The press release
archive.

Space6 Jun 2014

NASA and NOAA satellites eyeing Mexico's tropical soaker for development

NASA and NOAA satellites are gathering visible, infrared, microwave and radar data on a persistent tropical low pressure area in the southwestern Bay of Campeche. System 90L now has a 50 percent chance for development, according to the National Hurricane Center and continues to drop large amounts of rainfall over southeastern Mexico. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite gathered infrared data on the developing low on June 5 at 18:59 UTC (2:59 p.m. EDT). Basically, AIRS looks at the infrared region of the spectrum. In a spectrum, ...

Read the release

Medicine6 Jun 2014

Study shows health policy researchers lack confidence in social media for communication

Philadelphia – Though Twitter boats 645 million users across the world, only 14 percent of health policy researchers reported using Twitter – and approximately 20 percent used blogs and Facebook – to communicate their research findings over the past year, according to a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. In contrast, sixty-five percent used traditional media channels, such as press releases or media interviews. While participants believed that social media can be an effective way to communicate research findings, many lacked ...

Read the release

Science6 Jun 2014

Evolution of a bimetallic nanocatalyst

Atomic-scale snapshots of a bimetallic nanoparticle catalyst in action have provided insights that could help improve the industrial process by which fuels and chemicals are synthesized from natural gas, coal or plant biomass. A multi-national lab collaboration led by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has taken the most detailed look ever at the evolution of platinum/cobalt bimetallic nanoparticles during reactions in oxygen and hydrogen gases. "Using in situ aberration-corrected transmission electron ...

Read the release

Science6 Jun 2014

Tougher penalties credited for fewer casualties among young male drivers

VIDEO: A new Western University study led by Dr. Evelyn Vingilis has found a significant decline in speeding-related fatalities and injuries among young men in Ontario since the province's tough extreme... Click here for more information. A new study out of Western University (London, Canada) has found a significant decline in speeding-related fatalities and injuries among young men in Ontario since the province's tough extreme speeding and aggressive driving laws were introduced ...

Read the release

Medicine6 Jun 2014

Endoscope with an oxygen sensor detects pancreatic cancer

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — June 6, 3014 — An optical blood oxygen sensor attached to an endoscope is able to identify pancreatic cancer in patients via a simple lendoscopic procedure, according to researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida. The study, published in GIE: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, shows that the device, which acts like the well-known clothespin-type finger clip used to measure blood oxygen in patients, has a sensitivity of 92 percent and a specificity of 86 percent. MULTIMEDIA ALERT: Video and audio are available for download on the Mayo Clinic News Network. That ...

Read the release

Physics6 Jun 2014

Magnetic moment of the proton measured with unprecedented precision

One of the biggest riddles in physics is the apparent imbalance between matter and antimatter in our universe. To date, there is no explanation as to why matter and antimatter failed to completely annihilate one another immediately after the big bang and how the surplus matter was created that went on to form the universe as we know it. Experiments conducted at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have contributed towards a resolution of this problem. For the first time a direct and high-precision measurement of the magnetic moment of the proton has been conducted ...

Read the release

Physics6 Jun 2014

A new way to make laser-like beams using 250x less power

ANN ARBOR – With precarious particles called polaritons that straddle the worlds of light and matter, University of Michigan researchers have demonstrated a new, practical and potentially more efficient way to make a coherent laser-like beam. They have made what's believed to be the first polariton laser that is fueled by electrical current as opposed to light, and also works at room temperature, rather than way below zero. Those attributes make the device the most real-world ready of the handful of polariton lasers ever developed. It represents a milestone like none ...

Read the release

Environment6 Jun 2014

New species of ancient chirping giant pill-millipedes from Madagascar already threatened

An international team of researchers comprised of Thomas Wesener, Museum Koenig, Bonn, Daniel Le, Field Museum, Chicago and Stephanie Loria, American Museum of Natural History, New York, discovered seven new species of chirping giant pill-millipedes on Madagascar. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. The species discovered all belong to the genus Sphaeromimus, which is Latin for 'small ball animal'. However, the designation 'small' is not always true for the members of the genus as one of the newly discovered species surprises with a size larger ...

Read the release

Medicine6 Jun 2014

Probiotics prevent deadly complications of liver disease

Bethesda, MD (June 6, 2014) — Probiotics are effective in preventing hepatic encephalopathy in patients with cirrhosis of the liver, according to a new study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. Hepatic encephalopathy is a deterioration of brain function that is a serious complication of liver disease. "This rigorous new research finds that probiotics modify the gut microbiota to prevent hepatic encephalopathy in patients with cirrhosis of the liver," said David W. Victor III, ...

