London, 8 July 2013: Studies over the past 20 years have suggested (though not unequivocally confirmed) that semen quality is in decline, reflected most evidently in falling sperm counts and reduced sperm motility.(1) The explanations have been controversially attributed to environmental factors (such as exposure to toxins) and to male smoking. Now, a new study based on a 20-year follow-up of one of the world's largest study cohorts, suggests that exposure to several factors in utero and in early life may also lead to reduced semen parameters in adulthood - and potentially ...

London -- A study performed in Belgium has shown that low-cost IVF for developing and poor resource countries is feasible and effective, with delivery rates not much different from those achieved in conventional IVF programmes. This proof-of-principle study, say the investigators, suggests that infertility care may now be "universally accessible"."We showed that the IVF methodology can be significantly simplified and result in successful outcomes at levels that compare favourably to those obtained in high resource programs," they note. "We estimate that the cost of our ...

Researchers from the University of Liverpool have found that people with depression have more generalised personal goals than non-depressed people. A study conducted by Dr Joanne Dickson, in the University's Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, analysed the lists of personal goals made by people who suffered with depression and those who didn't. The participants were asked to list goals they would like to achieve at any time in the short, medium or long-term. The goals were categorised for their specificity – for example a global or abstract goal such as, 'to ...

Planets and asteroids, red giants and brown dwarfs -- there are all kinds of objects in our Universe. Debris disks are among them. These are belts consisting of countless dust particles and planetesimals, circling around one central star. "At least one fifth of stars are surrounded by dust belts like these," Prof. Dr. Alexander Krivov from the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena explains. "They are the remains of the formation of planets, in which the unused, building materials are collected," the astrophysicist points out. Therefore debris disks are an important piece in ...

More than a quarter of over 70s with type 2 diabetes could benefit simply from improving communication and education in the clinic, new research has revealed. A study led by the University of Exeter Medical School and published in The Lancet found that 27 percent achieved better glycaemic control through individualised care alone. At the moment, patients over the age of 70 are treated using a blanket method of aggressively reducing blood glucose levels, but that does little to take their complex needs into account. Dr David Strain, from the University of Exeter Medical ...

Small and large-scale farmers in Riau province, Sumatra, have been blamed for the recent choking smoke smothering Singapore and parts of Malaysia. But scientists in Indonesia have added a third category of 'mid-level entrepreneurs'. These entrepreneurs buy unregulated access to land for oil palm and clear it by burning, seemingly unrestrained by government. Scientists at the World Agroforestry Centre, who have been studying land conversion in Sumatra, say they have identified this third group of local land investors who operate outside the government system, making them ...

VIDEO: Researchers from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, Australia, have discovered that anti-cancer compounds currently in clinical trials for some types of leukemia could offer hope for treating... Click here for more information. Melbourne researchers have discovered that anti-cancer compounds currently in clinical trials for some types of leukaemia could offer hope for treating the most common type of breast cancer. The researchers, from the Walter ...

Light can oscillate in different directions, as we can see in the 3D cinema: Each lens of the glasses only allows light of a particular oscillation direction to pass through. However, changing the polarization direction of light without a large part of it being lost is difficult. The TU Vienna has now managed this feat, using a type of light – terahertz radiation – that is of particular technological importance. An electrical field applied to an ultra-thin layer of material can turn the polarisation of the beam as required. This produces an efficient transistor for light ...

Philadelphia, PA -- Major depressive disorder is associated with a dysregulation of brain regions including the prefrontal cortex and limbic system. The relationship between structural and functional abnormalities in these brain regions in depressed patients is far from clear. However, both types of changes are assumed to underlie the symptoms of this disorder. This lack of understanding prompted Dr. Bart de Kwaasteniet at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam and his colleagues to use a multimodal neuroimaging approach to further investigate this relationship. The ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Researchers at the University of Kentucky Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, led by faculty member Donna Wilcock, have recently published a new paper in the Journal of Neuroscience detailing an advance in treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Gammagard™ IVIg is a therapy that has been investigated for treatment of Alzheimer's. Despite small clinical studies that have reported efficacy of the approach, the mechanism of action is poorly understood. The UK researchers set out to investigate the mechanism by which the treatment may act in the brain to lower amyloid ...

Storms, cold, poor harvests -- the year 1816 was a "year without a summer" in European history. The reason was the eruption of the Indonesian volcano Tambora a year earlier. It had thrown huge amounts of sulfur compounds into the stratosphere (at altitudes of 15-50 km) where they spread around the entire globe and significantly weakened solar radiation for several years afterwards. Such intense volcanic eruptions are quite common in Earth's history. To better understand their impact on the climate and the atmosphere, scientists try to reconstruct those eruptions accurately. ...

Latest advances in capturing data on brain activity and eye movement are being combined to open up a host of 'mindreading' possibilities for the future. These include the potential development of a system that can detect when drivers are in danger of falling asleep at the wheel. The research has been undertaken at the University of Leicester with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and in collaboration with the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. The breakthrough involves bringing two recent developments in the world of ...

This news release is available in German. Almost 200 years ago, Bavarian physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer discovered dark lines in the sun's spectrum. It was later discovered that these spectral lines can be used to infer the chemical composition and temperature of the sun's atmosphere. Today we are able to gain information about diverse objects through light measurements in a similar way. Because often very little light needs to be detected for this, physicists are looking for ever more sensitive spectroscopy methods. In extreme cases, also single particles of light ...

