Researchers from the University of Oxford, the University of Limerick, and the Harvard School of Public Health have developed a mathematical model to examine online social networks, in particular the trade-off between copying our friends and relying on 'best-seller' lists. The researchers examined how users are influenced in the choice of apps that they install on their Facebook pages by creating a mathematical model to capture the dynamics at play. By incorporating data from the installation of Facebook apps into their mathematical model, they found that users selected ...

A new study published today in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), has found that time of day and sleep deprivation have a significant effect on our metabolism. The finding could be crucial when looking at the best time of day to test for diseases such as cancer and heart disease, and for administering medicines effectively. Researchers from the University of Surrey and The Institute of Cancer Research, London, investigated the links between sleep deprivation, body clock disruption and metabolism, and discovered a clear variation in metabolism ...

Perhaps not everyone knows that oxygen has – quite unusually for such a simple molecule – magnetic properties. The phase diagram of solid oxygen at low temperatures and high pressures shows, however, several irregularities (for example, proper "information gaps" with regard to these magnetic properties) that are still poorly understood. A team of researchers from the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) and International Centre for Theoretical Physics Abdus Salam (ICTP) of Trieste, while trying to understand the origin of these phenomena, have identified a ...

Scientists have long puzzled over the genetic differences between fruit flies that live hardly a puddle jump apart in a natural environment known as "Evolution Canyon" in Mount Carmel, Israel. Now, an international team of researchers led by scientists with the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech has peered into the DNA of these closely related flies to discover how these animals have been able to adapt and survive in such close, but extremely different, ecologies. One reason lies in a startling abundance of repetitive DNA elements that, until recently, ...

If you're so smart, why aren't you rich? It may be that, when it comes to stock market success, your brain is heeding the wrong neural signals. In a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week, scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and Caltech found that, when they simulated market conditions for groups of investors, economic bubbles — in which the price of something could differ greatly from its actual value — invariably formed. Even more remarkably, the researchers discovered a correlation between specific brain activity ...

VIDEO: The video shows how a printed label picks up the radio signal from a telephone making a call, and uses the energy to switch the integrated display. This is only... Click here for more information. With an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States of America (PNAS), a thirteen-year-long mystery that has involved a long series of researchers at both Linköping University and Acreo Swedish ICT has finally been solved. The ...

Investment magnate Warren Buffett has famously suggested that investors should try to "be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy only when others are fearful." That turns out to be excellent advice, according to the results of a new study by researchers at Caltech and Virginia Tech that looked at the brain activity and behavior of people trading in experimental markets where price bubbles formed. In such markets, where price far outpaces actual value, it appears that wise traders receive an early warning signal from their brains—a warning that makes them feel uncomfortable ...

Wanted: Highly skilled individual who is also a team player. In other words, someone who knows his or her stuff and also plays well with others. Two qualities are particularly essential for success in the workplace: book smarts and social adeptness. The folks who do well tend to demonstrate one or the other. However, according to research conducted by UC Santa Barbara economist Catherine Weinberger, the individuals who reach the highest rungs on the corporate ladder are smart and social. Her findings appear in a recent online issue of the Review of Economics and Statistics. Weinberger, ...

ALLENDALE, Mich. — Men are more likely than women to slow their pace in the marathon, according to a new study led by a Grand Valley State University researcher. The findings were published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. The study, led by Robert Deaner, associate professor of psychology at Grand Valley State, was based on 14 marathons that occurred in the U.S. in 2011, and it included almost 92,000 performances. On average, men ran the second half of the marathon 15.6 percent slower than the first half, whereas women slowed by an average of 11.7 percent. ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (July 7, 2014)—Now women have yet one more incentive to lose weight as a new study has shown evidence that behavioral weight loss can help manage menopausal hot flashes. The pilot study, which was published online last month in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS), consisted of 40 overweight or obese white and African-American women with hot flashes, which are the most prevalent symptom of menopause. In fact, more than 70% of women report hot flashes during the menopausal transition, with many of these women reporting frequent ...

ALLENDALE, Mich. — Compared to scientists working in other countries, U.S.-based scientists are underrepresented as authors of articles on the potential role of innate variation in athletic performance that are published in peer-reviewed science journals, according to Grand Valley State University researchers. The findings are published in the online journal SpringerPlus. The research, conducted by Michael P. Lombardo, professor of biology, and Shadie Emiah, a Grand Valley State graduate student, used information about the authors of 290 articles published in peer-reviewed ...

WASHINGTON —Of emergency patients who reported any drug other than marijuana as their primary drug of use, 90.7 percent met the criteria for problematic drug use. Among patients who reported cannabis (marijuana) as their primary drug, almost half (46.6 percent) met the criteria for having a drug problem, according to a study published online Thursday in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("Identifying Patients with Problematic Drug Use in the Emergency Department: Results of a Multi-Site Study.) "Of patients who reported any drug use in the previous 30 days, nearly two-thirds ...

Dallas – July 7, 2014 – Cardiologists at UT Southwestern Medical Center found that sedentary behaviors may lower cardiorespiratory fitness levels. New evidence suggests that two hours of sedentary behavior can be just as harmful as 20 minutes of exercise is beneficial. The study, published in today's online edition of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, examined the association between fitness levels, daily exercise, and sedentary behavior, based on data from 2,223 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Sedentary behavior involves low levels ...

