CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- Using low-frequency laser pulses, a team of researchers has carried out the first measurements that reveal the detailed characteristics of a unique kind of magnetism found in a mineral called herbertsmithite. In this material, the magnetic elements constantly fluctuate, leading to an exotic state of fluid magnetism called a "quantum spin liquid." This is in contrast to conventional magnetism, found in materials called ferromagnets — where all of the magnetic forces align in the same direction, reinforcing each other — or antiferromagnets, where adjacent ...

NEW YORK (September 18, 2013) — A camera trap set out for endangered Siberian (Amur) tigers in the Russian Far East photographed something far more rare: a golden eagle capturing a young sika deer. The three images only cover a two-second period, but show an adult golden eagle clinging to the deer's back. Its carcass was found two weeks later, just a few yards from the camera, initially puzzling researchers. The paper and images appear in the September issue of the Journal of Raptor Research. Authors include Linda Kerley of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and ...

BUFFALO, N. Y. -- University at Buffalo translational researchers are developing a richer understanding of atherosclerosis in humans, revealing a key role for stem cells that promote inflammation. The research was published last month in PLOS One. It extends to humans previous findings in lab animals by researchers at Columbia University that revealed that high levels of LDL ("bad") cholesterol promote atherosclerosis by stimulating production of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPC's). "Our research opens up a potential new approach to preventing heart attack and ...

A new study shows that exposure to diesel exhaust particles from traffic pollution leads to increased asthma severity in children. Moreover, the study finds that this is due to increased blood levels of IL-17A, a protein associated with several chronic inflammatory diseases, in children with high diesel exposure. The study by researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center is published online in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. The research, conducted in mice and in humans, showed that neutralizing IL-17A prevented airway inflammation. Neutralization ...

San Francisco, CA. (September 23, 2013) – Rates of severe sepsis and deaths from sepsis among U.S. women hospitalized for delivery have risen sharply over the last decade, reports a study in the October issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS). "Maternal severe sepsis and sepsis-related deaths are increasing in the United States," concludes the report by Dr Melissa E. Bauer of University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor, and colleagues. Although the study identifies certain groups of women at increased ...

It's not the chicken or the egg, but marine scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have answered a basic question about red drum fish and their eggs that may eventually help save the state of Texas a great deal of money in hatcheries management and make fish farming more environmentally friendly. Every year the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department spends millions of dollars breeding red drum, a popular game fish, releasing between 20 and 30 million hatchery-raised fingerlings into eight different bays and estuaries along the coast. In order to maximize the numbers ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Adults across the U.S. rate childhood cancer as their top priority for research into improving children's health, according to a new University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness month, and in this latest poll, 76 percent of adults rated research into childhood cancers as "very important." That was followed by diabetes, with 70 percent rating it "very important" and birth defects or other genetic problems with 68 percent. "So many people know a child or family ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Scientists have sequenced the genomes of nearly 6,900 organisms, but they know the functions of only about half of the protein-coding genes thus far discovered. Now a multidisciplinary effort involving 15 scientists from three institutions has begun chipping away at this mystery – in a big way. Their work to identify the function of one bacterial protein and the biochemical pathway in which it operates will also help identify the functions of hundreds of other proteins. A report of their new approach and findings appears in the journal Nature. The ...

The threat from a heart attack doesn't end with the event itself. Blockage of blood flow to the heart can cause irreversible cell death and scarring. With transplants scarce, half the people who live through a heart attack die within five years. Scientists are trying to address this problem by engineering cardiac tissue to patch up damaged areas. Now doctoral students Sharon Fleischer and Ron Feiner — under the supervision of Dr. Tal Dvir of Tel Aviv University's Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology and the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology — ...

Atlanta, September 23, 2013 -- A secondary analysis of the historic RTOG 9202 prostate cancer trial examined results of men with intermediate-risk prostate cancer who had received long-term hormonal therapy after radiation therapy, and concluded that there were no additional benefits when compared to short-term hormonal therapy, according to research presented today at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO's) 55th Annual Meeting. Men with advanced prostate cancer typically receive hormonal therapy to reduce the level of androgens, or male hormones, in ...

New Rochelle, NY, September 23, 2013–Moderate reductions in body temperature can improve outcomes after a person suffers a traumatic brain injury (TBI). New research that identifies positive effects of mild hypothermia on brain tissue is presented in an article published in Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Therapeutic Hypothermia and Temperature Management website at http://www.liebertpub.com/ther. The article "Effects of Mild Hypothermia Treatment ...

Southeastern China was hit by the most powerful typhoon of 2013 on Sept. 22, when Typhoon Usagi came ashore landfall in the Guangdong Province during the evening. NASA's TRMM satellite observed very heavy rainfall just south of the eye as the center was landfalling. When Typhoon Usagi, the Japanese word for "rabbit," made landfall it had maximum sustained winds near 95.6 knots (~110 mph). According to Xinhuanet.com news, 25 people were killed by the storm. Over 310,000 residents were displaced due to the storm. Xinhuanet reported economic losses totaled as much as ...

CLEMSON, S.C. -- Sibling bullying is a type of violence that is prevalent in the lives of most children, but little is known about it, researchers say. Clemson University psychology professor Robin Kowalski said the phenomenon has been overlooked. Kowalski and and co-author Jessica Skinner explored the extent to which sibling bullying is viewed to be normal and the perceived differences between victims and perpetrators. They recently published their findings in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. The purpose of the study was to profile sibling bullying by examining ...

