An anti-malarial treatment that lost its status as the leading weapon against the deadly disease could be given a new lease of life, with new research indicating it simply needs to be administered differently. The findings could revive the use of the cheap anti-malarial drug chloroquine in treating and preventing the mosquito-bourne disease, which claims the lives of more than half a million people each year around the world. The parasite that causes malaria has developed resistance to chloroquine, but research carried out at the Australian National University (ANU) ...

A statistical analysis of the gift "fulfillments" at several hundred online wedding gift registries suggests that wedding guests are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to buying an appropriate gift for the happy couple. The details reported in the International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing suggest that most people hope to garner social benefits of buying an expensive gift that somehow enhances their relationship with the newlyweds while at the same time they wish to limit monetary cost and save money. Yun Kyung Oh of the Department of ...

Researchers from LSTM have called for more research to be carried out into HIV and schistosomiasis coinfection in children in sub-Saharan Africa. In a paper in The Lancet Infectious Diseases LSTM's Professor Russell Stothard, working with colleagues in the department of Parasitology and researchers from Cape Western Reserve University, in Cleveland Ohio, University of Cambridge and the Royal Veterinary College looked at previous research into the joint burden of HIV/AIDS and schistosomiasis of children, and found that while disease-specific control interventions are continuing, ...

Polymers that exhibit shape-memory effect (SME) are an important class of materials in medicine, especially for minimally invasive deployment of devices. Professor Subbu Venkatraman and his group from School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University presented a review article surveying the clinical applications of the SME and addressing critically the question of its utility in implantable devices. Their work, entitled "Biomedical applications of shape-memory polymers: How practically useful are they?", was published in SCIENCE CHINA Chemistry.2014, ...

Researchers in France have hit on a novel method to help kidney stone sufferers ensure they receive the correct and most effective treatment possible. Kidney stones represent a major medical problem in the western and developing world. If left untreated, apart from being particularly painful, they can lead to renal failure and other complications. In many patients treated successfully, stone recurrence is also amajor problem. Clearly a more effective pathological approach to diagnosis and treatment needs to be identified to ensure successful eradication of stones. Worldwide ...

Sodium channels are implicated in many serious conditions such as heart disease, epilepsy and pain, making them an important potential target for drug therapies. Unfortunately, there is still much scientists do not know about the molecules. New Cambridge research provides fresh and unexpected insight into the structure of sodium channels and, specifically, one of its components - β-subunit molecules - which are responsible for 'fine-tuning' the activity of the channel. The research is published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Nerves ...

Electrically controlled glasses with continuously adjustable transparency, new polarisation filters, and even chemosensors capable of detecting single molecules of specific chemicals could be fabricated thanks to a new polymer unprecedentedly combining optical and electrical properties. An international team of chemists from Italy, Germany, and Poland developed a polymer with unique optical and electric properties. Components of this polymer change their spatial configuration depending on the electric potential applied. In turn, the polarisation of transmitted light is ...

Protocol conformance and performance testing are two branches of testing designed to determine compliance and performance of protocol implementations to their standard. Dr. CHE Xiaoping and Dr. MAAG Stephane from Laboratory UMR 5157 of French Centre national de la recherché scientifique (CNRS) focus on converging these two kinds of testing in a same formal approach. After several years of innovative research, they eventually created a formal approach to formally specify conformance and performance requirements. They successfully applied their approach on Extensible Messaging ...

A new study has found that India's shocking rates of suicide are highest in areas with the most debt-ridden farmers who are clinging to tiny smallholdings – less than one hectare – and trying to grow 'cash crops', such as cotton and coffee, that are highly susceptible to global price fluctuations. The research supports a range of previous case studies that point to a crisis in key areas of India's agriculture sector following the 'liberalisation' of the nation's economy during the 90s. Researchers say that policy intervention to stabilise the price of cash crops and relieve ...

The recent Yokahama IPCC meeting painted a stark warning on the possible effects of gases such as methane – which has a greenhouse effect 32 times that of carbon dioxide. Now a team of Swiss-German researchers have shown that humic substances act as fully regenerable electron acceptors which helps explain why large amount of methane are held in wetlands instead of being released to the atmosphere. However, there are worries that if this system is disrupted it may enter into a vicious cycle to release large amounts of methane back into the atmosphere. Wetlands, such as ...

Researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on April 17 have discovered little-known cave insects with rather novel sex lives. The Brazilian insects, which represent four distinct but related species in the genus Neotrogla, are the first example of an animal with sex-reversed genitalia. "Although sex-role reversal has been identified in several different animals, Neotrogla is the only example in which the intromittent organ is also reversed," says Kazunori Yoshizawa from Hokkaido University in Japan. During copulation, which lasts an impressive ...

This spring, more than 40 percent of the western U.S. is in a drought that the USDA deems "severe" or "exceptional." The same was true in 2013. In 2012, drought even spread to the humid east. It's easy to assume that a 3-year drought is an inconsequential blip on the radar for ecosystems that develop over centuries to millennia. But new research just released in Ecological Monographs shows how short-lived but severe climatic events can trigger cascades of ecosystem change that last for centuries. Some of the most compelling evidence of how ecosystems respond to drought ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University researchers have detected new early-warning signs of the potential loss of sight associated with diabetes. This discovery could have far-reaching implications for the diagnosis and treatment of diabetic retinopathy, potentially impacting the care of over 25 million Americans. "We had not expected to see such striking changes to the retinas at such early stages," said Ann Elsner, professor and associate dean in the IU School of Optometry and lead author of the study. "We set out to study the early signs, in volunteer research subjects ...

