Lung diseases like emphysema and pulmonary fibrosis are common among people with malfunctioning telomeres, the "caps" or ends of chromosomes. Now, researchers from Johns Hopkins say they have discovered what goes wrong and why. Mary Armanios, M.D., an associate professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine., and her colleagues report that some stem cells vital to lung cell oxygenation undergo premature aging -- and stop dividing and proliferating -- when their telomeres are defective. The stem cells are those in the alveoli, the tiny air exchange ...

Increasing state alcohol taxes could prevent thousands of deaths a year from car crashes, say University of Florida Health researchers, who found alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes decreased after taxes on beer, wine and spirits went up in Illinois. A team of UF Health researchers discovered that fatal alcohol-related car crashes in Illinois declined 26 percent after a 2009 increase in alcohol tax. The decrease was even more marked for young people, at 37 percent. The reduction was similar for crashes involving alcohol-impaired drivers and extremely drunken drivers, ...

Soil organic matter, long thought to be a semi-permanent storehouse for ancient carbon, may be much more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought. Plants direct between 40 percent and 60 percent of photosynthetically fixed carbon to their roots and much of this carbon is secreted and then taken up by root-associated soil microorganisms. Elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere are projected to increase the quantity and alter the composition of root secretions released into the soil. In new research in the March 30 edition of the journal, ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass--Sitting in traffic during rush hour is not just frustrating for drivers; it also adds unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. Now a study by researchers at MIT could lead to better ways of programming a city's stoplights to reduce delays, improve efficiency, and reduce emissions. The new findings are reported in a pair of papers by assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering Carolina Osorio and alumna Kanchana Nanduri SM '13, published in the journals Transportation Science and Transportation Research: Part B. In these ...

Australian scientists have discovered a new population of 'memory' immune cells, throwing light on what the body does when it sees a microbe for the second time. This insight, and others like it, will enable the development of more targeted and effective vaccines. Two of the key players in our immune systems are white blood cells known as 'T cells' and 'B cells'. B cells make antibodies, and T cells either help B cells make antibodies, or else kill invading microbes. B cells and killer T cells are known to leave behind 'memory' cells to patrol the body, after they have ...

At some point, probably 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, humans began talking to one another in a uniquely complex form. It is easy to imagine this epochal change as cavemen grunting, or hunter-gatherers mumbling and pointing. But in a new paper, an MIT linguist contends that human language likely developed quite rapidly into a sophisticated system: Instead of mumbles and grunts, people deployed syntax and structures resembling the ones we use today. "The hierarchical complexity found in present-day language is likely to have been present in human language since its emergence," ...

Alcoholism takes a toll on every aspect of a person's life, including skin problems. Now, a new research report appearing in the April 2015 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, helps explain why this happens and what might be done to address it. In the report, researchers used mice show how chronic alcohol intake compromises the skin's protective immune response. They also were able to show how certain interventions may improve the skin's immune response. Ultimately, the hope is that this research could aid in the development of immune-based therapies to combat skin ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Increasing state alcohol taxes could prevent thousands of deaths a year from car crashes, say University of Florida Health researchers, who found alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes decreased after taxes on beer, wine and spirits went up in Illinois. A team of UF Health researchers discovered that fatal alcohol-related car crashes in Illinois declined 26 percent after a 2009 increase in alcohol tax. The decrease was even more marked for young people, at 37 percent. The reduction was similar for crashes involving alcohol-impaired drivers and extremely ...

A history of depression may put women at risk for developing diabetes during pregnancy, according to research published in the latest issue of the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing by researchers from Loyola University Chicago Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing (MNSON). This study also pointed to how common depression is during pregnancy and the need for screening and education. "Women with a history of depression should be aware of their risk for gestational diabetes during pregnancy and raise the issue with their doctor," said Mary Byrn, PhD, RN, ...

WASHINGTON, DC, March 31, 2015 -- People whose sexual identities changed toward same-sex attraction in early adulthood reported more symptoms of depression in a nationwide survey than those whose sexual orientations did not change or changed in the opposite direction, according to a new study by a University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) sociologist. The study, "Sexual Orientation Identity Change and Depressive Symptoms: A Longitudinal Analysis," which appears in the current issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, found that gay, lesbian, and bisexual people ...

This news release is available in French. Domestic violence takes many forms. The control of a woman's reproductive choices by her partner is one of them. A major study published in PLOS One, led by McGill PhD student Lauren Maxwell, showed that women who are abused by their partner or ex-partner are much less likely to use contraception; this exposes them to sexually transmitted diseases and leads to more frequent unintended pregnancies and abortions. These findings could influence how physicians provide contraceptive counselling. Negotiating for contraception A ...

The latest challenges of early breast cancer research include refining classification and predicting treatment responses, according to a report on the 14th St Gallen International Breast Cancer Consensus Conference, published in ecancermedicalscience. The 2015 conference assembled nearly 3200 participants from 134 countries worldwide in Vienna, Austria to decide the consensus of breast cancer care and treatment. Led by Dr Angela Esposito of the European Institute of Oncology, Milan, Italy, the report highlights some of the controversial areas discussed in this important ...

