DURHAM, N.C. -- As the budget crisis drags on, at least conservatives and liberals have something in common: both believe their views on certain issues are not only correct but all other views are inferior. A study from Duke University examined whether one end of the American political spectrum believes more strongly than the other in the superiority of its principles and positions. It found both sides have elements of "belief superiority," depending on the issue. When asked about nine hot-button issues, conservatives feel most superior about their views on voter identification ...

Domenic Ciraulo, MD, chair of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and David H. Barlow, PhD, professor of psychology at Boston University (BU), have collaborated to study the effect of behavioral and medication treatments on patients with alcoholism and anxiety. The findings, published in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy, suggest that Transdiagnostic cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) was more effective in reducing heavy drinking in anxious alcoholics than progressive muscle relaxation therapy (PMR). They also found that the addition of ...

(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) -- Adult women whose mothers had increased levels of stress hormones while they were pregnant are at greater risk of becoming addicted to nicotine, according to a new study led by a Miriam Hospital researcher. The 40-year longitudinal study provides the first evidence that prenatal exposure to the class of stress hormones known as glucocorticoids predicts nicotine dependence later in life – but only for daughters. It also confirms previous research that babies born to moms who smoked when pregnant have an increased risk of nicotine addiction in adulthood. ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Researchers have developed a new quantitative – rather than qualitative – method of identifying pollen grains that is certainly nothing to sneeze at. The research appears in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Since the invention of the earliest light microscopes, the classification and identification of pollen and spores has been a highly subjective venture for those who use these tiny particles to study vegetation in their field, palynology. However, according to the lead author of the study, Luke Mander, a former ...

Scientists have discovered how a tick which transmits devastating diseases to cattle has developed resistance to one of the main pesticides used to kill it. Approximately 80% of cattle around the world, mostly in the tropics and sub-tropics, are exposed to the cattle tick – Rhipicephalis microplus – which can cause anaemia, reduced rate of growth and death, resulting in a major economic impact on farmers. Prevention of disease is through frequent treatment of cattle with acarides –pesticides for ticks and mites – mainly amitraz, ivermectins and pyrethroids, but ticks ...

Subordinate female meerkats who try to breed often lose their offspring to infanticide by the dominant female or are evicted from the group. These recently bereaved or ostracised mothers may then become wet-nurses for the dominant female, an activity that may be a form of "rent" that allows them to remain in the community. Wet-nursing another mother's offspring – called allolactation – occurs across a variety of mammals and is thought to provide survival benefits to the nursed offspring and to the mother of the pups. However, little has been definitively known of why ...

CLEMSON, S.C. — Lance Armstrong used Twitter to employ image-repair strategies in a way that cultivated followers and countered media reports. However, he neglected to enact any image-repair tweets following his admission to using performance-enhancing drugs in a nationally staged interview with Oprah Winfrey, researchers say. Clemson University communication studies assistant professor Jimmy Sanderson said traditional media like television and newspapers have been a staple of image repair, but with the rise of social media, athletes now have an additional avenue for ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (October 7, 2013) – Over the past decade, South Africa has made a dramatic reversal in child survival—mainly because of improvements in HIV/AIDS care, reports a study in AIDS, official journal of the International AIDS Society. AIDS is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. "After years of rising mortality rates, the mortality picture for South Africa's children has shifted drastically," according to the report by Kate Kerber, MPH, of University of the Western Cape, Belleville, South Africa, supported by the global ...

For more than a decade the research group of Brown University Professor Walter Atwood has doggedly pursued the workings of the JC polyomavirus, which causes a disease called PML that fatally degrades the central nervous system of patients with weakened immune systems. In a study published online Oct. 2 in the Journal of Virology, his team describes how it gains entry into cells: It breaks in via certain receptors of the neurotransmitter serotonin called 5-HT2 receptors. Atwood, lead author and graduate student Benedetta Assetta and their co-authors showed this by inserting ...

Subtle body cues allow people to identify others with surprising accuracy when faces are difficult to differentiate. This skill may help researchers improve person-recognition software and expand their understanding of how humans recognize each other. A study published in Psychological Science by researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas demonstrates that humans rely on non-facial cues, such as body shape and build, to identify people in challenging viewing conditions, such as poor lighting. "Psychologists and computer scientists have concentrated almost exclusively ...

According to a common myth, today's young people are all glued to the Internet. But in fact, only 30 percent of the world's youth population between the ages of 15 and 24 years old has been active online for at least five years. In South Korea, 99.6 percent of young people are active, the highest percentage in the world. The least? The Asian island of Timor Leste with less than 1 percent. Those are among the many findings in a study from the Georgia Institute of Technology and International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The study is the first attempt to measure, by ...

Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the immune system attacks the nervous system. The result can be a wide range of debilitating motor, physical, and mental problems. No one knows why people get the disease or how to treat it. In a new study published in the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology, Drs. Ewa Kozela, Ana Juknat, Neta Rimmerman and Zvi Vogel of Tel Aviv University's Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Center for the Biology of Addictive Diseases and Sackler Faculty of Medicine demonstrate that some chemical compounds found in marijuana can help ...

Clinical ethicists play a vital role in hospitals and other health care systems by helping to resolve ethical conflicts that arise between patients, families, and clinicians about end-of-life care and other important medical decisions. To improve the quality of clinical ethics consultants, the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) has proposed a method for assessing them. An article in the Hastings Center Report describes the process and explains its importance. Questionable credentials and unacceptable variations in practice patterns "may be placing patients ...

