New research from Northeastern University has mapped the intellectual migration network in North America and Europe over a 2,000-year span. The team of network scientists used the birth and death locations of more than 150,000 intellectuals to map their mobility patterns in order to identify the major cultural centers on the two continents over two millennia. In the new paper, to be published Friday in the journal Science, the researchers found how locations such as Rome, London, and Paris have emerged as cultural hubs as more intellectuals died in these cities than ...

A hidden hazard lurks beneath many of the roughly 156,000 gas stations across the United States. The hazard is corrosion in parts of underground gas storage tanks—corrosion that could result in failures, leaks and contamination of groundwater, a source of drinking water. In recent years, field inspectors in nine states have reported many rapidly corroding gas storage tank components such as sump pumps. These incidents are generally associated with use of gasoline-ethanol blends and the presence of bacteria, Acetobacter aceti, which convert ethanol to acetic acid, a component ...

ANN ARBOR—A new bill introduced in Congress with bipartisan support would allow Medicare to test a concept born from University of Michigan research, which could improve the health of patients with chronic illness while reducing what they spend on the medicines and tests they need most. The bill, introduced last week by U.S. Reps. Diane Black and Earl Blumenauer, grew out of a decade of work by health policy researchers affiliated with the U-M's Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. It would allow Medicare Advantage plans to use innovative "value-based" insurance ...

Parenting skills of adults with ADHD improve when their ADHD is treated with medication, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. At least 25 percent of clinic-referred children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder have a parent with ADHD. "Parents with ADHD are at increased risk to engage in problematic parenting techniques, including inconsistent disciplinary practices, making ineffectual commands and diminished use of praise," said James Waxmonsky, associate professor of psychiatry. "Having a parent with ADHD also decreases the chances that ...

During the winter of 1944, the Nazis blocked food supplies to the western Netherlands, creating a period of widespread famine and devastation. The impact of starvation on expectant mothers produced one of the first known epigenetic "experiments" — changes resulting from external rather than genetic influences — which suggested that the body's physiological responses to hardship could be inherited. The underlying mechanism, however, remained a mystery. In a paper published recently in the journal Cell, Dr. Oded Rechavi, Dr. Leah Houri-Ze'ev and Dr. Sarit Anava of Tel ...

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM Satellite passed over Guam as heavy rain fell over the island while Tropical Storm Halong's center passed just to the north of the island. The TRMM satellite flew above tropical storm Halong on July 31, 2014 at 0904 UTC (August 1, 2014 at 7:04 p.m. local time, Guam). At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland TRMM data was used to create a rainfall analysis. The analysis derived TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) data was overlaid on a visible/infrared image from Japan's MTSAT-2 ...

TEMPE, Ariz. – New research shows that more than four billion years ago, the surface of Earth was heavily reprocessed – or mixed, buried and melted – as a result of giant asteroid impacts. A new terrestrial bombardment model based on existing lunar and terrestrial data sheds light on the role asteroid bombardments played in the geological evolution of the uppermost layers of the Hadean Earth (approximately 4 to 4.5 billion years ago). An international team of researchers published their findings in the July 31, 2014 issue of Nature. "When we look at the present day, ...

HOUSTON – (July 31, 2014) – Scientists have long speculated that mosaicism – a biological phenomenon, in which cells within the same person have a different genetic makeup – plays a bigger role in the transmission of rare disease mutations than is currently known. A study conducted by an international team of scientists led by Baylor College of Medicine sheds new light on the frequency of mosaicism in genomic disorders and its influence on recurrence risk. The study, which was published today in the American Journal of Human Genetics, also included scientists from the ...

When goalkeepers are pitted against multiple kickers in tense penalty shootouts, their attempts to dive for the ball show a predictable pattern that kickers would do well to exploit. After kickers repeatedly kick in one direction, goalkeepers become increasingly likely to dive in the opposite direction, according to an analysis of all 361 kicks from the 37 penalty shootouts that occurred in World Cup and UEFA Euro Cup matches over a 36-year period. The findings reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on July 31 highlight the importance of monitoring and predicting ...

The selective logging of trees in otherwise intact tropical forests can take a serious toll on the number of animal species living there. Mammals and amphibians are particularly sensitive to the effects of high-intensity logging, according to researchers in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on July 31 who conducted a meta-analysis of almost 50 previously published studies from around the world. "Selective logging in the tropics is not a new phenomenon, and it will continue to be a common use of the forest," says Zuzana Burivalova of ETH Zurich, Switzerland. "We hope ...

The ability to see through organs and even the entire body to visualize long-range connections between cells as well as fine-grained cellular structures has been a long-time dream of biologists. A study published by Cell Press July 31st in the journal Cell has now made that dream a reality, revealing simple methods for making opaque organs, bodies, and human tissue biopsies transparent, while keeping the cellular structures and connections intact. The protocols could pave the way for a better understanding of brain-body interactions, more accurate clinical diagnoses and ...

After a string of penalties aimed in the same direction, goalkeepers are more likely to dive in the opposite direction on the next penalty but kickers fail to exploit this pattern, finds new UCL research. The study, published in Current Biology, shows that penalty shoot-outs in international tournaments resemble a psychological game. The researchers studied penalty shoot-out videos from all World Cup and Euro finals tournaments between 1976 and 2012. They found that each team of kickers produced more or less random sequences of kicks to the left or the right of the ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have evidence suggesting that neurons in the developing brains of mice are guided by a simple but elegant birth order rule that allows them to find and form their proper connections. The study is published online July 31 in Cell Reports. "Nothing about brain wiring is haphazard," said senior author Andrew Huberman, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Neurosciences, Division of Biological Sciences and Department of Ophthalmology, UC San Diego. A mature, healthy brain has billions ...

