A system that allows users to experience multi-point haptic feedback above an interactive surface without having to touch or hold any device will be unveiled this week [Friday 11 October] at one of the world's most important conferences for innovations in human-computer interfaces. Multi-touch surfaces offer easy interaction in public spaces, with people being able to walk-up and use them. However, people cannot feel what they have touched. A team from the University of Bristol's Interaction and Graphics (BIG) research group have developed a solution that not only allows ...

Brooklyn, NY (October 7, 2013) – SUNY Downstate Medical Center announced today that Sheryl Smith, PhD, professor of physiology and pharmacology, has published new findings demonstrating a reproducible pathology that may help shed light on anxiety and mood volatility in methamphetamine dependence. In her animal study, Dr. Smith demonstrates that neuroactive stress steroids can trigger identifiable changes to the brains of methamphetamine dependent rats in withdrawal. Interestingly, Dr. Smith notes, these changes appear to be reversible by an existing pharmacological agent ...

PITTSBURGH—Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research Pittsburgh have devised a motion tracking technology that could eliminate much of the annoying lag that occurs in existing video game systems that use motion tracking, while also being extremely precise and highly affordable. Called Lumitrack, the technology has two components — projectors and sensors. A structured pattern, which looks something like a very large barcode, is projected over the area to be tracked. Sensor units, either near the projector or on the person or object being tracked, can ...

CINCINNATI – New research in the Journal of Experimental Medicine identifies a protein that controls the formation of different types of mature blood cells – a finding that could be important to developing new treatments for blood diseases and helping realize the potential of regenerative medicine. Researchers from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center report their results in a study published online by the journal Oct. 7. The authors focus on a protein called RhoA, a GTPase that serves as a molecular switch in the cytoplasm of cells to control cell function. ...

WASHINGTON, DC – October 7, 2013 – A universal infant vaccination campaign in China has led the Hepatitis B virus (HBV) to more than double its rate of "breakout" mutations. These mutations may enable the virus to elude the vaccine, necessitating new vaccination strategies. Researchers at the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, report their findings in an article published ahead of print in the Journal of Virology. Until a universal vaccination program for infants was implemented in 1992, nearly ten percent ...

HOUSTON – (Oct. 7, 2013) – Atomically thin sheets of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) have the handy benefit of protecting what's underneath from oxidizing even at very high temperatures, Rice University researchers have discovered. One or several layers of the material sometimes called "white graphene" keep materials from oxidizing – or rusting -- up to 1,100 degrees Celsius (2,012 degrees Fahrenheit), and can be made large enough for industrial applications, they said. The Rice study led by materials scientists Pulickel Ajayan and Jun Lou appears today in the online ...

Triathletes participate in a grueling endurance sport, swimming, bicycling, and running long distances without rest. In training and competitions, they regularly push their bodies beyond the limits most of us can endure. But while there is no doubt that triathletes are tough, very little is known about what gives them their exceptional abilities. Now researchers at Tel Aviv University have discovered a possible explanation. Prof. Ruth Defrin and her doctoral student Nirit Geva of the Department of Physical Therapy at TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine have found that triathletes ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- As the budget crisis drags on, at least conservatives and liberals have something in common: both believe their views on certain issues are not only correct but all other views are inferior. A study from Duke University examined whether one end of the American political spectrum believes more strongly than the other in the superiority of its principles and positions. It found both sides have elements of "belief superiority," depending on the issue. When asked about nine hot-button issues, conservatives feel most superior about their views on voter identification ...

Domenic Ciraulo, MD, chair of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and David H. Barlow, PhD, professor of psychology at Boston University (BU), have collaborated to study the effect of behavioral and medication treatments on patients with alcoholism and anxiety. The findings, published in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy, suggest that Transdiagnostic cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) was more effective in reducing heavy drinking in anxious alcoholics than progressive muscle relaxation therapy (PMR). They also found that the addition of ...

(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) -- Adult women whose mothers had increased levels of stress hormones while they were pregnant are at greater risk of becoming addicted to nicotine, according to a new study led by a Miriam Hospital researcher. The 40-year longitudinal study provides the first evidence that prenatal exposure to the class of stress hormones known as glucocorticoids predicts nicotine dependence later in life – but only for daughters. It also confirms previous research that babies born to moms who smoked when pregnant have an increased risk of nicotine addiction in adulthood. ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers have developed a new quantitative – rather than qualitative – method of identifying pollen grains that is certainly nothing to sneeze at. The research appears in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Since the invention of the earliest light microscopes, the classification and identification of pollen and spores has been a highly subjective venture for those who use these tiny particles to study vegetation in their field, palynology. However, according to the lead author of the study, Luke Mander, a former ...

Scientists have discovered how a tick which transmits devastating diseases to cattle has developed resistance to one of the main pesticides used to kill it. Approximately 80% of cattle around the world, mostly in the tropics and sub-tropics, are exposed to the cattle tick – Rhipicephalis microplus – which can cause anaemia, reduced rate of growth and death, resulting in a major economic impact on farmers. Prevention of disease is through frequent treatment of cattle with acarides –pesticides for ticks and mites – mainly amitraz, ivermectins and pyrethroids, but ticks ...

