Carbon capture is a process by which waste carbon dioxide (CO2) released by factories and power plants is collected and stored away, in order to reduce global carbon emissions. There are two major ways of carbon capture today, one using powder-like solid materials which "stick" to CO2, and one using liquids that absorb it. Despite their potential environmental and energy benefits, current carbon capture strategies are prohibitive because of engineering demands, cost and overall energy-efficiency. Collaborating scientists from EPFL, UC Berkley and Beijing have combined carbon-capturing ...

Jülich, Germany, 9 October 2014 – When a basically sturdy material becomes soft and spongy, one usually suspects that it has been damaged in some way. But this is not always the case, especially when it comes to complex fluids and biological cells. By looking at the microscopic building blocks – known as "filaments" – of biopolymer networks, researchers from Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany and the FOM Institute AMOLF in the Netherlands, revealed that such materials soften by undergoing a transition from an entangled spaghetti of filaments to ...

Some 340 European scientists, policy-makers and other experts representing 143 organizations from 31 countries spoke with one voice today, publishing a common vision of today's most pressing marine-related health and economic threats and opportunities. In a declaration concluding a three day meeting in Rome, EurOcean 2014 participants also released an agreed, five-year roadmap to achieve expanded, more integrated and effective policy-oriented ocean scrutiny. EurOcean 2014 was convened by the Italian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the European Marine ...

Nyon, Switzerland (October 9, 2014) – Alarming new data published today by the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF), shows that one-third of all hip fractures worldwide occur in men, with mortality rates as high as 37% in the first year following fracture. This makes men twice as likely as women to die after a hip fracture. Osteoporosis experts warn that as men often remain undiagnosed and untreated, millions are left vulnerable to early death and disability, irrespective of fracture type. The report entitled 'Osteoporosis in men: why change needs to happen' ...

(PHILADELPHIA) -- The genetic fingerprint of a metastatic cancer is constantly changing, which means that the therapy that may have stopped a patient's cancer growth today, won't necessarily work tomorrow. Although doctors can continue to biopsy the cancer during the course of the treatment and send samples for genomic analysis, not all patients can receive repeat biopsies. Taking biopsies from metastatic cancer patients is an invasive procedure that it is frequently impossible due to the lack of accessible lesions. Research published October 10th in the journal Breast ...

When a woman is in labour, the appropriate time to give an epidural during childbirth is when she asks for it, a new study suggests. Published in The Cochrane Library, the systematic review compared early and late epidurals during labour and found that they had very similar effects. An epidural is a pain relieving local anaesthetic that is given as an injection into the spine. It is commonly offered to women in labour who request pain relief and is effective in reducing pain. However, previous studies have suggested that the timing of an epidural can prolong the duration ...

New research published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes) shows that women who eat fried food regularly before conceiving are at increased risk of developing gestational diabetes during pregnancy. The research is led by Drs Cuilin Zhang and Wei Bao, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD, part of the US National Institutes of Health) Rockville, MD, USA, and colleagues. Gestational diabetes (GDM) is a complication that can arise during pregnancy, and is characterised by abnormally ...

Online learning interventions and small group debriefings can improve medical residents' attitudes and communication skills toward patients with substance use disorders, and may result in improved care for these patients, according to a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University College of Medicine published online in Academic Medicine. The study used a novel internet-based learning module designed to improve the communication skills of primary care physicians during screenings and brief counseling sessions with ...

BOSTON (October 9, 2014) –A new form of gene therapy for boys with X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome (SCID-X1), a life-threatening condition also known as "bubble boy" disease, appears to be both effective and safe, according to a collaborative research team from Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center and other institutions conducting an international clinical trial. Early data suggest that the therapy may avoid the late-developing leukemia seen in a quarter of SCID-X1 patients in pioneering gene therapy trials in Europe more ...

NEW YORK, NY – Cardiovascular scientists at NYU Langone Medical Center have identified in mouse models a protein known as Pcp4 as a regulator of the heart's rhythm. Additionally, when the Pcp4 gene is disrupted, it can cause ventricular arrhythmias. Results from this animal study were released online Oct. 8 in the peer-reviewed publication, The Journal of Clinical Investigation. "This study demonstrates that Purkinje cell protein-4 (Pcp4) is not only important in maintaining the heart's normal rhythmic behavior, but that when Pcp4 expression is reduced, it short-circuits ...

BOSTON – The DNA of a woman whose lethal thyroid cancer unexpectedly "melted away" for 18 months has revealed new mechanisms of cancer response and resistance to the drug everolimus, said researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The investigators discovered two previously unknown mutations in the cancer's DNA. One made the woman's cancer extraordinarily sensitive to everolimus, accounting for the remarkably long-lasting response. The second mutation was found in the DNA of her tumor after it had evolved resistance ...

WHAT: Researchers have found that gene therapy using a modified delivery system, or vector, can restore the immune systems of children with X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID-X1), a rare, life-threatening inherited condition that primarily affects boys. Previous efforts to treat SCID-X1 with gene therapy were initially successful, but approximately one-quarter of the children developed leukemia two to five years after treatment. Results from a study partially funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a component of the National ...

(NEW YORK – October 08, 2014) Many children may become allergic to peanuts before they first eat them, and skin exposure may be contribute to early sensitization, according to a study in mice led by Mount Sinai researchers and published today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Early in the process of developing an allergy, skin exposure to food allergens contributes to "sensitization", which means the skin is reactive to an antigen, such as peanuts, especially by repeated exposure. The question of how peanut allergies start is an important one, given the ...

