Political parties find that their fortunes improve when they put more women on the ballot, according to a study co-authored by an MIT economist. The study analyzes changes to municipal election laws in Spain, which a decade ago began requiring political parties to have women fill at least 40 percent of the slots on their electoral lists. With other factors being equal, the research found, parties that increased their share of female candidates by 10 percentage points more than their opponents enjoyed a 4.2 percentage-point gain at the ballot box, or an outright switch ...

Philadelphia ? Today in JAMA Pediatrics, researchers from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's (CHOP) PolicyLab published the largest study to date documenting the significant risks to children's health associated with prescription antipsychotics, a powerful a class of medications used to treat mental and behavioral health disorders. The results suggest that initiating antipsychotics may elevate a child's risk not only for significant weight gain, but also for Type II diabetes by nearly 50 percent; moreover, among children who are also receiving antidepressants, the ...

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University and the University of North Texas have made what they believe is the first metal-free bifunctional electrocatalyst that performs as well or better than most metal and metal oxide electrodes in zinc-air batteries. Zinc-air batteries are expected to be safer, lighter, cheaper and more powerful and durable than lithium-ion batteries common in mobile phones and laptops and increasingly used in hybrid and electric cars. This carbon-based catalyst works efficiently in both the oxygen reduction reaction and oxygen evolution ...

DURHAM, NH - Cover crops provide many benefits to agricultural production systems, including soil and nutrient retention, resources and habitat for beneficial organisms, and weed suppression. In regions where short growing seasons can hinder the establishment of productive cover crops between cash crop growing periods, living mulch systems may provide vegetable crop growers with opportunities to establish cover crops earlier in the growing season, thereby increasing the duration of cover crop growth. Living mulch (LM) systems are a form of intercropping that involves ...

ALCALDE, NM - Fruit and vegetable production in high-elevation areas can be a difficult enterprise. Variable weather and soil conditions typical of these regions, such as the southwestern United States, present multiple challenges for growers. "High frequency and intensity of late spring frosts in semiarid climates have made fruit production challenging," explained Shengrui Yao, corresponding author of a study in the February 2015 issue of HortScience. "Growers may only harvest five to six apple crops during a 10-year period, and, as a result, many are forced to abandon ...

Multiple sclerosis patients could one day benefit from treatments that boost their brain function, a study suggests. Increasing the activity of neurons could be beneficial in people with the disease, researchers say. It could stimulate the production of a substance that protects nerve fibres. The finding could pave the way for new treatments, researchers say. Multiple sclerosis affects the brain and spinal cord and can cause problems with balance, movement and vision. Information in the brain is transmitted along nerve fibres known as axons. A material - called ...

Alexandria, VA - In a small lake along the Japanese coast, scientists have found evidence of turbulent waters centuries ago. These telltale signs of severe weather in the geologic record support the legend of the two kamikaze typhoons that protected Japan from Mongol invasion. EARTH Magazine follows University of Amherst geoscientist Kinuyo Kanamaru and his research team as the dig up history in search of signs of the storms. Read more in a new story from EARTH Magazine: http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/kamikaze-typhoons-spared-japan-kublai-khan. EARTH Magazine brings ...

Lincoln, Neb., April 6, 2015 -- UNL engineers and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory have designed a next-generation temperature sensor set to improve the measurement of oceanic dynamics that shape marine biology, climate patterns and military operations. The fiber-optic sensor can register significantly smaller temperature changes at roughly 30 times the speed of existing commercial counterparts, said co-designer Ming Han, associate professor of electrical engineering. Han and postdoctoral researcher Guigen Liu achieved the results by attaching a small silicon pillar ...

SAN ANTONIO, Texas, U.S.A. (April 6, 2015) -- Those who drink diet soda thinking it will help them shed unwanted belly fat may see their waistlines expand instead. New analyses from an observational study of San Antonio men and women age 65 and older seem to indicate this. The San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging (SALSA), led by Helen P. Hazuda, Ph.D., professor of medicine in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, gathered data on health status and lifestyles of 749 Mexican-American and European-American elders, then ...

CHICAGO --- The number of childhood cancer survivors in the U.S. has increased, but the majority of those who have survived five or more years after diagnosis face chronic health problems related to their treatment, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The study is the first to estimate the prevalence of treatment-related chronic disease among survivors of childhood cancer at a national level. It found there are nearly 400,000 childhood cancer survivors in ...

Restricting the number of innings young Major League Baseball (MLB) pitchers throw does not prevent injuries, according to new research from the University of Waterloo. The study, published in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, also found that gradually increasing the total number of innings pitched per season has no effect on young MLB pitchers' risk of future injury. "Conventional wisdom among coaches and managers is that restricting innings for young starting pitchers, and slowly increasing the number of innings pitched over several years, gives ...

Scientists have discovered three new species of dragon-esque woodlizards in the Andes of Peru and Ecuador. The new species differ from their closest relatives in scale features, coloration and DNA. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. Field and laboratory work by Omar Torres-Carvajal (Museo de Zoología QCAZ, Ecuador), Pablo J. Venegas (CORBIDI, Peru), and Kevin de Queiroz (Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, U.S.A) has resulted in the discovery of three new species of dragon-esque woodlizards from Andean cloudforests ...

WASHINGTON - Contrary to popular belief, excessive use of first-person singular pronouns such as "I" and "me" does not necessarily indicate a narcissistic tendency, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. "There is a widely assumed association between use of first-person singular pronouns, what we call I-talk, and narcissism, among laypeople and scientists despite the fact that the empirical support for this relation is surprisingly sparse and generally inconsistent," said Angela Carey, MA, a third-year doctoral candidate in psychology ...

