With its palm open, the robot is completely motionless. A split second later, it suddenly unwinds and catches all sorts of flying objects thrown in its direction -a tennis racket, a ball, a bottle-. This arm measures about 1.5 meters long and keeps an upright position. It has three joints and a sophisticated hand with four fingers. It was programmed at the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory at EPFL (LASA) and designed to test robotic solutions for capturing moving objects. It is unique, as it has the ability to catch projectiles of various irregular shapes in less ...

VIDEO: The more time a child is exposed to a parent addicted to smoking, the more likely the youth will not only take up cigarettes but also become a heavy smoker,... Click here for more information. WASHINGTON -- The more time a child is exposed to a parent addicted to smoking, the more likely the youth will not only take up cigarettes but also become a heavy smoker. So warns a team of researchers led by Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center scientists in Pediatrics. ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with stimulant medication may reduce smoking risk, especially when medication is taken consistently, according to an analysis led by researchers at Duke Medicine. The findings appear online May 12, 2014, in the journal Pediatrics. "Given that individuals with ADHD are more likely to smoke, our study supports the use of stimulant treatment to reduce the likelihood of smoking in youth with ADHD," said senior author Scott Kollins, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and director ...

BALTIMORE – May 12, 2014. Cervical cancer rates in the United States are higher than previously believed, particularly among 65- to 69-year-old women and African-American women, according to a study led by a researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine published in the journal Cancer. Current U.S. cervical cancer screening guidelines do not recommend routine Pap smears for women over 65 if their prior test results have been normal. Previous research finds an age-standardized rate of about 12 cases of cervical cancer per 100,000 women in the United States, ...

Philadelphia, PA, May 12, 2014 – Corneal nerve fiber assessment has great potential as a tool to diagnose and monitor peripheral neuropathy induced by HIV, say scientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The results of their study are published in The American Journal of Pathology. Although corneal nerve assessments have shown increasingly valuable as a replacement for epidermal nerve fiber evaluation in diabetic peripheral neuropathy, the evaluation of corneal alterations in tracking HIV-induced neuropathy has yet to be explored. "The cornea is ...

Rates of cervical cancer in American women may be higher than previously thought, and the disease may arise most often at an age when adequately screened women are advised to stop getting screened. The findings come from a new study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The results should be taken into consideration when the national guidelines for cervical cancer screening are reviewed. Removal of the uterine cervix through a hysterectomy eliminates a woman's risk of developing cervical cancer, but previous estimates ...

Coeliac UK, the national charity for coeliac disease announces today, 12th May 2014, new research from the University of Nottingham that has found a fourfold increase in the rate of diagnosed cases of coeliac disease in the United Kingdom over the past two decades, but, still three quarters of people with coeliac disease remain undiagnosed. ¹ The National Institute of Health & Care Excellence (NICE) previously estimated that only 10 - 15% of those with coeliac disease had been diagnosed, however, this latest research by Dr Joe West from University of Nottingham, funded ...

Microbial samples taken from populations living in the U.S. and Tanzania reveal that the microbiome of the human hand is more varied than previously thought, according to new research published in the journal Microbiology. These findings suggest that the 'standard' hand microbiome varies depending on location and lifestyle. Results compared the microbes on the hands of women in the U.S. and Tanzania and found that organisms that have commonly been identified in prior human skin microbiome studies were highly abundant on U.S. hands, while the most abundant bacterial species ...

At the surface, Antarctica is a motionless and frozen landscape. Yet hundreds of miles down the Earth is moving at a rapid rate, new research has shown. The study, led by Newcastle University, UK, and published this week in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, explains for the first time why the upward motion of the Earth's crust in the Northern Antarctic Peninsula is currently taking place so quickly. Previous studies have shown the earth is 'rebounding' due to the overlying ice sheet shrinking in response to climate change. This movement of the land was understood ...

Community-led sustainable energy projects are not taken seriously enough by the government, according to a new report from the University of East Anglia. Published today, the report looks at how initiatives such as community-owned solar panels, wind turbines and hydro-electricity generators, as well as energy-saving projects, could make big differences in tackling climate change. But while a 'Big Society' ethos has formed part of the legislative programme for the coalition government, and the UK Government's new Community Energy Strategy has been a big step forward ...

In the most comprehensive exploration of the association between genetic variation and human metabolism, researchers have provided unprecedented insights into how genetic variants influence complex disease and drug response through metabolic pathways. The team has linked 145 genetic regions with more than 400 molecules involved in human metabolism in human blood. This atlas of genetic associations with metabolism provides many new opportunities to understand the molecular pathways underlying associations with common, complex diseases. Metabolic molecules, known as metabolites, ...

Scientists have taken a large step toward making a fiber-like energy storage device that can be woven into clothing and power wearable medical monitors, communications equipment or other small electronics. The device is a supercapacitor—a cousin to the battery. This one packs an interconnected network of graphene and carbon nanotubes so tightly that it stores energy comparable to some thin-film lithium batteries—an area where batteries have traditionally held a large advantage. The product's developers, engineers and scientists at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) ...

AUSTIN, Texas – A new method of measuring the interaction of surface water and groundwater along the length of the Mississippi River network adds fresh evidence that the network's natural ability to chemically filter out nitrates is being overwhelmed. The research by hydrogeologists at The University of Texas at Austin, which appears in the May 11 edition of the journal Nature Geoscience, shows for the first time that virtually every drop of water coursing through 311,000 miles (500,000 kilometers) of waterways in the Mississippi River network goes through a natural ...

