If you're faced with a troubling personal dilemma, such as a cheating spouse, you are more likely to think wisely about it if you consider it as an observer would, says a study led by a professor at the University of Waterloo. Professor Igor Grossmann, of Waterloo, and Professor Ethan Kross from the University of Michigan, asked study participants to reflect on a relationship conflict of their own or someone else's, such as a spouse's infidelity with a close friend, and think about the conflict in the first and third person. The findings will appear in an upcoming issue ...

Despite warnings and legislation, online consumers may still be susceptible to post-transaction marketing schemes, according to Penn State researchers. At least 40 percent of consumers who made an online purchase in a study bought an additional product, even though it offered no extra value, said Jens Grossklags, assistant professor of information sciences and technology. "The focus of this study was to determine the likelihood that a consumer would accept an offer after they had already made a purchase," said Grossklags. "What stood out was the vast number of people ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- New observations by researchers at MIT have revealed the inner workings of a type of electrode widely used in lithium-ion batteries. The new findings explain the unexpectedly high power and long cycle life of such batteries, the researchers say. The findings appear in a paper in the journal Nano Letters co-authored by MIT postdoc Jun Jie Niu, research scientist Akihiro Kushima, professors Yet-Ming Chiang and Ju Li, and three others. The electrode material studied, lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4), is considered an especially promising material for ...

WASHINGTON – Much as human DNA can be used as evidence in criminal trials, genetic information about microorganisms can be analyzed to identify pathogens or other biological agents in the event of a suspicious disease outbreak. The tools and methods used to investigate such outbreaks belong to an emerging discipline known as microbial forensics, but the field faces substantial scientific and technical challenges, says a new report from the National Research Council. The report offers an initial set of research priorities for advancing the capabilities needed to make microbial ...

In the healthy pancreas of someone without type 1 diabetes (T1D), the hormone insulin (essential for turning food into energy) is produced, stored, and released in a normal "factory-like" process within pancreatic beta cells in response to glucose in the diet. Early in the course of T1D, however, excessive or pathologic stress in beta cells compromises their ability to properly secrete insulin, triggering a cascade of events ultimately contributing to the beta cell death. Over the past several years, JDRF-funded researchers have found evidence that beta cell stress may ...

The Man in the Moon appeared when meteoroids struck the Earth-facing side of the moon creating large flat seas of basalt that we see as dark areas called maria. But no "face" exists on farside of the moon and now, Penn State astrophysicists think they know why. "I remember the first time I saw a globe of the moon as a boy, being struck by how different the farside looks," said Jason Wright, assistant professor of astrophysics. "It was all mountains and craters. Where were the maria? It turns out it's been a mystery since the fifties." This mystery is called the Lunar ...

By studying laboratory mice, scientists at The Johns Hopkins University have succeeded in plotting the labyrinthine paths of some of the largest nerve cells in the mammalian brain: cholinergic neurons, the first cells to degenerate in people with Alzheimer's disease. "For us, this was like scaling Mount Everest," says Jeremy Nathans, Ph.D., professor of molecular biology and genetics, neuroscience, and ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "This work reveals the amazing challenges that cholinergic neurons face every day. Each of these cells ...

VIDEO: This movie of NOAA's GOES-East satellite imagery shows the movement of System 90L over land and dissipating between June 6 and June 7 at 2000 UTC (4 p.m. EDT).... Click here for more information. The movement of tropical storm Boris into southern Mexico and a nearly stationary low pressure system in the southern Gulf of Mexico caused heavy rainfall in that area. NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite known as TRMM ...

"If we know not only the volume of the traffic but also the way in which the flow is taking place, we can detect when the traffic is undergoing a significant change. This information can be used, for example, when decisions are taken about signs (traffic lights, directions, etc.), road capacity, and other aspects," explained Fermín Mallor, Prof of the Department of Statistics and Operational Research. What is new about this research is that it applies the so-called curve statistics to the specific problem of traffic control or monitoring. The use of the methodology is ...

DURHAM, N.H. – For more than 40 years, policy makers have been working to reduce acid rain, a serious environmental problem that can devastate lakes, streams, and forests and the plants and animals that live in these ecosystems. Now new research funded by the NH Agricultural Experiment Station (NHAES) at the University of New Hampshire College of Life Sciences and Agriculture indicates that lakes in New England and the Adirondack Mountains are recovering rapidly from the effects of acid rain. Researchers found that sulfate concentration in rain and snow declined by more ...

We've all been on the receiving end of an angry glare, whether from a teacher, parent, boss, or significant other. These angry expressions seem to boost the effectiveness of threats without actual aggression, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research findings show that angry expressions lend additional weight to a negotiator's threat to walk away from the table if his or her demands aren't met, leading the other party in the negotiation to offer more money than they otherwise would have. "Our ...

If you're faced with a troubling personal dilemma, such as a cheating spouse, you may think about it more wisely if you consider it as an outside observer would, according to research forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "These results are the first to demonstrate a new type of bias within ourselves when it comes to wise reasoning about an interpersonal relationship dilemma," says psychology researcher and study author Igor Grossmann of the University of Waterloo in Canada. "We call the bias Solomon's Paradox, ...

Penn Medicine researchers will be among the featured presenters at the 18th International Congress of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders in Stockholm, Sweden, from Sunday, June 8 to Thursday, June 12, 2014. Matthew Stern, MD, director of the Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Center in the Department of Neurology and current president of the International Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Society, will chair a plenary session entitled "New insights into the pathology, progression, and heterogeneity of Parkinson's disease." John Q. Trojanowski, ...

