Working memory—the ability to hold information in your mind, think about it, and use it to guide behavior—develops through childhood and adolescence, and is key for successful performance at school and work. Previous research with young children has documented socioeconomic disparities in performance on tasks of working memory. Now a new longitudinal study has found that differences in working memory that exist at age 10 persist through the end of adolescence. The study also found that parents' education—one common measure of socioeconomic status—is related to children's ...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The oldest sections of transform faults, such as the North Anatolian Fault Zone (NAFZ) and the San Andreas Fault, produce the largest earthquakes, putting important limits on the potential seismic hazard for less mature parts of fault zones, according to a new study to be presented today at the Seismological Society of America (SSA) 2014 Annual Meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. The finding suggests that maximum earthquake magnitude scales with the maturity of the fault. Identifying the likely maximum magnitude for the NAFZ is critical for seismic hazard ...

Babies begin to learn about the connection between pictures and real-life objects early on. A new study has found that by 9 months, babies can learn about an object from a picture of it and can transfer that learning to the real object when they come across it. The study, by researchers at Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of South Carolina, appears in Child Development, the journal of the Society for Research in Child Development. "The study should interest any parent or caregiver who has ever read a picture book with an infant," says Jeanne L. ...

Babies begin to learn about the connection between pictures and real objects by the time they are nine-months-old, according to a new study by scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the University of South Carolina. The research, published today in Child Development, found that babies can learn about a toy from a photograph of it well before their first birthday. "The study should interest any parent or caregiver who has ever read a picture book with an infant," said Dr Jeanne Shinskey, from the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway. "For parents ...

New York, NY, April 30, 2014—States made little progress in improving health care access, quality, and outcomes and lowering costs in the five years preceding implementation of the major coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act (2007-2012), according to the Commonwealth Fund's third state health system scorecard. The majority of states declined or failed to improve on two-thirds of the 34 scorecard indicators that could be tracked over time. Wide gaps among states persisted since the last scorecard, with top states sometimes performing two to eight times better ...

Electricity is normally transmitted by means of alternating current, but it is not the only way and not always the best one.In some cases, high voltage direct current (HVDC) is used. In Spain, for example, there is only one direct current line, the one that connects mainland Spain with the Balearic Islands; all the remaining ones transmit electricity by means of alternating current. In fact, "direct current continues to be highly suitable for underwater and underground lines," asserted Marene Larruskain, one of the engineers in the UPV/EHU's GISEL group. Furthermore "less ...

Carbon-based nanostructures such as nanotubes, graphene sheets, and nanoribbons are unique building blocks showing versatile nanomechanical and nanoelectronic properties. These materials which are ordered in the nanoscale, that is, in the dimension of a millionth of millimetre, are promising candidates to envision applications in nanoscale devices, ranging from energy conversion to nano-electronic transistors. A good connection between carbon-based materials and external metallic leads is of major importance in nanodevice performance, an aspect where an important step has ...

To solve a puzzle, you need to recognize shapes, patterns and a particular kind of order. In much the same way, researchers at McGill University have discovered that the 3D shape of a leukemia cell's genome holds a key to solving the puzzle of human diseases. The researchers report their findings in the open access journal Genome Biology. McGill professor Josée Dostie, a researcher in the Faculty of Medicine in the department of Biochemistry, focused on the shape made by the region spanning the Homeobox A (HOXA) genes in human cells -- a set of 11 genes encoding proteins ...

Bumblebees can distinguish between safe and dangerous environments, and are attracted to land on flowers popular with other bees when exposed to perilous situations, according to new research from Queen Mary University of London. The study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows that past experience of predation causes bumblebees to join other bees already safely feeding on flowers. Co-author and PhD student Erika Dawson said: "Our experiment shows for the first time that when bees find themselves in these predator-infested environments ...

PITTSBURGH—The robust defenses that yeast cells have evolved to protect themselves from environmental threats hold lessons that can be used to design computer networks and analyze how secure they are, say computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University. Environmental "noise" is a key evolutionary pressure that shapes the interconnections within cells, as well as those of neural networks and bacterial/ecological networks, they observe in a paper to be published online April 30 by the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. The researchers factored this into an established ...

Researchers at the University of Exeter have found that the probability of a burying beetle winning fights, for the small animal carcasses it needs, depends on a combination of early life experiences and the competition it faces as an adult. These beetles use small dead animals, such as mice and songbirds, to provide food for their young and competition for a carcass can be fierce. Previous work has found that success in such contests depends on how good your early adult life environment was, not just how big you are. However, in many animals food availability can ...

Caltech astronomers have taken unprecedented images of the intergalactic medium (IGM)—the diffuse gas that connects galaxies throughout the universe—with the Cosmic Web Imager, an instrument designed and built at Caltech. Until now, the structure of the IGM has mostly been a matter for theoretical speculation. However, with observations from the Cosmic Web Imager, deployed on the Hale 200-inch telescope at Palomar Observatory, astronomers are obtaining our first three-dimensional pictures of the IGM. The Cosmic Web Imager will make possible a new understanding of galactic ...

SAN DIEGO (April 29, 2014) – Imagine filling a hole in your heart by regrowing the tissue. While that possibility is still being explored in people, it is a reality in salamanders. A recent discovery that newt hearts can regenerate may pave the way to new therapies in people who need to have damaged tissue replaced with healthy tissue. Heart disease is the leading cause of deaths in the United States. Preventative measures like healthful diets and lifestyles help ward off heart problems, but if heart damage does occur, sophisticated treatments and surgical procedures ...