Cambridge, MA—Harvard scientists have merged stem cell and 'organ-on-a-chip' technologies to grow, for the first time, functioning human heart tissue carrying an inherited cardiovascular disease. The research appears to be a big step forward for personalized medicine, as it is working proof that a chunk of tissue containing a patient's specific genetic disorder can be replicated in the laboratory. The work, published in Nature Medicine, is the result of a collaborative effort bringing together scientists from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, the Wyss Institute for Biologically ...

VIDEO: Dr. Nerlie Abram, from the Australian National University, explains why ocean winds have stopped Antarctica from warming as much as other continents. Her research also explains droughts in Southern Australia. Click here for more information. New Australian National University-led research has explained why Antarctica is not warming as much as other continents, and why southern Australia is recording more droughts. Researchers have found rising levels of carbon dioxide ...

The breakthrough, published in the journal Nature Materials, could offer an easier way of detecting pathogenic bacteria outside of a clinical setting and could be particularly important for the developing world, where access to more sophisticated laboratory techniques is often limited. The research was led by Professor Cameron Alexander, Head of the Division of Drug Delivery and Tissue Engineering and EPSRC Leadership Fellow in the University's School of Pharmacy, building on work by PhD student Peter Magennis. Professor Alexander said: "Essentially, we have hijacked ...

Athens, Ga. – The 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout discharged roughly five million gallons of oil and up to 500,000 tons of natural gas into Gulf of Mexico offshore waters over a period of 84 days. In the face of a seemingly insurmountable cleanup effort, many were relieved by reports following the disaster that naturally-occurring microbes had consumed much of the gas and oil. Now, a team of researchers led by University of Georgia marine scientists have published a paper in the journal Nature Geoscience that questions this conclusion and provides evidence that microbes ...

Our bodies produce a family of proteins that recognize and kill bacteria whose carbohydrate coatings resemble those of our own cells too closely, scientists have discovered. Called galectins, these proteins recognize carbohydrates from a broad range of disease-causing bacteria, and could potentially be deployed as antibiotics to treat certain infections. The results are scheduled for publication in Nature Chemical Biology. Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine made the discovery with the aid of glass slides coated with an array of over 300 different glycans ...

A new study by researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City has found that atrial fibrillation patients who are on blood thinning medications are at higher risk of developing dementia if their doses are not in the optimal recommended range. The study of more than 2,600 AFib patients found they are significantly more likely to develop dementia when using medicines to prevent blood clots, such as warfarin, when their dosing is too high or too low for an extended period of time. Findings from the study will be presented at the 2014 ...

Research from North Carolina State University shows that blueberries produce more seeds and larger berries if they are visited by more diverse bee species, allowing farmers to harvest significantly more pounds of fruit per acre. "We wanted to understand the functional role of diversity," says Dr. Hannah Burrack, an associate professor of entomology at NC State and co-author of a paper on the research. "And we found that there is a quantifiable benefit of having a lot of different types of bees pollinating a crop." The researchers looked at blueberries in North Carolina ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (May 9, 2014) – Whitehead Institute scientists have identified a genetic cause of a facial disorder known as hemifacial microsomia (HFM). The researchers find that duplication of the gene OTX2 induces HFM, the second-most common facial anomaly after cleft lip and palate. HFM affects approximately one in 3,500 births. While some cases appear to run in families, no gene had been found to be causative. That is until Whitehead Fellow Yaniv Erlich and his lab set out to do just that. Their work is described in this week's issue of the journal PLOS ONE. Patients ...

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – May 6, 2014 – For over 30 years, aspirin has been known to prevent heart attacks and strokes, but who exactly should take a daily aspirin remains unclear. New research published today in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes shows that your coronary artery calcium (CAC) score, a measurement of plaque in the arteries that feed the heart, may help determine whether or not you are a good candidate for aspirin. "Many heart attacks and strokes occur in individuals who do not appear to be at high risk," states lead author, Michael D Miedema, MD, ...

VIDEO: The TRMM satellite flew above tornado spawning thunderstorms in the southern United States on May 9, 2014 at 0115 UTC. This simulated 3-D TRMM animation shows the location of intense... Click here for more information. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite captured rainfall and cloud height information about the powerful thunderstorms and severe weather that affected the Great Plains over May 8 and 9. Severe weather extended from Minnesota to southern ...

TORONTO – A new drug approach has been developed for safer clean-up of deformed blood vessels in the eye by a research team at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. The growth of malformed blood vessels that can burst is a leading cause of vision loss in North America. Retinopathy and retina degeneration are associated with premature birth, with diabetes, and with increasing age. Research just published by Dr. Andras Nagy and co-authors shows both safety and effectiveness in their bioengineered compound when treating retinopathy ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Scientists at the University of California, Riverside have discovered a fossil of a newly discovered organism from the "Ediacara Biota" — a group of organisms that occurred in the Ediacaran period of geologic time. Named Plexus ricei and resembling a curving tube, the organism resided on the Ediacaran seafloor. Plexus ricei individuals ranged in size from 5 to 80 centimeters long and 5 to 20 millimeters wide. Along with the rest of the Ediacara Biota, it evolved around 575 million years ago and disappeared from the fossil record around 540 million ...