Tissue engineering has been used to construct natural oesophagi, which in combination with bone marrow stem cells have been safely and effectively transplanted in rats. The study, published in Nature Communications, shows that the transplanted organs remain patent and display regeneration of nerves, muscles, epithelial cells and blood vessels. The new method has been developed by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, within an international collaboration lead by Professor Paolo Macchiarini. The technique to grow human tissues and organs, so called tissue engineering, ...

WASHINGTON D.C., April 15, 2014 -- According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the greatest danger to nuclear security comes from terrorists acquiring sufficient quantities of plutonium or highly enriched uranium (HEU) to construct a crude nuclear explosive device. The IAEA also notes that most cases of illicit nuclear trafficking have involved gram-level quantities, which can be challenging to detect with most inspection methods. According to a new study appearing this week in the Journal of Applied Physics, coupling commercially available spectral X-ray ...

New Rochelle, NY, April 15, 2014—Transgender individuals are medically underserved and their healthcare needs incompletely understood in part because they represent a subpopulation whose health is rarely monitored by U.S. national surveillance systems. To address these issues, a new study compared methods of collecting and analyzing data to assess health disparities in a clinical sample of transgender individuals, as reported in an article published in LGBT Health, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the LGBT ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Delivering chemotherapy drugs in nanoparticle form could help reduce side effects by targeting the drugs directly to the tumors. In recent years, scientists have developed nanoparticles that deliver one or two chemotherapy drugs, but it has been difficult to design particles that can carry any more than that in a precise ratio. Now MIT chemists have devised a new way to build such nanoparticles, making it much easier to include three or more different drugs. In a paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the researchers showed ...

When purchasing items online, reading customer reviews is a convenient way to get a real-world account of other people's opinions of the product. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, negative reviews that are offset by a politeness-factor can actually help sell the item. "Most of the research on consumer reviews has been on the content and volume of the message," write authors Ryan Hamilton (Emory University), Kathleen D. Vohs (University of Minnesota), and Ann L. McGill (University of Chicago Booth School of Business). "Our research looks at ...

MADISON – Like rings of a tree, hair can reveal a lot of information about the past. It can tell if a person recently used drugs or an athlete was doping. It can provide information about hormones and expose environmental toxins. And, as a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers show in a study of rhesus monkeys, published in the April 2014 edition of the journal Pediatric Research, it can also reveal the womb environment in which an infant formed. It's the first time researchers have used infant hair to examine the hormonal environment to which the fetus ...

Scientists have identified two unlikely partners, in a type of immune cell called a macrophage, that work together, in response to cancer drugs, to increase inflammation in a way that may alter tumor growth. Researchers from the National Institutes of Health published the study in the journal Cancer Research. These partners are the p53 protein that suppresses tumors and the nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB) protein that stimulates their growth. Blocking this partnership could help prevent inflammation from occurring in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. "Since ...

Washington, DC – Researchers, including a team from Children's National Health System, have identified head circumference and head tilting reflex as two reliable biomarkers in the identification of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in children that are between 9 and 12 months of age. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ASD is identifiable as early as two years old, although most children are not identified until after the age of four. While a number of studies have reported that parents of children with ASD notice developmental problems in ...

Depending on our food cravings, the number of items served, and even the time of day, ordering a meal at a restaurant often requires a "narrowing down" decision making process. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, restaurants that now provide "low-calorie" labels on their menus can inadvertently cause people to eliminate healthy foods right off the bat. "Because most restaurant menus are quite complex—offering numerous dishes composed of multiple ingredients—diners try to simplify their decision. People have come to expect low-calorie food to ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- As the female prison population grows, a new study funded partly by the National Science Foundation says more should be done to help women probationers and parolees in poor urban areas remain crime-free. A team of Michigan State University criminologists found black women on probation and parole feel they have little choice but to isolate themselves in their homes or risk getting caught up in the type of criminal activity that got them in trouble in the first place. Probation and parole officers, case managers and others should help the women ...

When choosy moms choose Jif peanut butter and sports fans who call themselves sports fans subscribe to DirecTV, identity marketing is hard at work. But what happens when this type of advertising misses the mark? According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, when a person's sense of ownership and freedom is threatened they are less likely to respond positively to identity marketing campaigns. "While people may be drawn to brands that fit their identity, they are also more likely to desire a sense of ownership and freedom in how they express that identity. ...

Looking at the question of how social behavior has developed over the course of evolution, scientists from the universities in Mainz and Basel have gained new insights from the study of earwigs. "Young earwig offspring don't simply compete for food. Rather the siblings share what is available amongst themselves, especially when the mother is absent," explained Dr. Joël Meunier of the Evolutionary Biology section of the Institute of Zoology at Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (JGU). The team of biologists from Mainz University and the University of Basel investigated ...

When it comes to charitable giving, some countries open their collective wallets more than others. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, people who live in countries that promote equality in power and wealth are more likely to donate money than those who live in societies that expect and accept inequality. "Our research examines whether cultural values can explain the different levels of charitable giving between different countries," write authors Karen Page Winterich (Pennsylvania State University) and Yinlong Zhang (University of Texas, San ...