Moths are nocturnal, and they have one major enemy; the bat. As a defense many moths developed ears sensitive to the bat´s echolocation cries, and they have also developed different behaviors to avoid bats. Now it turns out that many moths are able to use both their hearing and their avoidance behavior to an entirely different purpose: to communicate about sex. According to a Danish/Japanese research team the various moth species probably talk about sex in a great number of different ways. This sheds new light on the evolution of sound communication and behavior. Moths ...

A breakthrough in our understanding of the properties of titania (titanium dioxide) - the basis of self-cleaning window technology - has been made by scientists at UCL, uncovering a decades old misunderstanding that has clouded our knowledge of how mixed phase [1] titania catalysts operate. By carrying out cutting-edge computational simulations alongside precise experimental measurements of physical samples of the mineral, scientists at UCL found that the widely accepted explanation for how mixed phase titania catalysts operate was misguided. Their discovery, published ...

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a new metallic bubble wrap that is lighter, stronger and more flexible than sheet metal and more heat- and chemical-resistant than plastic or other polymer-based bubble wraps. Potential applications include automobile body panels, the wing edges of airplanes, suitcases, helmets and cases for computers and other electronic devices. "This material does exactly what sheet metal and other bubble wraps do, but better," said Dr. Afsaneh Rabiei, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the lead researcher ...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A new study led by Florida State University researcher Stephanie Pau shows that tropical forests are producing more flowers in response to only slight increases in temperature. The study examined how changes in temperature, clouds and rainfall affect the number of flowers that tropical forests produce. Results showed that clouds mainly have an effect over short-term seasonal growth, but longer-term changes of these forests appear to be due to temperature. While other studies have used long-term flower production data, this is the first study to combine ...

New research from the University of Adelaide shows for the first time that immune cells known as macrophages are critical to fertility by creating a healthy hormone environment in the uterus. Laboratory studies led by researchers in the University's Robinson Institute have shown that macrophages play an essential role in production of the hormone progesterone, which is crucial for embryo implantation and the initiation of pregnancy. Results of the study, which will be published online today by the Journal of Clinical Investigation, could lead to new insights into how ...

A new study, by Marco Malagodi from the Università degli Studi di Pavia in Italy and colleagues, uses a range of analytical methods to identify the techniques used by violin master Antonio Stradivari in the 17th century, and attempts to replicate his craftsmanship. The work is published online in Springer's journal, Applied Physics A - Materials Science & Processing. Antonio Stradivari is universally recognized as one of the most famous violin makers in the world. During his life, he and his apprentices built more than a thousand violins, violas, cellos and other stringed ...

New Orleans, LA -- Research led by Priyanshi Ritwik, DDS, MS, LSUHSC Associate Professor of Pediatric Dentistry at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, reports important findings about side effects and how long they linger after discharge of common oral drugs used to sedate some children during dental procedures. The results of the study, published in the current issue of Anesthesia Progress, provide pediatric dentists and parents with new information on this previously little-investigated aspect of children's dental health care. The prospective study, conducted at ...

If you tickle a robot, it may not laugh, but you may still consider it humanlike -- depending on its role in your life, reports an international group of researchers. Designers and engineers assign robots specific roles, such as servant, caregiver, assistant or playmate. Researchers found that people expressed more positive feelings toward a robot that would take care of them than toward a robot that needed care. "For robot designers, this means greater emphasis on role assignments to robots," said S. Shyam Sundar, Distinguished Professor of Communications at Penn ...

A female's exposure to distress even before she conceives causes changes in the expression of a gene linked to the stress mechanism in the body — in the ovum and later in the brains of the offspring from when they are born, according to a new study on rats conducted by the University of Haifa. "The systemic similarity in many instances between us and mice raises questions about the transgenerational influences in humans as well, for example, the effects of the Second Lebanon War or the security situation in the South on the children of those who went through those difficult ...

A team of UK researchers believe earthworms could provide a window into past climates, allowing scientists to piece together the prevailing weather conditions thousands of years ago. A laboratory study by researchers from the Universities of Reading and York has demonstrated that balls of calcium carbonate (small lumps of chalk-like material) excreted by the earthworm Lumbricus terrestris – commonly known as lobworms or nightcrawlers - maintain a memory of the temperature at which they were formed. This, say the researchers, in an article in the journal Geochimica et ...

A device that trains the brain to turn sounds into images could be used as an alternative to invasive treatment for blind and partially-sighted people, researchers at the University of Bath have found. The vOICe sensory substitution device is a revolutionary tool that helps blind people to use sounds to build an image in their minds of the things around them. A research team, led by Dr Michael Proulx, from the University's Department of Psychology, looked at how blindfolded sighted participants responded to an eye test using the device. They were asked to perform ...

TORONTO -- People over the age of 50 who have suffered a fracture because of a slip or trip play a central role in making sure they get proper care to prevent a future fracture, a new study has found. The findings are important because previous efforts to improve care for bone health after one of these fractures have had limited success. Dr. Dorcas Beaton, lead author of the study and director of the Mobility Program Clinical Research Unit at St. Michael's Hospital, found that people with what are known as fragility fractures who understood their potential risk for ...