Alzheimer's disease is the most widespread degenerative neurological disorder in the world. Over five million Americans live with it, and one in three senior citizens will die with the disease or a similar form of dementia. While memory loss is a common symptom of Alzheimer's, other behavioral manifestations — depression, loss of inhibition, delusions, agitation, anxiety, and aggression — can be even more challenging for victims and their families to live with. Now Prof. Daniel Offen and Dr. Adi Shruster of Tel Aviv University's Sackler School of Medicine have discovered ...

From a product's price to its convenience, ease of use, and number of overall features, many factors play into getting the most "bang for your buck." According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, when it comes to weighing tradeoffs, selecting something more expensive based on perceived value might lead to buyer's remorse in the long run. "We propose that when making an immediate decision between complexity and convenience, consumers believe that products with more features and functions represent higher value, even if the complex product might lead to ...

As consumers, we form favorite brands and select services providers from a plethora of choices. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, how powerful we feel in our daily lives may impact our likelihood of switching favorites, trying something new, or both. "Our research examines the impact of a person's perceived sense of power on their likelihood to switch products or brands," write authors Yuwei Jiang, Lingjing Zhan (both Hong Kong Polytechnic University), and Derek D. Rucker (Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University). Over six ...

New Rochelle, NY, March 11, 2014—Several young children suffering from a severe degenerative genetic disease received injections of therapeutic genes packaged within a noninfectious viral delivery vector. Safety, tolerability, and efficacy results from this early stage clinical trial are reported in Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available on the Human Gene Therapy website. Marc Tardieu, Université Paris-Sud and INSERM, and a team of international researchers administered the adeno-associated viral (AAV) ...

Because of results seen in flat lab dishes, biologists have believed that cancers cells move through the body in a slow, aimless fashion, resembling an intoxicated person who cannot walk three steps in a straight line. This pattern, called a random walk, may hold true for cells traveling across two-dimensional lab containers, but Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered that for cells moving through three-dimensional spaces within the body, the "drunken" model doesn't hold true. This finding, reported in the March 4 online Early Edition of Proceedings of the American ...

Tuesday, March 11, 2014 Cleveland: Researchers have found that a patient's age and the type of tissue graft have a direct impact on ACL reconstructive surgery (ACLR) outcomes, according to an exhibit presented March 11 at the 2014 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) annual meeting in New Orleans. Researchers from Cleveland Clinic and six other member institutions will present findings on surgical reconstruction of anterior cruciate ligaments from the Multicenter Orthopaedics Outcomes Network (MOON), led by Cleveland Clinic's Kurt Spindler, M.D., principal ...

TORONTO, March 11, 2014 – Anesthesiologists using a technique similar to a dental freeze can improve the quality of recovery and decrease recovery time for breast cancer surgery patients, according to a new study. The study, from researchers at St. Michael's Hospital and Women's College Hospital, was published in the March edition of Anesthesiology. It is the world's first randomized control trial for breast cancer surgery that compares the use of ultrasound-guided paravertebral blocks – a local anesthetic freezing that blocks breast nerves – to general anesthetic. The ...

Incandescent light bulbs are now banned in the EU, while energy-saving lamps remain a bone of contention. In 2016, it will be lights out for halogen bulbs over 10 watts as well. LEDs (light-emitting diodes) therefore have the best chance of becoming the light source of the future. Experts reckon that LED retrofit lamps for use in standard bulb fittings will overtake traditional energy-saving bulbs for the first time from 2015. By 2020 it is predicted that LEDs will have captured between 88 and 90 percent of the lighting market. The tiny diodes offer a whole host of advantages ...

This news release is available in German. The atmosphere of gas giants consists mainly of hydrogen, which is the most abundant chemical element in the universe. "We have very little experimental knowledge about the hydrogen in the interior of such planets," says Zastrau. "This is despite our very good theoretical models." The researchers therefore decided to use cold liquid hydrogen as a sample of the planetary atmosphere. "Liquid hydrogen has a density that corresponds to that of the lower atmosphere of such giant gas planets," explains Zastrau. The scientists ...

Many people have 'fillers' injected into their facial tissue to give them 'bee-stung lips' or to smooth out their wrinkles. Unfortunately, a lot of cosmetic treatment customers experience unpleasant side effects in the form of tender subcutaneous lumps that are difficult to treat and which - in isolated cases - have led to lesions that simply will not heal. Research recently published by the University of Copenhagen now supports that, despite the highest levels of hygiene, this unwanted side effect is caused by bacterial infection. Injections of fillers were previously ...

Mobile hand-held consumer electronic products have a rapid growing market today, witnessed by the popularity of Apple products. Most people make their first contact to internet, not by a PC, rather by a smart phone. The phone is no longer a phone, but it provides various functions for communication and for entertainment. Not only we can have recorded information such as books, images, songs, and movies from the phone or i-pad, but also we can have instant information such as traffic jam when we drive home, as well as breaking news at the last moment. It is expected that ...

LADA (latent autoimmune diabetes in adults) is a form of type 1 diabetes in adulthood. Like the childhood form, the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas are destroyed by the body's own immune system. The progression of the illness is relatively slowly, however, with clinical manifestations not appearing until after the age of 30 and the patients not yet requiring insulin therapy to control blood sugar levels at the beginning of the disease. It is therefore often difficult to differentiate between LADA and type 2 diabetes. Scientists from the Institute of Diabetes ...

