Alexandria, Va., USA – Today, at the 43rd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR), held in conjunction with the 38th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, R. Constance Wiener, from West Virginia University, Morgantown, will present a research study titled "Association of Tooth Loss and Depression and Anxiety." Tooth loss from caries and periodontal disease is an outcome from complex, chronic conditions. Several biopsychosocial factors are involved, including accessing care. Individuals reporting dental ...

Over 35 percent of American adults and 17 percent of American children are considered obese, according to the latest survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Associated with diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and even certain types of cancer, obesity places a major burden on the health care system and economy. It's usually treated through a combination of diet, nutrition, exercise, and other techniques. To understand how obesity develops, Prof. Amit Gefen, Dr. Natan Shaked and Ms. Naama Shoham of Tel Aviv University's Department of Biomedical ...

PITTSBURGH, March 20, 2014 – Discussions with a dietary coach to learn about healthy eating were as effective as meeting with a counselor for problem-solving or "talk" therapy in preventing major depression among older black and white adults with mild symptoms of the mood disorder, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Maryland. Their findings were published online recently in Psychiatric Services. Depression is common and treatments often don't completely resolve the disability that attends the illness, said senior author Charles ...

Breastfeeding until at least nine months of age increases prevalence in the gastrointestinal tract of Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria, species which are known to contribute to development of a healthy immune system, according to a paper describing the establishment of the intestinal microbiota during the first three years of life. The research was published ahead of print in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. In the study, the investigators sampled the gut microbiota in the feces of 300 children at 9, 18, and 36 months of age. The nutritional factor ...

This news release is available in French. Montreal, March 19, 2014 — As spring finally emerges after a ferocious winter,, our battered roads will soon be re-exposed. While potholes and cracks might make news, a bigger concern should be the deterioration to pavement markings, from yellow to white lines, which are a big factor in preventing traffic accidents. A study from Concordia University, funded by Infrastructure Canada and published in Structure and Infrastructure Engineering, found that snowplows are the biggest culprit in erasing roadway markings. The research ...

Tampa, FL (Mar. 20, 2014) – Traumatic brain injuries (TBI), sustained by close to 2 million Americans annually, including military personnel, are debilitating and devastating for patients and their families. Regardless of severity, those with TBI can suffer a range of motor, behavioral, intellectual and cognitive disabilities over the short or long term. Sadly, clinical treatments for TBI are few and largely ineffective. In an effort to find an effective therapy, neuroscientists at the Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair, Department of Neurosurgery in the ...

Addictive behavior such as drug and alcohol abuse could be associated with poor development of the so-called "love hormone" system in our bodies during early childhood, according to researchers at the University of Adelaide. The groundbreaking idea has resulted from a review of worldwide research into oxytocin, known as the "love hormone" or "bonding drug" because of its important role in enhancing social interactions, maternal behavior and partnership. This month's special edition of the international journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior deals with the current ...

1. Scientists at A*STAR's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) have developed a method to generate human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) from a single drop of finger-pricked blood. The method also enables donors to collect their own blood samples, which they can then send to a laboratory for further processing. The easy access to blood samples using the new technique could potentially boost the recruitment of greater numbers and diversities of donors, and could lead to the establishment of large-scale hiPSC banks. 2. By genetic reprogramming, matured ...

Algae are organisms useful in many ways in the transition towards a bio-economy. Even in a cool climate as in Finland, algae might be used to produce biochemicals and biofuels, besides use in capture of industrial carbon dioxide emissions. The ALGIDA project coordinated by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland explored algae growing in Finland. Algae are not yet profitably cultivated for energy production purposes. The cultivation is challenging especially in cool climate where there is little daylight in winter. Production is expensive compared with wood and agricultural ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Scientists have presented the most conclusive evidence yet that genes play a significant role in parenting. A study by two Michigan State University psychologists refutes the popular theory that how adults parent their children is strictly a function of the way they were themselves parented when they were children. While environmental factors do play a role in parenting, so do a person's genes, said S. Alexandra Burt, associate professor of psychology and co-author of a study led by doctoral student Ashlea M. Klahr. "The way we parent is not ...

Patients who are over the age of 60 and have suffered a major stroke due to blockage of the middle cerebral artery benefit from hemicraniectomy – removal of part of the skull located above the affected brain tissue. The procedure relieves increased pressure on the brain in the first 48 hours after the stroke. These patients' chances of survival increase two-fold if they undergo surgery. However, patients who have been operated on often survive with severe disabilities, while patients who do not undergo the surgery generally die quickly. These findings were obtained in a ...

Alexandria, Va., USA – Today, at the 43rd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR), held in conjunction with the 38th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, Kazunori Ikebe, from Osaka University, Japan, will present a research study titled "Cognitive Function and Oral Perception in Independently-living Octogenarians." In this study, researchers hypothesized that the decline of cognitive impairment is involved in oral perceptions since its preclinical stage. The aim of this study was to examine association ...

252 million years ago the largest extinction event occurred at the end of the Permian age. It wiped out almost 90 percent of all life in water. So far researchers had assumed that the ecosystems gradually recovered from this catastrophe over a long stretch of eight to nine million years and that large predators at the uppermost end of the food chain were the last to reappear. A Swiss-American team of palaeontologists headed by Torsten Scheyer and Carlo Romano from the University of Zurich demonstrate in their new study that the food nets during the Early Triassic did not ...

