A new study from the University of Toronto Scarborough suggests the search for life on planets outside our solar system may be more difficult than previously thought. The study, authored by a team of international researchers led by UTSC Assistant Professor Hanno Rein from the Department of Physical and Environmental Science, finds the method used to detect biosignatures on such planets, known as exoplanets, can produce a false positive result. The presence of multiple chemicals such as methane and oxygen in an exoplanet's atmosphere is considered an example of a ...

A violent tornado touched down in Arkansas on April 27, 2014, killing as many as 15 people. The top image, acquired on April 28 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite, shows what appears to be a tornado track north of Little Rock, Arkansas. The lower image, from April 25, shows the same area before the storm. The tracks are pale brown trails where trees and plants have been uprooted, leaving disturbed ground. The difference in clarity between the two images is likely due to the centering of the scene beneath the satellite. ...

Combining the estrogen hormone estriol with Copaxone, a drug indicated for the treatment of patients with relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (MS), may improve symptoms in patients with the disorder, according to preliminary results from a clinical study of 158 patients with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). The findings were presented today by Rhonda Voskuhl, M.D., from the University of California, Los Angeles, at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. The study was funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and ...

The smallest, most abundant marine microbe, Prochlorococcus, is a photosynthetic bacterial species essential to the marine ecosystem. It's estimated that billions of the single-celled creatures live in the oceans, forming the center of the marine food web. They occupy a range of ecological niches based on temperature, light, water chemistry and interactions with other species. But the diversity within this single species remains a puzzle. To probe this question, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently performed a cell-by-cell genomic ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – In healthy individuals, the amount of glucose, or sugar, in the blood increases after eating. When glucose increases, levels of insulin increase to carry the glucose to the rest of the body. Previous research has shown that extreme increases in glucose and insulin in the blood can lead to poor glucose control and increase an individual's risk of developing diabetes over time. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has found that when women consumed high-protein breakfasts, they maintained better glucose and insulin control than they did with lower-protein ...

(SAN DIEGO, CA) April 29, 2014 – Recommendations to increase the intake of potassium and dietary fiber among young children should be a priority for the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, according to a new study by the Alliance for Potato Research and Education (APRE) presented today at Experimental Biology 2014. While the federal Dietary Guidelines has focused on adults and children 2 years of age and older, the 2020 Dietary Guidelines will include Americans of all ages, starting from birth, noted Maureen Storey, PhD, co-author of the study and APRE president and ...

Human factors/ergonomics (HF/E) experts, like professionals in many other scientific domains, have joined the fight against global warming and climate change. Their research and practice focus on finding ways to combat or minimize its serious effects. A special two-part issue of Ergonomics in Design examines how HF/E professionals can continue working to mitigate this worldwide phenomenon. Part 1 of the special issue, guest edited by Ken Nemire, is now available online and may be found at http://erg.sagepub.com/. "With recent research indicating we stay close to ...

The Department of Defense needs materials for armor windows that provide essential protection for both personnel and equipment while still having a high degree of transparency. To meet that need, scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have developed a method to fabricate nanocrystalline spinel that is 50% harder than the current spinel armor materials used in military vehicles. With the highest reported hardness for spinel, NRL's nanocrystalline spinel demonstrates that the hardness of transparent ceramics can be increased simply by reducing the grain size to ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (http://www.ucr.edu) — University of California, Riverside researchers have created a method that can classify different species of insects with up to 99 percent accuracy, a development that could help farmers protect their crops from insect damage and limit the spread of insect-borne diseases, such as malaria and Dengue fever. Over the past 60 years, insect classification research has been limited by factors including an overreliance on acoustic sensing devices, a heavy focus on wingbeat frequency and limited data. The UC Riverside researchers overcame ...

WASHINGTON, April 28, 2014 — Game of Thrones gave us a shock with the Purple Wedding and now everyone is asking: "Who poisoned King Joffrey?" While the search for the killer continues, the American Chemical Society's latest Reactions video focuses on what killed the hated king. The video is available at http://youtu.be/6UNEpRXcxM4 Chemist Raychelle Burks, Ph.D., of Doane College helps us narrow down the suspects in her charismatic style, blending pop culture and chemistry. "Sometimes science gets a bad rap. People think it's dry or super serious," Burks says. "Pop culture ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 69 percent of adults in the United States are currently overweight or obese, which puts these individuals at increased risk for chronic health problems. Although weight loss decreases this risk, statistics show that dieters often fail multiple times before meeting their goals. Now, MU researchers have found that information technology, such as smartphone applications, can help dieters integrate healthy behavior changes into their daily lives. "Current weight loss recommendations are essentially ...

April 29, 2014 – Developing immunotherapies for cancer is challenging because of significant variability among tumors and diversity in human immune types. In a study published online today in Genome Research, researchers examined the largest collection of tumor samples to date to predict patient-specific tumor mutations that may activate the patient's immune system, paving the way for more successful, personalized cancer immunotherapy. Tumor cells accrue mutations in their DNA, and as these mutations accumulate, the cell looks less and less like part of the body and more ...

Washington, DC—Cancer patients who have higher levels of vitamin D when they are diagnosed tend to have better survival rates and remain in remission longer than patients who are vitamin D-deficient, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). The body naturally produces vitamin D after exposure to sunlight and absorbs it from certain foods. In addition to helping the body absorb the calcium and phosphorus needed for healthy bones, vitamin D affects a variety of biological processes by binding to ...

