SAN FRANCISCO -- Where you live could affect whether or not you spend compulsively, according to new research from San Francisco State University published today in the Journal of Consumer Culture. Individuals who live in wealthy neighborhoods are more likely to have materialistic values and poor spending habits, the study says, particularly if they are young, living in urban areas and relatively poor compared with their surroundings. The study is the first to show a connection between neighborhood socioeconomic status and materialism. The reason for the link, said ...

Researchers have tied a particular gene to the development of cortical convolutions—the prominent but enigmatic folds covering the surface of the human brain. Their discovery should shed some light on these characteristic contours, which have been the subject of wild speculation for ages, and perhaps also provide a better understanding of how such brain ridges form, how they evolved from our pre-human ancestors and, ultimately, how they influence brain function. The exact role of cortical convolutions remains unknown, but theories have abounded. (Some, for example, have ...

This news release is available in Spanish, French, Arabic, Japanese and Chinese. "Termites are what inspired this whole research topic for us," said the study's lead author Justin Werfel, a researcher at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "We learned the incredible things these tiny insects can build and said: Fantastic. Now how do we create and program robots that work in similar ways but build what humans want?" Unlike humans, who require a high-level blueprint to build something complicated, termites can build ...

Scientists from Stanford University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have discovered that crude oil interferes with fish heart cells. The toxic consequence is a slowed heart rate, reduced cardiac contractility and irregular heartbeats that can lead to cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death. The research, published in the Feb. 14 issue of Science, is part of the ongoing Natural Resource Damage Assessment of the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. While crude oil is known to be cardiotoxic to developing fish, the physiological mechanisms ...

The first thorough comparison of evidence for natural gas system leaks confirms that organizations including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have underestimated U.S. methane emissions generally, as well as those from the natural gas industry specifically. Natural gas consists predominantly of methane. Even small leaks from the natural gas system are important because methane is a potent greenhouse gas – about 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. A study, "Methane Leakage from North American Natural Gas Systems," published in the Feb. 14 issue of the journal ...

The interactive map, produced by researchers from Oxford University and UCL (University College London), details the histories of genetic mixing between each of the 95 populations across Europe, Africa, Asia and South America spanning the last four millennia. The study, published this week in Science, simultaneously identifies, dates and characterises genetic mixing between populations. To do this, the researchers developed sophisticated statistical methods to analyse the DNA of 1490 individuals in 95 populations around the world. The work was chiefly funded by the Wellcome ...

Graphene has proven itself as a wonder material with a vast range of unique properties. Among the least-known marvels of graphene is its strange love affair with water. Graphene is hydrophobic – it repels water – but narrow capillaries made from graphene vigorously suck in water allowing its rapid permeation, if the water layer is only one atom thick – that is, as thin as graphene itself. This bizarre property has attracted intense academic and industrial interest with intent to develop new water filtration and desalination technologies. One-atom-wide graphene capillaries ...

The researchers say the effect sizes are equal or larger than those of antidepressant treatment for mood and anxiety disorders. It is well known that stopping smoking substantially reduces major health risks, such as the development of cancers, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. But the association between smoking and mental health is less clear cut. Many smokers want to stop but continue smoking as they believe smoking has mental health benefits. And health professionals are sometimes reluctant to deal with smoking in people with mental disorders in case ...

Children living in areas surrounded by fast food outlets are more likely to be overweight or obese according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR). New research published today looked at weight data from more than a million children and compared it with the availability of unhealthy food from outlets including fish and chip shops, burger bars, pizza places, and sweet shops. They found that older children in particular are more likely to be overweight when living in close proximity to a high density ...

The authors say the potential benefits of cycling "may not currently apply to all groups in all settings." Over 600 cities around the world have implemented bicycle sharing schemes, but there is very little published evidence on the health effects of such schemes. So researchers at the University of Cambridge, University College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine set out to estimate the health impacts of London's cycle hire scheme on its users. Using registration and usage data collected from April 2011 to March 2012, they modelled the medium ...

In a letter to The BMJ this week, they explain that, for more than 30 years, bodybuilders have taken tamoxifen to prevent and treat gynaecomastia (breast swelling) caused by use of anabolic steroids. Usually, tamoxifen is sourced from the illicit market, they say. However, bodybuilding discussion forums have speculated that a dietary supplement called Esto Suppress contains tamoxifen because the label listed one of its chemical names. The researchers purchased four samples at different times between late 2011 and early 2012 and analysed their contents. Tamoxifen ...

PHILADELPHIA— People receiving mental health care are up to four times more likely to be infected with HIV than the general population, according to a new study published Feb. 13 in the American Journal of Public Health from researchers at Penn Medicine and other institutions who tested over 1,000 patients in care in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Of that group, several new HIV cases were detected, suggesting that not all patients are getting tested in mental health care settings, despite recommendations to do so from the CDC and the Institute of Medicine. The study is ...

DURHAM, NH –-Scientists on NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission, including a team leader from the University of New Hampshire, report that recent, independent measurements have validated one of the mission's signature findings—a mysterious "ribbon" of energy and particles at the edge of our solar system that appears to be a directional "roadmap in the sky" of the local interstellar magnetic field. Unknown until now, the direction of the galactic magnetic field may be a missing key to understanding how the heliosphere—the gigantic bubble that surrounds ...

