North Carolina State University researchers have developed methods for electronically manipulating the flight muscles of moths and for monitoring the electrical signals moths use to control those muscles. The work opens the door to the development of remotely-controlled moths, or "biobots," for use in emergency response. "In the big picture, we want to know whether we can control the movement of moths for use in applications such as search and rescue operations," says Dr. Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Supervisors who are abusive to individual employees can actually throw the entire work team into conflict, hurting productivity, finds new research led by a Michigan State University business scholar. The study, conducted in China and the United States, suggests the toxic effect of nonphysical abuse by a supervisor is much broader than believed. Published online in the Journal of Applied Psychology, it's one of the first studies to examine the effect of bad bosses in employee teams. Teams are increasingly popular in the business world. Lead ...

Work by scientists at the Universities of Manchester and Auckland suggest that both major forms of diabetes are the result of the same mechanism. The findings, published today in the FASEB Journal (20 August), provide compelling evidence that juvenile-onset or type-1 diabetes and type-2 diabetes are both caused by the formation of toxic clumps of a hormone called amylin. The results, based on 20 years' work in New Zealand, suggest that type-1 and type-2 diabetes could both be slowed down and potentially reversed by medicines that stop amylin forming these toxic clumps. ...

In leaves, photosystem 1 (PS1) absorbs light and its energy is finally utilized for the conversion of carbon dioxide to biomass. Photovoltaic devices, mostly build from silicon based semiconductors, also harness solar light but produce electricity. One approach for the development of cheaper and renewable photovoltaics consists in replacing the semi-conductor with the isolated membrane protein complexes of photosynthesis. Prof. Dr. Matthias Rögner's team isolates a highly stable PS1 from thermophilic cyanobacteria that live in a hot spring in Japan. However, the integration ...

NGC 3603 is a very bright star cluster and is famed for having the highest concentration of massive stars that have been discovered in our galaxy so far. At the centre lies a Wolf–Rayet multiple star system, known as HD 97950. Wolf–Rayet stars are at an advanced stage of stellar evolution, and start off with around 20 times the mass of the Sun. But, despite this large mass, Wolf–Rayet stars shed a considerable amount of their matter due to intense stellar winds , which blast the star's surface material off into space at several million kilometres per hour, a crash diet ...

BOSTON – As people grow older, they often have difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep, and tend to awaken too early in the morning. In individuals with Alzheimer's disease, this common and troubling symptom of aging tends to be especially pronounced, often leading to nighttime confusion and wandering. Now, a study led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and the University of Toronto/Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center helps explain why sleep becomes more fragmented with age. Reported online today in the journal Brain, the new findings demonstrate ...

Efforts must be made to decrease China's increasing caesarean section rate, suggests a new commentary published today (20 August) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG). China has one of the highest caesarean delivery rates in the world. Of 16 million babies born in 2010, approximately half were by caesarean. Although the exact rate is not known, the current Chinese language literature on caesarean rates in China reports total caesarean rates ranging from 36% to 58%. However, before the 1980s, the caesarean rate was below 5% and it did ...

(Boston) – An editorial published in this week's JAMA highlights the importance of physicians using all available clinical assessment tools when considering how to treat patients. Written by Robert Vinci, MD, chief of pediatrics at Boston Medical Center and chair of pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine and Howard Bauchner, MD, editor-in-chief of JAMA, the editorial examines results of a study published in the same issue of the journal as an example of how doctors can often over-emphasize certain types of data. The study examined how pediatric emergency medicine ...

WASHINGTON - Growing up poor can influence people's sense of control and in turn may lead them to more impulsive decision-making and quickly give up on challenging tasks in uncertain situations, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. "Two people with different childhood backgrounds are likely to respond to uncertainty in different ways, even if as adults they have a similar socioeconomic status (SES). We found that adults who grew up poor were more inclined to consider difficult and uncertain living conditions as beyond their control, ...

The area of the brain involved in multitasking and ways to train it have been identified by a research team at the IUGM Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal and the University of Montreal. The research includes a model to better predict the effectiveness of this training. Cooking while having a conversation, watching a movie while browsing the Web, or driving while listening to a radio show – multitasking is an essential skill in our daily lives. Unfortunately, it decreases with age, which makes it harder for seniors to keep up, causes them stress, and decreases ...

Deaths from heart disease and stroke are declining overall in Europe, but at differing rates, according to research, published online today (Wednesday) in the European Heart Journal [1]. The research, which provides an update for 2014 on the burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Europe, shows that death rates from CVD (diseases of the heart and blood vessels) vary enormously. For some eastern European countries, including Russia and Ukraine, the death rate from coronary heart disease for 55-60 year olds is greater than the equivalent rate in France for people 20 years ...

VIDEO: In this Science Minute from NIMBioS, Dr. Arik Kershenbaum explains new research that suggests the calls of many animals might contain more language-like structure than previously thought. Click here for more information. KNOXVILLE—The calls of many animals, from whales to wolves, might contain more language-like structure than previously thought, according to study that raises new questions about the evolutionary origins of human language. The study, published today ...

Stimulating nerves in your ear could improve the health of your heart, researchers have discovered. A team at the University of Leeds used a standard TENS machine like those designed to relieve labour pains to apply electrical pulses to the tragus, the small raised flap at the front of the ear immediately in front of the ear canal. The stimulation changed the influence of the nervous system on the heart by reducing the nervous signals that can drive failing hearts too hard. Professor Jim Deuchars, Professor of Systems Neuroscience in the University of Leeds' Faculty ...

