WASHINGTON D.C. August 7, 2013 -- Critical to the recovery efforts following the devastating effects of the 2011 tsunami on Japan's Fukushima reactor is the ability to assess damage within the reactor's core. A study in the journal AIP Advances by a team of scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) shows that muon imaging may offer the best hope of assessing damage to the reactor cores and locating the melted fuel. Muon imaging, which utilizes naturally occurring muons created in the atmosphere by cosmic rays to image dense objects, should solve the problem ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- A person's math ability can range from simple arithmetic to calculus and abstract set theory. But there's one math skill we all share: a primitive ability to estimate and compare quantities without counting, like when choosing a checkout line at the grocery store. Previous studies have suggested there's a connection between how well a person does at the approximate number system and how skilled they become at the symbolic math they learn in school. Duke University researchers wanted to know if this ability could be enhanced by giving people more ...

WASHINGTON — Cases involving children ingesting magnets quintupled between 2002 and 2011, with ingestion of multiple magnets generally resulting in more serious outcomes, including emergency surgery. The results of a study documenting a rapid rise in pediatric injuries was published online yesterday in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("Rise in Pediatric Magnet-Related Foreign Bodies Requiring Emergency Care"). "It is common for children to put things in their mouth and nose, but the risk of intestinal damage increases dramatically when multiple magnets are swallowed," ...

A plastic material already used in absorbable surgical sutures and other medical devices shows promise for continuous administration of antibiotics to patients with brain infections, scientists are reporting in a new study. Use of the material, placed directly on the brain's surface, could reduce the need for weeks of costly hospital stays now required for such treatment, they say in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience. Shih-Jung Liu and colleagues explain that infections are life-threatening complications that occur in about 5-10 percent of patients who have brain ...

An international team of researchers has described a new physical effect that could be used to develop more efficient magnetic chips for information processing. The quantum mechanical effect makes it easier to produce spin-polarized currents necessary for the switching of magnetically stored information. The research findings were published online on 28 July in the high-impact journal Nature Nanotechnology (DOI:10.1038/NNANO.2013.145). Random-access memory is the short-term memory in computers. It buffers the programs and files currently in use in electronic form, in ...

Tiny sensors and motors are everywhere, telling your smartphone screen to rotate and your camera to focus. Now, a team of researchers at Tel Aviv University has found a way to print biocompatible components for these micro-machines, making them ideal for use in medical devices, like bionic arms. Microelectromechanical systems, better known as MEMS, are usually produced from silicon. The innovation of the TAU researchers — engineering doctoral candidates Leeya Engel and Jenny Shklovsky under the supervision of Prof. Yosi Shacham-Diamand of the School of Electrical Engineering ...

Moderate exercise could be good for keeping your tendons healthy according to new research from the University of East Anglia funded by Arthritis Research UK. The onset of tendon disease has previously been associated with exercise. However new research published today in the journal Molecular Cell Research shows that doing moderate exercise could help guard against and treat the painful and often debilitating condition. The research team showed that moving around decreases a group of enzymes (metalloproteinases) that degrade tendon tissue and increase tendon protein. Tendon ...

After years of wariness, universities and industry scientists are forging new partnerships that are reinvigorating academic science departments, preparing students for careers and giving corporations better access to fundamental research. That 21st century alliance is the topic of the cover story in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News. C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. Rick Mullin, C&EN senior editor, points out that collaborations established during the last several years defy earlier ...

A new cost-effective polymer membrane can decrease the cost of alkaline batteries and fuel cells by allowing the replacement of expensive platinum catalysts without sacrificing important aspects of performance, according to Penn State researchers. "We have tried to break this paradigm of tradeoffs in materials (by improving) both the stability and the conductivity of this membrane at the same time, and that is what we were able to do with this unique polymeric materials design," said Michael Hickner, associate professor of materials science and engineering. In solid-state ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research suggests that treadmill training soon after a spinal cord injury can have long-lasting positive effects on recovery – as long as the training is accompanied by efforts to control inflammation in the lower spinal cord. The study, in animals, also is among the first to show that spinal cord injuries can create impairments in parts of the cord located many spine segments away from the trauma site. Researchers observed signs of inflammation in the lumbar region of the spine, at least 10 segments below the mid-back injury, within 24 hours of ...

Philadelphia, Pa. -- Despite recent discouraging results, endovascular treatment is still a "reasonable" treatment option for selected patients with acute stroke, according to a commentary in the August issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. A special article in the August Neurosurgery suggests that the US supply of neurosurgeons is inadequate to meet the demand, while a new study finds no evidence that obesity causes worse outcomes ...

Scientists have created a powerful micro-supercapacitor, just nanometres thick, that could help electronics companies develop mobile phones and cameras that are smaller, lighter and thinner than ever before. The tiny power supply measures less than half a centimetre across and is made from a flexible material, opening up the possibility for wearable electronics. The research is published in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Energy & Environmental Science. A bottleneck in making portable electronic devices like mobile phones even smaller is reducing the size and ...