A new study conducted by researchers at Marcus Autism Center, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University School of Medicine indicates that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are more than four times more likely to experience general gastrointestinal (GI) complaints compared with peers, are more than three times as prone to experience constipation and diarrhea than peers, and complain twice as much about abdominal pain compared to peers. The results were reported in the April 28, 2014, online early edition of the journal Pediatrics. While parents ...

The weather system that dropped tornadoes in seven central and southern U.S. states on April 27-28, moved east and generated more tornadoes on April 29. NASA's Aqua satellite gathered temperature data on the thunderstorm cloud tops in the system and found them to be higher in the atmosphere and colder. The tornado outbreak over the evening and overnight hours of April 28-29 is thought to have generated more tornadoes in northern Mississippi and Alabama. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the eastern U.S. early in the morning on April 29 at 07:41 UTC/3:41 a.m. EDT and gathered ...

A new study from the University of Toronto Scarborough suggests the search for life on planets outside our solar system may be more difficult than previously thought. The study, authored by a team of international researchers led by UTSC Assistant Professor Hanno Rein from the Department of Physical and Environmental Science, finds the method used to detect biosignatures on such planets, known as exoplanets, can produce a false positive result. The presence of multiple chemicals such as methane and oxygen in an exoplanet's atmosphere is considered an example of a ...

A violent tornado touched down in Arkansas on April 27, 2014, killing as many as 15 people. The top image, acquired on April 28 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite, shows what appears to be a tornado track north of Little Rock, Arkansas. The lower image, from April 25, shows the same area before the storm. The tracks are pale brown trails where trees and plants have been uprooted, leaving disturbed ground. The difference in clarity between the two images is likely due to the centering of the scene beneath the satellite. ...

Combining the estrogen hormone estriol with Copaxone, a drug indicated for the treatment of patients with relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (MS), may improve symptoms in patients with the disorder, according to preliminary results from a clinical study of 158 patients with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). The findings were presented today by Rhonda Voskuhl, M.D., from the University of California, Los Angeles, at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. The study was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and ...

The smallest, most abundant marine microbe, Prochlorococcus, is a photosynthetic bacterial species essential to the marine ecosystem. It's estimated that billions of the single-celled creatures live in the oceans, forming the center of the marine food web. They occupy a range of ecological niches based on temperature, light, water chemistry and interactions with other species. But the diversity within this single species remains a puzzle. To probe this question, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently performed a cell-by-cell genomic ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – In healthy individuals, the amount of glucose, or sugar, in the blood increases after eating. When glucose increases, levels of insulin increase to carry the glucose to the rest of the body. Previous research has shown that extreme increases in glucose and insulin in the blood can lead to poor glucose control and increase an individual's risk of developing diabetes over time. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has found that when women consumed high-protein breakfasts, they maintained better glucose and insulin control than they did with lower-protein ...

(SAN DIEGO, CA) April 29, 2014 – Recommendations to increase the intake of potassium and dietary fiber among young children should be a priority for the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, according to a new study by the Alliance for Potato Research and Education (APRE) presented today at Experimental Biology 2014. While the federal Dietary Guidelines has focused on adults and children 2 years of age and older, the 2020 Dietary Guidelines will include Americans of all ages, starting from birth, noted Maureen Storey, PhD, co-author of the study and APRE president and ...

Human factors/ergonomics (HF/E) experts, like professionals in many other scientific domains, have joined the fight against global warming and climate change. Their research and practice focus on finding ways to combat or minimize its serious effects. A special two-part issue of Ergonomics in Design examines how HF/E professionals can continue working to mitigate this worldwide phenomenon. Part 1 of the special issue, guest edited by Ken Nemire, is now available online and may be found at http://erg.sagepub.com/. "With recent research indicating we stay close to ...

The Department of Defense needs materials for armor windows that provide essential protection for both personnel and equipment while still having a high degree of transparency. To meet that need, scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have developed a method to fabricate nanocrystalline spinel that is 50% harder than the current spinel armor materials used in military vehicles. With the highest reported hardness for spinel, NRL's nanocrystalline spinel demonstrates that the hardness of transparent ceramics can be increased simply by reducing the grain size to ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (http://www.ucr.edu) — University of California, Riverside researchers have created a method that can classify different species of insects with up to 99 percent accuracy, a development that could help farmers protect their crops from insect damage and limit the spread of insect-borne diseases, such as malaria and Dengue fever. Over the past 60 years, insect classification research has been limited by factors including an overreliance on acoustic sensing devices, a heavy focus on wingbeat frequency and limited data. The UC Riverside researchers overcame ...

WASHINGTON, April 28, 2014 — Game of Thrones gave us a shock with the Purple Wedding and now everyone is asking: "Who poisoned King Joffrey?" While the search for the killer continues, the American Chemical Society's latest Reactions video focuses on what killed the hated king. The video is available at http://youtu.be/6UNEpRXcxM4 Chemist Raychelle Burks, Ph.D., of Doane College helps us narrow down the suspects in her charismatic style, blending pop culture and chemistry. "Sometimes science gets a bad rap. People think it's dry or super serious," Burks says. "Pop culture ...