Objects in space tend to spin — and spin in a way that's totally different from the way they spin on earth. Understanding how objects are spinning, where their centers of mass are, and how their mass is distributed is crucial to any number of actual or potential space missions, from cleaning up debris in the geosynchronous orbit favored by communications satellites to landing a demolition crew on a comet. In a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Field Robotics, MIT researchers will describe a new algorithm for gauging the rotation of objects in zero gravity using only ...

A record-setting X-ray microscopy experiment may have ushered in a new era for nanoscale imaging. Working at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), a collaboration of researchers used low energy or "soft" X-rays to image structures only five nanometers in size. This resolution, obtained at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source (ALS), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, is the highest ever achieved with X-ray microscopy. Using ptychography, a coherent diffractive imaging technique based on high-performance scanning ...

PITTSBURGH, Sept. 10, 2014 – Researchers at UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh have created a new, 5- to 10-minute test that could be added to a clinician's concussion evaluation toolkit for a more comprehensive assessment of the injury. In a recent study published online first by the American Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers from the UPMC Sports Medicine Concussion Program demonstrated that clinicians could use their novel Vestibular/Ocular Motor Screening (VOMS) examination to be 90 percent accurate in identifying patients with concussion. The VOMS, which ...

According to the traditional theory of nerves, two nerve impulses sent from opposite ends of a nerve annihilate when they collide. New research from the Niels Bohr Institute now shows that two colliding nerve impulses simply pass through each other and continue unaffected. This supports the theory that nerves function as sound pulses. The results are published in the scientific journal Physical Review X. Nerve signals control the communication between the billions of cells in an organism and enable them to work together in neural networks. But how do nerve signals work? ...

New research from biological anthropologists at the University of Kent has shown that the use of the non-dominant hand was likely to have played a vital role in the evolution of modern human hand morphology. In the largest experiment ever undertaken into the manipulative pressures experienced by the hand during stone tool production, researchers analysed the manipulative forces and frequency of use experienced by the thumb and fingers on the non-dominant hand during a series of stone tool production sequences that replicated early tool forms. It is well known that ...

Living donors are important to increasing the number of viable grafts for liver transplantation. A new study published in Liver Transplantation, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the International Liver Transplantation Society, found that ambivalence is common among donor candidates. However, providing social support may help minimize the donors' concerns regarding donation. There is much demand for organs and a shortage of deceased organ donations. One solution to this shortage is the use of living donors for liver transplantation. ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. –University at Buffalo researchers and colleagues studying a rare, blistering disease have discovered new details of how autoantibodies destroy healthy cells in skin. This information provides new insights into autoimmune mechanisms in general and could help develop and screen treatments for patients suffering from all autoimmune diseases, estimated to affect 5-10 percent of the U.S. population. The research, published in PLoS One on Sept. 8, has the potential to help clinicians identify who may be at risk for developing Pemphigus vulgaris (PV), an autoimmune ...

The experimental drug nintedanib, combined with standard chemotherapy with paclitaxel, causes a total remission of tumours in 50% of patients suffering from early HER-2- negative breast cancer, the most common type of breast cancer. These are the conclusions of the Phase I Clinical Trial, sponsored by the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) and carried out by CNIO ́s Breast Cancer Clinical Research Unit. The study has been published today in British Journal of Cancer, which belongs to Nature Publishing Group. According to Miguel Ángel Quintela, ...

Imaging technologies are very useful in evaluating a patient's response to cancer treatment, and this can be done quite effectively for most tumors using RECIST, Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors. However, RECIST works well for tumors located in soft tissue, but not so well for cancers that spread to the bone, such as is the case for prostate and breast cancers. More effort, therefore, is needed to improve our understanding of how to monitor the response of bone metastases to treatment using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), ...

For detecting cancer, manual breast exams seem low-tech compared to other methods such as MRI. But scientists are now developing an "electronic skin" that "feels" and images small lumps that fingers can miss. Knowing the size and shape of a lump could allow for earlier identification of breast cancer, which could save lives. They describe their device, which they've tested on a breast model made of silicone, in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Ravi F. Saraf and Chieu Van Nguyen point out that early diagnosis of breast cancer, the most common type of cancer ...

The mere whiff of a dreamy perfume can help conjure new feelings or stir a longing for the past. But the creation of these alluring scents, from the high-end to the commonplace, can also incur an environmental toll. That could change as scientists, reporting in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, examine a more sustainable way to produce a key perfume ingredient and supply it to fragrance makers around the world. José M. Ponce-Ortega and colleagues explain that out of the three main ingredients in perfumes, the fixatives, which allow a scent to linger ...

Arlington, Va. (September 10, 2014) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Premier, Inc. have released new research on the widespread use of unnecessary and duplicative antibiotics in U.S. hospitals, which could have led to an estimated $163 million in excess costs. The inappropriate use of antibiotics can increase risk to patient safety, reduce the efficacy of these drugs and drive up avoidable healthcare costs. The study is published in the October issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Sir Mick Jagger has a new animal named after him. Scientists have named an extinct swamp-dwelling creature that lived 19 million years ago in Africa after the Rolling Stones frontman, in honor of a trait they both share -- their supersized lips. "We gave it the scientific name Jaggermeryx naida, which translates to 'Jagger's water nymph,'" said study co-author Ellen Miller of Wake Forest University. The animal's fossilized jaw bones suggest it was roughly the size of a small deer and akin to a cross between a slender hippo and a long-legged pig. Researchers ...

