Fast-accumulating data seem to indicate that our close cousins, the Neandertals, were much more similar to us than imagined even a decade ago. But did they have anything like modern speech and language? And if so, what are the implications for understanding present-day linguistic diversity? The MPI for Psycholinguistics researchers Dan Dediu and Stephen C. Levinson argue in their paper in Frontiers in Language Sciences that modern language and speech can be traced back to the last common ancestor we shared with the Neandertals roughly half a million years ago. The Neandertals ...

Using nanostructured glass, scientists at the University of Southampton have, for the first time, experimentally demonstrated the recording and retrieval processes of five dimensional digital data by femtosecond laser writing. The storage allows unprecedented parameters including 360 TB/disc data capacity, thermal stability up to 1000°C and practically unlimited lifetime. Coined as the 'Superman' memory crystal, as the glass memory has been compared to the "memory crystals" used in the Superman films, the data is recorded via self-assembled nanostructures created in ...

New Rochelle, NY -- Next-generation hydrogels can form synthetic scaffolds to support the formation of replacement tissues and organs in the emerging area of regenerative medicine. Embedding peptides into the hydrogels stimulates the growth of essential microvascular networks to ensure a good blood supply. Novel, cutting-edge technology in which hydrogels functionalized with laminin-derived peptides were transplanted in a mouse cornea and were shown to support cell growth and blood vessel formation is described in an article in BioResearch Open Access, a peer-reviewed open ...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., July 9, 2013—Wildfires produce a witch's brew of carbon-containing particles, as anyone downwind of a forest fire can attest. A range of fine carbonaceous particles rising high into the air significantly degrade air quality, damaging human and wildlife health, and interacting with sunlight to affect climate. But measurements taken during the 2011 Las Conchas fire near Los Alamos National Laboratory show that the actual carbon-containing particles emitted by fires are very different than those used in current computer models, providing the potential for ...

DETROIT – While the use of ultrasound to identify tumors during kidney cancer surgery is gaining acceptance, a research team at Henry Ford Hospital has successfully taken it a step further by showing an added benefit when the procedure is done robotically. Simply put, the kidney surgeon who performs the ultrasound robotically has direct control over the painstaking procedure instead of having to rely on an assistant for part of the task. The researchers compared the robotic ultrasound probe to the same procedure using a laparoscopic ultrasound probe, which requires an ...

DETROIT – While stem-cell therapy offers great promise for the treatment of stroke, much research remains to be done to show its long-term effectiveness and to understand the potential for dangerous side effects. These are the conclusions drawn by Henry Ford Hospital neurologists Jing Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., and Michael Chopp, Ph.D., scientific director of the Henry Ford Hospital Neuroscience Institute, in a review of their own and other current research into the next-generation treatment of one of the leading causes of death and disability around the world. The article has ...

The Need for Discussion About Prostate Cancer Screening Choices, Optimizing Shared Decision Making Three research studies and an accompanying editorial address the importance of shared decision making around prostate cancer screening. Although prostate cancer is among the most common cancers among men in the United States, the value of screening for prostate cancer by measuring prostate-specific antigen levels remains highly controversial because screening can lead to invasive procedures and treatments that in turn can cause substantial harm. Because such harms may outweigh ...

Ever since the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, the number of enrollees in Medicare Advantage, Medicare's managed care program, has jumped from 5.3 million to 14.4 million in 2013. While most individuals in Medicare opt for the traditional, fee-for-service benefit, many more are enrolling in HMOs and other managed care options. This dynamic heightens the importance of a question health care professionals and policymakers have been asking for many years: Does the system of fixed reimbursement inherent to HMOs and other forms of health ...

1. Task force finds insufficient evidence to recommend for or against screening for primary open-angle glaucoma The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) found insufficient evidence to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening for primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) in adults. Glaucoma is an acquired degeneration of the optic nerve that is the second most common cause of blindness worldwide. Open-angle is the most common type of glaucoma where an increase in pressure on the optic nerve occurs slowly over time. The goal of potential screening ...

WASHINGTON, DC—Existing Medicaid beneficiaries have largely been left out of the health reform movement when it comes to preventive services that can ward off cancer, heart disease and other potentially deadly diseases, according to a new study by researchers at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS). The study, which appears in the July issue of Health Affairs, notes that under the Affordable Care Act most private insurance plans, Medicare and Medicaid expansion programs are required by law to cover a full range of crucial ...

When people sing in a choir their heart beats are synchronised, so that the pulse of choir members tends to increase and decrease in unison. This has been shown by a study from the Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg that examined the health effects for choir members. In the research project "Kroppens Partitur" (The Body's Musical Score), researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy are studying how music, in purely biological terms, affects our body and our health. The object is to find new forms where music may be used for medical purposes, primarily within rehabilitation ...

Philadelphia -- Patients with low socioeconomic status use emergency and hospital care more often than primary care because they believe hospital care is more affordable and convenient, and of better quality than care provided by primary care physicians, according to the results of a new study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The results of the study, appearing in the July issue of Health Affairs (and featured on its cover), have significant implications for policy initiatives such as the Affordable Care Act that seek ...