Since 1996, corn containing a gene that allows it to create a protein that is toxic to certain insects, yet safe for human consumption, has been grown in the United States. However, most of this "Bt corn" has been used for animal feed or processed into corn meal, starch, or other products. Although varieties of sweet corn (corn on the cob) have existed since the late 1990s, relatively few acres have been planted. Due to pressure from activist groups, some grocery stores have refused to carry Bt sweet corn. However, a new study published in the Journal of Economic Entomology ...

MAYWOOD, Il. – Physicians have long observed that binge drinking can significantly impair the healing process following a bone fracture. Now a study by Loyola University Medical Center researchers is providing insights into how alcohol slows healing on the cellular and molecular levels. The findings could lead to treatments to improve bone healing in alcohol abusers, and possibly non-drinkers as well. Roman Natoli, MD, PhD, will present findings Oct. 6 during the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research 2013 Annual Meeting in Baltimore. Senior author is John ...

Scientists from Royal Holloway University have found that when bees are exposed to low levels of neonicotinoid pesticides - which do not directly kill bees - their behaviour changes and they stop working properly for their colonies. The results showed that exposure to pesticides at levels bees encounter in the field, has subtle impacts on individual bees, and can eventually make colonies fail. This discovery provides an important breakthrough in identifying the reasons for the recent global decline of bees, a trend that has baffled many experts worldwide. "One in ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A global hunt for genes that influence heart disease risk has uncovered 157 changes in human DNA that alter the levels of cholesterol and other blood fats – a discovery that could lead to new medications. Each of the changes points to genes that can modify levels of cholesterol and other blood fats and are potential drug targets. Many of the changes point to genes not previously linked to blood fats, also called lipids. A surprising number of the variations were also associated with coronary artery disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and high blood ...

Hydroxyl (OH) radicals – known as the detergent of the atmosphere – decompose isoprene in the air. This leads to the creation of new OH radicals, which are then able to purify the air of other pollutants and trace gases. The scientific community had previously only been able to speculate about this mechanism. The atmosphere has an astonishing ability to cleanse itself. Chemical processes ensure that trace gases and pollutants are removed from the atmosphere – such as isoprene, which is largely produced by forests. Without these processes global warming would be even ...

Biologists of the University of Zurich have developed a method to visualize the activity of genes in single cells. The method is so efficient that, for the first time, a thousand genes can be studied in parallel in ten thousand single human cells. Applications lie in fields of basic research and medical diagnostics. The new method shows that the activity of genes, and the spatial organization of the resulting transcript molecules, strongly vary between single cells. Whenever cells activate a gene, they produce gene specific transcript molecules, which make the function ...

Scientists have discovered huge ice channels beneath a floating ice shelf in Antarctica. At 250 metres high, the channels are almost as tall as the Eiffel tower and stretch hundreds of kilometres along the ice shelf. The channels are likely to influence the stability of the ice shelf and their discovery will help researchers understand how the ice will respond to changing environmental conditions. Researchers from the University of Exeter, Newcastle University, the University of Bristol, the University of Edinburgh, the British Antarctic Survey and the University of ...

A unique study of 16 pairs of identical twins in which one twin is obese and the other lean has yielded some surprising results. In 8 of the pairs of twins, the obese twin was as 'metabolically healthy' as his or her lean co-twin, while in the other 8 pairs, the obese twin had a poorer blood fat profile, higher liver fat and increased insulin production and resistance, and higher blood pressure -- all hallmarks of unhealthy obesity that can lead to diabetes, heart problems and other complications. The study is by Dr Kirsi Pietiläinen, Dr Jussi Naukkarinen and colleagues ...

MANHASSET, NY – Investigators at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research have discovered a protein in the human body that can trigger and mediate inflammation in patients suffering from hemorrhage and sepsis. The findings were published in the online version of Nature Medicine on October 6, 2013. Thirty-seven million people are admitted to the emergency room with traumatic injury each year, and these injuries are a leading cause of death in the US. Two major reasons why traumatic injury is so deadly are loss of blood (hemorrhage) and a clinical condition called sepsis. ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY – The cerebral cortex contains two major types of neurons: principal neurons that are excitatory and interneurons that are inhibitory, all interconnected within the same network. New research now reveals that one class of inhibitory neurons – called VIP interneurons -- specializes in inhibiting other inhibitory neurons in multiple regions of cortex, and does so under specific behavioral conditions. The new research finds that VIP interneurons, when activated, release principal cells from inhibition, thus boosting their responses. This provides ...

OKLAHOMA CITY, Oct. 6, 2013 — With the completion of the first genome-wide association study for Sjögren's syndrome, an international coalition of researchers led by scientists at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation has identified six new disease-related genes. Their work appears in the journal Nature Genetics. Sjögren's syndrome is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system becomes confused and turns against the body's moisture-producing glands, damaging the ability to produce saliva or tears. Common symptoms include dry eyes and dry mouth, but the disease ...

The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) found insufficient evidence to recommend for or against routine screening for primary hypertension in asymptomatic children and adolescents. Hypertension in children and adolescents has increased over the past several decades, which may be attributable to the climb in childhood overweight and obesity rates. An estimated 11 percent of obese children in the United States suffer from hypertension, putting them at increased risk for hypertension in adulthood. One rationale for screening young patients is that it could ...