The antibiotic clarithromycin -- widely used for treating common bacterial infections -- is associated with an increased risk of heart deaths, finds a study published on thebmj.com today. The authors say their findings require urgent confirmation, given that many millions of people are prescribed the drug each year. But they stress that the absolute risk is small and that prescribing practice should not be changed until results have been confirmed in an independent study. Clarithromycin belongs to a group of antibiotics known as macrolides. Macrolide antibiotics prolong ...

Commuting to work by active (walking or cycling) and public modes of transport is linked to lower body weight and body fat composition compared with those using private transport, suggests a UK study published on thebmj.com today. The researchers point out that the benefits were similar for both active (walking and cycling) and public transport, which may have important implications for transport and health policy. The health benefits of physical activity are well known, and studies suggests that active commuters are at lower risk of being overweight. However, self-reported ...

Between 3-6% of children in the UK have substantial difficulties learning to read, a condition often referred to as "dyslexia." They are at high risk of educational underachievement, explain consultant ophthalmologist Philip Griffiths and colleagues in an editorial. An accumulation of evidence supports the view that dyslexia is a verbal (not visual) disorder, and shows that reading difficulties are best addressed by interventions that target underlying weaknesses in phonological language skills and letter knowledge. Yet dyslexia is often associated with subjective ...

A rise in the number of reported floods in the UK over the past 129 years can mainly be explained by increased exposure, resulting from urban expansion and population growth, according to new research by the University of Southampton. In one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind, scientists have discovered that although the number of reported floods has gone up during the 20th and 21st Century, this trend disappears when the figures are adjusted to reflect population growth and increased building numbers over the same period. Published in the journal Hydrological ...

The way parents balance their work schedules may affect their adolescent children's eating habits, according to Penn State researchers. Those schedules may be even more important than the number of hours the parents spend at work, said Molly Martin, associate professor of sociology and demography. Adolescents with moms and dads who spend more time at home, especially at breakfast and dinner time, generally have healthier eating behaviors and in some cases better exercise habits than most adolescents, according to the researchers. For example, parents who spend time ...

Can nutrition rating systems be used in supermarkets to encourage healthier spending habits? A new study by Cornell University researchers sought to answer that very question by tracking the purchasing records in a supermarket chain that uses the Guiding Stars System to rate the nutritional value of foods for sale. The researchers, including Cornell Food and Brand Lab's David Just, PhD, and Brian Wansink PhD, author of Slim by Design (forthcoming), studied the sales records of over 150 Hannaford Supermarkets in the Northeastern United States between January 2005 and December ...

Smokers admitted to U.S. hospitals cannot smoke during their stay and could use this time as an opportunity to quit, but few are able to stay smoke-free after returning home. Now a study published in the August 20 issue of JAMA describes a program that increased the proportion of hospitalized smokers who successfully quit smoking after discharge by more than 70 percent. The system used interactive voice response technology – automated telephone calls – to provide support and stop-smoking medication for three months after smokers left the hospital. "Most smokers want ...

Among hospitalized adult smokers who wanted to quit, a postdischarge intervention that included automated telephone calls and free medication resulted in higher sustained smoking cessation rates at six months than standard postdischarge advice to use smoking cessation medication and counseling, according to a study in the August 20 issue of JAMA. Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. For the nearly 4 million smokers hospitalized each year, a hospital stay offers a good opportunity to quit smoking because all hospitals are now ...

Among infants presenting to a pediatric emergency department with mild to moderate bronchiolitis, those with an artificially elevated oxygen saturation reading were less likely to be hospitalized or receive hospital care for more than 6 hours than those with unaltered readings, suggesting that these readings should not be the only factor in the decision to admit or discharge, according to a study in the August 20 issue of JAMA. Bronchiolitis, a viral lower respiratory tract infection, is the leading cause of infant hospitalizations in the United States, with annual costs ...

Newborn screening performed in numerous states indicates that the incidence of the potentially life-threatening disorder, severe combined immunodeficiency, is higher than previously believed, at 1 in 58,000 births, although there is a high rate of survival, according to a study in the August 20 issue of JAMA. The purpose of newborn screening is early detection of inborn conditions for which prompt treatments can reduce the risk of death or irreversible damage. The first heritable immune disorders to which newborn screening has been applied are those that together comprise ...

In a study that included approximately 15,000 pregnant women, seroprevalence of herpes simplex virus (HSV) type 2 decreased substantially between 1989 and 2010 while there was no overall decrease for HSV type 1, but a slight increase among black women, according to a study in the August 20 issue of JAMA. Shani Delaney, M.D., and Anna Wald, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Washington, Seattle, and colleagues examined trends in the seroprevalence of HSV-1 and HSV-2 among pregnant women who delivered newborns at the University of Washington Medical Center between January ...

Severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), a potentially life-threatening, but treatable, disorder affecting infants, is twice as common as previously believed, according to a new study that is the first to examine the national impact of this newborn screening test. The study is the first combined analysis of more than 3 million infants screened for SCID in 10 states and the Navajo Nation. Infants from participating programs born from the start of the first pilot program in January 2008 through July 2013 were included. In May, 2010, SCID was the 29th condition added ...