Last spring, the Colorado River reached its delta for the first time in 16 years, flowing into Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of California after wetting 70 miles of long-dry channels through the Sonoran Desert. The planned 8-week burst of water from Mexico's Morelos Dam on the Arizona-Mexico border was the culmination of years of diplomatic negotiations between the United States and Mexico and campaigning from scientists and conservation organizations. Now ecologists wait to see how the short drink of water will affect the parched landscape. This year's spring pulse held ...

New York City – October 8, 2014 – In a new study recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center concluded that overuse of cardiac stress testing with imaging has led to rising healthcare costs and unnecessary radiation exposure to patients. In what is believed to be the first comprehensive examination of trends in cardiac stress testing utilizing imaging, researchers also showed that there are no significant racial or ethnic health disparities in its use. They also made national estimates of the cost of ...

MINNEAPOLIS – Women with a healthy diet and lifestyle may be less likely to have a stroke by more than half, according to a study published in the October 8, 2014, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study looked at five factors that make up a healthy lifestyle: healthy diet; moderate alcohol consumption; never smoking; physically active; and healthy body mass index (BMI). Compared with women with none of the five healthy factors, women with all five factors had a 54-percent lower risk of stroke. "Because ...

WASHINGTON (Oct. 8, 2014) — A study that used two-dimensional echocardiography to closely examine the hearts of 100 children and teens found physical and functional signs of future heart problems already developing in obese children. In the study, published online today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, researchers from the University of Leipzig Heart Center in Leipzig, Germany, performed the echocardiograms on 61 obese children and 40 non-obese children ages 9 to 16. The two-dimensional echocardiogram uses ultrasound to provide cross sectional ...

Boston, MA — Low-income adults overwhelmingly support Medicaid expansion and think the government-sponsored program offers health care coverage that is comparable to or even better in quality than private health insurance coverage, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers. The study appears online October 8, 2014 in Health Affairs. (The study will be available online after the embargo lifts at http://content.healthaffairs.org/lookup/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2014.0747.) "In the debate over whether or not states should participate ...

Bottom Line: The duration of psychiatric illness and treatment for patients after first-episode schizophrenia spectrum disorders (FES) appears to be associated with being fatter and having other cardiometabolic abnormalities. Authors: Christoph U. Correll, M.D., of the North Shore-LIJ Health System, the Zucker Hillside Hospital, Glen Oaks, N.Y., and colleagues. Background: FES is associated with higher death rates and the vast majority of premature deaths in this group are related to cardiovascular illness and obesity-related cancers. Patients with FES require attention ...

Many patients with psychosis develop health risks associated with premature death early in the course of their mental illness, researchers have found. Patients with schizophrenia are already known to have higher rates of premature death than the general population. The study found that elevated risks of heart disease and metabolic issues such as high blood sugar in people with first episode psychosis are due to an interaction of mental illness, unhealthy lifestyle behaviors and antipsychotic medications that may accelerate these risks. Patients entered treatment with ...

For the millions of sufferers of dry eye syndrome, their only recourse to easing the painful condition is to use drug-laced eye drops three times a day. Now, researchers from the University of Waterloo have developed a topical solution containing nanoparticles that will combat dry eye syndrome with only one application a week. The eye drops progressively deliver the right amount of drug-infused nanoparticles to the surface of the eyeball over a period of five days before the body absorbs them. One weekly dose replaces 15 or more to treat the pain and irritation of dry ...

The opening of a community court in a high-crime area of San Francisco was associated with a lower chance that offenders would be arrested for another crime within a year, according to a new RAND Corporation study. San Francisco opened the Community Justice Center in 2009 to serve the city's Tenderloin district and adjacent neighborhoods. RAND researchers examined whether the Community Justice Center reduces the risk of rearrest when compared to more-traditional approaches for addressing arrestees. San Francisco's Community Justice Center is a multifaceted intervention ...

Hurricane Simon appeared to be keeping a secret before it rapidly intensified on Oct. 4, but the Global Precipitation Measurement or GPM satellite was able uncover it. On Oct. 4 at 0940 UTC (5:40 a.m. EDT) observations by the Ku-band radar on the GPM satellite suggested that the Eastern Pacific Ocean's Hurricane Simon was hiding a very compact eyewall hours before the National Hurricane Center detected rapid intensification of Simon's surface winds. The GPM satellite was launched in February of this year and is managed by both NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration ...

A new study from the University of Utah confirms that substantial numbers of teens are sexting – sending and receiving explicit sexual images via cellphone. Though the behavior is widely studied, the potentially serious consequences of the practice led the researchers to more accurately measure how frequently teens are choosing to put themselves at risk in this fashion. The study surveyed 1,130 undergraduate students about their experiences sexting in high school. Nearly 20 percent reported they had sent a nude photo of themselves to another via cellphone and 38 ...

Two NASA satellites provided data on clouds, rainfall and the diameter of the eye of Super Typhoon Vongfong as it turned north in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. Typhoon Vongfong formed on October 2, 2014 southeast of Guam. Typhoon Phanfone, that recently pummeled Japan, formed near the same area in the western Pacific Ocean. Vongfong had wind speeds of about 120 knots (138 mph) when the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite flew above the intensifying typhoon's eye on October 7, 2014 at 0800 UTC (4 a.m. EDT). TRMM's Precipitation Radar (PR) showed that ...