Systems that automatically read automobile license plates have the potential to save police investigative time and increase safety, but law enforcement officials must address issues related to staffing, compatibility and privacy before the technology can reach its full potential, according to a new RAND Corporation report. As part of efforts to promote innovation in law enforcement, many of the first generation license plate reader systems were purchased with federal and state grants. As these funding streams can be inconsistent, law enforcement agencies are – or will ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- If unwed parents are going to get married, the best window of opportunity for that union seems to be before their child turns 3, says a new study from Duke University. But patterns vary greatly by race, with more African-American mothers marrying much later than mothers of other races or ethnicities. Federal policies have often presumed that unmarried parents will be most receptive to marriage right after a baby's birth, a period that has been dubbed the "magic moment." The new study is the first to test that assumption, said author Christina Gibson-Davis. ...

How do ants manage to move so nimbly whilst coordinating three pairs of legs and a behind that weighs up to 60% of their body mass? German scientists have recently developed a device that may reveal the answer. Measuring the forces generated by single limbs is vital to understanding the energetics of animal locomotion. However, with very small animals such as insects, this becomes problematic. Dr Reinhardt (Friedrich-Schiller University) used an elastic polycarbonate material to produce a miniature force plate. Springs arranged at right angles to each other enabled forces ...

If you are a locust, the most nutritious plant to eat depends on the ambient temperature. Scientists at the University of Sydney, Australia, have discovered that locusts choose their food and then where they digest it according to how hot it is. Dr Fiona Clissold, who led the study, explains why temperature has such a large influence on insect diets. "Whilst an insect's metabolic rate increases exponentially with temperature, the rate at which locusts absorb protein and carbohydrate from different plants does not increase in step with temperature. As a result, nutrient ...

It is popularly believed that fish have a memory span of only 30 seconds. Canadian scientists, however, have demonstrated that this is far from true – in fact, fish can remember context and associations up to twelve days later. The researchers studied African Cichlids (Labidochromis caeruleus), a popular aquarium species. These fish demonstrate many complex behaviours, including aggression, causing the scientists to predict that they could be capable of advanced memory tasks. Each fish was trained to enter a particular zone of the aquarium to receive a food reward, with ...

New research has found that a sheep's experiences soon after birth can shape its later behaviour and also that of its offspring. The study led by academics from the University of Bristol's School of Veterinary Sciences and published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters investigated whether early-life experiences can alter behavioural responses to a naturally painful event in adulthood – giving birth – and also affect behaviour of the next generation. The period following birth can be a challenging time for young lambs. They are usually tail-docked without analgesia ...

One in three severely affected adults with ME in England have no access to local specialist services, new research has shown. Published in the British Medical Journal Open, the research by the University of Southampton reveals NICE guidelines, which say severely affected patients with ME, otherwise known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), should have access to specialist care, are not being met by many NHS Trusts across England. Over a third of specialist adult ME/CFS services in the NHS provide no service to severely affected patients, and a further 12 per cent of ...

VIDEO: The movie clip shows the bitumen flow from the top camera view, and corresponds to approximately 24 days of real time. Click here for more information. Physicists at Queen Mary University of London have set up a new pitch drop experiment for students to explore the difference between solid and liquids. Known as the 'world's longest experiment', the set up at the University of Queensland was famous for taking ten years for a drop of pitch – a thick, black, sticky ...

VIDEO: This video is an analysis of video of kangaroos walking has helped scientists discover how important their tails are during locomotion. Click here for more information. Kangaroos may be nature's best hoppers. But when they are grazing on all fours, which is most of the time, their tail becomes a powerful fifth leg, says a new study. Involving researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, and the University of New ...

A new report on unintentional injury and violence in the United States, published in The Lancet as part of a new Series, The health of Americans [1], has found that prevention strategies across society show a great deal of promise in preventing unintended deaths and injuries. According to the report, by CDC researchers from Atlanta, USA, more Americans between the ages of one and 30 die from injury than from any other cause. Every year, nearly 180 000 people in the USA die from preventable causes such as automobile crashes, drowning, firearm-related injuries, falls, ...

Infectious diseases remain major public health challenges in the United States, according to a new report published in The Lancet as part of a new Series, The health of Americans [1]. Endemic conditions such as chronic viral hepatitis, human immunodeficiency virus, and other sexually transmitted infections continue to affect millions of individuals, with racial and ethnic minorities disproportionately affected. Emerging and re-emerging vector borne and zoonotic disease infections are threatening new areas and populations, as most recently observed with Chikungunya. Despite ...

According to a report on chronic diseases by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers, published in The Lancet as part of a new Series, The health of Americans [1], half of all adults in the USA suffer from at least one chronic condition, such as diabetes, heart disease, or obesity, and over a quarter of adults have two or more. The majority of these chronic conditions stem from a small number of risk factors that are largely preventable, including tobacco use, poor diet, and physical inactivity (both strongly associated with obesity), alcohol consumption, ...

Millions of people throughout the world are infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), which can lead to cirrhosis of the liver and cancer. Directly acting antiviral agents inhibit viral proteins and have been used to successfully treat HCV. Unfortunately, antiviral therapy fails in some patients, resulting in a relapse of HCV. A study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation identifies a marker that can identify patients likely to have an HCV relapse after antiviral therapy. Shyamasundaran Kottilil and colleagues at the NIH evaluated the immune response of HCV-infected ...