VIDEO: This is an example of the use of the whiskers for collision avoidance. Unexpected whisker contact results in rapid deceleration of forward locomotion velocity and the animal orients to the... Click here for more information. The way rats use their whiskers is more similar to how humans use their hands and fingers than previously thought, new research from the University of Sheffield has found. Rats deliberately change how they sense their environment using their ...

Light from tiny galaxies over 13 billion years ago played a larger role than previously thought in creating the conditions in the universe as we know it today, a new study has found. Ultraviolet (UV) light from stars in these faint dwarf galaxies helped strip interstellar hydrogen of electrons in a process called reionization. The epoch of reionization began about 200 million years after the Big Bang and astrophysicists agree that it took about 800 million more for the entire universe to become reionized. It marked the last major phase transition of gas in the universe, ...

From July 4 to July 7 Tropical Cyclone Neoguri strengthened from a tropical storm into a supertyphoon. NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites passed over the rapidly intensifying storm and provided forecasters with visible, infrared and microwave data on the powerful supertyphoon. On July 4 at 0900 UTC (5 a.m. EDT) Neoguri had maximum sustained winds near 55 knots (63.2 mph/101.9 kph). It was located near 13.1 north and 141.4 east, about 207 nautical miles (238.2 miles/383.4 km) west of Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. It was moving to the northwest at 13 knots (14.9 mph/24.0 ...

(Edmonton) In the drive to get small, Robert Wolkow and his lab at the University of Alberta are taking giant steps forward. The digital age has resulted in a succession of smaller, cleaner and less power-hungry technologies since the days the personal computer fit atop a desk, replacing mainframe models that once filled entire rooms. Desktop PCs have since given way to smaller and smaller laptops, smartphones and devices that most of us carry around in our pockets. But as Wolkow points out, this technological shrinkage can only go so far when using traditional transistor-based ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Ripping a page from the Star Trek script, specialized cells of the barrier that lines the inside of the intestines and airways of humans have invoked a biological version of Captain Kirk's famous command "shields up" as a first defense against invading microbes. Research in the UCR School of Medicine laboratory of David Lo found that certain cells of the epithelium have a potentially important role in immune surveillance – creating an electrostatic repulsion field to microbial invasion. The study is featured on the cover of the July issue of Infection ...

Pregnant women are using the Internet to seek answers to their medical questions more often than they would like, say Penn State researchers. "We found that first-time moms were upset that their first prenatal visit did not occur until eight weeks into pregnancy," said Jennifer L. Kraschnewski, assistant professor of medicine and public health sciences, Penn State College of Medicine. "These women reported using Google and other search engines because they had a lot of questions at the beginning of pregnancy, before their first doctor's appointment." Following the women's ...

A new UBC Sauder School of Business study shows that teenagers who work at summer or evening jobs gain a competitive advantage later in life. Developing early knowledge of the working world and how to manage in it, they are more likely to find good employment and earn more money in the future. "With summer in full swing and kids sitting on the couch, parents are wondering whether to push them to find a job," says Sauder professor Marc-David L. Seidel, who co-authored the study. "Parents may think that their kids could do better than a job at the local fast food joint. ...

The full circumstances of U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl's captivity have yet to be revealed. During his tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2009, Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban and held in captivity for five years until a controversial prisoner exchange led to his release on May 31. Bergdahl has been accused of deserting his post and advocating the release of Afghani prisoners. "We do know that he suffered horrific conditions, tortured and kept in a metal cage in darkness for weeks on end," said Prof. Zahava Solomon, an Israel Prize laureate, Professor of Social Work and ...

Allowing patients to choose which hospital they attend when suffering illness during a pandemic rather than assigning them to a specific healthcare facility is appealing to patients during such a crisis. However, such a patient-centric hospital capacity management is conventionally viewed as inefficient system-wide. According to research published in the International Journal of Mathematics in Operational Research, an incentive-based approach for hospital capacity management can not only accomplish a high efficiency for a concerned hospital system but satisfy patients' ...

WASHINGTON, July 7, 2014 — The World Cup final is almost here, and no matter which two teams meet for the title match, there's one thing they'll both need to win: the ball. This week, Reactions examines the chemistry that goes into making the "brazuca," and what makes it different from most other soccer balls out there. The video is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XNTfslUzt8. 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 is a nonprofit ...

Infant toenails are a reliable way to estimate arsenic exposure before birth, a Dartmouth College study shows. The findings appear in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology. A PDF of the study is available on request. A growing body of evidence suggests that in utero and early-life exposure to arsenic may have detrimental effects on children, even at the low to moderate levels common in the United States and elsewhere. The fetus starts to develop toenails during the first trimester, making them an accurate measure of exposure to arsenic during ...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A survey of first-year Grand Valley State University students showed the biggest barrier to receiving a Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine was moral or religious beliefs, or a perceived promotion of sexual behavior, according to graduate physician assistant researchers. Physician Assistant Studies majors Jamie Phillipich and Margie Webb surveyed 1,000 incoming students last fall as part of their master's research project. They assessed the influence media has on the perception of HPV and vaccine compliance, and presented their findings at the Annual ...