magnetic properties) that are still poorly understood. A team of researchers from the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) and International Centre for Theoretical Physics Abdus Salam (ICTP) of Trieste, while trying to understand the origin of these phenomena, have identified a ...

Scientists have long puzzled over the genetic differences between fruit flies that live hardly a puddle jump apart in a natural environment known as "Evolution Canyon" in Mount Carmel, Israel. Now, an international team of researchers led by scientists with the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech has peered into the DNA of these closely related flies to discover how these animals have been able to adapt and survive in such close, but extremely different, ecologies. One reason lies in a startling abundance of repetitive DNA elements that, until recently, ...

If you're so smart, why aren't you rich? It may be that, when it comes to stock market success, your brain is heeding the wrong neural signals. In a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week, scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and Caltech found that, when they simulated market conditions for groups of investors, economic bubbles — in which the price of something could differ greatly from its actual value — invariably formed. Even more remarkably, the researchers discovered a correlation between specific brain activity ...

VIDEO: The video shows how a printed label picks up the radio signal from a telephone making a call, and uses the energy to switch the integrated display. This is only... Click here for more information. With an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States of America (PNAS), a thirteen-year-long mystery that has involved a long series of researchers at both Linköping University and Acreo Swedish ICT has finally been solved. The ...

Investment magnate Warren Buffett has famously suggested that investors should try to "be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy only when others are fearful." That turns out to be excellent advice, according to the results of a new study by researchers at Caltech and Virginia Tech that looked at the brain activity and behavior of people trading in experimental markets where price bubbles formed. In such markets, where price far outpaces actual value, it appears that wise traders receive an early warning signal from their brains—a warning that makes them feel uncomfortable ...

Wanted: Highly skilled individual who is also a team player. In other words, someone who knows his or her stuff and also plays well with others. Two qualities are particularly essential for success in the workplace: book smarts and social adeptness. The folks who do well tend to demonstrate one or the other. However, according to research conducted by UC Santa Barbara economist Catherine Weinberger, the individuals who reach the highest rungs on the corporate ladder are smart and social. Her findings appear in a recent online issue of the Review of Economics and Statistics. Weinberger, ...

ALLENDALE, Mich. — Men are more likely than women to slow their pace in the marathon, according to a new study led by a Grand Valley State University researcher. The findings were published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. The study, led by Robert Deaner, associate professor of psychology at Grand Valley State, was based on 14 marathons that occurred in the U.S. in 2011, and it included almost 92,000 performances. On average, men ran the second half of the marathon 15.6 percent slower than the first half, whereas women slowed by an average of 11.7 percent. ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (July 7, 2014)—Now women have yet one more incentive to lose weight as a new study has shown evidence that behavioral weight loss can help manage menopausal hot flashes. The pilot study, which was published online last month in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS), consisted of 40 overweight or obese white and African-American women with hot flashes, which are the most prevalent symptom of menopause. In fact, more than 70% of women report hot flashes during the menopausal transition, with many of these women reporting frequent ...

ALLENDALE, Mich. — Compared to scientists working in other countries, U.S.-based scientists are underrepresented as authors of articles on the potential role of innate variation in athletic performance that are published in peer-reviewed science journals, according to Grand Valley State University researchers. The findings are published in the online journal SpringerPlus. The research, conducted by Michael P. Lombardo, professor of biology, and Shadie Emiah, a Grand Valley State graduate student, used information about the authors of 290 articles published in peer-reviewed ...

WASHINGTON —Of emergency patients who reported any drug other than marijuana as their primary drug of use, 90.7 percent met the criteria for problematic drug use. Among patients who reported cannabis (marijuana) as their primary drug, almost half (46.6 percent) met the criteria for having a drug problem, according to a study published online Thursday in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("Identifying Patients with Problematic Drug Use in the Emergency Department: Results of a Multi-Site Study.) "Of patients who reported any drug use in the previous 30 days, nearly two-thirds ...

Dallas – July 7, 2014 – Cardiologists at UT Southwestern Medical Center found that sedentary behaviors may lower cardiorespiratory fitness levels. New evidence suggests that two hours of sedentary behavior can be just as harmful as 20 minutes of exercise is beneficial. The study, published in today's online edition of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, examined the association between fitness levels, daily exercise, and sedentary behavior, based on data from 2,223 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Sedentary behavior involves low levels ...

VIDEO: This is an example of the use of the whiskers for collision avoidance. Unexpected whisker contact results in rapid deceleration of forward locomotion velocity and the animal orients to the... Click here for more information. The way rats use their whiskers is more similar to how humans use their hands and fingers than previously thought, new research from the University of Sheffield has found. Rats deliberately change how they sense their environment using their ...

Light from tiny galaxies over 13 billion years ago played a larger role than previously thought in creating the conditions in the universe as we know it today, a new study has found. Ultraviolet (UV) light from stars in these faint dwarf galaxies helped strip interstellar hydrogen of electrons in a process called reionization. The epoch of reionization began about 200 million years after the Big Bang and astrophysicists agree that it took about 800 million more for the entire universe to become reionized. It marked the last major phase transition of gas in the universe, ...

From July 4 to July 7 Tropical Cyclone Neoguri strengthened from a tropical storm into a supertyphoon. NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites passed over the rapidly intensifying storm and provided forecasters with visible, infrared and microwave data on the powerful supertyphoon. On July 4 at 0900 UTC (5 a.m. EDT) Neoguri had maximum sustained winds near 55 knots (63.2 mph/101.9 kph). It was located near 13.1 north and 141.4 east, about 207 nautical miles (238.2 miles/383.4 km) west of Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. It was moving to the northwest at 13 knots (14.9 mph/24.0 ...

(Edmonton) In the drive to get small, Robert Wolkow and his lab at the University of Alberta are taking giant steps forward. The digital age has resulted in a succession of smaller, cleaner and less power-hungry technologies since the days the personal computer fit atop a desk, replacing mainframe models that once filled entire rooms. Desktop PCs have since given way to smaller and smaller laptops, smartphones and devices that most of us carry around in our pockets. But as Wolkow points out, this technological shrinkage can only go so far when using traditional transistor-based ...