Washington, D.C.— Plants convert energy from sunlight into chemical energy during a process called photosynthesis. This energy is passed on to humans and animals that eat the plants, and thus photosynthesis is the primary source of energy for all life on Earth. But the photosynthetic activity of various regions is changing due to human interaction with the environment, including climate change, which makes large-scale studies of photosynthetic activity of interest. New research from a team including Carnegie's Joe Berry reveals a fundamentally new approach for measuring ...

Bottom Line: Habitually playing violent video games appears to increase aggression in children, regardless of parental involvement and other factors. Author: Douglas A. Gentile, Ph.D., of Iowa State University, Ames, and colleagues. Background: More than 90 percent of American youths play video games, and many of these games depict violence, which is often portrayed as fun, justified and without negative consequences. How the Study Was Conducted: The authors tracked children and adolescents in Singapore over three years on self-reported measures of gaming habits, ...

Bottom Line: The use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) by smokers is not associated with greater rates of quitting cigarettes or reduced cigarette consumption after one year. Author: Rachel A. Grana, Ph.D., M.P.H., and colleagues from the University California, San Francisco. Background: E-cigarettes are promoted as smoking cessation tools, but studies of their effectiveness have been unconvincing. How the Study Was Conducted: The authors analyzed self-reported data from 949 smokers (88 of the smokers used e-cigarettes at baseline) to determine if e-cigarettes ...

Treatment with natalizumab in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) appears linked with JC virus (JCV) infection, which can lead to a rare and often fatal demyelinating disease of the central nervous system called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) that destroys the myelin that protects nerve cells. The movement of cells with JC virus into the blood stream may provide researchers with a possible reason why patients with MS develop PML Since natalizumab was reintroduced as a biologic therapy for MS in 2006, more than 440 cases of PML have been reported. ...

(Lebanon, NH, 03/24/2014)- Dartmouth researchers at its Norris Cotton Cancer Center have compiled a review of the role that information gathered through genetic testing plays in the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. The paper entitled "Personalized Therapy for Breast Cancer" was accepted on March 17, 2014, for publication in Clinical Genetics. The paper discusses targeted therapies, new biomarkers, and the quality of commercially available testing methods. Genomic testing is changing the way breast cancer is diagnosed and treated. By examining a woman's genes ...

TORONTO – 'Watch out for weight gain within a year of giving birth to prevent new risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.' That advice for women comes from a study published today in the journal Diabetes Care. While it has long been believed that not losing 'baby weight' for several years after pregnancy carries long-term risks of diabetes and heart disease the research team at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, aimed to test this theory by tracking risk factors and weight in the first 12 months after giving birth. The team led by clinician-researcher Dr. Ravi ...

A revolution in cancer treatment could soon be underway following a breakthrough that may lead to a dramatic improvement in cancer survival rates. A new study at the University of Warwick, published today in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, has developed a new drug that can manipulate the body's natural signalling and energy systems, allowing the body to attack and shut down cancerous cells. Called ZL105, the drug is a compound based on the precious metal iridium. The study has found ZL105 could potentially replace currently used anticancer drugs, ...

New Rochelle, NY, March 25, 2014—Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is common among military veterans and together with the often-related anxiety, depression, and psychological and emotional impairment can dramatically affect quality of life. A type of virtual reality (VR) treatment called Graded Exposure Therapy (GET) can improve PTSD symptoms and may also have a positive impact on these associated disorders, as described in an article in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- Changing how medication alerts are presented in electronic medical records resulted in safer prescribing, increased efficiency and reduced workload for health care providers who placed drug orders in a study published online in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. "The VA electronic medical record system is one of the most widely used and respected EMR systems in the country," said Alissa L. Russ, Ph.D., a human factors engineer who led the study. "This EMR is used by providers at over 150 VA hospitals. We are looking at ways to ...

Pesticides have a direct impact on the physiology and behaviour of earthworms, a Danish/French research team reports after having studied earthworms that were exposed to pesticides over generations. "We see that the worms have developed methods to detoxify themselves, so that they can live in soil sprayed with fungicide. They spend a lot of energy on detoxifying, and that comes with a cost: The worms do not reach the same size as other worms, and we see that there are fewer of them in sprayed soil. An explanation could be that they are less successful at reproducing, ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The emergence of community-acquired infections, such as urinary tract infections (UTI), due to strains resistant to common antibiotics are on the rise, according to Rhode Island Hospital researchers. The study is published online in the journal Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control. "Over the last several years, we've seen an increase in the number of bacteria -- many of which are forms of E. coli -- that are resistant to commonly administered antibiotics," said Leonard Mermel, D.O., medical director of the department of epidemiology and infection ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Four years after being treated for breast cancer, a quarter of survivors say they are worse off financially, at least partly because of their treatment, according to a new study led by University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers. In addition, 12 percent reported that they still have medical debt from their treatment. Financial decline varied significantly by race, with Spanish-speaking Latinas most likely to be impacted. Debt was reported more frequently in English-speaking Latinas and Blacks, the study found. Results appear in ...

Scientists have found that a simple blood test, which can read DNA, could be used to predict obesity levels in children. Researchers at the Universities of Southampton, Exeter and Plymouth used the test to assess the levels of epigenetic switches in the PGC1a gene – a gene that regulates fat storage in the body. Epigenetic switches take place through a chemical change called DNA methylation which controls how genes work and is set during early life. The Southampton team found that the test, when carried out on children at five years old, differentiates between children ...