Who said that there is only sand in the deserts? Not quite desert roses, two new species of desert poppies from North America prove such statements wrong with their simple beauty. The newly described plants are found in the deserts of California and Arizona and have a vibrant yellow colored inflorescences, typical for all the desert dwellers from the Eschscholzia genus of the poppy family. The study was published in the open access journal PhytoKeys. Most commonly known for the iconic California Poppy, the state flower of California, Eschscholzia is a genus in the poppy ...

This news release is available in German. Halle, Germany/ Missoula, USA/ Berkeley, USA. In their joint publication in the journal „Ecology Letters" German and American biologists have reported an increase in biomass production in ecosystems colonised by non-native plant species. In the face of climate change, these and other changes to ecosystems are predicted to become more frequent, according to the researchers. All over the world, plant and animal species are increasingly encroaching upon ecosystems where they don't belong as a result of human influence. This ...

Cameras with hyperspectral sensors can observe far more than the human eye. Unlike the retina, which has only three color receptors (red, green and blue), these sensors can generate 130 different color values per pixel. Using this high-grade color resolution, an entire range of different materials can be differentiated impeccably – even if, at first glance, they appear the same to the human eye. This is because every substance has its own individual color spectrum, irrespective of how its surface reflects the light hitting it. This hyperspectral technology can be used anyplace ...

Computed tomography (CT) scans routinely taken to guide the treatment of pancreatic cancer may provide an important secondary benefit. According to new research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the scans also reflect how well chemotherapy will penetrate the tumor, predicting the effectiveness of treatment. The research, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, is the first human study to address the issue of chemotherapy delivery to pancreatic tumors, a problem previously shown in animal studies. "We found that the distribution of intravenous ...

Your answers on psychological questionnaires, including some of the ones that some employers give their employees, might have a distinct biological signature. New research indeed demonstrates overlap between what workers feel and what their bodies actually manifest. This is an important occupational health issue when we consider that workplace stress is the leading cause of sick leave related to depression and burnout. Involving over 400 workers from 35 businesses, the research was conducted by the researchers at the University of Montreal, its affiliated Institut universitaire ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new technique to fight crop insect pests may affect different insect populations differently, researchers report. They analyzed RNA interference (RNAi), a method that uses genetic material to "silence" specific genes – in this case genes known to give insect pests an advantage. The researchers found that western corn rootworm beetles that are already resistant to crop rotation are in some cases also less vulnerable to RNAi. The study is reported in the journal Pesticide Biochemistry and Physiology. "Our results indicate that the effectiveness of ...

PITTSBURGH—Too much garlic mustard in your neighborhood forest? Actually, the problem may be too many deer. A research team led by Susan Kalisz, professor of evolutionary ecology in the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Biological Sciences, published a paper online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that takes a long view on why invasive garlic mustard plants thrive to the detriment of native species. The study, initiated in 2003 at the Trillium Trail Nature Reserve in Fox Chapel, Pa., concludes that an overpopulation of deer (density ...

Worried that you could be in a car accident? Insurance company X can protect you and your family. Afraid you will lose your children to drunk driving? MADD can help you educate them to avoid drinking and driving. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, when a person-to-person support system is not available in a fearful situation, brands can act as a replacement source of emotional attachment. "We look at how fear can impact evaluations of a new brand," write authors Lea Dunn and JoAndrea Hoegg (both University of British Columbia). "Our research ...

From a very young age, children are targeted with advertising messages that emphasize fun and happiness, especially for food products and toys. But what happens to these beliefs once the child is grown? According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, children develop brand loyalty and biases that carry over into their adult lives and are often difficult to change. "Our research provides an initial investigation into how exposure to ads in childhood can lead to enduring biases that favor products associated with the ads once the kids grow up," write authors ...

When it comes to shopping for gifts, we try to select things we think people both want and need. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, focusing too much on the gift recipient can lead to giving the gift we were trying to avoid in the first place. "We predict that in a gift-giving situation, both the gift givers and gift receivers will focus on the gift receivers when thinking about the gift. Givers will choose gifts that are more desirable over gifts that are more practical, whereas receivers will give greater weight to the gift's practicality," ...

BATON ROUGE – New research finds face matching, as when customs agents check passports, to be incredibly fallible, with error rates between 10 and 20 percent under ideal, laboratory-induced conditions, and much worse in more realistic settings. "Because society relies on face perception and ID verification for many tasks, people are often under the impression that we are experts in this domain," said LSU Assistant Professor of Psychology Megan Papesh. "Our research shows the precise opposite." In a recent article published in Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, ...

Patients who received help from a poison center had shorter hospital stays and lower hospital charges among those who are the most expensive to treat, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. Poison centers provide 24-hour assistance year round to the public and to medical professionals. While studies show that poison centers reduce system-wide costs, their impact on patient outcomes at the hospital level has not been clear, the study's authors report. The researchers conducted a retrospective analysis ...

Organ-transplant recipients often reject donated organs, but a new, two-pronged strategy developed by UC San Francisco researchers to specifically weaken immune responses that target transplanted tissue has shown promise in controlled experiments on mice. The hope is that using this novel treatment strategy at the time of transplantation surgery could spare patients from lifelong immunosuppressive treatments and their side effects. The approach might also be used to treat autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes, the researchers said. The study is published and commented ...