Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have tested a new approach to fabricating spin valves. Using ion beams, the researchers have succeeded in structuring an iron aluminium alloy in such a way as to subdivide the material into individually magnetizable regions at the nanometer scale. The prepared alloy is thus able to function as a spin valve, which is of great interest as a candidate component for use in spintronics. Not only does this technology use electron charge for purposes of information storage and processing, it also draws on its inherent ...

BLOOMINGTON -- A new Indiana University study that examines the brain activity of alcohol-dependent women compared to women who were not addicted found stark and surprising differences, leading to intriguing questions about brain network functions of addicted women as they make risky decisions about when and what to drink. The study used functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to study differences between patterns of brain network activation in the two groups of women. The findings indicate that the anterior insular region of the brain may be implicated in the ...

Without administering a simple blood test in the first few days after surgery, 85 percent of the heart attacks or injuries patients suffer could be missed, according to a study in the March issue of Anesthesiology. Globally, more than 8 million adults have heart attacks or injuries after surgery every year, and 10 percent of those patients die within 30 days. The study suggests a new diagnosis, Myocardial Injury after Noncardiac Surgery (MINS), would be useful to physicians because of its broader definition from what is traditionally used to diagnose heart attacks now. ...

Two types of regional anesthesia do not make patients more prone to falls in the first days after having knee replacement surgery as some have previously suggested, according to a study based on nearly 200,000 patient records in the March issue of Anesthesiology. Regional forms of anesthesia – spinal or epidural (neuraxial) anesthesia and peripheral nerve blocks (PNB) – which only numb the area of the body that requires surgery, provide better pain control and faster rehabilitation and fewer complications than general anesthesia, research shows. But some surgeons avoid ...

Overweight and obese people who feel their physicians are judgmental of their size are more likely to try to shed pounds but are less likely to succeed, according to results of a study by Johns Hopkins researchers. The findings, reported online last week in the journal Preventive Medicine, suggest that primary care doctors should lose the negative attitudes their patients can sense if the goal is to get patients with obesity to lose 10 percent or more of their body weight — an amount typically large enough to reduce blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes risk. "Negative ...

PRINCETON, N.J.—Tubal ligation – commonly referred to as having one's "tubes tied" – is widely used to prevent unintended pregnancies. However, current Medicaid policies create roadblocks for low-income women trying to obtain the procedure, according to a review written by researchers at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School and other U.S. institutions. Under a Medicaid rule enacted in 1978, women must currently wait 30 days after signing a written consent form to obtain a tubal ligation. This requirement is prohibitive for many women who want to receive the ...

New Rochelle, NY, February 18, 2014—New evidence that chronic intake of THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, can protect critical immune tissue in the gut from the damaging effects of HIV infection is reported in AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses website at http://www.liebertpub.com/aid. Patricia Molina and coauthors from Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, report that chronic THC administration ...

Although low temperature fuel cells powered by methanol or hydrogen have been well studied, existing low temperature fuel cell technologies cannot directly use biomass as a fuel because of the lack of an effective catalyst system for polymeric materials. Now, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new type of low-temperature fuel cell that directly converts biomass to electricity with assistance from a catalyst activated by solar or thermal energy. The hybrid fuel cell can use a wide variety of biomass sources, including starch, cellulose, ...

WOODS HOLE, Mass. —A Navy-sponsored project to design a biologically inspired, swimming jellyfish robot has led scientists to the surprising discovery of common bending rules for the tips of wings, fins, flukes, mollusk feet, and other propulsors across a broad range of animal species. The study, led by John H. Costello of Providence College and the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, where he is a visiting scientist, is published this week in Nature Communications. By studying videos of 59 different animals—from fruit flies to humpback whales—propelling ...

Researchers have developed the technology for a catheter-based device that would provide forward-looking, real-time, three-dimensional imaging from inside the heart, coronary arteries and peripheral blood vessels. With its volumetric imaging, the new device could better guide surgeons working in the heart, and potentially allow more of patients' clogged arteries to be cleared without major surgery. The device integrates ultrasound transducers with processing electronics on a single 1.4 millimeter silicon chip. On-chip processing of signals allows data from more than a ...

Recent deaths in both Canada and the UK linked to PMA/PMMA in ecstasy pills has brought public scrutiny to this little known drug. With Canadian producing most of the ecstasy in the North American market, this timely paper (Ecstasy, legal highs and designer drug use: A Canadian perspective) published this week in Drug Science Policy and Law looks at trends in ecstasy adulteration, the facts around PMA/PMMA-linked deaths and explores alternatives to the endless banning of new drugs. It finds: In 2007, according to the Health Canada Drug Analysis Service, only 3% of seized ...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18, 2014—For futuristic applications like wearable body sensors and robotic skin, researchers need to ferry information along flexible routes. Electronics that bend and stretch have become possible in recent years, but similar work in the field of optics – communicating with light instead of electrons – has lagged behind. Particularly difficult to engineer have been optics that stretch, lengthening when someone wearing body sensors bends to tie their shoe, or when a robotic arm twists through a full range of motion. Now a team of Belgian researchers reports ...

