The paleoclimate record for the last ice age — a time 21,000 years ago called the "Last Glacial Maximum" (LGM) — tells of a cold Earth whose northern continents were covered by vast ice sheets. Chemical traces from plankton fossils in deep-sea sediments reveal rearranged ocean water masses, as well as extended sea ice coverage off Antarctica. Air bubbles in ice cores show that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was far below levels seen before the Industrial Revolution. While ice ages are set into motion by Earth's slow wobbles in its transit around the sun, researchers ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. –The majority of adults aged 65 and older remains inactive and fails to meet recommended physical activity guidelines, previous research has shown. However, these studies have not represented elders living in retirement communities who may have more access to recreational activities and exercise equipment. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri found that older adults in retirement communities who reported more exercise experienced less physical decline than their peers who reported less exercise, although many adults — even those who exercised — did ...

Rochester, MN, June 2, 2014 – When prescription medicines are stolen or used illegally, it is called drug diversion. One aspect of drug diversion that is not well recognized involves health care providers who steal controlled substances for their personal use. A report authored by experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) --published today in Mayo Clinic Proceedings -- outlines outbreaks of infections that have occurred as a result of health care providers stealing or tampering with their patients' medications. These outbreaks revealed gaps in prevention, ...

Troy, N.Y. – Research published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences makes it possible to predict how subjecting metals to severe pressure can lower their electrical resistance, a finding that could have applications in computer chips and other materials that could benefit from specific electrical resistance. The semiconductor industry has long manipulated materials like silicon through the use of pressure, a strategy known as "strain engineering," to improve the performance of transistors. But as the speed of transistors has increased, the limited ...

Cyclists who drank Montmorency tart cherry juice concentrate before a three-day simulated race experienced less inflammation and oxidative stress compared to those who drank another beverage, according to a recent U.K. study published in the journal Nutrients. A research team led by Dr. Glyn Howatson with PhD student Phillip Bell at Northumbria University gave 16 well-trained, male cyclists about 1 ounce (30 ml) of Montmorency tart cherry juice concentrate mixed with water (equivalent to 90 whole Montmorency tart cherries per serving), or a calorie-matched placebo, twice ...

Pediatricians may lose money or data during the mandated conversion from the current International Classification of Diseases (ICD) to its new version, according to University of Illinois at Chicago researchers. The study is published in Pediatrics. The ICD codes are used in managing all aspects of health care, from insurance reimbursement to staffing decisions to supply procurement to research. Pediatricians use a variety of ICD-9 codes from many different categories, including well child care, infectious diseases, injury and genetic disorders. The ICD-10-CM, scheduled ...

WASHINGTON D.C. June 2, 2014 -- A team of researchers at the University of Twente (Netherlands) and German University in Cairo (Egypt) has developed sperm-inspired microrobots, which can be controlled by oscillating weak magnetic fields. Described in a cover article in the journal Applied Physics Letters, which is from AIP Publishing, the 322 micron-long robots consist solely of a head coated in a thick cobalt-nickel layer and an uncoated tail. When the robot is subjected to an oscillating field of less than five millitesla – about the strength of a decorative refrigerator ...

May 30, 2014 – For patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) that can't be controlled by medications, a minimally invasive laser procedure performed under MRI guidance provides a safe and effective alternative to surgery, suggests a study in the June issue of Neurosurgery , official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons . The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins , a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. "Real-time magnetic resonance-guided stereotactic laser amygdalohippocampotomy (SLAH) is a technically novel, safe and effective alternative ...

TORONTO, ON – For the first time, physicists at the University of Toronto (U of T) have overcome a major challenge in the science of measurement using quantum mechanics. Their work paves the way for great advances in using quantum states to enable the next generation of ultra-precise measurement technologies. "We've been able to conduct measurements using photons – individual particles of light – at a resolution unattainable according to classical physics," says Lee Rozema, a Ph.D. candidate in Professor Aephraim Steinberg's quantum optics research group in U of T's Department ...

(WASHINGTON, June 2, 2014) – An estimated 25 percent of children in remission from acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) are missing too many doses of an essential maintenance medication that minimizes their risk of relapse, according to a study published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology. The study also reports that maintenance medication adherence was lower in African American and Asian children in remission from ALL than in non-Hispanic white children, with 46 percent of African Americans and 28 percent of Asians not taking enough to ...

There appears to be no link between chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency and multiple sclerosis (MS), according to new research published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). In 2009, Dr. Paolo Zamboni postulated that chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency is a cause of MS, an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system that affects people in northern climates in particular. Published evidence has not been able to find a link to MS, and no one has been able replicate his findings. Several recent studies have shown an association between ultrasound-diagnosed ...

It's no surprise that seabirds are attracted to fishing boats, and especially to the abundance of discards that find their way back into the ocean. But researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on June 2 now find that those boats influence bird behavior over much longer distances than scientists had expected. Specifically, each boat creates a "halo of influence" across an area measuring about 22 kilometers. That's 13.6 miles—a distance a little longer than a half marathon. "While we knew that seabirds, including gannets, regularly followed fishing ...

The number of scientists in training vastly exceeds the number that will successfully land a faculty position at an academic institution. Now, researchers report in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on June 2 that an individual scientist's chances are very predictable based solely on his or her publication record. The likelihood of getting that faculty job depends mostly on the number of publications, the impact factor of the journals in which those papers are published, and the number of papers that receive more citations than would be expected based on the journal ...