Gene expression is the process whereby the genetic information of DNA is used to manufacture functional products, such as proteins, which have numerous different functions in living organisms. Messenger RNA (mRNA) serves as an important intermediary during gene expression, by relating the genetic information of DNA to the molecular mechanisms involved in manufacturing proteins. By examining the different types and amounts of mRNA molecules present in an organism at a given time, researchers can determine which specific genes are being expressed. This, in turn, offers ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- In a new study, Indiana University cognitive scientists Catarina Vales and Linda Smith demonstrate that children spot objects more quickly when prompted by words than if they are only prompted by images. Language, the study suggests, is transformative: More so than images, spoken language taps into children's cognitive system, enhancing their ability to learn and to navigate cluttered environments. As such the study, published last week in the journal Developmental Science, opens up new avenues for research into the way language might shape the course ...

Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston are the first to recommend that young women treated with radiation for cervical cancer should begin colorectal cancer screening earlier than traditionally recommended. The UTMB researchers, finding a high incidence of secondary colorectal cancers among cervical cancer survivors treated with radiation, offer new recommendations that the younger women in this group begin colorectal cancer screening about eight years after their initial cervical cancer diagnosis instead of waiting until age 50. The study ...

Pine forests are chock full of wild animals and plant life, but there's an invisible machine underground. Huge populations of fungi are churning away in the soil, decomposing organic matter and releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Despite the vital role these fungi play in ecological systems, their identities have only now been revealed. A Stanford-led team of scientists has generated a genetic map of more than 10,000 species of fungi across North America. The work was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Fungi are much more important ...

"The Modern View of Domestication," a special feature of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published April 29, raises a number of startling questions about a transition in our deep history that most of us take for granted. At the end of the last Ice Age, people in many spots around the globe shifted from hunting animals and gathering fruits and tubers to cultivating livestock and plants. It seems so straightforward and yet the more scientists learn, the more complex the story becomes. Recently, geneticists and archeologists working on domestication ...

Many of our ideas about domestication derive from Charles Darwin, whose ideas in turn were strongly influenced by British animal-breeding practices during the 19th century, a period when landowners vigorously pursued systematic livestock improvement. It is from Darwin that we inherit the ideas that domestication involved isolation of captive animals from wild species and total human control over breeding and animal care. But animal management in this industrial setting has been applied too broadly in time and space, said Fiona Marshall, PhD, professor of anthropology ...

TORONTO, April 17, 2014—A group of drugs commonly prescribed for insomnia, anxiety and breathing issues "significantly increase the risk" that older people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, need to visit a doctor or Emergency Department for respiratory reasons, new research has found. Benzodiazepines, such as Ativan or Xanax, may actually contribute to respiratory problems, such as depressing breathing ability and pneumonia, in these patients, said Dr. Nicholas Vozoris, a respirologist at St. Michael's Hospital. Dr. Vozoris said the findings are significant, ...

One week has gone since the first crowdfunding campaign by a multi-awarded winemaker was launched, and the results are promising for Roberto Cipresso. Fifth in the TOP 10 "Popular Now - Food" on Indiegogo and above all with more than the 6% of the final budget already raised. After all it is not easy not to be fascinated by the possibility to take part to the remaking of an ancient wine, supporting the research of the forty-six years old winemaker borne in Bassano del Grappa (Italy). Looking at Roberto Cipresso while at his stand at Vinitaly 2014 tells to a bunch of ...

Planning is underway for the 2014 Karaoke World Championship (KWC) World Finals, which will take place in the Solidaritet Arena in Stockholm, Sweden on November 13-15. Just recently, the Finnish parent company, Karaoke World Championships Oy KWC Organization, Ltd., was acquired by KSF Entertainment Group, a multinational company built around technology and dedicated to Karaoke. KSF has produced the KWC World Finals finals since 2004. More than 25 countries are expected to participate in the 2014 KWC World Finals. Each participating country will host a KWC National ...

Amidst the anticipation of anxious programmers, "The Black Art of Multiplatform Game Programming" by Jazon Yamamoto has hit the shelves and is available at Amazon.com and fine book retailers. The announcement of this title has caused a buzz in the game development community considering this is the first commercial game programming book that contains author recorded video lessons to complement the printed material. The book covers game programming on Windows and Linux using the SDL (the Simple Direct Media Layer) API library. The SDL library powers indie hits such as ...

A teething baby is uncomfortable for all involved, the baby and the parents. Lets face it babies love chewing on their teethers, but give it a few seconds and that teether will be hurled, thrown, or dropped to the icky floor. The founder of TeetherTops found a way that prevents teethers from falling to the floor because they are attached to the babies wrist, with interchangeable teething toys. The toys are freezable, machine washable, 100% cotton, BPA Free, great for special needs children with trouble grasping toys, or children who constantly mouth clothes or objects. ...

In today's building and construction environment, materials codes play a crucial role in structural design, cost estimations, building inspection, insurance investigations, the education of engineers, architects and related professionals, and in actual construction. To better serve its constituent users, the American Concrete Institute (ACI) is finalizing the reorganization of ACI 318-14, Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete. As one of the most essential and valuable codes with respect to the use of reinforced concrete in modern construction, ACI 318 ...