DURHAM, N.C. -- Eating, like breathing and sleeping, seems to be a rather basic biological task. Yet chewing requires a complex interplay between the tongue and jaw, with the tongue positioning food between the teeth and then moving out of the way every time the jaw clamps down to grind it up. If the act weren't coordinated precisely, the unlucky chewer would end up biting more tongue than burrito. Duke University researchers have used a sophisticated tracing technique in mice to map the underlying brain circuitry that keeps mealtime relatively painless. The study, ...

Tinkering with climate change through climate engineering isn't going to help us get around what we have to do says a new report authored by researchers at six universities, including Simon Fraser University. After evaluating a range of possible climate-altering approaches to dissipating greenhouse gases and reducing warming, the interdisciplinary team concluded there's no way around it. We have to reduce the amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere. "Some climate engineering strategies look very cheap on paper. But when you consider other criteria, like ...

Studying mice, researchers have found a way to prevent nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, the most common cause of chronic liver disease worldwide. Blocking a path that delivers dietary fructose to the liver prevented mice from developing the condition, according to investigators at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study appears in a recent issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. In people, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease often accompanies obesity, elevated blood sugar, high blood pressure and other markers of metabolic syndrome. Some ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. —A Purdue University-led research team has figured out how to disable a part of the SARS virus responsible for hiding it from the immune system; a critical step in developing a vaccine against the deadly disease. The findings also have potential applications in the creation of vaccines against other coronaviruses, including MERS, said Andrew Mesecar, who led the research. "This is a first step toward creating a weakened and safe virus for use in an attenuated live vaccine," said Mesecar, Purdue's Walther Professor of Cancer Structural Biology and ...

NEW YORK (June 2, 2014) -- Primary care doctors practicing in a model of coordinated, team-based care that leverages health information technology are more likely to give patients recommended preventive screening and appropriate tests than physicians working in other settings, according to research published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The study comparing quality of care by physicians using a delivery model known as the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) to care from physicians in non-PCMH practices provides evidence that the previously unproven but popular ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Researchers from Brown University have developed a new biochip sensor that can selectively measure concentrations of glucose in a complex solution similar to human saliva. The advance is an important step toward a device that would enable people with diabetes to test their glucose levels without drawing blood. The new chip makes use of a series of specific chemical reactions combined with plasmonic interferometry, a means of detecting chemical signature of compounds using light. The device is sensitive enough to detect differences ...

Prior to this survey, astronomers were in a curious position. They knew a lot about star formation occurring in nearby galaxies thanks to UV telescope facilities such as NASA's Galex observatory, which operated from 2003 to 2013. And, thanks to Hubble's near-infrared and visible capability, they had also studied star birth in the most distant galaxies. We see these distant galaxies in their most primitive stages due to the vast amount of time it takes their light to reach us. However, between 5 and 10 billion light-years away from us -- corresponding to a time period ...

BIOMETRICS – The eyes have it . . . By discovering and quantifying the "limbus effect," Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have advanced the state of the art for human iris recognition systems. While the iris is a proven and reliable biometric for verification or identification, non-ideal images -- such as those captured off axis -- are problematic. Reasons include cornea refraction and the limbus effect, causing iris recognition performance to decrease and in many cases fail entirely. Now, using an anatomically accurate human eye model and some slick math, a ...

Washington, DC—The Endocrine Society today issued a Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) for the diagnosis and treatment of two types of rare adrenal tumors – pheochromocytomas and paragangliomas – that can raise the risk of cardiovascular disease and even death if left untreated. The CPG, entitled "Pheochromocytoma and Paraganglioma: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline," appeared in the June 2014 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM), a publication of the Endocrine Society. Pheochromocytomas are rare, usually noncancerous tumors ...

Athens, Ga. – New research by University of Georgia ecologists sheds light on exactly what happens to coral during periods of excessively high water temperatures. Their study, published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography, documents a coral bleaching event in the Caribbean in minute detail and sheds light on how it changed a coral's community of algae—a change that could have long-term consequences for coral health, as bleaching is predicted to occur more frequently in the future. Millions of people around the world depend on coral reefs and the services they provide. ...

TAMPA, Fla. (June 3, 2014) – Moffitt Cancer Center researchers, in collaboration with the Lung Cancer Mutation Consortium, have developed a process to analyze mutated genes in lung adenocarcinoma to help better select personalized treatment options for patients. Adenocarcinoma is the most common type of lung cancer in the United States with approximately 130,000 people diagnosed each year. The study, published in the May 21 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, investigated 10 highly mutated and altered genes that contribute to cancer progression, ...

Philadelphia, PA, June 3, 2014 – Severe aortic stenosis (AS) has a grave prognosis with 25-50% of patients dying within a year once symptoms develop. Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) represents a paradigm shift in the therapeutic options for these patients. Because of cost and availability issues, there are often waiting times for this procedure. Investigators have found that even modest increases in wait times have a substantial impact on the effectiveness of TAVR in individuals who need it the most: otherwise inoperable patients and high-risk surgical candidates. ...