Children who received training grasped concept of Brace principle Analogical comparison is a natural and engaging process for children Findings reveal ways to support children's learning in and out of school EVANSTON, Ill. --- Children love to build things. Often half the fun for them is building something and then knocking it down. But in a study carried out in the Chicago Children's Museum, children had just as much fun learning how to keep their masterpieces upright -- they learned a key elementary engineering principle. "The use of a diagonal ...

More midriff, cleavage and muscle is seen in MTV's popular television docusoaps such as The Real World, Jersey Shore or Laguna Beach than in the average American household. Semi-naked brawny Adonises and even more scantily clad thin women strut around on screen simply to grab the audience's attention. In the process, they present a warped view to young viewers about how they should look. Such docusoaps are definitely more ideal than real, say Mark Flynn of the Coastal Carolina University and Sung-Yeon Park of Bowling Green State University in the US. The findings, which ...

During prenatal development, the brains of most animals, including humans, develop specifically male or female characteristics. In most species, some portions of male and female brains are a different size, and may have a different number of neurons and synapses. However, scientists have known little about the details of how this differentiation occurs. Now, a new study by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) has illuminated details about this process. Margaret McCarthy, PhD, professor and chairman of the Department of Pharmacology, studied ...

March 31, 2015 - How did former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg succeed in achieving so much of his "comprehensive and far-reaching" public health agenda? Key strategies included harnessing the full authority of the City health department and mobilizing the existing workforce to focus on targeted reforms, according to a study in the March/April issue of the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer. Those strategies might help to make similar public health initiatives work in other cities, suggests the report by ...

ANN ARBOR--New research at the University of Michigan offers evidence that a drug being developed to treat osteoporosis may also be useful for treating osteogenesis imperfecta or brittle bone disease, a rare but potentially debilitating bone disorder that that is present from birth. Previous studies have shown the drug to be effective at spurring new bone growth in mice and in humans with osteoporosis, and a U-M research team believes that it may spur new growth in brittle bone disease patients as well. This would be a significant improvement over current treatments, ...

Until now electric fences and trenches have proved to be the most effective way of protecting farms and villages from night time raids by hungry elephants. But researchers think they may have come up with another solution - the recorded sound of angry predators. The research carried out in southern India by Dr Vivek Thuppil at The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus and Dr Richard G Coss from the University of California, Davis has been published in Oryx - The International Journal of Conservation. Using an infrared sensor playback system elephants triggered the ...

This news release is available in German. Leipzig, Columbia (SC), Munich. The ocean is a large reservoir of dissolved organic molecules, and many of these molecules are stable against microbial utilization for hundreds to thousands of years. They contain a similar amount of carbon as compared to carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Researchers at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), the University of South Carolina and the Helmholtz Centre Munich found answers to questions about the origin of these persistent molecules in a study published in ...

"Planck detects, then Herschel analyzes". That's how Gianfranco De Zotti, professor at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste and at INAF-Astronomical Observatory of Padova, summarizes the rationale of the study just published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. "As Mattia Negrello had already suggested in 2005, it is precisely Planck's low resolution - optimized for the study of the cosmic microwave background but a major limitation for identifying extragalactic sources - which makes the satellite a powerful tool in the search for large-scale structures. ...

In a survey of over 600 young Finns, 76% of respondents listened to music from YouTube every day. YouTube and Spotify were by far the most popular music sources in the study. YouTube was the most frequently used service for music listening and new music discovery. Even active Spotify users visited YouTube often to complement Spotify's incomplete music selection. YouTube was also perceived as the most shareable music source by the Finnish students in their early 20s who participated in the internet-based study. The popularity of YouTube was overwhelming. Nearly everyone ...

Using the assessment tool ForWarn, U.S. Forest Service researchers can monitor the growth and development of vegetation that signals winter's end and the awakening of a new growing season. Now these researchers have devised a way to more precisely characterize the beginning of seasonal greening, or "greenup," and compare its timing with that of the 14 previous years. Such information helps land managers anticipate and plan for the impacts of disturbances such as weather events and insect pests. Three maps detailing greenup in forests and grasslands, agricultural lands, ...

Children who play video games for more than three hours a day are more likely to be hyperactive, get involved in fights and not be interested in school, says a new study. It examined the effects of different types of games and time spent playing on children's social and academic behaviour. The researchers from the University of Oxford found that the time spent playing games could be linked with problem behaviour and this was the significant factor rather than the types of games played. They could find no link between playing violent games and real-life aggression or a child's ...

Sitting with a joystick in the comfort of their chairs, scientists can play "rodeo" on a screen magnifying what is happening under their microscope. They rely on optical tweezers to manipulate an intangible ring created out of liquid crystal defects capable of attaching a microsphere to a long thin fibre. Maryam Nikkhou and colleagues from the Jožef Stefan Institute, in Ljubljana, Slovenia, recently published in EPJ E the results of work performed under the supervision of Igor Muševič. They believe that their findings could ultimately open the door to controlling ...

The Internet brings the world to our fingertips, but it turns out that getting information online also has a startling effect on our brains: We feel a lot smarter than we really are, according to a Yale-led study published March 30 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. In nine different experiments with more than 1,000 participants, Yale psychologists found that if subjects received information through Internet searches, they rated their knowledge base as much greater than those who obtained the information through other methods. "This was a very robust effect, ...