Washington, DC—The World Health Organization's tool for assessing bone fracture risk underestimates the true dangers for people who are younger than 65 or have been treated for a single broken bone, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). A WHO task force developed the Fracture Risk Assessment Tool (FRAX) to help predict the likelihood of adults between the ages of 40 and 90 breaking a bone. FRAX is designed to evaluate the chances that a person will break a bone in a minor fall, which is called ...

In the Middle Ages, fleas carried by rats were responsible for spreading the Black Plague. Today in East Africa, they remain important vectors of plague and many other diseases, including Bartonellosis, a potentially dangerous human pathogen. Research by Hillary Young, assistant professor in UC Santa Barbara's Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, directly links large wildlife decline to an increased risk of human disease via changes in rodent populations. The findings appear today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Online Edition. With ...

New research out of UC San Francisco is the first to demonstrate that highly stressed people who eat a lot of high-fat, high-sugar food are more prone to health risks than low-stress people who eat the same amount of unhealthy food. "Chronic stress can play an important role in influencing biology, and it's critical to understand the exact pathways through which it works." said Kirstin Aschbacher, PhD, an assistant professor in the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and lead author. "Many people think a calorie is a calorie, but this study suggests that two women who eat the ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 29, 2014) -- A genome-wide association study (GWAS) led by Peter Nelson, MD, PhD, of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging at the University of Kentucky, and David Fardo, PhD, of UK's Department of Biostatistics, has provided new insight into Hippocampal Sclerosis of Aging (HS-A), a common disease affecting the elderly. Researchers from 16 different institutions compared 363 persons with autopsy-proven HS-A to a control group of 2,303 other individuals in an attempt to identify genetic predisposition to HS-Aging. Dr. Nelson and his team found that ...

PITTSBURGH—Soft and cuddly aren't words used to describe the plastic or metal things typically produced by today's 3D printers. But a new type of printer developed by Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research Pittsburgh can turn wool and wool blend yarns into fabric objects that people might actually enjoy touching. The device looks something like a cross between a 3D printer and a sewing machine and produces 3D objects made of a form of loose felt. Scott Hudson, a professor in CMU's Human-Computer Interaction Institute who developed the felting printer with Disney ...

The isolation of graphene at the University in 2004 led to the discovery of many other 2D crystals. While graphene has an unrivalled set of superlatives, these crystals cover a large range of properties: from the most conductive to isolating, from transparent to optically active. The next step is to combine several of these crystals in a 3D stack. This way, one can create 'heterostructures' with novel functionalities – capable of delivering applications as yet beyond the imagination of scientists and commercial partners. The first examples of such heterostructures already ...

JUPITER, FL, April 29, 2014 – Resveratrol has been much in the news as the component of grapes and red wine associated with reducing "bad cholesterol," heart disease and some types of cancer. Also found in blueberries, cranberries, mulberries, peanuts and pistachios, resveratrol is associated with beneficial health effects in aging, inflammation and metabolism. Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have now identified one of the molecular pathways that resveratrol uses to achieve its beneficial action. They found that resveratrol ...

Tropical Storm Tapah strengthened since April 28 and early on April 29, the storm reached typhoon strength. From its orbit in space, NASA's Aqua satellite zoomed over Tapah and the AIRS instrument captured infrared data on the storm that showed the location of its strongest thunderstorms. The U.S. National Weather Service in Guam noted that a tropical storm warning and a typhoon watch continues for Alamagan and Pagan. For details on the advisory, visit: http://www.prh.noaa.gov/data/GUM/HLSPQ1 The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — In a first-of-its-kind study of how a material some think could transform the electronics industry moves in water, researchers at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering found graphene oxide nanoparticles are very mobile in lakes or streams and therefore likely to cause negative environmental impacts if released. Graphene oxide nanoparticles are an oxidized form of graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms prized for its strength, conductivity and flexibility. Applications for graphene include everything from cell phones ...

HOUSTON – (April 29, 2014) – For state-owned companies in China, the significant detriment in employing innovation may be linked to the company's ownership structure, according to a new study on Chinese entrepreneurship by Chinese business experts at Rice University, the University of Hong Kong, Texas Christian University, Jilin University and Shantou University. The researchers found that the more equity the state owned of a company, the less likely the company was to engage in strategic entrepreneurship (investing in research and development and other innovations) to ...

Anti-smoking television advertisements that appeal to viewers' emotions are more persuasive when they use anger rather than sadness, a Dartmouth-Cornell study suggests. The study appears in the Journal of Health Communication. A PDF is available on request. Previous studies have shown emotional expression is a crucial part of persuasion, and that audience members' perceptions of emotions affect their attitudes and behaviors. Previous research also has shown anti-smoking TV ads that convey negative emotions such as anger and sadness are more effective than non-emotional ...

It means more to people to own a luxury product or brand than to have the privilege of simply using one. Just using an affordable luxury item you don't own can, in fact, dampen the feel good factor that normally surrounds such products, say Liselot Hudders and Mario Pandelaere of Ghent University in Belgium. The research was published in Springer's journal Applied Research in Quality of Life. To test the link between luxury consumption and subjective well-being, the researchers presented 307 study participants with luxury and ordinary versions of either a durable pen, ...