Food is an intimately personal thing; we savor some tastes and despise others. But how does the way we chew and eat our food impact our overall consumption? According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, people perceive foods that are either hard or have a rough texture to have fewer calories. "We studied the link between how a food feels in your mouth and the amount we eat, the types of food we choose, and how many calories we think we are consuming," write authors Dipayan Biswas, Courtney Szocs (both University of South Florida), Aradhna Krishna (University ...

From sports to the stock market and even winning the lottery, it's in our nature to predict who or what will come out on top. But, sometimes we can't see the forest for the trees. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, people are more likely to make a prediction about something when it is grouped in a large category of similar items. "One factor that can contribute to a person's flawed judgment is categorization," write authors Mathew S. Isaac (Seattle University) and Aaron R. Brough (Utah State University). "When making a prediction, we can become ...

In a recent analysis by the RECIST Working Group published in the European Journal of Cancer, EORTC researchers had explored whether a more refined categorization of tumor response or various aspects of progression could improve prediction of overall survival in the RECIST database. They found that modeling target lesion tumor growth did not improve the prediction of overall survival above and beyond that of the other components of progression. The RECIST Working Group includes the EORTC, the United States National Cancer Institute, and the National Cancer Institute of ...

Case Western Reserve University dental researchers have found a less invasive way to extract single rare immune cells from the mouth to study how the mouth's natural defenses ward off infection and inflammation. By isolating some specialized immune cells (white blood cells known as "leukocytes") to study how they fight diseases in the mouth—or reject foreign tissues, such as in failed organ transplants—researchers hope to learn more about treating and preventing such health issues as oral cancers, cardiovascular disease, AIDS and other infectious diseases. To this point, ...

By 2050, deforestation could cause temperatures in the Congo Basin to increase by 0.7 °C. The increase would intensify warming caused by greenhouse gases by half, according to a study by researchers at the University of Leuven, Belgium. Explosive population growth and inefficient agricultural practices are causing large-scale destruction of tropical rainforests in Central Africa. A team of researchers from the University of Leuven examined how these practices will affect longer-term temperatures in the region. Using a sophisticated computer model, they forecasted Congo ...

Disturbances in the icy rings of Saturn have given scientists an insight into how moons are made. Writing in the journal Icarus this week, Professor Carl Murray from Queen Mary's Astronomy Unit reports that recently discovered disturbances at the very edge of Saturn's outer bright A ring result from a small icy object that formed within the ring and which may be in the process of migrating out of it. They have nicknamed the object, 'Peggy'. "We hadn't seen anything like this before," explained Professor Murray. "We may be looking at the act of birth, where this object ...

The aim of this study was to develop a screening tool to identify infants prior to 12 months at risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental learning delay (DLD) and provide immediate determination of risk for autism spectrum disorder. The importance of early detection and treatment for children with ASD has been well documented. Since 2006, the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended routine screening measures for toddlers at risk for ASD at 18 and 24 months of age, however the authors of this study were not aware of any screening questionnaires available ...

After experiencing a tragic and truncated end to the 2013 Boston Marathon, race organizers were faced not only with grief but with hundreds of administrative decisions, including plans for the 2014 race – an event beloved by Bostonians and people around the world. One of the issues they faced was what to do about the nearly 6,000 runners who were unable to complete the 2013 race. The Boston Athletic Association, the event's organizers, quickly pledged to provide official finish times for these runners. Thinking ahead, they also had to consider how to provide these runners ...

University of Adelaide research into parasites of cuttlefish, squid and octopus has uncovered details of the parasites' astonishing life cycles, and shown how they may help in investigating populations of their hosts. Researcher Dr Sarah Catalano has described 10 new parasite species− dicyemid mesozoans −, which live in the kidneys of cephalopods (cuttlefish, squid and octopus). They are the very first dicyemid species to be described from Australian waters. "Although dicyemid parasites have been studied by other groups, nothing has been known about dicyemid ...

Court decisions that favor a heterosexual parent over a gay or lesbian parent in a custody dispute often do not consider important social science research on parenting by gay and lesbian individuals, according to a new review from Drexel University. Previous research shows that gay and lesbian individuals are as effective in parenting as heterosexuals, and that children raised by gay or lesbian parents are as well-adjusted as their peers raised by heterosexual parents. This research could greatly impact how legislatures and courts make decisions regarding custody for ...

Engineers at the University of California, San Diego, have created new ceramic materials that could be used to store hydrogen safely and efficiently. The researchers have created for the first time compounds made from mixtures of calcium hexaboride, strontium and barium hexaboride. They also have demonstrated that the compounds could be manufactured using a simple, low-cost manufacturing method known as combustion synthesis. The work is at the proof of concept stage and is part of a $1.2 million project funded by the National Science Foundation, a collaboration between ...

ARLINGTON VA, April 15, 2014 – New research, partially funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the USA Rice Federation, shows that consumers can improve their diets simply by enjoying white or brown rice as part of their daily meals. In a study published online in the peer-reviewed journal Food and Nutrition Sciences, lead author Theresa Nicklas, DrPH, of Baylor College of Medicine, analyzed the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey datasets from 2005-2010 and evaluated the association of rice consumption with overall diet quality and key nutrient ...