PHILADELPHIA (June 3, 2014) – According to new research from the Monell Center, receptors for stress-activated hormones have been localized in oral taste cells responsible for detection of sweet, umami, and bitter. The findings suggest that these hormones, known as glucocorticoids, may act directly on taste receptor cells under conditions of stress to affect how these cells respond to sugars and certain other taste stimuli. "Sweet taste may be particularly affected by stress," said lead author M. Rockwell Parker, PhD, a chemical ecologist at Monell. "Our results may provide ...

Why are e-cigarettes so popular among Americans who want to quit smoking, even though so little is known about their safety or effectiveness? The answer lies in their marketing – they are simply "cooler" than nicotine inhalers. So says Michael Steinberg of the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in the USA, leader of a pilot study¹ about the perception and use of these nicotine delivery devices. The findings appear in the Journal of General Internal Medicine², published by Springer. Nicotine inhalers work when nicotine vapor is breathed in and absorbed through ...

DARIEN, IL – A new study suggests that night owls are more sedentary and feel that they have a harder time maintaining an exercise schedule. Results show that later sleep times were associated with more self-reported minutes sitting, and sleep timing remained a significant predictor of sedentary minutes after controlling for age and sleep duration. However, people who characterized themselves as night owls reported more sitting time and more perceived barriers to exercise, including not having enough time for exercise and being unable to stick to an exercise schedule ...

At least 10 percent of people who have a heart attack may have undiagnosed diabetes, according to new research presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2014. Researchers studied data on 2,854 heart attack patients who did not have a known diagnosis of diabetes in 24 U.S. hospitals to understand the prevalence and recognition of undiagnosed diabetes. They tested the patients' A1C levels, which is a standard test to determine blood sugar levels for the past 2-3 months. Researchers found: Among the patients, ...

Chinese stroke patients were less likely to acquire pneumonia or die from the stroke when hospitals followed treatment guidelines, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2014. Closer adherence to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke led to a drop in pneumonia from 20 percent to almost 5 percent. However, only 55.5 percent of patients received all guideline-recommended treatments for which they were eligible. Developed with ...

WASHINGTON D.C. June 3, 2014 -- One of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpieces, drawn in red chalk on paper during the early 1500s and widely believed to be a self-portrait, is in extremely poor condition. Centuries of exposure to humid storage conditions or a closed environment has led to widespread and localized yellowing and browning of the paper, which is reducing the contrast between the colors of chalk and paper and substantially diminishing the visibility of the drawing. A group of researchers from Italy and Poland with expertise in paper degradation mechanisms was tasked ...

VIDEO: This video shows how a flat design folds into a cube with the addition of water. The researchers can fold and unfold the cube multiple times without wear, as... Click here for more information. WASHINGTON D.C. June 3, 2014 -- Researchers from the University of Twente in the Netherlands have taken the precise art of origami down to the microscopic scale. Using only a drop of water, the scientists have folded flat sheets of silicon nitride into cubes, pyramids, half soccer-ball-shaped ...

HOUSTON – (June 3, 2014) – Rice University scientists have created an Earth-friendly way to separate carbon dioxide from natural gas at wellheads. A porous material invented by the Rice lab of chemist James Tour sequesters carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, at ambient temperature with pressure provided by the wellhead and lets it go once the pressure is released. The material shows promise to replace more costly and energy-intensive processes. Results from the research appear today in the journal Nature Communications. Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel. Development ...

June 3, 2014 – Community opioid overdose prevention programs (OOPPs)—including the use of naloxone for rapid drug reversal—can improve bystander responses to overdose of heroin and related drugs, according to a review in the June Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health . Based on the available evidence, "Bystanders (mostly opioid users) can and will use naloxone to reverse opioid overdoses when properly trained, and…this ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Patients trying to navigate today's complex medical system with its costly laboratory analyses might prefer a pain-free home diagnostic device, worn on the wrist, that can analyze, continuously record and immediately remedy low electrolyte levels. Runners, athletes in other strenuous sports and soldiers on long missions also might prefer immediate knowledge of their electrolytic states as an aid to improved performance. Electrolytes such as potassium, calcium, magnesium and other salts are key in carrying nerve impulses that tell the heart and other ...

Research published in the International Journal of Sustainable Development suggests that purportedly entertaining films that feature global warming and climate change can affect public understanding. But films are often bound up in problematic and limiting identity politics, which commonly reiterate racial, gender and sexual stereotypes positioning as they do white men as being the decision makers and the voice of authority. Bridie McGreavy and Laura Lindenfeld of the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of Maine, have analyzed three films that ...

NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of Tropical Depression 2E that revealed high, very cold cloud top temperatures. Strong thunderstorms with cold cloud top temperatures that reach high into the troposphere have the potential to drop heavy rainfall amounts, and the National Hurricane Center has forecast large rainfall for the southern region of Mexico over the next couple of days. A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Salina Cruz to the Mexico and Guatemala border as the depression remained stationary near the southwestern coast of Mexico on June 3. NASA's ...

URBANA, Ill. – When participants in a local Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program received vouchers for fruits and vegetables at area farmers markets, they ate a greater variety of vegetables and more often chose fruits or vegetables as snacks. But a survey comparing prices at grocery stores and farmers markets showed that better produce prices could be found in local supermarkets, says a new University of Illinois study. "The biggest effect the vouchers had was related to the quality of participants' diets. Those who used the farmers market vouchers ate a greater ...