Boston, MA – A six-year-old Massachusetts law requiring that only "fire-safe" cigarettes (FSCs) be sold in the state appears to decrease the likelihood of unintentional residential fires caused by cigarettes by 28%, according to a new study by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers. The study will appear online February 13, 2014 in the American Journal of Public Health. "This study is the first rigorous population-based study to evaluate the effectiveness of the fire-safe cigarette standards, and shows that science-based tobacco product regulation can protect ...

Herpes virus proteins are more 'spaghetti-like' than previously thought, which provides a vital clue in the search for an efficient treatment against a type of herpes which causes a form of cancer known as Kaposi's sarcoma. That's according to researchers from The University of Manchester who have discovered that the virus protein uses its flexible arms to pass on viral building blocks to the proteins of cells that it hijacks. The latest part of this research is published in the February edition of PLoS Pathogens which has uncovered how the protein of cells hijacked ...

Cambridge, Mass. – February 13, 2014 – On the plains of Namibia, millions of tiny termites are building a mound of soil—an 8-foot-tall "lung" for their underground nest. During a year of construction, many termites will live and die, wind and rain will erode the structure, and yet the colony's life-sustaining project will continue. Inspired by the termites' resilience and collective intelligence, a team of computer scientists and engineers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard ...

AUDIO: This is a Podcast recording of Dr. Christiana Tsaousi explaining her research. Click here for more information. TV makeover shows and glossy magazines can leave women feeling guilty for not wearing "sexy" lingerie – especially on Valentine's Day. But in fact, many different types of underwear could make them feel feminine, according to an expert on underwear consumption. Dr Christiana Tsaousi, a lecturer in marketing and consumption at the University of Leicester's ...

Changes in the selling prices of cars can be used to improve calculations for how much people should be paying to lease a vehicle, according to a new study. Researchers from Norwich Business School at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB) have for the first time modelled the relationship between variations in leasing and selling market prices, using almost 10 years of data from the US, the world's largest automobile market. They suggest that in order to determine more accurately the monthly payments agreed in leasing ...

Nanoparticles capable of delivering drugs to specifically targeted cancer cells have been created by a group of researchers from China. The multifunctional 'smart' gold nanoshells could lead to more effective cancer treatments by overcoming a major limitation of modern chemotherapy techniques—the ability to target cancer cells specifically and leave healthy cells untouched. Small peptides situated on the surface of the nanoshells are the key to the improved targeting ability, guiding the nanoshells to specific cancer cells and attaching to markers on the surface of ...

Falling stock prices lead to increased hospitalisations for mental disorders, according to new research published today in the journal Health Policy and Planning. Researchers assessed the relationship between stock price movements and mental disorders using data on daily hospitalisations for mental disorders in Taiwan over 4,000 days between 1998 and 2009. They found that a 1000-point fall in the Taiwan Stock Exchange Capitalisation Weighted Stock Index (TAIEX) coincided with a 4.71% daily increase in hospitalisations for mental disorders. A downward daily change in ...

VIDEO: In this video, a fire ant dabs venom on an attacking crazy ant. The crazy ant coats itself with formic acid to neutralize the venom, a discovery made by University... Click here for more information. AUSTIN, Texas — Invasive "crazy ants" are rapidly displacing fire ants in areas across the southeastern U.S. by secreting a compound that neutralizes fire ant venom, according to a University of Texas at Austin study published this week in the journal Science Express. It's ...

University of British Columbia scientists have found for the first time an infectious form of the cat parasite Toxoplasma gondii in western Arctic Beluga, prompting a health advisory to the Inuit people who eat whale meat. The same team also discovered a new strain of the parasite Sarcocystis, previously sequestered in the icy north, that is responsible for killing 406 grey seals in the north Atlantic in 2012. Presenting their findings today at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Michael Grigg and ...

As the Arctic continues to see dramatic declines in seasonal sea ice, warming temperatures and increased storminess, the responses of marine mammals can provide clues to how the ecosystem is responding to these physical drivers. Seals, walruses and polar bears rely on seasonal sea ice for habitat and must adapt to the sudden loss of ice, while migratory species such as whales appear to be finding new prey, altering migration timing and moving to new habitats. "Marine mammals can act as ecosystem sentinels because they respond to climate change through shifts in distribution, ...

Fifty years of research has revealed the sad truth that the children of lower-income, less-educated parents typically enter school with poorer language skills than their more privileged counterparts. By some measures, 5-year-old children of lower socioeconomic status (SES) score two years behind on standardized language development tests by the time they enter school. In recent years, Anne Fernald, a psychology professor at Stanford University, has conducted experiments revealing that the language gap between rich and poor children emerges during infancy. ...

Austin - February 13, 2014 - Social media can do more than just entertain us and keep us connected. It also can help scientists better understand human behavior and social dynamics. The volume of data created through new technology and social media such as Facebook and Twitter is lending insight into everything from mapping modern family dynamics to predicting postpartum depression. "By analyzing different types of social media, search terms, or even blogs, we are able to capture people's thinking, communication patterns, health, beliefs, prejudices, group behaviors – ...