WASHINGTON, May 22, 2014—If future generations were to live and work on the moon or on a distant asteroid, they would probably want a broadband connection to communicate with home bases back on Earth. They may even want to watch their favorite Earth-based TV show. That may now be possible thanks to a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory who, working with NASA last fall, demonstrated for the first time that a data communication technology exists that can provide space dwellers with the connectivity we all enjoy here ...

CML has been a research topic for more than five decades, due to its wide applications in propulsion design. Mixing in CML is controlled by the compressibility effects of velocity and density variations over the mixing layer, and quantified by the growth rate of CML. However, the lack of understanding of various definitions of mixing thicknesses has yielded scatter in analyzing experimental data. Prof. SHE ZhenSu and his colleagues at the State Key Laboratory for Turbulence and Complex Systems, Peking University investigated the growth of compressible mixing layer by introducing ...

Two-photon excitation fluorescence is growing in popularity in the bioimaging field but is limited by fluorophores' extremely low two-photon absorption cross-section. The researcher Dr. Guowei Lu and co-workers from State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics, Department of Physics, Peking University, are endeavoring to develop efficient fluorescent probes with improved two-photon fluorescence (TPF) performance. They theoretically present a promising bright probe using gold nanoshell to improve the TPF performances of fluorescent emitters. Their work, entitled "Plasmonic-Enhanced ...

A new Stanford study finds that due to an average 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit of warming expected by 2040, yields of wheat and barley across Europe will drop more than 20 percent. New Stanford research reveals that farmers in Europe will see crop yields affected as global temperatures rise, but that adaptation can help slow the decline for some crops. For corn, the anticipated loss is roughly 10 percent, the research shows. Farmers of these crops have already seen yield growth slow down since 1980 as temperatures have risen, though other policy and economic factors have ...

The so-called symbiotic relationship between trees and the fungus that grow on their roots may actually work more like a capitalist market relationship between buyers and sellers, according to the new study published in the journal New Phytologist. Recent experiments in the forests of Sweden had brought into a question a long-held theory of biology: that the fungi or mycorrhizae that grow on tree roots work with trees in a symbiotic relationship that is beneficial for both the fungi and the trees, providing needed nutrients to both parties. These fungi, including many ...

Vast amounts of excess heat are generated by industrial processes and by electric power plants. Researchers around the world have spent decades seeking ways to harness some of this wasted energy. Most such efforts have focused on thermoelectric devices – solid-state materials that can produce electricity from a temperature gradient – but the efficiency of such devices is limited by the availability of materials. Now researchers at Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found a new alternative for low-temperature waste-heat conversion into ...

Philadelphia, PA, May 22, 2014 – The list of brain receptor targets for opiates reads like a fraternity: Mu Delta Kappa. The mu opioid receptor is the primary target for morphine and endogenous opioids like endorphin, whereas the delta opioid receptor shows the highest affinity for endogenous enkephalins. The kappa opioid receptor (KOR) is very interesting, but the least understood of the opiate receptor family. Until now, the mu opioid receptor received the most attention in alcoholism research. Naltrexone, a drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for ...

Washington D.C., May 22, 2014 – A study published in the June 2014 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found a very much higher discharge rate for pediatric bipolar (PBD) in children and adolescents aged 1-19 years in the US compared to England between the years 2000-2010. Using the English NHS Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) dataset and the US National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS) to compare US and English discharge rates for PBD over the period 2000-2010, the authors found a 72.1-fold higher discharge rate for pediatric ...

Lubricants are used in motors, axels, ventilators and manufacturing machines. Although lubricants are widely used, there have been almost no fundamental innovations for this product in the last twenty years. Together with a consortium, the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Freiburg has developed an entirely new class of substance that could change everything: liquid crystalline lubricant. Its chemical makeup sets it apart; although it is a liquid, the molecules display directional properties like crystals do. When two surfaces move in opposite directions, ...

Palaeontology has traditionally proceeded slowly, with individual scientists labouring for years or even decades over the interpretation of single fossils which they have gradually recovered from entombing rock, sand grain by sand grain, using all manner of dental drills and needles. The introduction of X-ray tomography has revolutionized the way that fossils are studied, allowing them to be virtually extracted from the rock in a fraction of the time necessary to prepare specimens by hand and without the risk of damaging the fossil. The resulting fossil avatars not ...

There are thousands of drugs that silence many thousands of cancer-causing genetic abnormalities. Some of these drugs are in use now, but many of these drugs are sitting on shelves or could be used beyond the disease for which they were originally approved. Repurposing these drugs depends on matching drugs to targets. A study recently published in the journal Bioinformatics describes a new database and pattern-matching algorithm that allows researchers to evaluate rational drugs and drug combinations, and also recommends a new drug combination to treat drug-resistant non-small ...

LA JOLLA, CA – May 22, 2014 – Accumulation of DNA damage can cause aggressive forms of cancer and accelerated aging, so the body's DNA repair mechanisms are normally key to good health. However, in some diseases the DNA repair machinery can become harmful. Scientists led by a group of researchers at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in La Jolla, CA, have discovered some of the key proteins involved in one type of DNA repair gone awry. The focus of the new study, published in the May 22, 2014 edition of the journal Cell Reports, is a protein called Ring1b. The TSRI ...

