A new study is revealing the multiple health concerns faced by an estimated 3,000 tenants in single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES). The results of the study aim to better inform the provision of health care and housing among an often-overlooked segment of the population. Due to their affordability, SROs are often the only alternative to homelessness for low-income individuals in Vancouver and other major cities. Some SROs are substandard and many tenants suffer from substance dependence, mental illness and infectious diseases. The ...

Bethesda, Md. (Aug. 9, 2013)—Researchers have long been aware of a phenomenon in speech called coarticulation, in which certain sounds are produced differently depending on the sounds that come before or after them. For example, though the letter n is usually pronounced with the tongue pressed near the middle of the mouth's roof (as in the word "ten"), it's pronounced with the tongue farther forward when it's followed by –th (as in "tenth"). A decade ago, researchers discovered that this phenomenon extends to a different kind of communication, American Sign Language. Knowing ...

TEMPE, Ariz. – One of the biggest mysteries in contemporary particle physics and cosmology is why dark energy, which is observed to dominate energy density of the universe, has a remarkably small (but not zero) value. This value is so small, it is perhaps 120 orders of magnitude less than would be expected based on fundamental physics. Resolving this problem, often called the cosmological constant problem, has so far eluded theorists. Now, two physicists – Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State University and James Dent of University of Louisiana-Lafayette – suggest that ...

A new analysis of dinosaur fossils by University of Pennsylvania researchers has revealed that a number of specimens of the genus Psittacosaurus — once believed to represent three different species — are all members of a single species. The differences among the fossil remains that led other scientists to label them as separate species in fact arose from how the animals were buried and compressed, the study found. "Because of the vagaries of fossilization, no two fossils are the same," said senior author Peter Dodson, professor of anatomy in Penn's School of Veterinary ...

A team of chemists in SU's College of Arts and Scientists has used a temperature-sensitive polymer to regulate DNA interactions in both a DNA-mediated assembly system and a DNA-encoded drug-delivery system. Their findings, led by Associate Professor Mathew M. Maye and graduate students Kristen Hamner and Colleen Alexander, may improve how nanomaterials self-assemble into functional devices and how anticancer drugs, including doxorubicin, are delivered into the body. More information is available in a July 30 article in ACS Nano, published by the American Chemical Society. One ...

Tropical Depression 11W formed in the western North Pacific Ocean and appears to be tracking toward Luzon, in the Northern Philippines. NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of the tropical depression as it continues to organize and strengthen. On Aug. 8 at 1853 UTC (2:53 p.m. EDT) NASA's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite showed some cloud top temperatures in bands of thunderstorms and around the center of Tropical Depression 11W were as cold as -63F/-52C, indicating strong storms. What does Infrared ...

The Central and Eastern Pacific Oceans continue to be active on Aug. 9, as Hurricane Henriette weakens and two other low pressure systems continue developing. All three systems were captured on the one panoramic satellite image. An image from NOAA's GOES-West satellite on Aug. 9 at 1200 UTC (8 a.m. EDT) captured all three tropical systems. The storm farthest west is Hurricane Henriette, followed by System 92E to the east. System 92E is trailed by System 93E even further east. The GOES-West imagery shows that System 92E has a more developed circulation, and the National ...

Chemists in The College of Arts and Sciences have figured out how to synthesize nanomaterials with stainless steel-like interfaces. Their discovery may change how the form and structure of nanomaterials are manipulated, particularly those used for gas storage, heterogeneous catalysis and lithium-ion batteries. The findings are the subject of a July 24 article in the journal Small (Wiley-VCH, 2013), co-authored by associate professor Mathew M. Maye and research assistant Wenjie Wu G'11, G'13. Until now, scientists have used many wet-chemical approaches—collectively known ...

New research on two promising gene therapies suggests that combining them into one treatment not only repairs muscle damage caused by Duchenne muscular dystrophy, but also prevents future injury from the muscle-wasting disease. The work, led by a team at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, is the first to look at the approach in aged mice, a key step toward clinical trials in patients. The findings were published in July in Human Molecular Genetics. "We're excited about the fact that these are older mice and we're still able to see a sustained functional ...

LOS ANGELES (Aug. 9, 2013) – A unique nanoscale drug that can carry a variety of weapons and sneak into cancer cells to break them down from the inside has a new component: a protein that stimulates the immune system to attack HER2-positive breast cancer cells. The research team developing the drug – led by scientists at the Nanomedicine Research Center, part of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute in the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center – conducted the study in laboratory mice with implanted human breast cancer cells. Mice receiving the ...

Contact: Marco Leyton, Ph.D. marco.leyton@mcgill.ca 514-398-5804 McGill University Terry E. Robinson, Ph.D. ter@umich.edu 734-358-8055 The University of Michigan Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research Brain dopamine may serve as a risk marker for alcohol use disorders There are known risks for and protective factors against the development of alcohol use disorders (AUDs). A new study has found that striatal dopamine responses to alcohol ingestion may serve as a neurobiological marker of vulnerability to AUDs. Specifically, when given alcohol, ...

Research from McGill University suggests that people who are vulnerable to developing alcoholism exhibit a distinctive brain response when drinking alcohol, according to a new study by Prof. Marco Leyton, of McGill University's Department of Psychiatry. Compared to people at low risk for alcohol-use problems, those at high risk showed a greater dopamine response in a brain pathway that increases desire for rewards. These findings, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, could help shed light on why some people are more at risk of suffering ...

