A new study is examining methane and other components in groundwater wells, in advance of drilling for shale gas that's expected over the next several years in an Ohio region. Amy Townsend-Small, a University of Cincinnati assistant professor of geology, will present on the study on Sept. 27, at the 10th Applied Isotope Geochemistry Conference in Budapest, Hungary. The team of UC researchers spent a year doing periodic testing of groundwater wells in Carroll County, Ohio, a section of Ohio that sits along the shale-rich Pennsylvania-West Virginia borders. The study analyzed ...

New research that looked at whether two commonly prescribed statin medicines, used to lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or 'bad cholesterol' levels in the blood, can adversely affect cognitive function has found that one of the drugs tested caused memory impairment in rats. Between six and seven million people in the UK1 take statins daily and the findings follow anecdotal evidence of people reporting that they feel that their newly prescribed statin is affecting their memory. Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) insisted that all manufacturers list ...

Alexandria, VA – Superstorm Sandy slammed against the U.S. Eastern Seaboard in October 2012, inundating iconic communities. Those communities have been rebuilding since then and things are almost back to normal for most. But something else has had to be rebuilt as well: the structured procedures for issuing warnings. The goal is to help communities better comprehend what natural disasters will bring their doorsteps. In an October feature story, EARTH Magazine untangles the complexities scientists faced to motivate local residents to pack up and move. The rigid definition ...

Phasing out the use of potentially harmful flame retardants in furniture foam, electronics and plastics has lowered pregnant women's exposure to the substances, which are associated with health problems in both pregnant women and their newborns. The new study, which was published in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology, was the first to examine the phase-out's effectiveness. Ami Zota, an assistant professor at George Washington University, and colleagues explain that furniture, electronics and plastics manufacturers commonly used flame retardants called ...

"What is beautiful is good" -- but why? A recent article in The Quarterly Review of Biology provides a compelling physiological explanation for the "beauty stereotype": why human beings are wired to favor the beautiful ones. Studies have shown that humans subconsciously attribute positive social qualities (such as integrity, intelligence, and happiness) to physically attractive individuals. Even across cultures there exists a significant consensus on relative beauty: youthful facial features, including, for women, relatively large eyes, a relatively high craniofacial ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign researchers have developed arrays of tiny nano-antennas that can enable sensing of molecules that resonate in the infrared (IR) spectrum. "The identification of molecules by sensing their unique absorption resonances is very important for environmental monitoring, industrial process control and military applications," said team leader Daniel Wasserman, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. Wasserman is also a part of the Micro and Nano Technology Laboratory at Illinois. The food and pharmaceutical ...

Scientists are reporting an advance in smartphone-based imaging that could help physicians in far-flung and resource-limited locations monitor how well treatments for infections are working by detecting, for the first time, individual viruses. Their study on the light-weight device, which converts the phone into a powerful mini-microscope, appears in the journal ACS Nano. Aydogan Ozcan and colleagues note that conventional imaging techniques for detecting disease-causing bacteria and viruses rely on expensive microscopes with multiple lenses and other bulky optical components. ...

Using a particular type of titanium dioxide — a common ingredient in cosmetics, food products, toothpaste and sunscreen — could reduce the potential health risks associated with the widely used compound. The report on the substance, produced by the millions of tons every year for the global market, appears in the ACS journal Chemical Research in Toxicology. Francesco Turci and colleagues explain that titanium dioxide (TiO2) is generally considered a safe ingredient in commercially available skin products because it doesn't penetrate healthy skin. But there's a catch. ...

LA JOLLA, Calif., September 25 2013 – A new experimental approach to treating a type of brain cancer called medulloblastoma has been developed by researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham). The method targets cancer stem cells—the cells that are critical for maintaining tumor growth—and halts their ability to proliferate by inhibiting enzymes that are essential for tumor progression. The process destroys the ability of the cancer cells to grow and divide, paving the way for a new type of treatment for patients with this disease. The research ...

ROCHESTER, Minn . -- A Mayo Clinic researcher, along with his collaborators, has shown that an individual's genomic makeup and diet interact to determine which microbes exist and how they act in the host intestine. The study was modeled in germ-free knockout mice to mimic a genetic condition that affects 1 in 5 humans and increases the risk for digestive diseases. The findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Our data show that factors in the differences in a host's genetic makeup -- in this case genes that affect carbohydrates in the gut ...

Researchers at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech have developed a new large animal model to study how the immune system interacts with the stomach bacterium Helicobacter pylori, the leading cause of peptic ulcer disease. The discovery in the October edition of the journal Infection and Immunity may inform changes in the ways doctors treat patients. An estimated 4 million Americans have sores in the stomach lining known as peptic ulcers, according to the American Gastroenterological Association. Although the bacterium is found in more than half ...

With the U.S. economy slowly trudging back from recession and uncertainties remaining about government sequestration, the employment and salary snapshot for chemists and chemical engineers in 2013 shows that salaries and the job market are improving. Results of the American Chemical Society's annual survey of its members are the topic of the cover story in Chemical & Engineering News, ACS' weekly newsmagazine. Sophie Rovner, assistant managing editor of C&EN, notes that the survey results are encouraging. Salaries and employment for chemists are on the rise. Full-time ...