CHICAGO (September 10, 2014) – Nationally, hand hygiene adherence by healthcare workers remains staggeringly low despite its critical importance in infection control. A study in the October issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), found that healthcare workers' adherence to hand hygiene is better when other workers are nearby. "Social network effects, or peer effects, have been associated with smoking, obesity, happiness and worker productivity. As we found, this influence extends ...

Despite being outlawed in 2012 in the U.S., the synthetic drugs known as "bath salts" — which really aren't meant for your daily bath — are still readily available in some retail shops, on the Internet and on the streets. To help law enforcement, scientists are developing a novel method that could be the basis for the first portable, on-site testing device for identifying the drugs. They report their advance in the ACS journal Analytical Chemistry. Craig E. Banks, in collaboration with Oliver Sutcliffe, notes that the high-inducing substances in bath salts, which are ...

The U.S. has more than 30 civilian, Earth-observing satellites circling the planet, providing scientists with a torrent of crucial environmental and climate information. More satellites are on deck to launch in the next few years. But, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly news magazine of the American Chemical Society, scientists have registered serious concerns over the lack of a long-term, cohesive vision for the scientific missions. Jyllian Kemsley, a senior editor at C&EN, reports that satellites are marvels of technology. From ...

An interdisciplinary team of engineers from the University of Pennsylvania has made a discovery regarding the surface properties of graphene, the Nobel-prize winning material that consists of an atomically thin sheet of carbon atoms. On the macroscale, adding fluorine atoms to carbon-based materials makes for water-repellant, non-stick surfaces, such as Teflon. However, on the nanoscale, adding fluorine to graphene had been reported to vastly increase the friction experienced when sliding against the material. Through a combination of physical experiments and atomistic ...

Computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego have successfully funded on Kickstarter a new and improved version of CodeSpells, a first-person player game they developed that teaches players how to code. The game's previous iteration, developed by UC San Diego computer science Ph.D. students Sarah Esper and Stephen Foster, has been in use in dozens of schools throughout the world for more than a year. The researchers have been using the game as a platform to learn about the best ways to teach children how to code. They have presented their findings at ...

Incidence of thyroid cancer is rising faster in Pennsylvania than in the rest of the United States, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. "Since the mid-1970s, the incidence of thyroid cancer in the United States has more than tripled," said Dr. David Goldenberg, professor of surgery and medicine. "Thyroid cancer is now the seventh leading type of cancer in the nation. It typically occurs in young women and is projected to become the third most common cancer in women by 2019." Papillary thyroid cancer, responsible for most of this increase, is very ...

A simple question about appetite can provide insights into old people's general health that may help reduce their risk of dying. In a study published in the journal Appetite, Emeritus Professor Mark Wahlqvist from Monash University's Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine and the Monash Asia Institute, led a team investigating the connection between appetite and mortality. "Appetite is generally regarded as one of the most important indicators of health," Professor Wahlqvist said. The urge to eat is often reduced in the elderly, with many afflicted by ...

Singapore—An international team of scientists from Singapore, Thailand, China and Australia has cracked the genetic code of the liver fluke parasite, Opisthorchis viverrini, using a unique DNA analysis technique developed at A*STAR's Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS). GIS's DNA analysis technique has allowed the researchers to further study the biology of Opisthorchis viverrini to understand the cause and the eventual development of treatments for bile duct cancer, a condition caused by the parasite. The breakthrough was published in the scientific journal Nature Communications. Opisthorchis ...

VIDEO: Contrary to popular belief, spooning is not always the best sex position for those with a bad back, according to research from the University of Waterloo. For the first time... Click here for more information. Contrary to popular belief, spooning is not always the best sex position for those with a bad back, according to new research from the University of Waterloo. For the first time ever, scientists have successfully documented the way the spine moves during sex ...

Most people think of city landscapes as simpler, diminished versions of the wild forests and free-flowing streams found in remote places. But in a series of studies published Sept. 10, 2014 in a special issue of the journal Biogeochemistry, scientists specializing in urban ecosystems say just the opposite is true. Urban landscapes are more complex than they seem, and from coast to coast these ecosystems can work in surprisingly similar ways, regardless of local conditions. And they have the potential to change quickly – for better or worse – depending on how people manage ...

Elizabeth Archie, Clare Booth Luce Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Notre Dame and colleagues used an incredibly rich data set on the social relationships of wild baboons which was collected on an almost daily basis, year-round, since 1984 by the Amboseli Baboon Research Project. The project, which Archie helps direct, is a long-term study of wild baboons that follows the lives of individual baboons, watching what they do and who they interact with. "We can tell individual baboons apart by distinct features of their appearance, such as their ...

Children and adolescents see thousands of food commercials each year and most of them advertise junk foods high in sugar, fat and salt. Yet, we know almost nothing about how all of this food marketing impacts the brain, especially for teens. New research suggests that food commercials "get under the skin" of teens by activating reward regions when they are viewing ads for milk shakes, or burgers, or colas. The bad news for us is that this can result in weight gain and obesity. In the first prospective longitudinal study to investigate neural response to unhealthy food ...