Amsterdam, March 20, 2014 – Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced the publication of a position statement by the European Menopause and Andropause Society (EMAS) in the journal Maturitas on the topic of the essential menopause curriculum for medical students. The menopause, or the cessation of the menstrual cycle, is the result of ovarian aging and is a natural event experienced by most women in their late 40s or early 50s. With increasing longevity the menopause can now be considered ...

WASHINGTON, March 20—Detecting HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other deadly infectious diseases as early as possible helps to prevent their rapid spread and allows for more effective treatments. But current detection methods are cost-prohibitive in most areas of the world. Now a new nanotechnology method—employing common, everyday shrink wrap—may make highly sensitive, extremely low-cost diagnosis of infectious disease agents possible. The new technique, described in a paper published today in The Optical Society's (OSA) journal Optical Materials Express, offers ...

Alexandria, Va., USA – Today during the 43rd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research, held in conjunction with the 38th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, Steve Kasper, SUNY College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, Albany, will present research titled "Inhibition of Oral Biofilm and Cell-cell Communication Using Natural-products Derivatives." Many plant metabolites and structurally similar derivatives have been identified as inhibitors of bacterial biofilm formation and quorum sensing (QS). Previously, ...

An international team of scientists investigating the electronic properties of ultra-thin films of new materials – topological insulators (TIs) - has demonstrated a new method to tune their unique properties using strain. Topological insulators are new materials with surfaces that host a new quantum state of matter and are insensitive to contaminants, defects and impurities. Surface electrons in TIs behave like massless Dirac particles in a similar way to electrons in graphene. Moreover, surface currents in topological insulators also preserve their spin orientation and ...

This news release is available in German. Industrial manufacturing is pivotal to Germany's prosperity. Not only does manufacturing account for a quarter of GDP, it provides a third of jobs as well. Yet rising raw material and energy costs, coupled with a demographic shift, pose significant challenges for industry. Keeping manufacturing operations in Germany will require a fundamental shift away from maximum profit from minimal capital investment toward maximum added value from minimum resources. Initiating and effecting this change is what Fraunhofer's E3-production ...

Alexandria, Va., USA – Today during the 43rd Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research, held in conjunction with the 38th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, Mathilde C. Peters, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA, will present research titled "Resin Infiltration Effects in a Caries-Active Environment – 2 Year Results." The objective of this study was to compare carious lesion changes after resin infiltration of approximal non-cavitated lesions in a high caries risk population after two years. Resin infiltration ...

Thermal conduction is a familiar everyday phenomenon. In a hot sauna, for instance, you can sit comfortably on a wooden bench that has a temperature of 100C (212F), but if you touch a metallic nail with the same temperature, you will hurt yourself. The difference of these two experiences is due to the fact that some materials, such as metals, conduct heat well, whereas some other materials, such as wood, do not. It is therefore commonly thought that thermal conductance is simply a materials parameter. Now, researchers at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, led by Professor ...

ATHENS, Ohio (March 19, 2014)—Ohio University scientists have found the oldest definitive fossil evidence of modern, venomous snakes in Africa, according to a new study published March 19 in the journal PLOS ONE. The newly discovered fossils demonstrate that elapid snakes—such as cobras, kraits and sea snakes—were present in Africa as early as 25 million years ago, said lead author Jacob McCartney, a postdoctoral researcher in the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine. He's part of a team that has been examining the Rukwa Rift Basin of Tanzania over ...

New radar measurements of an enormous sea on Titan offer insights into the weather patterns and landscape composition of the Saturnian moon. The measurements, made in 2013 by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, reveal that the surface of Ligeia Mare, Titan's second largest sea, possesses a mirror-like smoothness, possibly due to a lack of winds. "If you could look out on this sea, it would be really still. It would just be a totally glassy surface," said Howard Zebker, professor of geophysics and of electrical engineering at Stanford who is the lead author of a new study detailing ...

Parents might take a lesson from Goldilocks and find a balanced approach to guide their teens in making moral, safe online decisions, according to Penn State researchers. In a study on parenting strategies and online adolescent safety, the researchers found evidence that suggests that parents should try to establish a middle ground between keeping their teens completely away from the internet not monitoring their online activities at all. "It's a Goldilocks problem," said Pamela Wisniewski, a postdoctoral scholar in information sciences and technology. "Overly restrictive ...

Low levels of both oxygen and the powerful blood vessel dilator nitric oxide appear to have an unfortunate synergy for patients with sickle cell disease, researchers report. Their studies indicate that the two conditions common in sickle cell disease, dramatically increase red blood cells' adhesion to the lining of blood vessels walls and the debilitating pain crises that can result. The good news is that restoring normal levels of nitric oxide can substantially reduce red blood cell adhesion, said Dr. Tohru Ikuta, a molecular hematologist at the Medical College of ...

School hearing tests cannot effectively detect adolescent high-frequency hearing loss, which is typically caused by loud noise exposure, according to researchers at Penn State College of Medicine. The Pennsylvania Department of Health mandates school-administered hearing screens for children in kindergarten to third, seventh and 11th grades. The school screenings primarily focus on low-frequency hearing loss. This is logical for young children, who are more likely to develop low-frequency hearing loss due to fluid in the ear after a bad cold or an ear infection. Adolescents, ...