In the age of mashups, fan fiction and content sharing, online media creation has spurred new complexities in copyright, effectively turning the legal concept of "fair use" on its ear, according to a new study from Georgia Tech. Research into fan fiction and other types of remix communities reveals many legal misconceptions persistent among different groups when applying copyrighted work to their own creations. The research also highlights online social norms – independent of actual law – that guide the use of copyrighted works in fan communities. For the study, Georgia ...

CLEMSON, S.C. — Clemson University researchers have developed nanoparticles that can deliver drugs targeting damaged arteries, a non-invasive method to fight heart disease. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One of the standard ways to treat clogged and damaged arteries currently is to implant vascular stents, which hold the vessels open and release such drugs as paclitaxel. The researchers, led by Clemson bioengineering professor Naren Vyavahare, hope their advanced nanoparticles could ...

VIDEO: Discrimination against transgender people -- as many as one million Americans identify themselves as transgender -- should immediately be addressed by the medical establishment, backed by policy change at the... Click here for more information. DETROIT – Discrimination against transgender people –as many as one million Americans identify themselves as transgender – should immediately be addressed by the medical establishment, backed by policy change at the national ...

Researchers at Warwick Medical School have shown that frequently moving schools during childhood can increase the risk of psychotic symptoms in later years. The study, published in the Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, found that school mobility during childhood heightens the risk of developing psychotic-like symptoms in early adolescence by up to 60%. Suffering from psychotic-like symptoms at young age is strongly associated with mental health problems in adulthood, including psychotic disorders and suicide. Professor Swaran Singh, ...

"How do I know that the new installed app behaves as described?" asks Andreas Zeller, professor of software engineering at Saarland University. So far experts have identified so-called malicious apps by checking their behavior against patterns of known attacks. "But what if the attack is brand-new?" asks Zeller. His group seems to have found a new method to answer all these questions. Zeller summarizes the basic idea as follows: "Apps whose functionality is described in the app store should behave accordingly. If that is not the case, they are suspect." His research ...

Several of Hartup's paddler and free diving friends told her about seeing mantas congregating purposefully in an area where surgeonfish were spawning. Since they were able to give her an exact date, Julie was able to calculate the moon phase, which is important as many fish synchronize their spawning with the moon. Using this information she predicted when the spawning event would occur that upcoming year and was there to witness a shoal of spawning surgeonfish accompanied by a fever of mantas. Hartup's research findings not only highlight important information about ...

CHICAGO – Solving crucial environmental issues such as global warming and water supply involves managing competing interests, uncertainty and risk, and this is best done through meaningful collaboration in a neutral environment. Arizona State University Barrett Honors College Lecturer John N. Parker discussed the ways in which scientists, stakeholders and policy makers can communicate effectively by coming together through boundary organizations at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. Boundary organizations are ...

Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC) is an aggressive type of cancer with a poor prognosis for which there is currently no effective treatment. Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have discovered for the first time that an epithelial basement membrane protein, called laminin-5 gamma-2 (LAMC2), has the potential to be an ideal target for the treatment of ATC. Led by Professor H. Phillip Koeffler, Senior Principal Investigator, and Dr Manoj Garg, Research Fellow, at the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at NUS, the team is also ...

Daejeon, Republic of Korea, February 17, 2014 – Walking around the streets searching for a place to eat will be no hassle when a head-mounted display (HMD) becomes affordable and ubiquitous. Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) developed K-Glass, a wearable, hands-free HMD that enables users to find restaurants while checking out their menus. If the user of K-Glass walks up to a restaurant and looks at the name of the restaurant, today's menu and a 3D image of food pop up. The Glass can even show the number of tables available inside ...

Boys are at greater risk for delayed language development than girls, according to a new study using data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study. The researchers also found that reading and writing difficulties in the family gave an increased risk. "We show for the first time that reading and writing difficulties in the family can be the main reason why a child has a speech delay that first begins between three to five years of age," says Eivind Ystrøm, senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Ystrøm was supervisor of Imac Maria Zambrana, ...

Researchers at the University of Kent and East Malling Research have identified a new way of controlling a fungal disease that can have a devastating impact on the UK's valuable cherry and plum crops. Brown rot disease – caused by the agent Monilinia laxa – attacks stone fruit as well as causing blossom wilt and twig canker. Traditionally, this has been controlled through the use of fungicide treatments, but in some cases these are now becoming ineffective. Now researchers from the two organisations have identified a new strategy for controlling the disease, using biological ...

How do new genes arise? Current research shows that so-called "orphan genes" may appear as if by magic as a result of mutations in segments of DNA that previously had no function. Orphan genes were first discovered in the fruit fly but are found in all organisms, including man. Strikingly, up to 30 per cent of the total number of genes in an organism may be orphans and these genes may rapidly acquire functions. Scientists from the Institute of Population Genetics of the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna (Vetmeduni) have now investigated the fate of orphan genes. ...

A commonly-used HIV drug has been shown to kill-off the human papilloma virus (HPV) that leads to cervical cancer in a world-first clinical trial led by The University of Manchester with Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) in Nairobi. Drs Ian and Lynne Hampson, from the University's Institute of Cancer Sciences and Dr Innocent Orora Maranga, Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at KNH in Nairobi examined Kenyan women diagnosed with HPV positive early stage cervical cancer who were treated with the antiviral HIV drug lopinavir in Kenya. The study looked at 40 women ...