The worst impacts of climate change on the world's poorest fishing communities can likely be avoided by careful management of the local environment and investing in the diversification of options for local people, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society and James Cook University. Climate change is already putting pressure on fishers who depend on nature for their livelihoods. In a new study, scientists found large differences in the potential to adapt based on the local mixture of social and environmental characteristics, requiring a variety of management approaches ...

CHICAGO --- A new study shows significant health benefits for uninsured people living under the federal poverty level in the suburbs when they receive access to primary care. Uninsured residents in a suburban collar county of Chicago reported a big improvement in their health status and increased their preventive care and screenings after one year of access to primary care, reports Northwestern Medicine research. The study illustrates the potential benefits of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation and a promising solution to accessible health care for what are ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The modern-day tulip tree, state tree of Indiana as well as Kentucky and Tennessee, can trace its lineage back to the time of the dinosaurs, according to newly published research by an Indiana University paleobotanist and a Russian botanist. The tulip tree, Liriodendron tulipfera, has been considered part of the magnolia family. But David Dilcher of Indiana University Bloomington and Mikhail S. Romanov of the N.V. Tsitsin Main Botanical Garden in Moscow show that it is closely related to fossil plant specimens from the Lower Cretaceous period. Their ...

Most of the time, we try to avoid inflicting pain on others — when we do hurt someone, we typically experience guilt, remorse, or other feelings of distress. But for some, cruelty can be pleasurable, even exciting. New research suggests that this kind of everyday sadism is real and more common than we might think. Two studies led by psychological scientist Erin Buckels of the University of British Columbia revealed that people who score high on a measure of sadism seem to derive pleasure from behaviors that hurt others, and are even willing to expend extra effort to make ...

Irritable bowel syndrome patients extensively suffer from chronic visceral hypersensitivity, with involvement of all levels of the brain-gut axis, as well as various neurotransmitters. Chronic visceral hypersensitivity can occur in the periphery, spinal cord and central nervous system, which has been shown to be the main pathophysiological mechanism underlying abdominal pain in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Acupuncture at Tianshu (ST25) and Shangjuxu (ST37) has been reported to relieve visceral hypersensitivity for irritable bowel syndrome. Xinxin Guo and colleagues ...

The population of northeastern China has a high incidence of ischemic stroke. Previous studies have shown that intracranial large-artery atherosclerosis is one of the main causes of ischemic stroke, and that the mechanisms are related to inflammation and thrombosis of the affected arteries. A recent study by Lianqiu Min and colleagues from Liaoning Medical University observed the effects of atorvastatin treatment in 89 patients from northeastern China with acute ischemic stroke caused by intracranial large-artery atherosclerosis by measuring changes in the levels of markers ...

Astragaloside IV, the main component of the traditional Chinese medicine astragalus membra-naceus, has been shown to inhibit inflammation, oxidation, and apoptosis, and exerts immu-noregulatory effects. Xiaohong Zhang and colleagues from School of Pharmacutical Sciences, Jilin University investigated whether astragaloside IV could promote the repair of injured sciatic nerve. Denervated sciatic nerve of mice was subjected to anastomosis. The mice were intraperitoneally injected with 10, 5, 2.5 mg/kg astragaloside IV per day for 8 consecutive days. The researchers found that ...

Singapore, 11 September 2013 – By binding multiple molecules of a common leukemia drug with nanodiamonds, scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) managed to boost the delivery of the drug to leukemic cells and retain the drug within the cells to combat the cancer. This novel discovery, reported for the first time, addresses one of the major challenges in the treatment of leukemia where the cancer cells develop ways to pump drugs out of the body before they can do their job, particularly after they are ...

SYDNEY: A UNSW-led team of astronomers has begun to map the location of the most massive and mysterious objects in our galaxy – the giant gas clouds where new stars are born. Using a telescope at Coonabarabran that narrowly escaped devastation in a recent bushfire, the team identifies the galactic clouds of molecular gas - which can be up to 100 light years across - from the carbon monoxide they contain. "On Earth, carbon monoxide is poisonous – a silent killer. But in space, it is the second most abundant molecule and the easiest to see," says Professor Michael Burton, ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6042 Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6293 American Chemical Society Obesity combined with exposure to cigarette smoke may pose new health concerns INDIANAPOLIS -- Millions of people who are obese and smoke tobacco may face additional health problems -- including their responses to common prescription medicines -- that extend beyond the well-known links with cancer, heart attacks and stroke, ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6042 Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6293 American Chemical Society Latest research on ingredients that make chocolate, olive oil, tea healthful foods INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 11, 2013 — The scientific spotlight focuses today on the healthful antioxidant substances in red wine, dark chocolate, olive oil, coffee, tea, and other foods and dietary supplements that are enticing millions of consumers ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6042 Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6293 American Chemical Society T-rays offer potential for earlier diagnosis of melanoma INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 11, 2013 — The technology that peeks underneath clothing at airport security screening check points has great potential for looking underneath human skin to diagnose cancer at its earliest and most treatable stages, a scientist said here today. The ...

