An international study has devised a new measure for the "livability" of major cities across the world. The Global Liveable Cities Index (GLCI) takes into account the sensibilities of ordinary working people from 64 cities, balancing work and play, environmental awareness, localism, globalism and many other factors. Details are published in the World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development. According to Tan Khee Giap of the National University of Singapore and colleagues at University of California, Davis, and Curtin University, in Bentley, Australia, ...

In a recent paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, Joel Moser and ICFO colleagues of the NanoOptoMechanics research group led by Prof. Adrian Bachtold, together with Marc Dykman (Michigan University), report on an experiment in which a carbon nanotube mechanical resonator exhibits quality factors of up to 5 million, 30 times better than the best quality factors measured in nanotubes to date. Imagine that the host of a dinner party tries to get his guests' attention by giving a single tap of his oyster spoon on his crystal glass. Now, imagine, to the amazement of all, ...

New Danish-led research suggests that signs of brain aging can be postponed in mice if placed on a high-fat diet. In the long term, this opens the possibility of treatment of children suffering from premature aging and patients with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The research project is headed by the Center for Healthy Aging, University of Copenhagen and the National Institute of Health. When we get older, defects begin to develop in our nervous system, our brain loses some of its intellectual capacity, and the risk of developing diseases such as Parkinson's and ...

Using DESY's ultrabright X-ray source PETRA III, researchers have observed in real-time how football-shaped carbon molecules arrange themselves into ultra-smooth layers. Together with theoretical simulations, the investigation reveals the fundamentals of this growth process for the first time in detail, as the team around Sebastian Bommel (DESY and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin) and Nicola Kleppmann (Technische Universität Berlin) reports in the scientific journal Nature Communications. This knowledge will eventually enable scientists to tailor nanostructures ...

Researchers at the Cognition and Brain Plasticity group of the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) and the University of Barcelona have been tracking the traces of implicit and explicit memories of fear in human. The study has been published in the journal Neurobiology of Learning and Memory and describes how in a context of fear, our brain differently encodes contextual memory of a negative event (the place, what we saw...) and emotional response associated. The study measures electrodermal activity of 86 individuals in a fearful generated in the laboratory ...

Bethesda, MD (Nov. 5, 2014) — Up to 15 percent of the general adult population is affected by irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and most patients struggle to find effective drug therapy. A new guideline from the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) provides these patients and their physician's guidance. The new guideline and accompanying technical review have been published in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the AGA Institute. "Because no IBS therapy is uniformly effective, many patients describe a history of a variety of treatments alone or in ...

What sounds counter-intuitive to an activity commonly perceived as quiet is the broad recommendation of scientists at Michigan State University (MSU) recommending that small-scale fishing in the world's freshwater bodies must have a higher profile to best protect global food security. In this month's journal Global Food Security, scientists note that competition for freshwater is ratcheting up all over the world for municipal use, hydropower, industry, commercial development, and irrigation. Rivers are being dammed and rerouted, lakes and wetlands are being drained, fish ...

Noonan syndrome is a rare disease that is characterised by a set of pathologies, including heart, facial and skeletal alterations, pulmonary stenosis, short stature, and a greater incidence of haematological problems (mainly juvenile myeloid leukaemia, or childhood leukaemia). There is an estimated incidence of 1 case for every 1,000–2,500 births, and calculations show some 20,000–40,000 people suffer from the disease in Spain. From a genetic point of view, this syndrome is associated to mutations in 11 different genes —the K-Ras gene among them— ...

PATIENTS with a specific type of oesophageal cancer survived longer when they were given the latest lung cancer drug, according to trial results being presented at the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference today (Wednesday). Up to one in six patients with oesophageal cancer were found to have EGFR duplication in their tumour cells and taking the drug gefitinib, which targets this fault, boosted their survival by up to six months, and sometimes beyond. This is the first treatment for advanced oesophageal cancer shown to improve survival in patients ...

Fatih Uckun, Jianjun Cheng and their colleagues have taken the first steps towards developing a so-called "smart bomb" to attack the most common and deadly form of childhood cancer — called B-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). In a November study in the new peer-reviewed, open-access journal EBioMedicine, they describe how this approach could eventually prove lifesaving for children who have relapsed after initial chemotherapy and face a less than 20 percent chance of long-term survival. "We knew that we could kill chemotherapy-resistant leukemia cells ...

The current Ebola outbreak shows how quickly diseases can spread with global jet travel. Yet, knowing how to predict the spread of these epidemics is still uncertain, because the complicated models used are not fully understood, says a University of California, Berkeley biophysicist. Using a very simple model of disease spread, Oskar Hallatschek, assistant professor of physics, proved that one common assumption is actually wrong. Most models have taken for granted that if disease vectors, such as humans, have any chance of "jumping" outside the initial outbreak area ...

Researchers using a new type of tracking device on female elephant seals have discovered that adding body fat helps the seals dive more efficiently by changing their buoyancy. The study, published November 5 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, looked at the swimming efficiency of elephant seals during their feeding dives and how that changed in the course of months-long migrations at sea as the seals put on more fat. The results showed that when elephant seals are neutrally buoyant--meaning they don't float up or sink down in the water--they spend less energy ...