TORONTO, ON – A new study by University of Toronto researchers has found that kids' books featuring animals with human characteristics not only lead to less factual learning but also influence children's reasoning about animals. Researchers also found that young readers are more likely to attribute human behaviors and emotions to animals when exposed to books with anthropomorphized animals than books depicting animals realistically. "Books that portray animals realistically lead to more learning and more accurate biological understanding," says lead author Patricia ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Doctors commonly use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to diagnose tumors, damage from stroke, and many other medical conditions. Neuroscientists also rely on it as a research tool for identifying parts of the brain that carry out different cognitive functions. Now, a team of biological engineers at MIT is trying to adapt MRI to a much smaller scale, allowing researchers to visualize gene activity inside the brains of living animals. Tracking these genes with MRI would enable scientists to learn more about how the genes control processes such as forming ...

WASHINGTON - A large proportion of teenage boys and college men report having been coerced into sex or sexual behavior, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. A total of 43 percent of high school boys and young college men reported they had an unwanted sexual experience and of those, 95 percent said a female acquaintance was the aggressor, according to a study published online in the APA journal Psychology of Men and Masculinity. "Sexual victimization continues to be a pervasive problem in the United States, but the victimization ...

The study, published in the journal Technovation and written by Pere Ortín Ángel and Ferran Vendrell Herrero, covers financial data from two comparison samples of companies founded between 1994 and 2005. One sample is made up of 104 university spin-offs and the other is made up of 73 technology-based, non-university companies. The study compares what is known as the total factor productivity of these two samples. According to the study, in the university spin-offs this productivity is, on average, lower in the year in which the company is founded. Nevertheless, data shows ...

Alteration of the autophagic process is involved in neurodegeneration. The beclin 1 complex is shown to play a key role in the initial stage of autophagy. Dr. Yanming Wei and co-coworkers from College of Life Science, Northwest Agriculture & Forestry University in China pointed out the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-linked Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase 1 G93A mutant can upregulate autophagic activity in NSC34 cells, but that this does not markedly affect beclin 1 complex components. The relevant paper has been published in the Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 9, No. 1, 2014). INFORMATION: Article: ...

Research over decades has implicated aberrant autophagy and lysosomal function as reliable markers and therapeutic targets for neurodegenerative diseases. Lipid rafts are shown to participate in lysosomal reproduction, and some lysosomal storage diseases are proposed to result from the accumulation of lipids in late endosomal/lysosomal compartments. Prof. Lin Yuan and team from Southern Medical University in China review the influence of lipid rafts on the progression of Alzheimer's disease through the modulation of aberrant autophagic-lysosomal pathway of amyloid-ß peptide, ...

Transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) type II receptor (TβRII) levels are extremely low in the brain tissue of patients with Alzheimer's disease. This receptor inhibits TGF-β1/SMAD signaling and thereby aggravates amyolid-beta deposition and neuronal injury. Dab2, a specifc adapter protein, protects TβRII from degradation and ensures the effective conduction of TGF-β1/SMAD signaling. Prof. Jun Liu and team from Norman Bethune First Hospital of Jilin University in China used an adenoviral vector to overexpress Dab2 in the APP/PS1 transgenic mouse ...

The growing and justified concern about the current global warming process has kindled the interest of the scientific community in geological records as an archive of crucial information to understand the physical and ecological effects of ancient climate changes. A study by the UPV/EHU's Palaeogene Study Group deals with the behaviour of the sea level during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) 56 million years ago and has ruled out any connection. The study has been published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. "The fall in sea ...

The apolipoprotein E gene ε4 allele is considered a negative factor for neural regeneration in late-onset Alzheimer's disease cases. Apolipoprotein E genotyping is crucial to apolipoprotein E polymorphism analysis. Peripheral venous blood is the conventional tissue source for apolipoprotein E genotyping polymorphism analysis. Blood yields high-quality genomic DNA and can meet various research purposes. However, because of invasiveness, taking blood samples decreases compliance among the elderly, especially neuropsychiatric patients. Moreover, blood specimens often ...

Drug approval requires a deep understanding of the mechanism of action The team of Julia Bandow, who heads the RUB's Junior Research Group Microbial Antibiotic Research, has been studying the MP196 peptide as a representative of a group of very small positively charged peptides that consist of some four to ten amino acids. Earlier studies had shown that MP196 is efficient against various bacteria, including particularly problematic multi-resistant pathogens that frequently cause sepsis. How MP196 kills bacteria remained unclear. However, in order for a new substance to ...

Because people in developed countries spend about 90% of their time indoors, their sense of warmth becomes one key comfort factor for interior spaces. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed a new method for assessing the individual thermal comfort experienced by different user groups. The design of energy efficient buildings – such as day care centres, schools, offices and homes for the elderly – should pay more attention in future to the thermal comfort of user groups according to real needs. The new method developed for assessing thermal comfort (Human ...

In how many ways can one describe an object? Take an apple: by just looking at it we can easily estimate its weight, shape and colour but we are unable to describe it at any other level, for example, to evaluate the chemical composition of its flesh. Something similar also applies to astronomical objects: until today one of the challenges facing scientists was to describe neutron stars at the nuclear physics level. The matter these stars are made up of is in fact extremely complex, and several complicated equations of state have been proposed. However, to date there is ...