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Competition of the multiple Gortler modes in hypersonic boundary layer flows
Science 2014-05-01

Competition of the multiple Gortler modes in hypersonic boundary layer flows

The present study illustrates, for the hypersonic flows, through the local and marching analysis, the crossover of the mode W and the mode T at O(1) wavenumber and large Görtler number regime. In fact, it is at this wavenumber regime that the instability is most likely to occur. The two approaches are expected to deliver similar results and the marching analysis helps to express the details of the crossover and confirm the result of the local analysis. In fact the study of Görtler instability goes back to the date of the 1940s. Since Görtler's pioneering investigation ...
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Medicine 2014-05-01

Vitamin D deficiency linked to aggressive prostate cancer

CHICAGO --- African-American and European-American men at high risk of prostate cancer have greater odds of being diagnosed with an aggressive form of the disease if they have a vitamin D deficiency, according to a new study from Northwestern Medicine® and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Results of the study will be published May 1 in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "Vitamin D deficiency could be a biomarker of advanced prostate tumor progression in large segments of the general population," said Adam ...
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Medicine 2014-05-01

Extreme sleep durations may affect brain health in later life

BOSTON, MA – A new research study led by Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) published in The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in May, shows an association between midlife and later life sleeping habits with memory; and links extreme sleep durations to worse memory in later life. The study suggests that extreme changes in sleep duration from middle age to older age may also worsen memory function. "Sleep Duration In Midlife and Later Life In Relation to Cognition: The Nurses' Health Study," led by Elizabeth Devore, ScD, instructor in medicine in the Channing ...
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Medicine 2014-05-01

New UT Arlington research could improve pharmaceuticals testing

A UT Arlington chemistry professor, renowned for his work in the area of chemical separations, is leading an effort to find a more accurate way to measure water content in pharmaceuticals – a major quality issue for drug manufacturers. Daniel W. Armstrong, UT Arlington's Robert A. Welch Chair in Chemistry, says the new technique could be 100 times more sensitive than one of the most popular current methods. "The analysis for water in many consumer products, including drugs, is one of the most required tests done in the world," said Armstrong. "Current methods have many ...
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Playing pool with carbon atoms
Environment 2014-04-30

Playing pool with carbon atoms

A University of Arizona-led team of physicists has discovered how to change the crystal structure of graphene, more commonly known as pencil lead, with an electric field, an important step toward the possible use of graphene in microprocessors that would be smaller and faster than current, silicon-based technology. Graphene consists of extremely thin sheets of graphite: when writing with a pencil, graphene sheets slough off the pencil's graphite core and stick to the page. If placed under a high-powered electron microscope, graphene reveals its sheet-like structure ...
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Medicine 2014-04-30

Ground breaking technique offers DNA 'Sat Nav' direct to your ancestor's home 1,000 years ago

Tracing where your DNA was formed over 1,000 years ago is now possible due to a revolutionary technique developed by a team of international scientists led by experts from the University of Sheffield. The ground breaking Geographic Population Structure (GPS) tool, created by Dr Eran Elhaik from the University of Sheffield's Department of Animal and Plant Sciences and Dr Tatiana Tatarinova from the University of Southern California, works similarly to a satellite navigation system as it helps you to find your way home, but not the one you currently live in – but rather ...
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Cutting cancer to pieces: New research on bleomycin
Medicine 2014-04-30

Cutting cancer to pieces: New research on bleomycin

A variety of cancers are treated with the anti-tumor agent bleomycin, though its disease-fighting properties remain poorly understood. In a new study, lead author Basab Roy—a researcher at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute—describes bleomycin's ability to cut through double-stranded DNA in cancerous cells, like a pair of scissors. Such DNA cleavage often leads to cell death in particular types of cancer cells. The paper is co-authored by professor Sidney Hecht, director of Biodesign's Center for BioEnergetics. The study presents, for the first time, alternative ...
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Infertile women want more support
Science 2014-04-30

Infertile women want more support

VIDEO: University of Iowa Communication Studies researchers Keli Steuber and Andrew High talk about infertility. Click here for more information. Many women coping with infertility count on relatives or close friends for encouragement and assistance. But according to research at the University of Iowa, when it comes to support, women may not be receiving enough—or even the right kind. "Infertility is a more prevalent issue than people realize. It affects one in six couples, ...
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Stem cells from teeth can make brain-like cells
Medicine 2014-04-30

