A small, low-powered camera component made from a "smart glass" material has been created by a group of researchers in Germany with the hope of inspiring the next generation of smartphone cameras. The micro-iris is an electro-chemical equivalent to the bulky, mechanical blades that are usually found in cameras and has very low power consumption, making it an ideal component for a wide-range of camera-integrated consumer devices. The device and the first results of its performance have been presented in a study published today, 19 June, in IOP Publishing's Journal of ...

19 June 2014, Oxford, UK: A new study published online in the International Journal of Epidemiology (IJE) today shows that while job loss is associated with depressive symptoms in both the USA and Europe, the effects of job loss due to plant closure are much stronger in American workers as compared with European workers. The 'Great Recession' of 2008 caused significant job losses in both Europe and the USA, with particularly strong consequences for older workers. Among persons aged 50-64, unemployment rates rose from 3.1% to 7.3% in the USA, and from 5.4% to 6.15% in ...

Aircraft can become more environmentally friendly by choosing flight paths that reduce the formation of their distinctive condensation trails, new research suggests. In a study published today, 19 June 2014, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, researchers from the University of Reading have shown that aircraft contribute less to global warming by avoiding the places where the thinly shaped clouds, called contrails, are produced – even if that means flying further and emitting more carbon dioxide. Contrails only form in regions of the sky where ...

Researchers have found that U.S. Food and Drug Administration warnings about a potential danger for young people taking antidepressants may have backfired, causing an increase in suicide attempts by teens and young adults. The 2003 warnings drew intense and possibly exaggerated media coverage that led to a sudden, steep decline in the number of prescriptions for antidepressants. In a study published in BMJ, researchers at Harvard Medical School's Department of Population Medicine and the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute report that in the year following the warnings, ...

Spiders from five different families prey on small fish in the wild, according to a systematic review published June 18, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Martin Nyffeler from University of Basel, Switzerland, and Bradley Pusey from The University of Western Australia. Spiders are known to prey on insects, but in recent years, researchers have become increasingly aware that spiders are not exclusively insectivorous, and that certain larger-sized species might supplement their insect diet by occasionally catching small vertebrate prey. Semi-aquatic spiders in ...

Spiders are traditionally viewed as predators of insects. Zoologists from Switzerland and Australia have now published a study that shows: spiders all over the world also prey on fish. The academic journal PLOS ONE has just published the results. Although viewed by ecologists as the classical predators of insects, researchers have become increasingly aware that spiders are not exclusively insectivorous. Certain larger-sized species supplement their diet by occasionally catching small fish. This shows a new study by zoologist and spider expert, Martin Nyffeler from the ...

A new survey of North Carolina doctors finds that many are concerned about the increasing number of requests they are receiving to assess their patients' competency to carry concealed weapons. In particular, a majority of physicians who responded to the survey said they were worried about the potential ethical consequences in the doctor-patient relationship if they participated in the concealed-weapon permit process. "This is not a small problem," said Dr. Adam Goldstein, corresponding author of the study and a professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University ...

Sooner than almost anyone expected, a new, genome-based technology for demystifying undiagnosed illnesses—particularly rare childhood diseases—is moving from research laboratories into general medical practice. Now, two leading scientists have sketched out what doctors need to know in order to use the new technology effectively. "This primer illustrates how rapidly the use of genome sequencing has moved into clinical practice," said NHGRI Director Eric D. Green, M.D., Ph.D. "Its authors lay out an approach for physicians to follow when using these exciting new technologies." ...

BOSTON, MA – Clinical genome and exome sequencing (CGES) was once deemed exotic, but is increasingly being used by clinical geneticists and other specialists to diagnose rare, clinically unrecognizable, or puzzling disorders that are suspected to be genetic in origin. Several thousand CGES tests across the country have already been ordered for patients and thousands more are expected in coming years. CGES is quickly moving from research laboratories into clinical medical practice, across all specialties. A review article titled, "Diagnostic Clinical Genome and Exome ...

Cambridge, Mass. Wed. June 18, 2014 – By scouring the DNA of thousands of patients, researchers at the Broad Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, and their colleagues have discovered four rare gene mutations that not only lower the levels of triglycerides, a type of fat in the blood, but also significantly reduce a person's risk of coronary heart disease — dropping it by 40 percent. The mutations all cripple the same gene, called APOC3, suggesting a powerful strategy in developing new drugs against heart disease. The work, which appears in the June 18 issue of the ...

PHILADELPHIA – It's a long way from DNA to RNA to protein, and only about two percent of a person's genome is eventually converted into proteins. In contrast, a much higher percentage of the genome is transcribed into RNA. What these non-protein-coding RNAs do is still relatively unknown. However, given their vast numbers in the human genome, researchers believe that they likely play important roles in normal human development and response to disease. Large-scale sequencing has allowed investigators to identify thousands of non-coding RNAs. Small non-coding RNAs, including ...

Danish researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Rigshospitalet have shown that people with variation in a gene that inhibits a specific protein in the blood – the so-called apolipoprotein C3 – have a significantly lower level of normal blood lipids than people without this gene variation. Furthermore, the same individuals also have a 41 per cent lower risk of arteriosclerosis. The research is highly relevant as at least one pharmaceutical company has a drug in the pipeline which inhibits precisely apolipoprotein C3, says Anne Tybjærg-Hansen, Chief Physician ...

