In the midst of an intensifying global water crisis, scientists are reporting development of a more economical way to use one form of the "ice that burns" to turn very salty wastewater from fracking and other oil and gas production methods into water for drinking and irrigation. The study on the method, which removes more than 90 percent of the salt, appears in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. Yongkoo Seol and Jong-Ho Cha explain that salty wastewater is a byproduct of oil and gas production, including hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. These methods ...

In the latest advance in efforts to find an inexpensive way to make hydrogen from ordinary water — one of the keys to the much-discussed "hydrogen economy" — scientists are reporting that powder from high-grade charcoal and other forms of carbon can free hydrogen from water illuminated with laser pulses. A report on the discovery appears in ACS' Journal of Physical Chemistry C. Ikuko Akimoto and colleagues point out that traditional approaches to breaking down water, which consists of hydrogen and oxygen, involve use of expensive catalysts or electric current passed through ...

For online and print audiences deep into lazy late-summer-day reading, yearning for diversions from everyday cares, how about a glimpse 400 years back in time at a famous clash between Galileo and an arch-enemy over why ice floats on water? That debate, between a giant in the history of science and a little-remembered naysayer who challenged Galileo's idea that Earth revolves around the sun, is the topic of a 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. Sarah ...

VIDEO: The Council's report, The State of Industrial R&D in Canada, provides an in-depth analysis of research and development activities in Canadian industries. While many reports have documented Canada's historical weakness... Click here for more information. Ottawa (August 28, 2013) – A new expert panel report on research and development in Canadian industry has found that, despite Canada's historically poor performance in industrial R&D, four sectors of national strength ...

Four alcohol brands—Patron tequila, Hennessy cognac, Grey Goose vodka, and Jack Daniel's whiskey—accounted for more than half of alcohol brand mentions in the songs that mentioned alcohol use in Billboard's most popular song lists in 2009, 2010 and 2011, according to a new study from researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health and the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study, published online by Substance Use & Misuse and the first to examine the context of specific brand mentions in ...

The Los Angeles Times reports: "The Rim fire spread deeper into Yosemite National Park on Tuesday with flames racing unimpeded to the east even as firefighters shored up defenses for communities on the western edges of the blaze. The fire was 20% contained by Tuesday evening, with almost all of the containment coming on the fire's southwest edge. On the east, the fire has a relatively flat, clear path farther into Yosemite and the 3,700 firefighters battling the blaze have fewer options to control it. The blaze has destroyed 111 buildings, including 31 residences, and ...

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite, also known as TRMM has the ability to measure rainfall from space. When Tropical Storm Fernand formed near Mexico's Gulf coast earlier this week, TRMM gathered data on the storm. Heavy rain with Tropical Storm Fernand generated mudslides. According to the Latin Times, a total of 13 people died as the result of mudslides from Fernand's heavy rainfall. Nine people died in the municipality of Yecuautla, while three people died in Tuxpan and one person in Atzalan. TRMM precipitation data are used to calibrate rainfall ...

The patient-relevant benefit of positron emission tomography (PET) in oesophageal cancer, alone or in combination with computed tomography (CT), is not proven due to a lack of comparative studies. In terms of their diagnostic and prognostic accuracy, it also remains unclear whether these diagnostic techniques can detect the spreading of tumours better than conventional diagnostics. This is the conclusion of the final report of the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) published on 20 August 2013. More reliable diagnosis ought to improve treatment About ...

Baltimore, MD – August 28, 2013 – A research team at the University of Maryland School of Medicine has identified a cell signaling pathway which plays a significant role in causing developmental defects of the fetal spinal cord and brain in babies of women with diabetes. Using an animal model of disease, the team's results point to a potential new therapeutic target for preventing these defects in pregnant women having preexisting diabetes. The results of this study are published in the August 27th issue of Science Signaling. "Providing the best possible care for women ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – August 28, 2013) Researchers have tied mutations in a gene that causes amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other neurodegenerative disorders to the toxic buildup of certain proteins and related molecules in cells, including neurons. The research, published recently in the scientific journal Cell, offers a new approach for developing treatments against these devastating diseases. Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the University of Colorado, Boulder, led the work. The findings provide the first evidence that a gene named VCP ...

Boulder, Colorado, USA – In the September issue of GSA Today, Nora Noffke of Old Dominion University and Stan Awramik of the University of California, Santa Barbara, describe the interaction of carpet-like communities of benthic microorganisms (biofilms) with sediment dynamics at the sediment-water interface to form distinctive sedimentary structures called microbialites. The best known microbialite structures are stromatolites -- multilayered microbialites up to meters in thickness, built up by repetitive binding, biostabilization, baffling, and trapping of sediment ...

VIDEO: Dr. John Foxe has shown that high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children appear to outgrow a critical social communication disability. The paper was published online August 28, 2013, in Cerebral... Click here for more information. BRONX, NY -- Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have shown that high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children appear to outgrow a critical social communication disability. Younger children ...

Patients with a diagnosis of dementia have approximately three times the rate of diagnosis of urinary incontinence, and more than four times the rate of fecal incontinence, compared with those without a diagnosis of dementia, according to a study in this week's issue of PLOS Medicine by Robert Grant (Kingston University and St. George's, University of London) and colleagues. Furthermore, patients with dementia and incontinence were more likely to receive incontinence medications and indwelling catheters than those with incontinence but without dementia, the authors state. ...