Stem cells from teeth can make brain-like cells

University of Adelaide researchers have discovered that stem cells taken from teeth can grow to resemble brain cells, suggesting they could one day be used in the brain as a therapy for stroke. In the University's Centre for Stem Cell Research, laboratory studies have shown that stem cells from teeth can develop and form complex networks of brain-like cells. Although these cells haven't developed into fully fledged neurons, researchers believe it's just a matter of time and the right conditions for it to happen. "Stem cells from teeth have great potential to grow into ...
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Salk Institute study identifies novel regulator of key gene expression in cancer
Medicine 2014-04-30

Salk Institute study identifies novel regulator of key gene expression in cancer

LA JOLLA—Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified a key genetic switch linked to the development, progression and outcome of cancer, a finding that may lead to new targets for cancer therapies. The switch, a string of nucleotides dubbed a long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), does not code for proteins like regular RNA. Instead, the scientists found, this particular lncRNA acts as an on/off switch for a key gene whose excessive activity is tied to inflammation and cancer, COX-2. The COX-2 gene mediates inflammation, which in most cases helps our ...
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New revolutionary sensor links pressure to color change
Technology 2014-04-30

New revolutionary sensor links pressure to color change

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Imagine an automobile crash test that uses test dummies painted all over with a substance that can change color according to the levels of stress that various parts of the dummies' bodies will endure. Such a "color map" could provide vital information to engineers designing safer automobiles. Or imagine baseball gloves that when worn show the batters if they are using the appropriate amount of pressure to grip their bats, resulting in better performance. New technology developed at the University of California, Riverside may now make the above and ...
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Earth Science 2014-04-30

EARTH Magazine: Precise to a fault: How GPS revolutionized seismic research

Alexandria, Va., - Global Positioning System (GPS) technology was conceived in the 1960s to provide precise time and location data to the U.S. military, but it was soon embraced by geodesists and earth scientists. The first major test of GPS as a seismic tool occurred on Oct. 17, 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck San Francisco just as the third game of the World Series was about to begin at Candlestick Park. The quake killed 63 people, injured several thousand and caused an estimated $6 billion in damage. Prior to the quake, geoscientists had placed GPS markers ...
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Simple sequence repeats for population-level studies of pines
Science 2014-04-30

Simple sequence repeats for population-level studies of pines

Simple sequence repeats, abbreviated SSRs and frequently referred to as microsatellites, are highly variable sections of the genome. 'Sequence repeat' refers to the fact that a nucleotide motif is repeated. 'Simple,' because the repeated sequence often consists of only a couple of nucleotides—for example, ATAT. Because these markers typically have high rates of molecular evolution, the number of repeats present in the genome often differs between individuals. By isolating SSRs and comparing length differences between taxa, evolutionary relationships can be inferred. Their ...
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Medicine 2014-04-30

Regenerative medicine approach improves muscle strength, function in leg injuries

PITTSBURGH, April 30, 2014 – Damaged leg muscles grew stronger and showed signs of regeneration in three out of five men whose old injuries were surgically implanted with extracellular matrix (ECM) derived from pig bladder, according to a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Early findings from a human trial of the process and from animal studies were published today in Science Translational Medicine. When a large volume of muscle is lost, typically due to trauma, the ...
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Environment 2014-04-30

Frozen meal eaters get more vegetables including greens, beans and whole grains but with lower total calories vs. fast food restaurant eaters

SAN DIEGO (April 30, 2014) – New analysis of data from the 2003-2010 What We Eat In America (WWEIA) National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), indicates that consumers of frozen meals (1) compared to consumers of quick service restaurant (QSR) meals (2) had lower calorie intakes and better Healthy Eating Index (HEI) score. In fact, the analysis revealed that those who consumed frozen meals consumed 253 fewer calories than those who consumed a quick service restaurant meal. These results ...
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Competition for ecological niches limits the formation of new species
Environment 2014-04-30

Competition for ecological niches limits the formation of new species

The rate at which new species evolve is limited by competition for ecological niches, report scientists from the University of Chicago in Nature on April 30. The study, which analyzes the evolutionary and genetic relationships between all 461 songbird species that live in the Himalayan mountains, suggests that as ecological niches within an environment are filled, the formation of new species slows or even stops. To study what controls the process of speciation, Trevor Price, PhD, professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, Dhananjai Mohan of the ...
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Science 2014-04-30

Initial research: Mango's effects on ulcerative colitis & bone parameters in animal models

SAN DIEGO, CA – April 30, 2014 – Three new mango-related studies were presented this week at the 2014 Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) in San Diego, revealing initial findings on the effects of mango consumption on ulcerative colitis and bone parameters in animal models. "The mango industry's nutrition research program is committed to advancing our understanding of the role mangos can play as part of a healthy diet," said Megan McKenna, Director of Marketing for the National Mango Board. "These studies provide important insights that ...
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Medicine 2014-04-30

