A growing number of consumers are willing to pay a premium for fruits, vegetables and other foods labelled "organic", but whether they're getting what the label claims is another matter. Now scientists studying conventional and organic tomatoes are devising a new way to make sure farms are labelling their produce appropriately. Their report, which appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, could help prevent organic food fraud. Researchers from the Bavarian Health and Food Safety Authority and the Wuerzburg University note that the demand for organic ...

New evidence puts into doubt the long-standing belief that a deficiency in serotonin — a chemical messenger in the brain — plays a central role in depression. In the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience, scientists report that mice lacking the ability to make serotonin in their brains (and thus should have been "depressed" by conventional wisdom) did not show depression-like symptoms. Donald Kuhn and colleagues at the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center and Wayne State University School of Medicine note that depression poses a major public health problem. More than 350 million ...

The effectiveness of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment may hinge significantly upon sleep quality, report researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System in a paper published today in the Journal of Neuroscience. "I think these findings help us understand why sleep disturbances and nightmares are such important symptoms in PTSD," said Sean P.A. Drummond, PhD, professor of psychiatry and director of the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program at the VA San Diego Healthcare System. "Our study ...

They say knowledge is power, and a new UCLA study has shown this is definitely the case when it comes to men making the best decisions about how to treat their prostate cancer. UCLA researchers found that men who aren't well educated about their disease have a much more difficult time making treatment decisions, called decisional conflict, a challenge that could negatively impact the quality of their care and their long-term outcomes. The study should serve as a wake-up call for physicians, who can use the findings to target men less likely to know a lot about their ...

In the aftermath of the Aug. 9 shooting of an 18-year-old African American man by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, much of the nation's attention has been focused on how law enforcement's use of military gear might have inflamed tensions. But what if the simple act of marching in unison — as riot police routinely do — increases the likelihood that law enforcement will use excessive force in policing protests? That's the suggestion of a new study by a pair of UCLA social scientists. "We have found that when men are walking in step with other men, they ...

Financial innovations can make or break an economy. While the negative impact of financial innovation has been extensively covered, a new study of financial innovations before and during the last financial crisis indicates that financial innovations are not all bad. Many provide positive returns, especially in the United States. However, those that are easy for consumers to understand provide the best returns for investors. The study by Gerard J. Tellis, professor, director of the Center for Global Innovation and Neely Professor of American Enterprise at USC Marshall ...

Ann Arbor, MI, August 27, 2014 — Childhood obesity in the United States remains high. A tax on sugar-sweetened beverages such as sodas, energy drinks, sweet teas, and sports drinks would reduce obesity in adolescents more than other policies, such as exercise or an advertising ban, and would also generate significant revenue for additional obesity prevention activities, say researchers writing in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The study also demonstrated that physical activity would benefit children ages 6-12 most. Nearly one in three young people between ...

As of seven hours ago the Happy Camp Complex of fires had consumed 24,939 acres of land in Northern California, the July complex had consumed 35,530 as of eight hours ago. Lightning strikes started seventeen fires on the Happy Camp Ranger District of the Klamath National Forest when a thunderstorm passed through the area on August 11, 2014. All but three of those fires are now 100 percent contained. The following is a list of contained fires and their size at containment: Delta, 150 acres; Sutcliffe, 27 acres; Jackson, 21 acres;Thompson, 17 acres; Tims, 13 acres; Ranch, ...

Listeria is a dreaded bacterium that can be found in both unprocessed and processed foods. Over the last few weeks, 28 persons in Denmark have been infected with Listeria from processed food, sold in supermarkets. 13 have died. The bacterium is notoriously difficult to fight because it has an almost uncanny ability to adapt to changes in its surroundings, says Associate Professor Birgitte Kallipolitis, University of Southern Denmark. Together with colleagues from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, she has published a study, which in details reveals ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University have found that century-old museum specimens hold clues to how global climate change will affect a common insect pest that can weaken and kill trees – and the news is not good. "Recent studies found that scale insect populations increase on oak and maple trees in warmer urban areas, which raises the possibility that these pests may also increase with global warming," says Dr. Elsa Youngsteadt, a research associate at NC State and lead author of a paper on the work. "More scale insects would be a problem, since scales ...

New research from UCL shows we will soon uncover the origin of the ultraviolet light that bathes the cosmos, helping scientists understand how galaxies were built. The study published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters by UCL cosmologists Dr Andrew Pontzen and Dr Hiranya Peiris (both UCL Physics & Astronomy), together with collaborators at Princeton and Barcelona Universities, shows how forthcoming astronomical surveys will reveal what lit up the cosmos. "Which produces more light? A country's biggest cities or its many tiny towns?" asked Dr Pontzen, lead author ...

Sheepdogs use just two simple rules to round up large herds of sheep, scientists have discovered. The findings could lead to the development of robots that can gather and herd livestock, crowd control techniques, or new methods to clean up the environment. For the first time scientists used GPS technology to understand how sheepdogs do their jobs so well. Until now, they had no idea how the dogs manage to get so many unwilling sheep to move in the same direction. NERC fellow, Dr Andrew King of Swansea University, fitted a flock of sheep and a sheepdog with backpacks ...