Fishing vessels have a far bigger ecological footprint than previously thought, according to research which tracked the movement and behaviour of seabirds using GPS devices. A team of scientists led by the University of Exeter discovered that northern gannets change their behaviour in response to the presence of large vessels such as trawlers, suggesting each boat can significantly influence the distribution and foraging patterns of these and other marine predators. Northern gannets (Morus bassanus) are known to feed on discards from fishing vessels as well as diving ...

This release is also available in Chinese on EurekAlert! Chinese. The Hudson River has changed in many far-reaching ways over the past quarter-century as a result of human activity, reports a team of researchers in the June issue of BioScience. Zebra mussels and other invasive species have changed the river's ecology—although the influence of the zebra mussels now seems to be waning. A 40 percent increase in the freshwater flow has also had powerful effects, and these seem to be countering the effects of higher temperatures, especially in summer. Pollution by chlorinated ...

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. (May 29, 2014) – Yoga has long been promoted as a method for improving physical and mental well-being. And although yoga is often suggested to asthma sufferers to help alleviate symptoms, a new study found little evidence that yoga will improve symptoms. Researchers of the report, which is published in the June issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), examined 14 previously published studies to determine the effectiveness of yoga in the treatment of ...

This news release is available in Spanish. At these specialized facilities, which are linked to the UC3M-Airbus Group Joint Center, scientists are studying how structural elements react to applied loads at both low and high speeds. Phenomena of this sort can occur during maintenance operations (a tool falling in an aircraft) or while the elements are functioning. In the case of an airplane, for example, it can happen when a pebble hits an airplane during takeoff, or when a slab of ice comes off of a propeller or the leading edge of a wing and hits the fuselage. "Our ...

This news release is available in German. Imagine a tower builds itself into the desired structure only by choosing the appropriate bricks. Absurd – and however, in the nano world this is reality: There an unordered crowd of components can initiate the formation of an ordered structure – a process known as self-assembly. The physicists Christos Likos (University of Vienna), Emanuela Bianchi and Gerhard Kahl (both Vienna University of Technology) investigate how they can control the ordering of such self-assembling structures and found out how to switch the assembly ...

MANHATTAN, KANSAS — A Kansas State University physicist's proposal may lead to a new way of creating tabletop light sources in the laboratory. Cheng Jin, research associate in physics; Chii-Dong Lin, university distinguished professor of physics; and collaborators are developing a way to greatly enhance the generation of high-order harmonics to create powerful small tabletop light sources that are important to science and technology. The researchers are building theoretical framework and providing experimental guidance in the area of strong-field physics. The work is ...

DENVER (June 2, 2014) – A new study from the University of Colorado Denver shows public health issues are often ignored in many transportation projects, especially when major roads are built through lower-income neighborhoods. Air pollution, crime and numerous traffic hazards, the study said, point to a serious and persistent gap between public health and planning. "The public health effects of heavy traffic are broad," said study author Carolyn McAndrews, PhD, assistant professor at the CU Denver College of Architecture and Planning, one of the largest schools of its ...

Chicago (June 2, 2014): Surgery patients are much less likely to get a blood clot in the lower extremities or lungs if they receive preventive treatment based on their individual clotting risk, in addition to walking soon after the operation. Results from a surgical quality improvement study, appearing in the June issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, indicate that the odds of this common and potentially life-threatening postoperative complication steadily declined after the implementation of a multicomponent prevention program in a hospital's department ...

DARIEN, IL – A new study suggests that blue-enriched light exposure immediately before and during the evening meal may increase hunger and alter metabolism. Results show that blue-enriched light exposure, compared with dim light exposure, was associated with an increase in hunger that began 15 minutes after light onset and was still present almost two hours after the meal. Blue light exposure also decreased sleepiness and resulted in higher measures of insulin resistance. "It was very interesting to observe that a single three-hour exposure to blue-enriched light in ...

Astronomers announced today that they have discovered a new type of planet - a rocky world weighing 17 times as much as Earth. Theorists believed such a world couldn't form because anything so hefty would grab hydrogen gas as it grew and become a Jupiter-like gas giant. This planet, though, is all solids and much bigger than previously discovered "super-Earths," making it a "mega-Earth." "We were very surprised when we realized what we had found," says astronomer Xavier Dumusque of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), who led the data analysis and made ...

The planets of our solar system come in two basic flavors, like vanilla and chocolate ice cream. We have small, rocky terrestrials like Earth and Mars, and large gas giants like Neptune and Jupiter. We're missing the astronomical equivalent of strawberry ice cream - planets between about one and four times the size of Earth. NASA's Kepler mission has discovered that these types of planets are very common around other stars. New research following up on the Kepler discoveries shows that alien worlds, or exoplanets, can be divided into three groups - terrestrials, gas giants, ...

Life in the universe might be even rarer than we thought. Recently, astronomers looking for potentially habitable worlds have targeted red dwarf stars because they are the most common type of star, comprising 80 percent of the stars in the universe. But a new study shows that harsh space weather might strip the atmosphere of any rocky planet orbiting in a red dwarf's habitable zone. "A red-dwarf planet faces an extreme space environment, in addition to other stresses like tidal locking," says Ofer Cohen of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). Cohen ...