Use of a lower intensity bone marrow transplantation method showed promising results among 30 patients (16-65 years of age) with severe sickle cell disease, according to a study in the July 2 issue of JAMA. Myeloablative (use of high-dose chemotherapy or radiation) allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT; receipt of hematopoietic stem cells "bone marrow" from another individual) is curative for children with severe sickle cell disease, but associated toxicity has made the procedure prohibitive for adults. The development of nonmyeloablative conditioning ...

Despite strong preclinical data, the drug everolimus failed to improve overall survival in patients with advanced liver cancer, compared to placebo, according to a study in the July 2 issue of JAMA. Patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC; a type of liver cancer) have a median overall survival of less than l year, largely because of the absence of effective therapies. The drug sorafenib is the only systemic therapy shown to significantly improve overall survival in advanced HCC; however its benefits are mostly transient and modest, and disease eventually ...

In patients with a traumatic brain injury (TBI), neither the administration of the hormone erythropoietin (EPO) or maintaining a higher hemoglobin concentration through blood transfusion resulted in improved neurological outcome at 6 months, according to a study in the July 2 issue of JAMA. Transfusing at higher hemoglobin concentrations was associated with a higher risk of adverse events. Patients with severe traumatic brain injury commonly develop anemia. For patients with neurological injury, anemia is a potential cause of secondary injury, which may worsen neurological ...

Use of exome sequencing improved the ability to identify the underlying gene mutations in patients with biochemically defined defects affecting multiple mitochondrial respiratory chain complexes (enzymes that are involved in basic energy production), according to a study in the July 2 issue of JAMA. Defects of the mitochondrial respiratory chain have emerged as the most common cause of childhood and adult neurometabolic disease, with an estimated prevalence of l in 5,000 live births. Clinically these disorders can present at any time of life, are often seen in association ...

Breast cancer screening costs for Medicare patients skyrocketed between 2001 and 2009, but the increase did not lead to earlier detection of new breast cancer cases, according to a study published by Yale School of Medicine researchers in the July 1 Journal of the National Cancer Institute. While the number of screening mammograms performed among Medicare patients remained stable during the same time period, the study focused on the adoption of newer imaging technologies in the Medicare population, such as digital mammography. Brigid Killelea, M.D., assistant professor ...

Adults stop anti-rejection drugs after stem-cell transplant reverses sickle cell disease NIH trial success suggests a new treatment option for older, sicker patients Half of patients in a trial have safely stopped immunosuppressant medication following a modified blood stem-cell transplant for severe sickle cell disease, according to a study in the July 1 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The trial was conducted at the National Institutes of Health's Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, by researchers from NIH's National Institute of Diabetes ...

Today, doctors who really want to see if a wound is healing have to do a biopsy or some other invasive technique that, besides injuring an already injured patient, can really only offer information about a small area. But a technology called hyperspectral imaging offers doctors a noninvasive, painless way to discriminate between healthy and diseased tissue and reveal how well damaged tissue is healing over a wide area. The catch? A lack of calibration standards is impeding its use. After a successful non-human trial, researchers at the National Institute of Standards ...

The light-warping structures known as metamaterials have a new trick in their ever-expanding repertoire. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have built a silver, glass and chromium nanostructure that can all but stop visible light cold in one direction while giving it a pass in the other.* The device could someday play a role in optical information processing and in novel biosensing devices. In recent years, scientists have designed nanostructured materials that allow microwave or infrared light to propagate in only one direction. ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. – We're often told that worrying can be harmful to one's health. But University at Buffalo researchers say that when it comes to preventing skin cancer, a little fear is good for you. In a study published in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine, the UB researchers found that fear and worry about skin cancer had a bigger influence on people's use of sunscreen than information about the statistical likelihood of developing the disease. "Most health behavior studies don't account for the more visceral, emotional reactions that lead people to do risky behaviors, ...

The net-zero energy test house at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in suburban Washington, D.C., not only absorbed winter's best shot, it came out on top, reaching its one-year anniversary on July 1 with enough surplus energy to power an electric car for about 1,440 miles.* Watch the YouTube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJZrOhPk4kg Despite five months of below-average temperatures and twice the normal amount of snowfall, NIST's Net-Zero Energy Residential Test Facility (NZERTF) ended its one-year test run with 491 kilowatt hours ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have identified a new biomarker that predicts whether glioblastoma – the most common form of primary brain cancer – will respond to chemotherapy. The findings are published in the July print issue of Oncotarget. "Every patient diagnosed with glioblastoma is treated with a chemotherapy called temozolomide. About 15 percent of these patients derive long-lasting benefit," said Clark C. Chen, MD, PhD, vice-chairman of Academic Affairs, Division of Neurosurgery, UC San Diego School of Medicine and the ...

VIDEO: Experiments by Heidi Appel and Rex Cocroft at the University of Missouri mark the first time scientists have shown that a plant responds to an ecologically relevant sound in its... Click here for more information. COLUMBIA, Mo. – Previous studies have suggested that plant growth can be influenced by sound and that plants respond to wind and touch. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri, in a collaboration that brings together audio and chemical analysis, have ...