URBANA, Ill. -- Although sorghum lines underwent adaptation to be grown in temperate climates decades ago, a University of Illinois researcher said he and his team have completed the first comprehensive genomic analysis of the molecular changes behind that adaptation. Patrick Brown, an assistant professor in plant breeding and genetics, said having a complete characterization of the locations (loci) affecting specific traits will speed up the adaptation of sorghum and other related grasses to new production systems for both food and fuel. Brown is working on the project ...

Although the Rim Fire doesn't show any signs of smoke billowing like it has in the past satellite images, the fire still continues on. The blaze, which started on August 17, 2013, more than a month ago, is currenty 84% contained. Fire officials are currently estimating that complete containment will be achieved around October 1, 2013. The statistics on the fire to date: Acres Burned: 257 126 (402 square miles) Structures Threatened: 0 Containment: 84% Residences Destroyed: 11 Fire Start Date: August 17 2013 Commercial Property Destroyed: 3 Fire Cause: Under ...

When it comes to addressing the obesity epidemic, fast food restaurants are a favorite target, with some communities, such as the city of Los Angeles, going so far as to ban the construction of new, standalone fast food restaurants in neighborhoods with a high density of fast food restaurants that are also plagued by a high obesity rate. But according to a new study coauthored by Michael Bader, an assistant professor of sociology at American University in Washington, D.C., communities contemplating such bans may want to look beyond the number of fast food outlets to the ...

VIDEO: This shows representitative positron emission tomography images of the rat spinal cord.. Click here for more information. Researchers have made an exciting breakthrough – developing a first-of-its-kind imaging tool to examine myelin damage in multiple sclerosis (MS). An extremely difficult disease to diagnose, the tool will help physicians diagnose patients earlier, monitor the disease's progression, and evaluate therapy efficacy. Case Western Reserve University School ...

Typhoon Pabuk continued to strengthen as it moved north through the northwestern Pacific Ocean on Sept. 23, and NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of the storm. The NASA image showed powerful thunderstorms east of the storm's center. On Sept. 23 at 3:17 UTC/Sept. 22 at 11:17 p.m. EDT NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Typhoon Pabuk in the northwestern Pacific Ocean and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument captured an infrared image. The AIRS image showed very high, powerful storms with very cold cloud top temperatures wrapped around the eastern ...

Accidents also traumatize small children. Around one in ten children still suffers from a post-traumatic stress disorder a year after a road accident or burn injury, reliving aspects of the traumatic experience in the form of flashbacks or nightmares. In doing so, young children keep replaying the stressful memories while avoiding anything that might remind them of the accident in any way. As a result of this constant alertness to threatening memories, the children can develop sleeping disorders, concentration problems or aggressive behavior. Assessing the risk of illness ...

People can be easily tricked into believing an artificial finger is their own, shows a study published today [23 September] in The Journal of Physiology. The results reveal that the brain does not require multiple signals to build a picture body ownership, as this is the first time the illusion has been created using sensory inputs from the muscle alone. The discovery provides new insight into clinical conditions where body representation in the brain is disrupted due to changes in the central or peripheral nervous systems e.g. stroke, schizophrenia and phantom limb syndrome ...

WA, Seattle (September 23, 2013) – Encouraging results from the T1DAL study (Targeting effector memory T cells with alefacept in new onset type 1 diabetes), led by Mark R. Rigby M.D., Ph.D. from Indiana University and Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis and sponsored by the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN) with additional support from JDRF, are published today in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. Alefacept, an engineered fusion protein targeting a surface molecule, CD2, found on T-lymphocytes, was the first biologic therapy approved for moderate to severe plaque ...

New York, NY and Stockholm, Sweden -- A team of researchers affiliated with Ludwig Cancer Research and the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden report in the current issue of Nature Methods a dramatically improved technique for analyzing the genes expressed within a single cell -- a capability of relevance to everything from basic research to future cancer diagnostics. "There are cells in tumors and in healthy tissues that are not present in sufficient numbers to permit analysis using anything but single-cell methods," explains senior author, Rickard Sandberg, PhD. "This method ...

CHICAGO --- A fear memory was reduced in people by exposing them to the memory over and over again while they slept. It's the first time that emotional memory has been manipulated in humans during sleep, report Northwestern Medicine® scientists. The finding potentially offers a new way to enhance the typical daytime treatment of phobias through exposure therapy by adding a nighttime component. Exposure therapy is a common treatment for phobia and involves a gradual exposure to the feared object or situation until the fear is extinguished. "It's a novel finding," ...

Since the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belts in 1958, space scientists have believed these belts encircling the Earth consist of two doughnut-shaped rings of highly charged particles — an inner ring of high-energy electrons and energetic positive ions and an outer ring of high-energy electrons. In February of this year, a team of scientists reported the surprising discovery of a previously unknown third radiation ring — a narrow one that briefly appeared between the inner and outer rings in September 2012 and persisted for a month. In new research, UCLA ...

LOS ANGELES — Molecular microbiologists at the University of Southern California (USC) have uncovered intricate regulatory mechanisms within the cell that could lead to novel therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and other diseases. Their findings, which have long-standing significance in the basic understanding of cell biology, appear in the journal Nature Cell Biology. "Our research reveals a new regulatory mechanism that coordinates two distinct intracellular processes that are critical to cellular homeostasis and disease development," said Chengyu Liang, M.D., ...