WASHINGTON, June 9, 2014 — Garlic is good for your body, great for your taste buds, but terrible for your breath. In the American Chemical Society's latest Reactions video, we look at the plant beloved by chefs and feared by vampires. Once again we teamed up with the Compound Interest blog to break down the chemistry of garlic, and how to beat the bad breath it causes. The video is available at http://youtu.be/cAWLQ_4DphI. INFORMATION: Subscribe to the series at Reactions YouTube, and follow us on Twitter @ACSreactions to be the first to see our latest videos. The ...

Reducing Maternal Mortality In Zambia and Uganda. Margaret E. Kruk of Columbia University and co-authors assessed the effectiveness of Saving Mothers, Giving Life, a new global public-private partnership that aims to reduce maternal mortality in eight districts in Uganda and Zambia. They evaluated the first six to twelve months of the program's implementation, its ownership by national ministries of health, and its effects on health systems. According to the authors, early benefits to the broader health system included greater policy attention to maternal and child health, ...

Huntsville, Ala. – String bean, snap bean, haricot bean, and pinto and navy bean. These are just a few members of the common bean family — scientifically called Phaseolus vulgaris. These beans are critically important to the global food supply. They provide up to 15 percent of calories and 36 percent of daily protein for parts of Africa and the Americas and serve as a daily staple for hundreds of millions of people. Now, an international collaboration of researchers, led by Jeremy Schmutz of the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology and Phillip McClean, of North Dakota ...

Huntsville, Ala. – Sequencing the genomes of domesticated citrus revealed a very limited genetic diversity that could threaten the crop's survival prospects, according to an international research team. In a study published in the June issue of Nature Biotechnology, the international consortium of researchers from the United States, France, Italy, Spain and Brazil analyzed and compared the genome sequences of 10 diverse citrus varieties, including sweet and sour orange along with several important mandarin and pummelo cultivars. The findings provide the clearest insight ...

A new study in The Journal of Experimental Medicine reveals that a high-risk group of patients with follicular lymphoma could benefit from a novel drug combination. Follicular lymphoma, a B cell lymphoma, is an incurable form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma that is diagnosed each year in 120,000 people worldwide. Follicular lymphoma is characterized by slow and relentless tumor growth with inevitable relapses despite intense chemotherapy. Follicular lymphomas are driven by mutations that activate the BCL2 protein, which prevents cancer cells from dying, but additional genetic ...

Understanding how clouds affect the climate has been a difficult proposition. What controls the makeup of the low clouds that cool the atmosphere or the high ones that trap heat underneath? How does human activity change patterns of cloud formation? The research of the Weizmann Institute's Prof. Ilan Koren suggests we may be nudging cloud formation in the direction of added area and height. He and his team have analyzed a unique type of cloud formation; their findings, which appeared recently in Science indicate that in pre-industrial times, there was less cloud cover over ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Twelve years ago, UNC School of Medicine researcher Brian Strahl, PhD, found that a protein called Set2 plays a role in how yeast genes are expressed – specifically how DNA gets transcribed into messenger RNA. Now his lab has found that Set2 is also a major player in DNA repair, a complicated and crucial process that can lead to the development of cancer cells if the repair goes wrong. "We found that if Set2 is mutated, DNA repair does not properly occur" said Strahl, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics. "One consequence could be that if you ...

(Salt Lake City) —What contributed to the evolution of faces in the ape-like ancestors of humans? The prehistoric version of a bar fight —over women, resources and other slug-worthy disagreements, new research from the University of Utah scheduled for publication in the journal Biological Reviews on June 9 suggests. University of Utah biologist David Carrier and Michael H. Morgan, a University of Utah physician, contend that human faces —especially those of our australopith ancestors — evolved to minimize injury from punches to the face during fights between males. ...

A study by researchers from Finland found that diagnosis and treatment of anemia is important to improve quality of life among women with heavy periods. Findings published in Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, a journal of the Nordic Federation of Societies of Obstetrics and Gynecology, suggest clinicians screen for anemia and recommend iron supplementation to women with heavy menstrual bleeding (menorrhagia). One of the common causes of iron deficiency and anemia is heavy bleeding during menstration. Over time monthly mentrual iron loss without adequate ...

Physical activity after breast cancer diagnosis has been linked with prolonged survival and improved quality of life, but most participants in a large breast cancer study did not meet national physical activity guidelines after they were diagnosed. Moreover, African-American women were less likely to meet the guidelines than white women. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings indicate that efforts to promote physical activity in breast cancer patients may need to be significantly enhanced. The US Department ...

New genomic research led by UC San Francisco (UCSF) scientists reveals that two common gene variants that lead to longer telomeres, the caps on chromosome ends thought by many scientists to confer health by protecting cells from aging, also significantly increase the risk of developing the deadly brain cancers known as gliomas. The genetic variants, in two telomere-related genes known as TERT and TERC, are respectively carried by 51 percent and 72 percent of the general population. Because it is somewhat unusual for such risk-conferring variants to be carried by a majority ...

Monitoring the drug concentration in patients is critical for effective treatment, especially in cases of cancer, heart disease, epilepsy and immunosuppression after organ transplants. However, current methods are expensive, time-consuming, and require dedicated personnel and infrastructure away from the patient. Publishing in Nature Chemical Biology, scientists at EPFL introduce novel light-emitting sensor proteins that can quickly and simply show how much drug is in a patient's bloodstream by changing the color of their light. The method is so simple that it could be ...