An expedition to Mount Everest by Italian researchers has shown for the first time that blood pressure monitored over a 24-hour period rises progressively as people climb to higher altitudes. The researchers also found that while a drug used for lowering blood pressure, called telmisartan, was effective in counteracting the effects of altitude up to 3400 metres, it was not effective at 5400 metres above sea level – the height of the Everest base camp. The study is published online today (Wednesday) in the European Heart Journal [1], and its findings have implications ...

An unusual new fossil discovery of one of the earliest animals on earth may also provide the oldest evidence of muscle tissue – the bundles of cells that make movement in animals possible. The fossil, dating from 560 million years ago, was discovered in Newfoundland, Canada. On the basis of its four-fold symmetry, morphological characteristics, and what appear to be some of the earliest impressions of muscular tissue, researchers from the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with the University of Oxford and the Memorial University of Newfoundland, have interpreted ...

Continuous positive airway pressure is effective at treating sleep apnoea in older people, a new study has found. Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is a condition where the walls of the throat relax and narrow during sleep, interrupting normal breathing and causing profound sleepiness. For people with moderate or severe OSA, doctors usually recommend using a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device, which consists of a small pump that delivers pressurised air into the nose through a mask, stopping the throat from closing. Previous studies have established the ...

A comprehensive review of all potential factors behind the 2013/2014 UK winter floods is published today in the journal Nature Climate Change. The paper does not definitively answer whether human activity played a role in the magnitude of the winter flood events. It does, though, examine how factors such as the state of the global oceans may have interacted with wind patterns and subsequent high-level atmospheric features. The review was led by scientists at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, in collaboration with the Met Office and the Universities of Oxford, Exeter ...

People from low socio-economic positions in Britain still eat more salt than those from higher socio-economic positions, irrespective of where they live. A paper published in the BMJ Open journal and led by Warwick Medical School suggests social inequalities in salt intake have hardly changed in the period from 2000-01 to 2011. This is despite a national average salt reduction over this time. This paper is the first to monitor social inequalities following the national salt reduction programme. The research was carried out by the World Health Organization Collaborating ...

VIDEO: As a piece of plastic wrap is stretched, the new algorithms identify the location (in red) where it is weakening, which is where the material eventually breaks. Click here for more information. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have developed algorithms to identify weak spots in tendons, muscles and bones prone to tearing or breaking. The technology, which needs to be refined before it is used in patients, one day may help pinpoint minor strains and tiny ...

HOUSTON – (Aug. 26, 2014) – Binge eating, an eating disorder in which a person frequently consumes unusually large amounts of food in a short period of time, affects about 5 to 10 percent of U.S. adults and is more common in women than men. Researchers at the USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital found that the hormone estrogen can specifically trigger brain serotonin neurons to inhibit binge eating in female mice in a report today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. "Previous data has shown that ...

Fever is a response to inflammation, and is triggered by an onset of the signaling substance prostaglandin. Researchers at Linköping University in Sweden can now see precisely where these substances are produced – a discovery that paves the way for smarter drugs. When you take an aspirin, all production of prostaglandins in the body is suppressed. All symptoms of inflammation are eased simultaneously, including fever, pain and loss of appetite. But it might not always be desirable to get rid of all symptoms – there is a reason why they appear. "Perhaps you want to inhibit ...

Tumor blood vessels supply oxygen and nutrients to cancer cells and provide access to other organs. While tumor vasculature shares many features with normal vessels, their unique characteristics are potential therapeutic targets. A recent study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation identifies a tumor vessel-specific protein, L1 that can be targeted to reduce tumor growth. Using a mouse pancreatic cancer model, Ugo Cavallaro and colleagues at the European Institute of Oncology found that loss of L1 reduced tumor blood vessel formation, which inhibited growth and metastasis. ...

Binge easting disorder affects approximately 5% of adults in the US. Left unchecked, this disorder leads to health complications, including obesity, hypertension, and diabetes. The cause of this disease is poorly understood and treatment options are limited. A new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation suggests that estrogen replacement may limit binge-eating behaviors. Using a mouse binge-eating model, Yong Xu and colleagues at Baylor School of Medicine found that estradiol suppressed binge eating behaviors. This effect required the presence of estrogen receptors ...

A new study examines antecedent predictors of childhood initiation of sipping or tasting alcohol. Findings indicate that initiation of sipping/tasting was less related to psychosocial proneness for problem behavior and more related to perceived parental approval for child sipping. Previous research had determined that whether or not a child sips or tastes alcohol is associated with the child's attitude toward sipping and with a family environment supportive of alcohol use. This study extends this former research to examine antecedent predictors of childhood initiation ...

Growth deficiency is a defining feature of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). A new study has found that rates of excess weight/obesity are elevated in adolescents with partial fetal alcohol syndrome (pFAS). Females with FASD may be at a greater risk for excess weight/obesity than males during adolescence. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) refer to a range of disabilities, and include individuals with neurocognitive impairments as well as growth irregularities ranging from deficient to normal. However, very little is known about the prevalence of excessive ...

Chronic drinking is associated with an increased incidence and severity of respiratory infections. A reduced CD8 T cell response was previously implicated in increased disease severity due to influenza virus infections. New rodent findings indicate that only some CD8 T cell functions are damaged while others remain intact. It is well known that chronic drinking is associated with an increased incidence and severity of respiratory infections. Previous research had demonstrated that an increase in disease severity to influenza virus (IAV) infections was due, in part, ...