Read the release

Science6 Jun 2014

Shatterproof screens that save smartphones

University of Akron polymer scientists have developed a transparent electrode that could change the face of smartphones, literally, by making their displays shatterproof. In a recently published scientific paper, researchers demonstrated how a transparent layer of electrodes on a polymer surface could be extraordinarily tough and flexible, withstanding repeated scotch tape peeling and bending tests. This could revolutionize and replace conventional touchscreens, according to Yu Zhu, UA assistant professor of polymer science. Currently used coatings made of indium tin ...

Read the release

Science6 Jun 2014

Breakthrough study solves plant sex mystery

A team of biologists from the University of Leicester has solved a mystery surrounding how plants have sex. The researchers have discovered a pair of proteins made by flowering plants that are vital for the production of the sperm present within each pollen grain. Scientists already knew that flowering plants, in contrast to animals, require not one, but two sperm cells for successful fertilisation: one to join with the egg cell to produce the embryo and one to join with a second cell to produce the nutrient-rich endosperm inside the seed. The mystery of this 'double ...

Read the release

Environment6 Jun 2014

Method of nickel-carbon heterofullerenes synthesis presented

Scientists from several British, Spanish and Russian research centers (MIPT, Institute for Spectroscopy RAS, Kurchatov Institute and Kintech Lab Ltd) have come up with a method of synthesizing a new type of nickel-carbon compound. The article titled Formation of nickel-carbon heterofullerenes under electron irradiation has been published by Dalton Transactions and is available as a pre-print at arxiv.org. The first author of the article is Alexander Sinitsa, an MIPT student, and the leading author is Andrey Popov (Institute for Spectroscopy RAS, 1989 MIPT graduate). Heterofullerenes ...

Read the release

Medicine6 Jun 2014

Mitochondrial DNA of first Near Eastern farmers is sequenced for the first time

The mitochondrial DNA of the first Near Eastern farmers has been sequenced for the first time. In the research, published in the journal PLOS Genetics, experts analysed samples from three sites located in the birthplace of Neolithic agricultural practices: the Middle Euphrates basin and the oasis of Damascus, located in today's Syria and date at about 8,000 BC. The paper is signed by Daniel Turbón and Alejandro Pérez Pérez, from the Department of Animal Biology of the University of Barcelona (UB); Eva Fernández, from Liverpool John Moores University; Cristina Gamba, Eduardo ...

Read the release

Medicine6 Jun 2014

Herpesviruses undercover

This news release is available in German. The Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), a gammaherpesvirus that can cause multiple forms of cancer, establishes lifelong infections within the body. To do so the virus has to find a way to modulate the immune system of its host. „Intruders are usually fought off immediately by an antiviral immune response that is triggered by sensors including the toll-like receptors (TLR)," says HZI researcher Dr. Kendra Bussey, author of the study that was published in the "Journal of Virology". Toll-like receptors detect ...

Read the release

Science6 Jun 2014

Opening a wide window on the nano-world of surface catalysis

Surface catalysts are notoriously difficult to study mechanistically, but scientists at the University of South Carolina and Rice University have shown how to get real-time reaction information from Ag nanocatalysts that have long frustrated attempts to describe their kinetic behavior in detail. The key to the team's success was bridging a size gap that had represented a wide chasm to researchers in the past. To be effective as nanocatalysts, noble metals such as Au, Pt, Pd and Ag typically must be nanoparticles smaller than 5 nm, says Hui Wang, an assistant professor ...

Read the release

Physics6 Jun 2014

Exotic particle confirmed

This news release is available in French. For decades, physicists have searched in vain for exotic bound states comprising more than three quarks. Experiments performed at Jülich's accelerator COSY have now shown that, in fact, such complex particles do exist in nature. This discovery by the WASA-at-COSY collaboration has been published in the journal Physical Review Letters. The measurements confirm results from 2011, when the more than 120 scientists from eight countries discovered for the first time strong indications for the existence of an exotic dibaryon made ...