Subordinate female meerkats who try to breed often lose their offspring to infanticide by the dominant female or are evicted from the group. These recently bereaved or ostracised mothers may then become wet-nurses for the dominant female, an activity that may be a form of "rent" that allows them to remain in the community. Wet-nursing another mother's offspring – called allolactation – occurs across a variety of mammals and is thought to provide survival benefits to the nursed offspring and to the mother of the pups. However, little has been definitively known of why ...

CLEMSON, S.C. — Lance Armstrong used Twitter to employ image-repair strategies in a way that cultivated followers and countered media reports. However, he neglected to enact any image-repair tweets following his admission to using performance-enhancing drugs in a nationally staged interview with Oprah Winfrey, researchers say. Clemson University communication studies assistant professor Jimmy Sanderson said traditional media like television and newspapers have been a staple of image repair, but with the rise of social media, athletes now have an additional avenue for ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (October 7, 2013) – Over the past decade, South Africa has made a dramatic reversal in child survival—mainly because of improvements in HIV/AIDS care, reports a study in AIDS, official journal of the International AIDS Society. AIDS is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. "After years of rising mortality rates, the mortality picture for South Africa's children has shifted drastically," according to the report by Kate Kerber, MPH, of University of the Western Cape, Belleville, South Africa, supported by the global ...

For more than a decade the research group of Brown University Professor Walter Atwood has doggedly pursued the workings of the JC polyomavirus, which causes a disease called PML that fatally degrades the central nervous system of patients with weakened immune systems. In a study published online Oct. 2 in the Journal of Virology, his team describes how it gains entry into cells: It breaks in via certain receptors of the neurotransmitter serotonin called 5-HT2 receptors. Atwood, lead author and graduate student Benedetta Assetta and their co-authors showed this by inserting ...

Subtle body cues allow people to identify others with surprising accuracy when faces are difficult to differentiate. This skill may help researchers improve person-recognition software and expand their understanding of how humans recognize each other. A study published in Psychological Science by researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas demonstrates that humans rely on non-facial cues, such as body shape and build, to identify people in challenging viewing conditions, such as poor lighting. "Psychologists and computer scientists have concentrated almost exclusively ...

According to a common myth, today's young people are all glued to the Internet. But in fact, only 30 percent of the world's youth population between the ages of 15 and 24 years old has been active online for at least five years. In South Korea, 99.6 percent of young people are active, the highest percentage in the world. The least? The Asian island of Timor Leste with less than 1 percent. Those are among the many findings in a study from the Georgia Institute of Technology and International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The study is the first attempt to measure, by ...

Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the immune system attacks the nervous system. The result can be a wide range of debilitating motor, physical, and mental problems. No one knows why people get the disease or how to treat it. In a new study published in the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology, Drs. Ewa Kozela, Ana Juknat, Neta Rimmerman and Zvi Vogel of Tel Aviv University's Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Center for the Biology of Addictive Diseases and Sackler Faculty of Medicine demonstrate that some chemical compounds found in marijuana can help ...

Clinical ethicists play a vital role in hospitals and other health care systems by helping to resolve ethical conflicts that arise between patients, families, and clinicians about end-of-life care and other important medical decisions. To improve the quality of clinical ethics consultants, the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) has proposed a method for assessing them. An article in the Hastings Center Report describes the process and explains its importance. Questionable credentials and unacceptable variations in practice patterns "may be placing patients ...

Since 1996, corn containing a gene that allows it to create a protein that is toxic to certain insects, yet safe for human consumption, has been grown in the United States. However, most of this "Bt corn" has been used for animal feed or processed into corn meal, starch, or other products. Although varieties of sweet corn (corn on the cob) have existed since the late 1990s, relatively few acres have been planted. Due to pressure from activist groups, some grocery stores have refused to carry Bt sweet corn. However, a new study published in the Journal of Economic Entomology ...

MAYWOOD, Il. – Physicians have long observed that binge drinking can significantly impair the healing process following a bone fracture. Now a study by Loyola University Medical Center researchers is providing insights into how alcohol slows healing on the cellular and molecular levels. The findings could lead to treatments to improve bone healing in alcohol abusers, and possibly non-drinkers as well. Roman Natoli, MD, PhD, will present findings Oct. 6 during the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research 2013 Annual Meeting in Baltimore. Senior author is John ...

Scientists from Royal Holloway University have found that when bees are exposed to low levels of neonicotinoid pesticides - which do not directly kill bees - their behaviour changes and they stop working properly for their colonies. The results showed that exposure to pesticides at levels bees encounter in the field, has subtle impacts on individual bees, and can eventually make colonies fail. This discovery provides an important breakthrough in identifying the reasons for the recent global decline of bees, a trend that has baffled many experts worldwide. "One in ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A global hunt for genes that influence heart disease risk has uncovered 157 changes in human DNA that alter the levels of cholesterol and other blood fats – a discovery that could lead to new medications. Each of the changes points to genes that can modify levels of cholesterol and other blood fats and are potential drug targets. Many of the changes point to genes not previously linked to blood fats, also called lipids. A surprising number of the variations were also associated with coronary artery disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and high blood ...

Hydroxyl (OH) radicals – known as the detergent of the atmosphere – decompose isoprene in the air. This leads to the creation of new OH radicals, which are then able to purify the air of other pollutants and trace gases. The scientific community had previously only been able to speculate about this mechanism. The atmosphere has an astonishing ability to cleanse itself. Chemical processes ensure that trace gases and pollutants are removed from the atmosphere – such as isoprene, which is largely produced by forests. Without these processes global warming would be even ...