Just as humans can follow complex social situations in deciding who to befriend or to abandon, it turns out that animals use the same level of sophistication in judging social configurations, according to a new study that advances our understanding of the structure of animal social networks. The study, which appears today in the journal Animal Behaviour, is the first in which researchers applied a long-standing theory in social psychology called "structural balance," which is used to analyze human relationships, to an animal population to better understand the mechanisms ...

People who live in urban areas with more green space tend to report greater well-being than city dwellers who don't have parks, gardens, or other green space nearby, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Examining data from a national longitudinal survey of households in the United Kingdom, Mathew White and colleagues at the European Centre for Environment & Human Health at the University of Exeter Medical School found that individuals reported less mental distress and higher life satisfaction ...

New Rochelle, NY, April 22, 2013–In a team-based care approach, a diverse group of clinicians shares responsibility for a panel of patients and consults with each other regularly. This model of delivering primary care can improve patient care, practice workflows, and patient and physician satisfaction, according to a study published in Population Health Management, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Population Health Management website at http://www.liebertpub.com/pop. Debora Goetz Goldberg, PhD, MHA, ...

Recent progress in the engineering of plasmonic structures has enabled new kinds of nanometer-scale optoelectronic devices as well as high-resolution optical sensing. But until now, there has been a lack of tools for measuring nanometer-scale behavior in plasmonic structures which are needed to understand device performance and to confirm theoretical models. "For the first time, we have measured nanometer-scale infrared absorption in semiconductor plasmonic microparticles using a technique that combines atomic force microscopy with infrared spectroscopy," explained William ...

A few years ago, researchers revealed that the universe is expanding at a much faster rate than originally believed — a discovery that earned a Nobel Prize in 2011. But measuring the rate of this acceleration over large distances is still challenging and problematic, says Prof. Hagai Netzer of Tel Aviv University's School of Physics and Astronomy. Now, Prof. Netzer, along with Jian-Min Wang, Pu Du and Chen Hu of the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Dr. David Valls-Gabaud of the Observatoire de Paris, has developed a method with ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Children can get five to 10 colds each year, so it's not surprising that adults often turn to over-the-counter cough and cold medicines to relieve their little ones' symptoms. But a new University of Michigan poll shows that many are giving young kids medicines that they should not use. More than 40 percent of parents reported giving their children under age 4 cough medicine or multi-symptom cough and cold medicine, according to the latest University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. Twenty-five percent gave ...

HOUSTON -- (April 22, 2013) -- Individual freedom and social responsibility may sound like humanistic concepts, but an investigation of the genetic circuitry of bacteria suggests that even the simplest creatures can make difficult choices that strike a balance between selflessness and selfishness. In a new study the journal Scientific Reports, researchers from Rice University's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP) and colleagues from Tel Aviv University and Harvard Medical School show how sophisticated genetic circuits allow an individual bacterium within ...

DURHAM, N.H. -– Running two computer models in tandem, scientists from the University of New Hampshire have detailed for the first time how thermoelectric power plants interact with climate, hydrology, and aquatic ecosystems throughout the northeastern U.S. and show how rivers serve as "horizontal cooling towers" that provide an important ecosystem service to the regional electricity sector — but at a cost to the environment. The analysis, done in collaboration with colleagues from the City College of New York (CCNY) and published online in the current journal Environmental ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — College coaches who emphasize their players' academic abilities may be the best defense against the effects of "dumb jock" stereotypes, a Michigan State University study suggests. Researchers found that student-athletes were significantly more likely to be confident in the classroom if they believed their coaches expected high academic performance, not just good enough grades to be eligible for sports. "Coaches spend a lot of time with their players, and they can play such an important role to build academic confidence in student-athletes," said ...

On April 20, 2013, at 2:54 a.m. EDT, the sun erupted with a coronal mass ejection (CME), a solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space that can affect electronic systems in satellites. Experimental NASA research models show that the CME left the sun at 500 miles per second and is not Earth-directed. However, it may pass by NASA's Messenger and STEREO-A satellites, and their mission operators have been notified. There is, however, no particle radiation associated with this event, which is what would normally concern operators of interplanetary ...

The records checked were for native Australian millipede species and were published online by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, GBIF and the Atlas of Living Australia, ALA. GBIF and ALA obtain most of their records from cooperating museums, but disclaim any responsibility for errors in museum databases, instead warning users that the data may not be accurate or fit for purpose. The auditing was done voluntarily by Dr Bob Mesibov, who is a millipede specialist and a research associate at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston, Tasmania. The ...

URBANA – There has been much talk about sustainability, but little attention has been paid to its nutritional aspects. University of Illinois animal sciences researcher Kelly Swanson, in cooperation with scientists at natural pet food maker The Nutro Company, have raised a number of important questions on the sustainability of pet ownership. Sustainability is defined as meeting the needs of the present while not compromising the future. Swanson said that although the carbon footprint aspect of sustainability receives the most attention, nutritional aspects are also important. ...