The Black Forest wildfire this June was one of the most destructive in Colorado history, in terms of homes lost. It started close to houses and quickly spread through the ponderosa pine canopies on the rolling hills near Colorado Springs. The wildfire destroyed 500 homes in the first 48 hours and killed two people. Hot, dry and windy weather played a role in that wildfire, said Don Smurthwaite, spokesperson with the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho. "Fire seasons are getting longer, western regions are getting drier, and more people are living ...

NEW YORK CITY -- Children who overestimate their popularity are less likely to be bullies than those who underestimate or hold more accurate assessments of their social standing, finds new research to be presented at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. "The more kids overestimated their popularity, the less aggression they displayed," said Jennifer Watling Neal, an assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University. "This means that kids who were more accurate in their assessment of their number of friends or who underestimated ...

NEW YORK CITY -- People have more empathy for battered puppies and full grown dogs than they do for some humans -- adults, but not children, finds new research to be presented at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. "Contrary to popular thinking, we are not necessarily more disturbed by animal rather than human suffering," said Jack Levin, the Irving and Betty Brudnick Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Northeastern University. "Our results indicate a much more complex situation with respect to the age and species of victims, with ...

NEW YORK CITY — Morning sickness, shiny hair, and bizarre and intense cravings for pickles and ice cream — what expectations do pregnant women impose on their bodies, and how are those expectations influenced by cultural perspectives on pregnancy? Danielle Bessett, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Cincinnati, will present her research on this issue at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. Although previous studies have indicated that women primarily rely on their health care providers and pregnancy guides to find ...

NEW YORK CITY — Immigration judges should be allowed to consider a person's family and social ties to the United States before ordering the deportation of legal permanent residents for minor offenses, says a professor at the University of California, Merced. "The reason legal permanent residents can be deported for minor crimes — even if they have lived in the United States for many years — is that there is little to no due process in immigration courts," sociology Professor Tanya Golash-Boza said. "Under current laws, if a person has a prior conviction for a wide range ...

NEW YORK -- An Indiana University study found that college students' experiences are largely shaped by the debt they accrue, with debt-free students more likely to live the "play hard" lifestyle often associated with the college years, where social lives can trump academics. Sociologist Daniel Rudel said this is one of the first studies to examine how student loan debt affects students' college experiences. He and colleague Natasha Yurk, also a graduate student in the Department of Sociology in IU Bloomington's College of Arts and Sciences, found "real and significant ...

In what is the biggest study of its kind to date, researchers from Technische Universität München (TUM) have identified over 10,000 different proteins in cancer cells. "Nearly all anti-tumor drugs are targeted against cellular proteins," says Prof. Bernhard Küster, Head of the TUM Chair of Proteomics and Bioanalytics. "Identifying the proteome the protein portfolio of tumor cells increases our chances of finding new targets for drugs." The scientists investigated 59 tumor cell lines from the US National Cancer Institute. The "NCI-60" cell lines represent the most common ...

The California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) today released new data based on interviews with more than 44,000 households in California. The survey, conducted by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, covered hundreds of topics affecting state residents' health and well-being. Data on nearly 200 of these topics were released today on AskCHIS, the center's award-winning, free, easy-to-use Web tool that provides data by state, region, county and some service-planning areas in Los Angeles and San Diego counties. Even more data were released through free, downloadable ...

3-N-butylphthalide, a green botanical medicine, is a successfully synthesized and stable chemical drug used for the treatment of ischemic stroke that has independent intellectual property rights in China. The first L-isomer, originally extracted from celery seed, was artificially synthesized from racemic acid, also known as butylphthalide. L-3-n-butylphthalide has been shown to reduce β-amylase-induced neuronal apoptosis and improve cognitive function in Alzheimer's disease animal models. As a neuroprotective drug for cerebrovascular disease, 3-n-butylphthalide has ...

The middle cerebral artery territory comprises the corticospinal tract, which is responsible for fine motor activity of the hands, and the corticoreticulospinal tract, which is involved in postural control and locomotor function, and therefore, motor weakness is one of the most disabling sequelae of a middle cerebral artery infarct. However, little is known about motor outcomes in patients with a complete middle cerebral artery territory infarct. Prof. Sung Ho Jang and colleagues from College of Medicine, Yeungnam University investigated 23 patients with a complete middle ...

In multiple sclerosis, gray matter atrophy is extensive, and cognitive deficits and mood disorders are frequently encountered. It has been conjectured that focal atrophy is associated with emotional decline. However, conventional MRI has revealed that the pathological characteristics cannot fully account for the mood disorders. Dr. Aiyu Lin and colleagues from the First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University used the voxel-based morphometry method to compare the difference in the clinical manifestations and imaging parameters of Chinese patients with multiple ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- By tracking the previously unknown movements of a set of specialized cells, Whitehead Institute scientists are shedding new light on how the immune system mounts a successful defense against hostile, ever-changing invaders. Central to the immune response is the activity inside structures known as germinal centers (GCs), which form in the body's lymph nodes upon detection of a foreign virus or bacteria. Within the GCs, populations of antibody-producing B cells move through continual cycles of mutation in an effort to generate antibodies perfectly suited ...

Boston, Mass., -- A mother's perceived social status predicts her child's brain development and stress indicators, finds a study at Boston Children's Hospital. While previous studies going back to the 1950s have linked objective socioeconomic factors -- such as parental income or education -- to child health, achievement and brain function, the new study is the first to link brain function to maternal self-perception. In the study, children whose mothers saw themselves as having a low social status were more likely to have increased cortisol levels, an indicator of stress, ...