UT Arlington researchers have successfully used a portable brain-mapping device to show limited prefrontal cortex activity among student veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when they were asked to recall information from simple memorization tasks. The study by bioengineering professor Hanli Liu and Alexa Smith-Osborne, an associate professor of social work, and two other collaborators was published in the May 2014 edition of NeuroImage: Clinical. The team used functional near infrared spectroscopy to map brain activity responses during cognitive activities related ...

MINNEAPOLIS – A new study suggests that people with muscle diseases such as muscular dystrophies may benefit more from group doctor visits than individual appointments. The study is published in the June 18, 2014, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. "In this age when the demand for neurologists is rising faster than the supply and health care costs continue to rise, it's important to look for finding solutions that are both effective and efficient," said study author Femke M. Seesing, MSc, of Radboud University Medical ...

Women 55 and younger are twice as likely to suffer a heart attack, die or require artery-opening procedures if they're moderately or severely depressed, according to new research in the Journal of the American Heart Association. "Women in this age group are also more likely to have depression, so this may be one of the 'hidden' risk factors that can help explain why women die at a disproportionately higher rate than men after a heart attack," said Amit Shah, M.D., M.S.C.R., study author and assistant professor of Epidemiology at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga. Investigators ...

The use of sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) to stage early breast cancer increased in both black and white women from 2002 to 2007, but the rates remained lower in black than white patients, a disparity that contributed to disparities in the risk for lymphedema (arm swelling common after breast cancer treatment because of damage to the lymphatic system). SLNB was developed to replace axillary (arm pit) lymph node dissection (ALND) for staging early breast cancer to minimize complications. SLNB can often provide patients with a much more limited surgery. Racial ...

Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) appear to curtail attempts to have more children after the first signs of the disorder manifest or a diagnosis is made. ASD is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder. Few studies have focused on reproductive stoppage by parents after a child is diagnosed with ASD or symptoms appear. Authors identified patients with ASD born from 1990 through 2003 in California. A total of 19,710 families in which the first birth occurred during the study period were identified. The families included 39,361 individuals (siblings ...

Parents who have a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are about one third less likely to have more children than families without an affected child, according to a study led by a UC San Francisco researcher. The findings, which appear in the June 18 issue of JAMA Psychiatry, stem from the largest study of its kind on further child-bearing after a child has been diagnosed with the disorder. These are the first data to indicate that this is a reproductive decision. " While it has been postulated that parents who have a child with ASD may be reluctant to have more ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A new study from Bradley Hospital has found that bipolar children have greater activation in the right amygdala – a brain region very important for emotional reaction – than bipolar adults when viewing emotional faces. The study, now published online in JAMA Psychiatry, suggests that bipolar children might benefit from treatments that target emotional face identification, such as computer based "brain games" or group and individual therapy. This study is the first ever meta-analysis to directly compare brain changes in bipolar children to bipolar adults, ...

WASHINGTON, June 18, 2014—Your smartphone's display glass could soon be more than just a pretty face, thanks to new technology developed by researchers from Montreal and the New York-based company Corning Incorporated. The team has created the first laser-written light-guiding systems that are efficient enough to be developed for commercial use. They describe their work in a paper published today in The Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal, Optics Express. This revolutionary work could open up new real estate in the phone by embedding the glass with layer upon ...

How do animals use their distinctive patterning to recognize each other? For some birds, recognizing one's own eggs can be a matter of life or death. In a new study, researchers from Harvard University and the University of Cambridge show that many birds parasitized by the Common Cuckoo have evolved distinctive pattern signatures on their eggs in order to distinguish them from those laid by a cuckoo cheat. The study reveals that these signatures provide a powerful defense against cuckoo trickery, helping host birds to reject cuckoo eggs before they hatch and destroy the ...

New York, NY—June 18, 2014—In a paper presented—and awarded the prestigious Ken Sevcik Outstanding Student Paper Award—at the ACM SIGMETRICS conference on June 18, Jason Nieh, professor of computer science at Columbia Engineering, and PhD candidate Nicolas Viennot reported that they have discovered a crucial security problem in Google Play, the official Android app store where millions of users of Android, the most popular mobile platform, get their apps. "Google Play has more than one million apps and over 50 billion app downloads, but no one reviews what gets put into ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Researchers have developed a technique that might be used to produce "soft machines" made of elastic materials and liquid metals for potential applications in robotics, medical devices and consumer electronics. Such an elastic technology could make possible robots that have sensory skin and stretchable garments that people might wear to interact with computers or for therapeutic purposes. However, new manufacturing techniques must be developed before soft machines become commercially practical, said Rebecca Kramer, an assistant professor of mechanical ...

Ethnic Tibetan communities in Nepal's highlands are rapidly shrinking as more parents send their children away for a better education and modern careers, a trend that threatens to create a region of graying ghost towns at the top of the world, according to a study that includes Dartmouth College. The findings, which have major social and demographic implications for the Himalayan region, appear in the journal Mountain Research and Development. A PDF of the study is available on request. Taken together, the outmigration of young people, a low birth rate and population ...

The surge in murders of polio vaccination workers in Pakistan has made headlines this year, but little attention has been devoted to the ethical issues surrounding the global health impact of current counterterrorism policy and practice. An essay in the Hastings Center Report reviews the range of harms to population health traceable to counterterrorism operations. It also identifies concerns involving moral agency and responsibility – specifically of humanitarian health workers, military medical personnel, and national security officials and operatives – and it highlights ...