New Rochelle, NY, April 7, 2014—Elevated pressure in the eye is the most common risk factor for glaucoma, an optic neuropathy that can cause blindness and affects more than 67 million people worldwide. Elevated eye pressure in glaucoma develops due to abnormal functioning of the trabecular meshwork (TM) causing intraocular fluid to back up. Next-generation glaucoma drugs will target the finely tuned mechanisms of the TM that maintain normal intraocular pressure, as described in an article in Journal of Ocular Pharmacology and Therapeutics, a peer-reviewed journal from ...

Restaurant chefs and food purchasing managers who have bought local foods in the past are more likely to continue adding them to menus and store shelves, according to a team of researchers. "Past experiences will have an impact on buying local foods," said Amit Sharma, associate professor of hospitality management, Penn State. "Restaurant managers who buy local foods currently are significantly more likely to keep purchasing locally." In a study of the cost and benefits of purchasing local foods in restaurants, managers and chefs indicated that certain actions of local ...

Boston – April 7, 2014 - Whether at the office, dorm, PTA meeting, or any other social setting, we all know intuitively who the popular people are – who is most liked – even if we can't always put our finger on why. That information is often critical to professional or social success as you navigate your social networks. Yet until now, scientists have not understood how our brains recognize these popular people. In new work, researchers say that we track people's popularity largely through the brain region involved in anticipating rewards. "Being able to track other ...

The recent slowdown in the warming rate of the Northern Hemisphere may be a result of internal variability of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation -- a natural phenomenon related to sea surface temperatures, according to Penn State researchers. "Some researchers have in the past attributed a portion of Northern Hemispheric warming to a warm phase of the AMO," said Michael E. Mann, Distinguished Professor of Meteorology. "The true AMO signal, instead, appears likely to have been in a cooling phase in recent decades, offsetting some of the anthropogenic warming temporarily." ...

Researchers from the University of Toronto's Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology (LMP) have defined potential treatment targets for a previously incurable form of pediatric brain cancer called Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG). In groundbreaking research published in Nature Genetics, Dr. Cynthia Hawkins, a professor at LMP and Neuropathologist and Scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children, along with PhD candidates Pawel Buczkowicz and Patricia Rakopoulos, identified three subgroups of DIPG, each having distinct molecular features. "In the past, ...

GOVERNMENT plans to overhaul the centuries-old coroner system in England and Wales have been bolstered by the findings of a leading police officer who has become a PhD researcher at the University of Huddersfield. Detailed analysis by ex-Detective Chief Superintendent Max Mclean has shown that there are huge disparities between the decisions made by coroners in differing districts, with the troubling discovery that the deaths of women are considerably less likely to be investigated at an inquest. The result is a "postcode lottery", claims Mr Mclean, who calls for a fully-fledged ...

Researchers at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth have found that the body's immune system response was enhanced when they disrupted VISTA, a protein that prevents the immune system from overreacting. Understanding how checkpoint regulators like VISTA function is important to cancer researchers, who hope to use the immune system to attack tumors. The study, "VISTA deficiency synergizes with a nonredundant immune checkpoint pathway and leads to enhanced immune activation," will be presented on April 7, 2014 at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting ...

DETROIT – An innovative kidney transplant technique developed by Henry Ford Hospital is credited as the first in the world to use a new set of patient safety standards coordinated by the University of Oxford in England. The standards are being assembled and offered as a framework for developing, performing and reporting surgical innovations that, unlike new medical treatments, are not under strict regulations and control. One historic example cited by the Oxford group was the introduction of tracheostomy as a surgical method of treating an obstruction in the trachea. ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Unique laboratory testing during breast cancer lumpectomies to make sure surgeons remove all cancerous tissue spares patients the need for a repeat lumpectomy in roughly 96 percent of cases at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, a success rate much higher than the rate nationally, a Mayo study shows. During the years reviewed, 13.2 percent of breast cancer lumpectomy patients nationally had to return to the operating room within a month of their initial surgery, compared to 3.6 percent at Mayo in Rochester, which uses a technique called frozen section analysis ...

(MEMPHIS, TENN. - April 6, 2014) The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital-Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project has identified new mutations in pediatric brain tumors known as high-grade gliomas (HGGs), which most often occur in the youngest patients. The research appears today as an advance online publication in the scientific journal Nature Genetics. The discoveries stem from the most comprehensive effort yet to identify the genetic missteps driving these deadly tumors. The results provide desperately needed drug development leads, particularly for ...

Frankfurt / New York, 7 April 2014 – Renewable energy's share of world electricity generation continued its steady climb last year despite a 14 per cent drop in investments to US$214.4 billion, according to a new report released today. According to Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2014 – produced by the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Bloomberg New Energy Finance — the investment drop of $US35.1 billion was partly down to the falling cost of solar photovoltaic ...

NEW YORK (April 7, 2014)—A study by researchers at Columbia University reports that schoolchildren from three school districts in Maine exposed to arsenic in drinking water experienced declines in child intelligence. While earlier studies conducted by the researchers in South Asia, and Bangladesh in particular, showed that exposure to arsenic in drinking water is negatively associated with child intelligence, this is the first study to examine intelligence against individual water arsenic exposures in the U.S. Findings are reported online in the journal, Environmental ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Twitter and other social networking services have revolutionized the way people create and maintain relationships. However, new research shows that Twitter use could actually be damaging to users' romantic relationships. Russell Clayton, a doctoral student in the University of Missouri School of Journalism, found that active Twitter users are far more likely to experience Twitter–related conflict with their romantic partners. Clayton's results showed that Twitter-related conflict then leads to negative relationship outcomes, including emotional and physical ...