An international team of archaeologists led by experts from the University of York has uncovered evidence of human activity in the high slopes of the French Alps dating back over 8000 years. The 14-year study in the Parc National des Eìcrins in the southern Alps is one of the most detailed archaeological investigations carried out at high altitudes. It reveals a story of human occupation and activity in one of the world's most challenging environments from the Mesolithic to the Post-Medieval period. The work included the excavation of a series of stone animal enclosures ...

A genetic discovery by a University of Calgary-led international research team offers a solution to a long-standing "green seed problem" that causes millions of dollars annually in canola crop losses. Led by Marcus Samuel in the Faculty of Science, researchers from the U of C, the University of Toronto and the University of Bordeaux in France, have uncovered a plant gene regulatory network that could be genetically enhanced to prevent green seeds from occurring in mature canola. "The annual loss in North America alone is close to $150 million from this de-greening issue," ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Dams have been vilified for detrimental effects to water quality and fish passage, but a new study suggests that these structures provide "ecological and engineering resilience" to climate change in the Columbia River basin. The study, which was published in the Canadian journal Atmosphere-Ocean, looked at the effects of climate warming on stream flow in the headwaters and downstream reaches of seven sub-basins of the Columbia River from 1950 to 2010. The researchers found that the peak of the annual snowmelt runoff has shifted to a few days earlier, ...

PHILADELPHIA -- Adult survivors of childhood cancers who underwent certain chemotherapy treatments or kidney surgery had worse kidney function that did not recover over time. Because of this, they may be at higher risk for premature renal failure, according to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "Current knowledge suggests childhood cancer survivors (CCS) have an increased risk for impaired kidney function after specific cancer therapies; however, it was not known whether their kidney ...

Among overweight and obese adults with knee osteoarthritis, combining intensive diet and exercise led to less knee pain and better function after 18 months than diet-alone and exercise-alone, according to a study in the September 25 issue of JAMA. "Osteoarthritis (OA) is the leading cause of chronic disability among older adults. Knee OA is the most frequent cause of mobility dependency and diminished quality of life, and obesity is a major risk factor for knee OA. Current treatments for knee OA are inadequate; of patients treated pharmacologically, only about half experience ...

A second bone mineral density (BMD) screening four years after a baseline measurement provided little additional value when assessing risk for hip or other major osteoporotic fracture among older men and women untreated for osteoporosis, and resulted in little change in risk classification used in clinical management, findings that question the common clinical practice of repeating a BMD test every 2 years, according to a study in the September 25 issue of JAMA. Bone mineral density testing is important in the management of osteoporosis. Guidelines for initiating pharmacologic ...

Use of an insulin pump with a sensor that suspends insulin delivery when blood glucose falls below a set threshold reduced the rate of severe and moderate hypoglycemia among patients with type 1 diabetes and impaired awareness of hypoglycemia, according to a study in the September 25 issue of JAMA. Hypoglycemia is a critical obstacle to the care of patients with type 1 diabetes. Sensor-augmented pump therapy with an automated insulin suspension or low glucose suspension function is a technology has the potential to reduce the duration and frequency of significant hypoglycemia, ...

Researchers have developed a simple clinical decision rule that may help doctors identify patients with headache in the emergency department who have subarachnoid hemorrhage (bleeding in a certain area of the brain), according to a study in the September 25 issue of JAMA. "Headache accounts for approximately 2 percent of all emergency department visits, and subarachnoid hemorrhage is one of the most serious diagnoses, accounting for only 1 percent to 3 percent of these headaches. Although the decision to evaluate patients with new neurologic deficits is relatively straightforward, ...

Recent studies have shown that older adults with chronic kidney disease (CKD; defined as an estimated glomerular filtration rate [GFR; a measure of kidney function] of less than 60 mL/min/1.73 m2) have a high prevalence of concurrent complications and increased risk for adverse outcomes including mortality, cardiovascular disease, and kidney failure. A prior study demonstrated an increase in CKD prevalence between 1988-1994 and 1999-2004 for the general U.S. population. However, trends in CKD prevalence have not been reported for the oldest old [defined as 80 years of age ...

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Chevy Chase, MD—While calcium supplements noticeably improved bone health in postmenopausal women, vitamin D supplements did not reduce bone turnover, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Bone turnover is the body's natural process for breaking down old bone. In young people, the body forms enough new bone to replace what is lost. After age 30, however, bone mass in women begins to decline and the process speeds up after menopause. Osteoporosis develops when the body cannot ...

Chevy Chase, MD—Men who have low testosterone levels may have a slightly elevated risk of developing or dying from heart disease, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Testosterone is a key male sex hormone that helps maintain sex drive, sperm production and bone health. Over time, low testosterone may contribute to an increase in body fat, loss of body hair and muscle bulk. "When we reviewed the existing research into testosterone and cardiovascular disease, a growing ...

Chevy Chase, MD—A biological ability to compensate for the body's reduced response to insulin may explain why women typically develop heart disease 10 years later than men, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Insulin is a hormone that takes glucose from the bloodstream and carries it into cells, where it is used for energy. When the body doesn't use insulin properly, a condition known as insulin resistance, it raises the risk a person will develop diabetes and cardiovascular ...