Multiple consecutive days of tornado activity spawn worst events

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Significant tornado outbreaks and especially strong tornadoes are more likely occur within periods of activity lasting three or more days, according to a Purdue University tornado expert. Jeff Trapp, a professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences, examined 30 years of U.S. weather records and found that an outbreak of 20 or more reported tornadoes had a 74 percent probability of occurring during a period of tornado activity lasting three or more days. During those same periods, a tornado rated 3 or higher on the Enhanced Fujita scale had ...
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MS researchers find brain & cognitive reserve protect long-term against cognitive decline
Medicine 2014-04-30

MS researchers find brain & cognitive reserve protect long-term against cognitive decline

West Orange, NJ. April 30, 2014. Multiple sclerosis researchers have found that brain reserve and cognitive reserve confer a long-term protective effect against cognitive decline: Sumowski JF, Rocca MA, Leavitt VM, Dackovic J, Mesaros S, Drulovic J, Deluca J, Filippi M. Brain reserve and cognitive reserve protect against cognitive decline over 4.5 years in MS. Neurology. 2014 Apr 18. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000000433 [Epub ahead of print]. James Sumowski, PhD, lead author of the article, and John DeLuca, PhD, are at Kessler Foundation. Co-authors are from the Manhattan ...
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Science 2014-04-30

'US Should significantly reduce rate of incarceration,' says new report

WASHINGTON -- Given the minimal impact of long prison sentences on crime prevention and the negative social consequences and burdensome financial costs of U.S. incarceration rates, which have more than quadrupled in the last four decades, the nation should revise current criminal justice policies to significantly reduce imprisonment rates, says a new report from the National Research Council. A comprehensive review of data led the committee that wrote the report to conclude that the costs of the current rate of incarceration outweigh the benefits. The committee recommended ...
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Science 2014-04-30

Seeing the bedrock through the trees

University of California, Berkeley, geologist William Dietrich pioneered the application of airborne LIDAR – light detection and ranging – to map mountainous terrain, stripping away the vegetation to see the underlying ground surface. But that didn't take him deep enough. He still couldn't see what was under the surface: the depth of the soil, the underlying weathered rock and the deep bedrock. He and geology graduate student Daniella Rempe have now proposed a method to determine these underground details without drilling, potentially providing a more precise way to ...
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Hope for better drugs to treat stroke and heart attacks
Medicine 2014-04-30

Hope for better drugs to treat stroke and heart attacks

An international team of researchers in cooperation with the University of Bonn has taken two "snapshots" of a receptor which are of critical importance for blood coagulation. The scientists now hope to be able to develop novel drugs using these results. These include tailor-made blood-thinning substances for heart attack and stroke patients whose effects are reversible and better controllable than those of current therapies. The researchers are presenting their results in the renowned journal "Nature." After a cut to the finger, blood platelets come into play: they adhere ...
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Science 2014-04-30

Should the EU ban on the import of seal products stand?

Next month, following an appeal by Canada and Norway to overturn the EU ban on the import of seal products, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is expected to announce whether the 2013 decision will be upheld. In an editorial article, a University of Bristol academic, whose research on the animal welfare of the seal hunt has been used in the case, explains why the ban should stand. The article by Dr Andy Butterworth, Senior Lecturer in Animal Sciences at the University of Bristol's School of Veterinary Sciences and an official observer of the seal hunt is published in ...
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Medicine 2014-04-30

Prostate cancer and blood lipids share genetic links

Numerous studies have suggested a relationship between cardiovascular disease risk factors and prostate cancer. A new study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues in Norway, significantly refines the association, highlighting genetic risk factors associated with low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and triglycerides as key players and identifying 17 related gene loci that make risk contributions to levels of these blood lipids and to prostate cancer The findings, published in the April 30, 2014 online issue of ...
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New hybrid material that changes colour according to the direction of the light
Engineering 2014-04-30

New hybrid material that changes colour according to the direction of the light

This news release is available in Spanish. The aim with respect to hybrid materials with one organic component and another inorganic one is to combine the best attributes of each one into a single system. Labs across the world are working to develop new hybrid materials for technological applications in nanotechnologies, in particular, and these materials are already being used in lightweight materials for cars, sports equipment, in biomimetic materials, like prostheses, etc. The hybrid material being sought after by the research group in the Department of Physical ...
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