BALTIMORE – May 21, 2014. Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have identified a mutation in a fat-storage gene that appears to increase the risk for type 2 diabetes and other metabolic disorders, according to a study published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The researchers discovered the mutation in the hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) gene by studying the DNA of more than 2,700 people in the Old Order Amish community in Lancaster County, Pa. HSL is a key enzyme involved in breaking down stored fat (triglycerides) into fatty ...

Boulder, Colo., USA – Researcher John Sinton of the University of Hawai'i along with colleagues from the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and the French National Center for Scientific Research have announced the discovery of an ancient Hawaiian volcano. Now located in a region of shallow bathymetry extending about 100 km WNW from Ka'ena Point at the western tip of O'ahu, this volcano, which they have named Ka'ena, would have risen about 1,000 meters above sea level 3.5 million years ago. Sinton and colleagues have found compelling evidence beneath the sea that this long-lived ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Everything you think you know about the causes of rising obesity in the U.S. might be wrong, researchers say in a new report. Contrary to popular belief, people are exercising more today, have more leisure time and better access to fresh, affordable food – including fruits and vegetables – than they did in past decades. And while troubling disparities exist among various groups, most economic, educational, and racial or ethnic groups have seen their obesity levels rise at similar rates since the mid-1980s, the researchers report. The new analysis appears ...

ATLANTA May 22, 2014—A new review summarizes what is known about economic factors tied to the obesity epidemic in the United States and concludes many common beliefs are wrong. The review, authored by Roland Sturm, PhD of RAND Corporation and Ruopeng An, PhD, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, notes that paradoxically, rising obesity rates coincided with increases in leisure time, increased fruit and vegetable availability, and increased exercise uptake. The review appears early online in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians and finds at least one factor ...

RAPID RESISTANCE to vemurafenib – a treatment for a type of advanced melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer – could be prevented by blocking a druggable family of proteins, according to research* published in Nature Communications today (Thursday). Scientists at the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, based at the University of Manchester, have revealed the MLK family of four enzymes 'undoes' the tumour-shrinking effects of vemurafenib**. Around half of metastatic melanomas – aggressive skin cancer that has spread to other parts of the body – are caused by ...

Grand Challenges Canada, funded by the Government of Canada, today announces investments of $12 million in projects worldwide, aimed squarely at improving the health and saving the lives of mothers, newborns and children in developing countries. From a "lucky iron fish" placed in tens of thousands of Asian cooking pots to reduce anemia, to "motherhood insurance" to ensure that poverty doesn't impede emergency care if needed during a baby's delivery, to kits for home farming edible insects to improve nutrition in slums of Africa and Latin America, the 65 imaginative projects ...

There are many misconceptions and unknowns about premature ejaculation in the medical community and the general population. Two papers, both being published simultaneously in Sexual Medicine and the Journal of Sexual Medicine, provide much-needed answers that could lead to improved diagnosis and treatment for affected men. Premature ejaculation can cause significant personal and interpersonal distress to a man and his partner. While it has been recognized as a syndrome for well over 100 years, the clinical definition of premature ejaculation has been vague, ambiguous, ...

The therapeutic potential of medical marijuana and pure cannabidiol (CBD), an active substance in the cannabis plant, for neurologic conditions is highly debated. A series of articles published in Epilepsia, a journal of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE), examine the potential use of medical marijuana and CBD in treating severe forms of epilepsy such as Dravet syndrome. In a case study, Dr. Edward Maa, Chief of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Program at Denver Health in Denver, Colo., details one mother's experience of providing medical marijuana to her child ...

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — An appealing carnivorous mammal, a 12-meter-tall tree that has been hiding in plain sight and a sea anemone that lives under an Antarctic glacier are among the species identified by the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry's (ESF) International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) as the top 10 species discovered last year. An international committee of taxonomists and related experts selected the top 10 from among the approximately 18,000 new species named during the previous year and released the list May 22 to coincide with the birthday, ...

Whether an insect will have a male or female offspring depends on the weather, according to a study led by Joffrey Moiroux and Jacques Brodeur of the University of Montreal's Department of Biological Sciences. The research involved experimenting with a species of oophagous parasitoid (Trichogramma euproctidis), an insect that lays its eggs inside a host insect that will be consumed by the future larvae. "We know that climate affects the reproductive behaviour of insects. But we never clearly demonstrated the effects of climate change on sex allocation in parasitoids," Moiroux ...

The decision to jettison the approach to care of the dying, known as the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), was "too extreme," given that its principles are widely regarded as among the best examples of palliative care in the world, argues a senior ethicist in the Journal of Medical Ethics. The LCP, which was intended to transfer the principles of hospice care to hospitals, fell foul of poor application by healthcare professionals and widespread misunderstanding of its scope and purpose among the general public, argues Dr Anthony Wrigley of the Centre for Professional Ethics ...

Improving family doctor access during standard working hours might be better for reducing out of hours service use than extending the opening times of GP surgeries, suggests research published online in Emergency Medicine Journal. If the link between access and out of hours service use is causal, this approach could cut demand for the latter by a maximum of 11%, the findings indicate. Difficulties getting to see a GP when needed have been blamed for fuelling the rise in demand for out-of-hours primary care services, including emergency care. But there is not much evidence ...

An unprecedented research conducted by a group of neuroscientists has demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to train brain patterns associated with empathic feelings – more specifically, tenderness. The research showed that volunteers who received neurofeedback about their own brain activity patterns whilst being scanned inside a functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) machine were able to change brain network function of areas related to tenderness and affection felt toward loved ones. These significant findings could open new possibilities for treatment of ...