A University of Oregon researcher wants those "R" words to resonate among young athletes. They are key terms used in an online educational tool designed to teach coaches, educators, teens and parents about concussions. Brain 101: The Concussion Playbook successfully increased knowledge and attitudes related to brain injuries among students and parents in a study that compared its use in 12 high schools with the usual care practices of 13 other high schools during the fall 2011 sports season. The findings are online ahead of print in the Journal of Adolescent Health. Participants, ...

A study led by a researcher from Plymouth University in the UK, has discovered that the inhibition of a particular mitochondrial fission protein could hold the key to potential treatment for Parkinson's Disease (PD). The findings of the research are published today, 5th November 2014, in Nature Communications. PD is a progressive neurological condition that affects movement. At present there is no cure and little understanding of why some people get the condition. In the UK one on 500 people, around 127,000, have PD. The debilitating movement symptoms of the disease ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Millions of people with diabetes take medicine to ease the shooting, burning nerve pain that their disease can cause. And new research suggests that no matter which medicine their doctor prescribes, they'll get relief. But some of those medicines cost nearly 10 times as much as others, apparently with no major differences in how well they ease pain, say a pair of University of Michigan Medical School experts in a new commentary in the Annals of Internal Medicine. That makes cost -- not effect -- a crucial factor in deciding which medicine ...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A new study by a Florida State University researcher reveals that a new dietary supplement is superior to calcium and vitamin D when it comes to bone health. Over 12 months, Bahram H. Arjmandi, Margaret A. Sitton Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food and Exercise Sciences and Director of the Center for Advancing Exercise and Nutrition Research on Aging (CAENRA) at Florida State, studied the impact of the dietary supplement KoACT® versus calcium and vitamin D on bone loss. KoACT is a calcium-collagen chelate, a compound containing ...

A child's ability to distinguish musical rhythm is related to his or her capacity for understanding grammar, according to a recent study from a researcher at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center. Reyna Gordon, Ph.D., a research fellow in the Department of Otolaryngology and at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, is the lead author of the study that was published online recently in the journal Developmental Science. She notes that the study is the first of its kind to show an association between musical rhythm and grammar. Though Gordon emphasizes that more research will be necessary ...

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed an innovative magnetometer that can replace conventional technology in applications such as neuroimaging, mineral exploration and molecular diagnostics. Its manufacturing costs are between 70 and 80 per cent lower than those of traditional technology, and the device is not as sensitive to external magnetic fields as its predecessors. The design of the magnetometer also makes it easier to integrate into measuring systems. Magnetometers are sensors that measure magnetic fields or changes in magnetic fields. The kinetic ...

Although gluten-free foods are trendy among the health-conscious, they are necessary for those with celiac disease. But gluten, the primary trigger for health problems in these patients, may not be the only culprit. Scientists are reporting in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research that people with the disease also have reactions to non-gluten wheat proteins. The results could help scientists better understand how the disease works and could have implications for how to treat it. Armin Alaedini, Susan B. Altenbach and colleagues point out that celiac disease symptoms are triggered ...

Photosynthesis is one of the most important processes in nature. The complex method by which all green plants harvest sunlight and thereby produce the oxygen in our air is still not fully understood. Researchers have used DESY's X-ray light source PETRA III to investigate a photosynthesis subsystem in a near-natural state. According to the scientists led by Privatdozentin Dr. Athina Zouni from the Humboldt University (HU) Berlin, X-ray diffraction experiments on the so-called photosystem II revealed structures which were yet unknown. The results are published in the scientific ...

Many pollutants with the potential to meddle with hormones — with bisphenol A (BPA) as a prime example — are already common in the environment. In an effort to clean up these pollutants found in the soil and waterways, scientists are now reporting a novel way to break them down by recruiting help from nanoparticles and light. The study appears in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Nikhil R. Jana and Susanta Kumar Bhunia explain that the class of pollutants known as endocrine disruptors has been shown to either mimic or block hormones in animals, ...

This news release is available in Japanese. In an article published in Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience by Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University's Professor Robert Sinclair, he suggests that there still is a place in science in modern times for the interpretation of results using rational numbers or simple ratios. In a time where supercomputers dominate scientific analysis, Prof. Sinclair argues that there is not enough attention being paid to the basic approaches to science of the past, which were able to profoundly illuminate our ...

JRC scientists have developed a new index to measure the magnitude of heat waves, in cooperation with colleagues from five research organisations. According to the index projections, under the worst climate scenario of temperature rise nearing 4.8⁰C, extreme heat waves will become the norm by the end of the century. Heat waves like the one that hit Russia in summer 2010, the strongest on record in recent decades, will occur as often as every two years in southern Europe, North and South America, Africa and Indonesia. The Heat Wave Magnitude Index is the first to ...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5, 2014—A new handheld probe developed by a team of university and industry researchers in the Netherlands and France could give doctors powerful new imaging capabilities right in the palms of their hands. The imaging system, which is described in a paper published in The Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Optics Express, shrinks a technology that once filled a whole lab bench down to a computer screen and a small probe about the size of a stapler. The new device combines two imaging modalities: ultrasound and photoacoustics. Ultrasound ...

If you're inside, chances are you're breathing in low levels of indoor air pollution, a mix of volatile organic compounds and other gaseous substances that can accumulate in buildings and potentially make you sick. An article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, describes the latest in air-cleaning technology, including one approach based on a filter for the International Space Station. Mitch Jacoby, a senior correspondent with C&EN, writes that in recent years, scientists have been gaining a better understanding ...