Scott Kellerman and colleagues argue that the scope of the current HIV elimination agenda must be broadened in order to ensure access to care and treatment for all children living with HIV. In 2011, despite the global initiative to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV, 330,000 new pediatric infections were added worldwide to the existing pool of 3.4 million children living with the virus. Children are more vulnerable to HIV infection and have higher morbidity and mortality. Without treatment, half of those children infected will die before the age of 2 years, ...

WA, Seattle (August 28, 2013) – Results from the START clinical study (Study of Thymoglobulin to Arrest Newly Diagnosed Type 1 Diabetes), led by Dr. Steve Gitelman (University of California, San Francisco) and sponsored by the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN), are published today in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. The study did not meet its primary endpoint: at 12 months, insulin production, as measured by C-peptide responses, showed no difference in overall decline between the treatment and placebo groups. Thymoglobulin®, currently licensed for the treatment of organ ...

A compound found in broccoli could be key to preventing or slowing the progress of the most common form of arthritis, according to new research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA). Results from the laboratory study show that sulforaphane slows down the destruction of cartilage in joints associated with painful and often debilitating osteoarthritis. The researchers found that mice fed a diet rich in the compound had significantly less cartilage damage and osteoarthritis than those that were not. The study, which also examined human cartilage cells and cow cartilage ...

BOSTON -- August 27, 2013 -- Joslin scientists, in collaboration with researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and Italian research institutes, have identified a previously unknown genetic variant associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) in type 2 diabetic patients. This discovery has the potential to lead to the development of new treatments for CHD in diabetic patients. The findings appear in the [month] issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). CHD is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among diabetic ...

Boston, MA — A newly discovered genetic variant may increase the risk of heart disease in people with type 2 diabetes by more than a third, according to a study led by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Joslin Diabetes Center. It is the first genome-wide association study (GWAS) to identify a novel genetic variant associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) in people with type 2 diabetes, who have a two- to four-fold higher risk of heart disease compared with those without diabetes. The finding could lead to new interventions aimed at preventing ...

New technologies such as ultrasound, CT and MRI scanning can detect thyroid nodules as small as 2mm – many of these small nodules are papillary thyroid cancers. In the US, cases have tripled in the past 30 years - from 3.6 per 100,000 in 1973 to 11.6 per 100,000 in 2009 – making it one of the fastest growing diagnoses. Yet the death rate from papillary thyroid cancer has remained stable. This expanding gap between incidence of thyroid cancer and deaths suggests that low risk cancers are being overdiagnosed and overtreated, argue Dr Juan Brito and colleagues at the ...

A new study by Anna Maria Niewiadomska and Robert Gifford, of The Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, New York, reveals that reticuloendotheliosis viruses (REVs), which originated in mammals, spread to birds as a result of medical intervention. Their findings will be published August 27 in the open access journal PLOS Biology. "We became intrigued by these viruses", says Gifford, "…because their distribution in nature suggests something very unusual has occurred during their evolution." The reticuloendotheliosis viruses (REVs) are retroviruses that were first identified ...

The space surrounding the body (known by scientists as 'peripersonal space'), which has previously been thought of as having a gradual boundary, has been given physical limits by new research into the relationship between anxiety and personal space. New findings have allowed scientists to define the limit of the 'peripersonal space' surrounding the face as 20-40cm away. The study is published today in The Journal of Neuroscience. As well as having numerical limits the specific distance was found to vary between individuals. Those with anxiety traits were found to have ...

Treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 1 infection with the interferon-free regimen of sofosbuvir and ribavirin resulted in a high sustained virologic response rate in a patient population with unfavorable treatment characteristics, according to a study in the August 28 issue of JAMA. "Chronic infection with hepatitis C virus is a major cause of chronic liver disease, end-stage liver disease, hepatocellular cancer and remains the leading indication for liver transplants in western countries. The HCV epidemic in the United States is centered in large urban ...

Payment incentives implemented with a commercial accountable care organization (ACO) initiative in Massachusetts –Blue Cross Blue Shield's Alternative Quality Contract (AQC) – were associated with lower spending for Medicare enrollees served by the provider groups participating in the AQC, findings that suggest that evaluations of ACO programs may need to consider the implications for other patient populations to assess their full clinical and economic benefits, according to a study in the August 28 issue of JAMA. "In response to mounting pressures to deliver more cost-effective ...

Researchers have identified a previously unknown genetic locus (the place a gene occupies on a chromosome) significantly associated with increased coronary heart disease risk among patients with type 2 diabetes, but the association was not found in individuals without diabetes, according to a study in the August 28 issue of JAMA. The variant is functionally related to glutamic acid metabolism, suggesting a mechanistic link. "The prevalence of type 2 diabetes has been steadily increasing in the United States and other countries, with the total number of affected people ...

In an analysis of a procedure used to help prevent common duct injury during gallbladder removal surgery, use of intraoperative cholangiography (radiologic examination of the ducts during gallbladder surgery) was not associated with a reduced risk of common duct injury, according to a study in the August 28 issue of JAMA. "Biliary anatomy misidentification during cholecystectomy [gallbladder removal] can result in injury to the common hepatic duct or common bile duct. Common duct injuries cause significant short- and long-term morbidity including major operations, multiple ...