EUGENE, Ore. -- (Aug. 7, 2013) – Although librarians adopted Internet technology quickly, they initially dismissed search engines, which duplicated tasks they considered integral to their field. Their eventual embrace of the technology required a reinvention of their occupational identity, according to a study by University of Oregon researchers. The story of the successful transition -- of accommodating a new technology -- into a new identity is a good example for professionals in other fields who have faced or currently face such challenges, says Andrew J. Nelson, a ...

Mystery fans know that the best way to solve a mystery is to revisit the scene where it began and look for clues. To understand the mysteries of our universe, scientists are trying to go back as far they can to the Big Bang. A new analysis of cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation data by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has taken the furthest look back through time yet – 100 years to 300,000 years after the Big Bang - and provided tantalizing new hints of clues as to what might have happened. "We found that the standard picture ...

A new system could tell you how likely it is for you to become ill if you visit a particular restaurant by 'listening' to the tweets from other restaurant patrons. The University of Rochester researchers say their system, nEmesis, can help people make more informed decisions, and it also has the potential to complement traditional public health methods for monitoring food safety, such as restaurant inspections. For example, it could enable what they call "adaptive inspections," inspections guided in part by the real-time information that nEmesis provides. The system combines ...

For adults infected with HIV in Thailand a monitoring strategy based on CD4 count (a type of white blood cell) is non-inferior to the recommended monitoring strategy measuring the amount of HIV virus in a patient's blood, to determine when to switch from first-line to more costly second-line antiretroviral treatment according to a clinical trial published this week in PLOS Medicine. The study was conducted by an international team of researchers led by Marc Lallemant from Chiang Mai University, Thailand and the Harvard School of Public Health, United States and provides ...

In the development of animals, which is closely controlled by diverse pathways, the regulation of organ size has been a long-standing puzzle. How does an organ ascertain its optimum size? What are the molecular mechanisms that stop organ growth at an appropriate point during development or regeneration? Almost a decade ago, the discovery of the Hippo signaling pathway provided an important starting point for answering these questions. Now, a team of scientists led by Lei Zhang at the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry & Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has ...

PHILADELPHIA— Contrary to past concerns, using prolonged exposure therapy to treat patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and comorbid alcohol dependence does not increase drinking or cravings, Penn Medicine psychiatrists report in the August 7 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on violence/human rights. In a first-of-its-kind single-blind, randomized clinical trial, researchers also found that PTSD patients treated with naltrexone for alcohol dependence drank less—and that the use of prolonged exposure therapy and naltrexone better protects PTSD patients from ...

Research to be published Aug. 7 in the highly respected international journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B clearly demonstrates that at least five and as many as nine species of tropical fruit flies, including the infamous Medfly, are permanently established in California and inexorably spreading, despite more than 30 years of intervention and nearly 300 state-sponsored eradication programs aimed at the flies. The new study by a trio of scientists affiliated with the University of California, Davis, has significant implications for how government agencies develop ...

In an examination of risk factors associated with suicide in current and former military personnel observed 2001 and 2008, male sex and mental disorders were independently associated with suicide risk but not military-specific variables, findings that do not support an association between deployment or combat with suicide, according to a study in the August 7 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on violence/human rights. "Despite universal access to healthcare services, mandatory suicide prevention training, and other preventive efforts, suicide has become one of the leading ...

In a trial that included patients with alcohol dependence and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), treatment with the drug naltrexone resulted in a decrease in the percentage of days drinking while use of the PTSD treatment, prolonged exposure therapy, was not associated with increased drinking or alcohol craving, according to a study in the August 7 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on violence/human rights. "Alcohol dependence and PTSD are highly comorbid [co-existing], yet little is known about how best to treat this large, highly dysfunctional, and distressed population. ...

A review of articles on disaster and emergency mental health response interventions and services indicates that in postdisaster settings, a systematic framework of case identification, triage, and mental health interventions should be integrated into emergency medicine and trauma care responses, according to a study in the August 7 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on violence/human rights. "Mental and physical consequences of major disasters have garnered increasing attention to the need for an effective community response. It is estimated that much of the U.S. population ...

"In January 1996, Congress passed an appropriations bill amendment prohibiting the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from using 'funds made available for injury prevention ... to advocate or promote gun control.' This provision was triggered by evidence linking gun ownership to health harms, created uncertainty among CDC officials and researchers about what could be studied, and led to significant declines in funding," write Joseph A. Ladapo, M.D., Ph.D., of the New York University School of Medicine, New York, and colleagues. As reported in a Research ...

Dolphins can recognize their old tank mates' whistles after being separated for more than 20 years — the longest social memory ever recorded for a non-human species. The remarkable memory feat is another indication that dolphins have a level of cognitive sophistication comparable to only a few other species, including humans, chimpanzees and elephants. Dolphins' talent for social recognition may be even more long-lasting than facial recognition among humans, since human faces change over time but the signature whistle that identifies a dolphin remains stable over many ...

A RIKEN research team has discovered an enzyme called Rines that regulates MAO-A, a major brain protein controlling emotion and mood. The enzyme is a potentially promising drug target for treating diseases associated with emotions such as depression. Monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) is an enzyme that breaks down serotonin, norephinephrine and dopamine, neurotransmitters well-known for their influence on emotion and mood. Nicknamed the "warrior gene", a variant of the MAOA gene has been associated with increased risk of violent and anti-social behavior. While evidence points ...