Researchers at The Mount Sinai Medical Center have developed an innovative system to test how a virus interacts with cells in the body — to see, for example, what happens in lung cells when a deadly respiratory virus attacks them. In the journal Cell Host & Microbe, investigators say such a technique will not only speed basic research into viral biology, it will also help scientists improve vaccine production, generate novel antiviral compounds, and advance the development of viruses that attack cancer cells. "We have a powerful system in place today to investigate ...

CORAL GABLES, FL (September 9, 2013) — Recently, the global financial market experienced a series of computer glitches that abruptly brought operations to a halt. One reason for these "flash freezes" may be the sudden emergence of mobs of ultrafast robots, which trade on the global markets and operate at speeds beyond human capability, thus overwhelming the system. The appearance of this "ultrafast machine ecology" is documented in a new study published on September 11 in Nature Scientific Reports. The findings suggest that for time scales less than one second, the financial ...

Rosemont, Ill. – The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) today released a list of specific tests or procedures that are commonly ordered but not always necessary in orthopaedics as part of the Choosing Wisely® campaign, an initiative of the ABIM Foundation. The list identifies five targeted, evidence-based recommendations that can support conversations between patients and physicians about what care is really necessary. The Academy's list identified the following five recommendations: Avoid performing routine post-operative deep vein thrombosis ultrasonography ...

Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have identified an underlying biochemical mechanism that helps make cholera toxin so deadly, often resulting in life-threating diarrhea that causes people to lose as much as half of their body fluids in a single day. Two groups of scientists working on fruit flies, mice and cultured human intestinal cells studied cholera toxin, produced by the highly infectious bacterium Vibrio cholerae. They discovered the toxin exerts some of its devastating effects by reducing the delivery of proteins to molecular junctions that ...

Some of the hottest days and coldest nights in parts of Europe have warmed more than four times the global average change since 1950, according to a new paper by researchers from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of Warwick, which is published today (11 September 2013) in the journal 'Environmental Research Letters'. The researchers translated observations of weather into observations of climate change using a gridded dataset of observations stretching back to ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – In a new study looking at toddlers and preschoolers with autism, researchers found that children with better motor skills were more adept at socializing and communicating. Published online today in the journal Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, this study adds to the growing evidence of the important link between autism and motor skill deficits. Lead author Megan MacDonald is an assistant professor in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences at Oregon State University. She is an expert on the movement skills of children with autism spectrum ...

WATERLOO, Ont. (Wednesday, September 11, 2013) – A tiny number of Asian carp could establish a population of the invasive fish in the Great Lakes, according to new research from the University of Waterloo. Published this week in the journal Biological Invasions, research from Professor Kim Cuddington of the Faculty of Science at Waterloo indicates that the probability of Asian carp establishment soars with the introduction of 20 fish into the Great Lakes, under some conditions. "Although established Asian carp populations including the Silver and Bighead carps are widely ...

They say a phone call can change your life and for colorectal or bowel cancer survivors this is true, a new study by a QUT researcher has found. Associate Professor Anna Hawkes, from QUT's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, evaluated the effects of a telephone delivered program called CanChange aimed at improving health outcomes for people diagnosed with bowel cancer. The study was conducted at the Cancer Council Queensland and funded by the Australian Government, Cancer Australia. The CanChange program targeted health behaviours such as levels of physical ...

Wednesday, September11: Global warming could impact the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), altering the cycles of El Niño and La Niña events that bring extreme drought and flooding to Australia and many other Pacific-rim countries. New research published in Nature Geoscience using coral samples from Kiribati has revealed how the ENSO cycle has changed over the past 4300 years. This research suggests that external changes have an impact on the strength and timing of El Niño events. "Our research has showed that while the development of La Niña and El Niño events is chaotic ...

Researchers at Umeå University in Sweden, together with researchers at the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, show in a new study how natural selection drives functional evolution of a large protein family in conifer trees. The study sheds light on the mechanisms and adaptive significance of gene family evolution. Most structural and regulatory genes in eukaryotes are members of gene families. Over the course of evolution, some duplicate genes are short-lived, losing functionality and ultimately being removed. However, some duplicates persist and diversify ...

This study suggests that genetically engineered malaria parasites that are stunted through precise gene deletions (genetically attenuated parasites, or "GAP") could be used as a vaccine that protects against malaria infection. This means that the harmless (attenuated) version of the parasite would interact with the body in the same way as the infective version, but without possibility of causing disease. GAP-vaccination would induce robust immune responses that protect against future infection with malaria. According to the World Health Organization, there were 219 million ...

Scientists from the University of Southampton have discovered that copper and copper alloys rapidly destroy norovirus – the highly-infectious sickness bug. Worldwide, norovirus is responsible for more than 267 million cases of acute gastroenteritis every year. In the UK, norovirus costs the National Health Service at least £100 million per year, in times of high incidence, and up to 3,000 people admitted to hospital per year in England. There is no specific treatment or vaccine, and outbreaks regularly shut down hospital wards and care homes, requiring expensive deep-cleaning, ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University used airbrushing techniques to grow vertically aligned carbon nanofibers on several different metal substrates, opening the door for incorporating these nanofibers into gene delivery devices, sensors, batteries and other technologies. "Because we're using an airbrush, this technique could easily be incorporated into large-scale, high-throughput manufacturing processes," says Dr. Anatoli Melechko, an adjunct associate professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the work. ...