Amsterdam, NL, April 7, 2014 – Two studies published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease indicate that some of the pathologic changes associated with Alzheimer's disease in older individuals are not apparent in young people who carry the apolipoprotein (APOE) genetic risk factor for developing the disease. In the first study, no differences were found in hippocampal volume or asymmetry between cognitively normal adolescent carriers and non-carriers of the ApoE ɛ4 or ɛ2 allelles. The second study reports no differences in plasma concentrations of amyloid-β ...

Several studies have looked at possible links between maternal obesity during pregnancy and the risk of developmental disorders in the child. However, paternal obesity could be a greater risk factor than maternal obesity, according to a new study from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. As the first researcher to study the role of paternal obesity in autism, Dr. Pål Surén emphasises that this is still a theory and requires much more research before scientists can discuss possible causal relationships. "We have a long way to go. We must study genetic factors ...

Recently published research in the University of Eastern Finland found that fatty acid composition in blood is not only a biomarker for the quality of dietary fat but also reflects the quality of dietary carbohydrates. For example the proportion of oleic acid was higher among children who consumed a lot of candy and little high-fibre grain products. Earlier studies on the topic have mainly concentrated on the association of the quality of dietary fat with fatty acid composition in blood. In the present study, the association of the quality of dietary carbohydrates with ...

WASHINGTON, April 7, 2014 — Spring has sprung, and with it comes blooming flowers, shorts and t-shirts and, for the millions who suffer from allergies, a runny nose, puffy eyes and general misery. In the American Chemical Society's (ACS') latest Reactions video, we explain the science behind the allergies that spoil spring for so many people. The video is available at http://youtu.be/vFZlxQU0Pyk. INFORMATION: Subscribe to the series at Reactions YouTube, and follow us on Twitter @ACSreactions to be the first to see our latest videos. The American Chemical Society ...

Children who are exposed to scenes of nature while exercising are more likely to experience health-enhancing effects after activity, according to a Coventry University study published this week in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Sports science academics in the University's Department of Applied Sciences and Health asked kids aged 9-10 years to complete a series of 15 minute moderate intensity cycling activities – one whilst viewing a video of a forest track synced to the exercise bike and another with no visual stimulus. The researchers ...

Vitamins B have recently been turned out to be potent modifiers of energy metabolism, especially the function of mitochondria. Vitamin B3, (niacin) has been found to delay the signs of aging in animal models. An international collaboration between the University of Helsinki and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne reported today in the high-profile journal, Embo Molecular Medicine, that vitamin B3 form, nicotinamide riboside, can slow down the progression of mitochondrial disease, suggesting its potential as a novel therapy approach to adult-onset mitochondrial ...

New research from North Carolina State University and UNC-Chapel Hill reveals that energy is transferred more efficiently inside of complex, three-dimensional organic solar cells when the donor molecules align face-on, rather than edge-on, relative to the acceptor. This finding may aid in the design and manufacture of more efficient and economically viable organic solar cell technology. Organic solar cell efficiency depends upon the ease with which an exciton – the energy particle created when light is absorbed by the material – can find the interface between the donor ...

Receptors for the messenger molecule serotonin can be modified in such a way that they can be activated by light. Together with colleagues, neuroscientists from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) report on this finding in the journal "Neuron". An imbalance in serotonin levels seems to cause anxiety and depression. The researchers have provided a new model system for investigating the mechanism underlying these dysfunctions in cell cultures as well as living organisms. G protein coupled receptors play an important role in medicine and health One receptor, which is important ...

Climate feedbacks from decomposition by soil microbes are one of the biggest uncertainties facing climate modelers. A new study from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the University of Vienna shows that these feedbacks may be less dire than previously thought. The dynamics among soil microbes allow them to work more efficiently and flexibly as they break down organic matter – spewing less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than previously thought, according to a new study published in the journal Ecology Letters. "Previous climate ...

Procrastination and impulsivity are genetically linked, suggesting that the two traits stem from similar evolutionary origins, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research indicates that the traits are related to our ability to successfully pursue and juggle goals. "Everyone procrastinates at least sometimes, but we wanted to explore why some people procrastinate more than others and why procrastinators seem more likely to make rash actions and act without thinking," explains psychological ...

Green tea is said to have many putative positive effects on health. Now, researchers at the University of Basel are reporting first evidence that green tea extract enhances the cognitive functions, in particular the working memory. The Swiss findings suggest promising clinical implications for the treatment of cognitive impairments in psychiatric disorders such as dementia. The academic journal Psychopharmacology has published their results. In the past the main ingredients of green tea have been thoroughly studied in cancer research. Recently, scientists have also been ...

Each year prostate tissue samples are taken from over a million men around the world – in most cases using 12 large biopsy needles – to check whether they have prostate cancer. This medical procedure, which was recently described by an American urology professor as 'barbaric'**, shows that 70% of the subjects do not have cancer. The examination is unnecessarily painful and involves risk for these patients, and it is also costly to carry out. A patient-friendly examination, which drastically reduces the need for biopsies, and may even eliminate them altogether, has been ...