SALT LAKE CITY—Researchers from Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah have developed a novel and powerful technique to identify the targets for a group of enzymes called RNA cytosine methyltransferases (RMTs) in human RNA. They applied their technique to a particular RMT, NSUN2, which has been implicated in mental retardation and cancers in humans, finding and validating many previously unknown RMT targets—an indication of the technique's power. The research results were published online in the journal Nature Biotechnology on April 21. "Although RMTs ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (April 22, 2013) - Dog bites to the face are a relatively common injury in young children, and often require repeated plastic surgery procedures to deal with persistent scarring, according to a report in the March Journal of Craniofacial Surgery, published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. In the study, Dr. Barry L. Eppley of Indiana University Health North Hospital, Carmel, and Dr. Arno Rene Schelich of Hans Privatklinikum, Graz, Austria, review a ten-year experience of the common dog bites of the face in children. "[R]egardless ...

Amsterdam, NL, 22 April 2013 – Scientific progress in Huntington's disease (HD) relies upon the availability of appropriate animal models that enable insights into the disease's genetics and/or pathophysiology. Large animal models, such as domesticated farm animals, offer some distinct advantages over rodent models, including a larger brain that is amenable to imaging and intracerebral therapy, longer lifespan, and a more human-like neuro-architecture. Three articles in the latest issue of the Journal of Huntington's Disease discuss the potential benefits of using large ...

Child sponsorship is a leading form of direct aid from households in wealthy countries to children in developing countries, with approximately 3.39 billion dollars spent to sponsor 9.14 million children internationally. A new study to be published in the Journal of Political Economy shows international child sponsorship to result in markedly higher rates of schooling completion and substantially improved adult employment outcomes. Researchers used first-hand survey data from a study of Compassion International, a leading child sponsorship organization, to examine the ...

Boston, MA—Rudolf Jaenisch of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Massachusetts Institute of Technology will speak at EB 2013 on the topic of stem cells, pluripotency and nuclear reprogramming. His work has led to major advances in our understanding of embryonic stem cells and "induced pluripotent stem" (IPS) cells, which appear identical to embryonic stem cells but can be created from adult cells without using an egg. Dr. Jaenisch will discuss the mechanism of in vitro reprogramming and the inefficiency of gene targeting on Sunday, April 21at 2:30 pm at ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Most people know that the way to stay healthy is to exercise and eat right, but millions of Americans struggle to meet those goals, or even decide which to change first. Now, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered that focusing on changing exercise and diet at the same time gives a bigger boost than tackling them sequentially. They also found that focusing on changing diet first — an approach that many weight-loss programs advocate — may actually interfere with establishing a consistent exercise routine. Their findings ...

New research published in the journal Psychological Science has found that people living in urban areas with more green space tend to report greater wellbeing than city dwellers that don't have parks, gardens, or other green space nearby. The research has been led by Dr Mathew White from the University of Exeter Medical School's European Centre for Environment & Human Health, in Truro, Cornwall. By examining data from a national survey that followed UK households over time, Dr White and colleagues at the European Centre have found that individuals reported less mental ...

A worrisome increase in obesity levels in much of the world suggests that current methods of motivating people to eat healthier food and get more exercise are not all that successful. Much of today's research focuses on ways of delivering messages in order to obtain the best sustained adherence to these two key health behaviors. One such study by Abby King and colleagues from the Stanford School of Medicine in California looks at the timing of giving exercise and nutrition advice. The researchers found that a higher success rate might be possible when the advice is given ...

Cells are the basic unit of a living organism. The human body consists of a vast array of highly specialized cells, such as blood cells, skin cells and neurons. In total more than 250 different cell types exist. How are the different types related to each other? Which factors are unique for each cell type? And what in the end determines the development of a certain cell? To answer these questions, the research team designed a computer-based method that uses already existing biological data from research groups all over the world and analyses them in an entirely new way. ...

NEW YORK—A massive study analyzing gene expression data from 22 tumor types has identified multiple metabolic expression changes associated with cancer. The analysis, conducted by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center, also identified hundreds of potential drug targets that could cut off a tumor's fuel supply or interfere with its ability to synthesize essential building blocks. The study was published today in the online edition of Nature Biotechnology. The results should ramp up research into drugs that interfere with cancer metabolism, a field that dominated ...

MADISON – For the first time, human embryonic stem cells have been transformed into nerve cells that helped mice regain the ability to learn and remember. A study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is the first to show that human stem cells can successfully implant themselves in the brain and then heal neurological deficits, says senior author Su-Chun Zhang, a professor of neuroscience and neurology. Once inside the mouse brain, the implanted stem cells formed two common, vital types of neurons, which communicate with the chemicals GABA or acetylcholine. "These ...

BOSTON — When thousands of experimental biology researchers gather in Boston this weekend, many of them undoubtedly will be presenting work related to the hunt for the next generation of antibiotics and how to battle back existing and emerging superbugs. But for one scientist from Texas Rio Grande Valley, it's not about what the research of tomorrow holds: It's about the kind of action the people in communities like his need today. Subburaj Kannan, an instructor of microbiology at Southwest Texas Junior College, is passionate when he talks about how antibiotic resistance ...

BOSTON — Regular use of low-dose aspirin may prevent the progression of breast cancer, according to results of a study by researchers at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo., and the University of Kansas Medical Center. The study found that aspirin slowed the growth of breast cancer cell lines in the lab and significantly reduced the growth of tumors in mice. The age-old headache remedy also exhibits the ability to prevent tumor cells from spreading. The lead author of the study, Gargi Maity, a postdoctoral fellow who works in the cancer research ...