Social scientists have long known that, statistically speaking, our friends are probably more popular than we are. It's a simple matter of math: Because extraverted people tend to have more friends, they are disproportionately represented in social networks--which means everyone's network is more extraverted than the population as a whole. New research by researchers Daniel C. Feiler and Adam M. Kleinbaum of Tuck Business School at Dartmouth College extends this so-called "friendship paradox" beyond a purely mathematical claim, documenting the phenomenon within the emerging ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - After analyzing stroke treatment records, researchers at Rhode Island Hospital in collaboration with researchers from the University of Cincinnati learned that women and men have different reasons for being excluded from receiving the common clot-dissolving drug, recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA). Importantly, more women had very high blood pressures, which reduced their eligibility to be treated with the highly effective drug. The study was recently published in the American Heart Association's (AHA) journal, Stroke. "Although men and ...

Fairfax, Va., April 6, 2015--Long-term analysis of Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) 9903 demonstrates that the addition of erythropoietin (EPO) did not improve local-regional control for anemic patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCCa) who receive radiation therapy or chemoradiation, according to a study published in the April 1, 2015 issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology * Biology * Physics (Red Journal), the official scientific journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). This study is a long-term analysis ...

WASHINGTON, April 6, 2015 -- The fantasy epic Game of Thrones is back this Sunday night, and it is sure to be chock full of intrigue, indiscretions and, of course, swords. The most sought-after blades in Westeros are made from Valyrian steel, forged using ancient magic. But could you make your own Valyrian steel sword using real-life chemistry? Reactions collaborated with cosplaying chemistry fanatic and material scientist Ryan Consell to see if we could blend metallurgy with Westerosi magic. Check out the video here: https://youtu.be/cHRcGoje4j4. INFORMATION: Subscribe ...

DURHAM, N.C. - Salt marshes at higher latitudes, such as those in densely populated coastal regions of New England and northern Europe, are more vulnerable to the effects of nutrient pollution, a new Duke University study finds. "The heavy flow of nitrogen and phosphorus into these marshes from upstream cities and farms can trigger a chain reaction that can lead to intense overgrazing by marsh herbivores," said Brian R. Silliman, Rachel Carson Associate Professor of Marine Conservation Biology at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment. "Left unchecked, this overgrazing ...

People undergoing treatment for HIV-1 have an increased risk for earlier onset of age-related illnesses such as some cancers, renal and kidney disease, frailty, osteoporosis and neurocognitive disease. But is it because of the virus that causes AIDS or the treatment? To answer that question, researchers at the UCLA AIDS Institute and Center for AIDS Research and the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study investigated whether the virus induces age-associated epigenetic changes -- that is, changes to the DNA that in turn lead to changes in expression of gene levels without changing ...

A new blood test may more accurately identify blood signatures, or biomarkers, for Parkinson's disease (PD), according to a new study published in the journal Movement Disorders. The study, conducted by researchers at Mount Sinai and funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, applies a new approach to looking for blood biomarkers for both patients with and without a known genetic risk factor for PD. This paper is the fourth in a series that report new computational techniques to improve the identification of reliable blood biomarkers. While biomarkers--such ...

Forty percent of all malaria-caused deaths in sub-Saharan Africa occur in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria, according to the World Health Organization. The private sector "supply chain" manages 74% of the drug volume in Congo and 98% in Nigeria where malaria-stricken patients rely on "drug shops" and other for-profit retail outlets to get life-saving medicine. New research forthcoming in Management Science determines that the "shelf life" of malaria-fighting drugs plays a significant role in how donors should subsidize the medicine in order to ensure better ...

A study published today on the safety of human breast milk bought over the Internet found that 10 percent of samples contained added cow's milk. The discovery that purchased samples of human milk may be purposely "topped off" with cow's milk or infant formula confirms a danger for the large number of babies receiving the purchased milk due to medical conditions. These babies are also vulnerable to the risk of infectious disease from bacterial and viral contamination of such milk, which was identified in a prior study by the same research team led by Nationwide Children's ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Two young men in their late teens sit in adjacent rooms of an inner-city emergency room. One is getting care for injuries he suffered in a fight, the other, for a sore throat. When the nurse tells each one he can go, both head back out to an environment rampant with violence, poverty and traumatic life experiences. But, a new University of Michigan study finds, the one who had been in a fight will have a nearly 60 percent chance of becoming involved in a violent incident involving a firearm within the next two years. If he does, it'll probably happen ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (April 3, 2015) - By modifying the CRISPR-Cas genome editing system, Whitehead Institute researchers are now able to manipulate Candida albicans' genome systematically--an approach that could help identify novel targets for therapies against this serious pathogen for which there are a limited number of anti-fungal agents. "The ability to engineer Candida albicans with CRISPR technology has changed the playing field," says Whitehead Founding Member Gerald Fink, who is also a professor of biology at MIT. "We used to attack this human pathogen with our hands ...

A research team showed that a nanotherapeutic medicine can halt the growth of artery plaque cells resulting in the fast reduction of the inflammation that may cause a heart attack, according to a study led by researchers from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published April 3 in Science Advances. "In just one week our novel cell proliferation-specific approach successfully suppressed atherosclerotic plaque growth and inflammation in mice engineered to mimic human vascular disease," says lead study author Jun Tang, MS, a PhD student at Icahn School of Medicine ...