Read the release

Medicine6 Jun 2014

Early exposure to certain bacteria may protect toddlers from wheezing

WHAT: Research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) suggests that exposure to specific combinations of allergens and bacteria within the first year of life may protect children from wheezing and allergic disease. These observations come from the Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma (URECA) study, which aims to identify factors responsible for asthma development in children from inner-city settings, where the disease is more prevalent and severe. Since 2005, the URECA study has enrolled 560 children from four cities—Baltimore, Boston, New York and St. Louis. ...

Read the release

Science6 Jun 2014

New report: Local public grants for art varies across US

Local direct public funding provided through grants for the arts in Chicago is low compared to peer regions in both total dollar and per capita terms, according to a new report from the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago. The study tracks direct public funding for the arts in 13 regions from 2002-2012. It provides a nuanced look at how much money comes to the nonprofit arts from national, state and local arts agencies, with an emphasis on the important role of local arts agencies. While most studies of public funding for the arts use appropriations made ...

Read the release

Medicine6 Jun 2014

HIV transmission networks mapped to reduce infection rate

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have mapped the transmission network of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in San Diego. The mapping of HIV infections, which used genetic sequencing, allowed researchers to predictively model the likelihood of new HIV transmissions and identify persons at greatest risk for transmitting the virus. The findings are published online in the June 5 issue of the journal PLOS ONE. "The more we understand the structure and dynamics of an HIV transmission network, the better we can identify 'hot spots' ...

Read the release

Medicine6 Jun 2014

Alcohol may protect trauma patients from later complications

Injured patients who have alcohol in their blood have a reduced risk for developing cardiac and renal complications, according to a study from the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. Among patients who did develop complications, those with alcohol in their blood were less likely to die. The study is published in the June issue of the journal Alcohol. "After an injury, if you are intoxicated there seems to be a substantial protective effect," says UIC injury epidemiologist Lee Friedman, author of the study. "But we don't fully understand why this ...

Read the release

Medicine6 Jun 2014

Is glaucoma a brain disease?

Rockville, Md. — Findings from a new study published in Translational Vision Science & Technology (TVST) show the brain, not the eye, controls the cellular process that leads to glaucoma. The results may help develop treatments for one of the world's leading causes of irreversible blindness, as well as contribute to the development of future therapies for preserving brain function in other age-related disorders like Alzheimer's. In the TVST paper, Refined Data Analysis Provides Clinical Evidence for Central Nervous System Control of Chronic Glaucomatous Neurodegeneration, ...

Read the release

Medicine6 Jun 2014

Clinical review published in JAMA

Many women experience bothersome urine loss with laughing, coughing and sneezing (stress urinary incontinence) AND on their way to the bathroom (urge urinary incontinence). When women experience both types of urine leakage, their condition is called mixed urinary incontinence. It is estimated that 20 to 36 percent of women suffer from mixed urinary incontinence, which is challenging to diagnose and treat because symptoms vary and guidelines for treatment are not clear. A clinical review entitled "Clinical Crossroads – Female Mixed Urinary Incontinence" by Deborah L. ...

Read the release

Medicine6 Jun 2014

Prostate cancer biomarkers identified in seminal fluid

Improved diagnosis and management of one of the most common cancers in men – prostate cancer – could result from research at the University of Adelaide, which has discovered that seminal fluid (semen) contains biomarkers for the disease. Results of a study now published in the journal Endocrine-Related Cancer have shown that the presence of certain molecules in seminal fluid indicates not only whether a man has prostate cancer, but also the severity of the cancer. Speaking in the lead-up to Men's Health Week (9-15 June), University of Adelaide research fellow and lead ...

Read the release

Medicine6 Jun 2014

Toward a better drug against malaria

This news release is available in German. A research team led by Prof. Dr. Carola Hunte of the University of Freiburg/ Germany has succeeded in describing how the antimalarial drug atovaquone binds to its target protein. The scientists used x-ray crystallography to determine the three-dimensional structure of the protein with the active substance bound. The drug combination atovaquone-proguanil (Malarone®) is a medication used worldwide for the prevention and treatment of malaria. The data and the resulting findings concerning the mode of action of atovaquone could ...

Read the release

Science6 Jun 2014

Football for untrained 70-year-old men

Research carried out by the Copenhagen Centre for Team Sport and Health in Denmark shows that untrained elderly men get markedly fitter and healthier as a result of playing football (soccer). After only 4 months of twice-weekly 1-hour training sessions, the men achieved marked improvements in maximum oxygen uptake, muscle function and bone mineralization. Later today, three scientific articles will be published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports describing the fitness and health effects of football training for 63‒75-year-old untrained men. ...

Read the release