Many state and local governments have banned smoking in parks and on beaches on the basis that passive smoke is a risk for non-smokers, cigarette butts pollute the environment, and seeing people smoke poses a long-term risk to children. In the paper "Banning Smoking In Parks and on Beaches: Science, Policy, and the Politics of Denormalization," published in the July issue of the journal Health Affairs, researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health analyzed the evidence for these claims and found them to be far from definitive and, in some cases, weak. ...

Given the importance of early childhood development on subsequent health, there may be knock-on effects across the life course, suggest the authors. The authors looked at whether bedtimes in early childhood were related to brain power in more than 11,000 seven year olds, all of whom were part of the UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). MCS is a nationally representative long term study of UK children born between September 2000 and January 2002, and the research drew on regular surveys and home visits made when the children were 3, 5, and 7, to find out about family routines, ...

While the results may not be representative of the UK as a whole, nevertheless, excess drinking and drug taking in pregnancy is a pairing that is likely to be more common than generally thought, say the authors. It is known that women prescribed maintenance methadone use other illicit drugs, but the extent to which they do this has never been quantified in the UK, nor are there any figures on the prevalence of drug and alcohol use during pregnancy for this group of women, they add. They interviewed 56 mums who were on methadone maintenance during their pregnancy and ...

Buyers want larger size animals to obtain the maximum meat yield, so go for thoroughbreds and riding horses, the study indicates. The researchers looked at the animals put up for sale at seven randomly selected auction markets in Britain in August and September 2011, and the type preferred by dealers buying on behalf of abattoirs. The auctions were in North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Wales (Powys), Berkshire and Cheshire and traded equines only, but of all types, breed and age. Their study was prompted by public concerns about the possible dispatch to slaughter of ...

Researchers from the University of Liverpool and University of the West of England, (UWE Bristol), have built a device that can read odours in urine to help diagnose patients with early signs of bladder cancer. There are currently no reliable biomarkers to screen patients for bladder cancer in the same way that there are for breast and cervical cancers. Previous research has suggested that a particular odour in the urine could be detected by dogs trained to recognise the scent, indicating that methods of diagnoses could be based on the smell of certain gases. The team ...

Carbon capture and storage has been heralded as a new technology for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In an effort to help slow climate change, human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2) is captured at point-source emitters like power stations and sequestered in underground rocks. In porous rocks like sandstone, the CO2 is trapped in tiny spaces or pores, which act like a sponge and soak up the injected fluid. In 2000, one of the first commercial examples of this technology was conducted in Weyburn, Saskatchewan Province, Canada where approximately 3 megatonnes of CO2 (the ...

Persons who live to an older age are the more likely to be disabled near the end of life and require the assistance of a caregiver to complete the activities of daily living, and disability was more common in women than men two years before death, according to a report published by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. The population of U.S. adults older than 85 years is expected to triple from 5.4 million to 19 million between 2008 and 2050. While many people do live into their eighth and ninth decades independently and free of disability, the end-of-life ...

Patients who search on free health-related websites for information related to a medical condition may have the health information they provide leaked to third party tracking entities through code on those websites, according to a research letter by Marco D. Huesch, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Between December 2012 and January 2013, using a sample of 20 popular health-related websites, Huesch used freely available privacy tools to detect third parties. Commercial interception software also was used to intercept hidden traffic ...

Both an early and late first exposure to solid food for infants appears to be associated with the development of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM), according to a study published by JAMA Pediatrics, a JAMA Network publication. T1DM is increasing around the world with some of the most rapid increase among children younger than 5 years of age. The infant diet has been of particular interest in the origin of the disease, according to the study background. Brittni Frederiksen, M.P.H., Colorado School of Public Health, University of Colorado, Aurora, and colleagues examined ...

Patients with epilepsy who had amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) or Alzheimer disease (AD) presented earlier with cognitive decline than patients who did not have epilepsy, according to a report published by JAMA Neurology, a JAMA Network publication. AD increases a patient's risk of risk of seizures, and patients with AD and seizure disorders have greater cognitive impairment, more rapid progression of symptoms and more severe neuronal loss at autopsy than those without seizures, according to the study background. "Epileptic activity associated with Alzheimer ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY – Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly and intractable forms of cancer, with a 5-year survival rate of only 6%. Novel therapies are urgently needed, as conventional and targeted approaches have not been successful and drug resistance is an increasing problem. Previously it had been thought that poor penetration of the drugs into pancreas tumors was the main reason for treatment failure. But now a team of scientists led by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professor David Tuveson M.D., Ph.D., shows there are other factors at work, too. In ...

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers have discovered that hydrogen sulfide — the pungent-smelling gas produced by rotten eggs — is a key player in colon cancer metabolism, and a potential target for therapies for the disease. In a paper appearing online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the UTMB scientists describe cell-culture and mouse experiments demonstrating that colon cancer cells produce large amounts of hydrogen sulfide, and depend on the compound for survival and growth. "They love it and they need it," ...

Scientists have found that key metabolites in blood – chemical 'fingerprints' left behind as a result of early molecular changes before birth or in infancy – could provide clues to a person's long-term overall health and rate of ageing in later life. Published today in the International Journal of Epidemiology, the international study of twins led by King's College London highlights how a technique called metabolomic profiling has revealed a collection of 22 metabolites linked to ageing. One of these, linked to ageing traits such as lung function and bone mineral density, ...