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have mapped the sound-processing part of the mouse brain in a way that keeps both the proverbial forest and the trees in view. Their imaging technique allows zooming in and out on views of brain activity within mice, and it enabled the team to watch brain cells light up as mice "called" to each other. The results, which represent a step toward better understanding how our own brains process language, appear online July 31 the journal Neuron. In the past, researchers often studied sound processing in various animal brains by poking tiny electrodes ...

VIDEO: TRAP-1 is a protein vital for the production of chemical energy in the mitochondria of cells, but it is over-produced in tumor cells. The laboratory of Dr. Dario Altieri at... Click here for more information. While developing a new cancer drug, researchers at The Wistar Institute discovered that mice lacking a specific protein live longer lives with fewer age-related illnesses. The mice, which lack the TRAP-1 protein, demonstrated less age related tissue degeneration, ...

In what is believed to be the largest genetic analysis of what triggers and propels progression of tumor growth in a common childhood blood cancer, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center report that they have identified a possible new drug target for treating the disease. T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia is one of the most common and aggressive childhood blood cancers. An estimated quarter of the 500 adolescents and young adults diagnosed with the cancer each year in the U.S. fail to achieve remission with standard chemotherapy drugs. In a cover-story report ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Harnessing a natural process in the body that pumps lethal doses of copper to fungi and bacteria shows promise as a new way to kill infectious microbes, a team of scientists at Duke University report. Publishing in the July 31, 2014, issue of the journal Chemistry & Biology, the researchers describe a way of exploiting the unique chemical response from the body's immune system to attack pathogens using copper, long known for its antimicrobial properties, in a way that minimizes harm to the rest of the body. The findings in cell and animal models represent ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (July 31, 2014) – Long associated with enabling the proliferation of cancer cells, the ancient cellular survival response regulated by Heat-Shock Factor 1 (HSF1) can also turn neighboring cells in their environment into co-conspirators that support malignant progression and metastasis. The finding, reported by Whitehead Institute scientists this week in the journal Cell, lends new insights into tumor biology with significant implications for the diagnosis, prognosis, and management of cancer patients. Over the past several years, researchers in the ...

This news release is available in German. The insular cortex is an integral "hub", combining sensory, emotional and cognitive content. Not surprisingly, alterations in insular structure and function have been reported in many psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety disorders, depression, addiction and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Scientists from Harvard University and the Max-Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried now describe consistent alterations in integrative processing of the insular cortex across autism mouse models of diverse etiologies. In particular, ...

An experimental vaccine protected 100 percent of animal models against the highly infectious and virulent bacterium, Clostridium difficile, which causes an intestinal disease that kills approximately 30,000 Americans annually. The research is published ahead of print in Infection and Immunity. In the study, the vaccine protected the mice and non-human primates against the purified toxins produced by C. difficile, as well as from an orogastric spore infection, a laboratory model that mimics the human disease, after only two immunizations. "Animals that received two ...

Lincoln, Neb., July 31, 2014 -- Do people make a rational choice to be liberal or conservative? Do their mothers raise them that way? Is it a matter of genetics? Two political scientists from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a colleague from Rice University say that neither conscious decision-making nor parental upbringing fully explain why some people lean left while others lean right. A growing body of evidence shows that physiological responses and deep-seated psychology are at the core of political differences, the researchers say in the latest issue of the ...

Irvine, Calif., July 31, 2014 — Much of the liver's metabolic function is governed by circadian rhythms – our own body clock – and UC Irvine researchers have now found two independent mechanisms by which this occurs. The study, published online today in Cell, reveals new information about the body clock's sway over metabolism and points the way to more focused drug treatments for liver disease and such metabolic disorders as obesity and diabetes. Paolo Sassone-Corsi, UCI's Donald Bren Professor of Biological Chemistry, and postdoctoral scholar Selma Masri report that ...

There's sad news in the study of happiness. Rest assured, there is a happy ending, though. University of Cincinnati research on perceived happiness shows that many college students are stressed out and aren't coping. This is despite the fact that there are simple ways for students to relieve stress and feel happier, says Keith King, professor and coordinator of UC's Health Promotion and Education Program. The trouble is, they don't use them enough. "We have a whole array of different stress-management techniques college students can use and that we teach, but they're ...

WASHINGTON -- Everyone involved in the academic chemical research enterprise -- from researchers and principal investigators to university leadership -- has an important role to play in establishing and promoting a strong, positive safety culture, says a new report from the National Research Council. This requires a constant commitment to safety organization-wide and emphasis on identifying and solving problems, rather than merely adhering to a set of rules and assigning blame when those rules are not followed. Chemical hazards can be found in many academic fields ...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which is the medical application of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, is a powerful diagnostic tool. MRI works by resonantly exciting hydrogen atoms and measuring the relaxation time -- different materials return to equilibrium at different rates; this is how contrast develops (i.e. between soft and hard tissue). By comparing the measurements to a known spectrum of relaxation times, medical professionals can determine whether the imaged tissue is muscle, bone, or even a cancerous growth. At its heart, MRI operates by quantum principles, ...