A new study has proven that being bullied during childhood directly increases the likelihood of self- harm in late adolescence. The analysis, led by researchers from the University of Warwick in association with colleagues at the University of Bristol, highlights that being bullied at primary school age can cause enough distress to significantly increase the risk of self-harming in later adolescence. Almost 5,000 participants in the Children of the 90s study were assessed for exposure to bullying between seven and ten years of age and later asked whether they had engaged ...

Have you experienced seeing a painting or a play that has left you with no feelings whatsoever, whilst a friend thought it was beautiful and meaningful? Experts have argued for years about the feasibility of researching art appreciation, and what should be taken into consideration. Neuroscientists believe that biological processes that take place in the brain decide whether one likes a work of art or not. Historians and philosophers say that this is far too narrow a viewpoint. They believe that what you know about the artist's intentions, when the work was created, and ...

VIDEO: This shows the methods used in the playback experiment. Click here for more information. A new study highlights the 'parasitism by theft' of bumblebees that invade birds' nests and claim them as their own. Their warning buzz helps bumblebees to "scare" the bird away from the nest. The work by Piotr Jablonski and colleagues, from the Laboratory of Behavioral Ecology and Evolution at Seoul National University in South Korea, is published online in Springer's journal, Behavioral ...

Entanglement is a property in quantum mechanics that seemed so unbelievable and so lacking in detail that, 66 years ago this spring, Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance." But a mathematician at Case Western Reserve University and two of his recent PhD graduates show entanglement is actually prevalent in large quantum systems and have identified the threshold at which it occurs. The finding holds promise for the ongoing push to understand and take advantage of the property. If harnessed, entanglement could yield super high-speed communications, hack-proof ...

Quantum communication systems offer the promise of virtually unbreakable encryption. Unlike classical encryption, which is used to send secure data over networks today and whose security depends on the difficulty of solving mathematical problems like the factoring of large numbers, most quantum encryption schemes keep the encryption key separate from the data. This approach ensures that an eavesdropper with access only to the data could not decipher the key. However, researchers have recently demonstrated that even quantum encryption may be susceptible to hacking. In ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- An Indiana University study has found that a unique omega-3 supplement derived from the New Zealand green-lipped mussel significantly improved lung function and reduced airway inflammation in asthmatics who experience exercise-induced bronchoconstriction, also called exercise-induced asthma. Timothy Mickleborough, professor in the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington, said his findings are similar to his studies involving fish oil but required a much smaller dosage of the supplement. His new study, appearing online in the journal Respiratory Medicine, ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - While the mutated KRAS oncogene is associated with many cancers, it has not yet been successfully targeted by a therapeutic agent. Scientists are trying to find another way to target the gene by blocking signals from another protein downstream. A University of North Carolina School of Medicine team offers first evidence of the role of a protein called GSK-3 alpha in promoting oncogenic KRAS function. When the scientists inhibited GSK-3 in a model of pancreatic tumors, the team got a strong anti-tumor response, thus offering a potential therapeutic ...

CHICAGO (May 28, 2013)—Addicted to soda? You may be shocked to learn that drinking large quantities of your favorite carbonated soda could be as damaging to your teeth as methamphetamine and crack cocaine use. The consumption of illegal drugs and abusive intake of soda can cause similar damage to your mouth through the process of tooth erosion, according to a case study published in the March/April 2013 issue of General Dentistry, the peer-reviewed clinical journal of the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD). Tooth erosion occurs when acid wears away tooth enamel, which ...

The offspring of parents who live to a ripe old age are more likely to live longer themselves, and less prone to cancer and other common diseases associated with ageing, a study has revealed. Experts at the University of Exeter Medical School, supported by the National Institute for Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care in the South West Peninsula (NIHR PenCLAHRC), led an international collaboration which discovered that people who had a long-lived mother or father were 24% less likely to get cancer. The scientists compared ...

DALLAS – May 28, 2013 – A new study on prostate cancer describes a novel class of drugs developed by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers that interrupts critical signaling needed for prostate cancer cells to grow. In men with advanced prostate cancer, growth of cancer cells depends on androgen receptor signaling, which is driven by androgens, such as testosterone. To thwart tumor growth, most patients with advanced prostate cancer receive drugs that block the production of androgen or block the receptor where the androgen binds. Unfortunately, such treatments invariably ...

A new butterfly species from Texas, given the common name Vicroy's Ministreak, was discovered because of its striking olive green eye color, and was given a formal scientific name (Ministrymon janevicroy). This beautiful new butterfly may be the last truly distinctive butterfly species to be discovered in the United States. Although individuals of Vicroy's Ministreak were deposited in the Smithsonian entomology collections a century ago, this species was unrecognized because it was confused with the common, similar-looking Gray Ministreak. Interestingly what distinguishes ...

The oceans absorb about 25 percent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by human activities. Since the industrial revolution, they have taken up about half of the man-made CO2. Billions of planktonic organisms, too tiny to be seen with the naked eye, make this valuable service possible: When carbon dioxide from the atmosphere dissolves in seawater, various species convert it to organic carbon and other organic components during photosynthesis. Jellyfish and pelagic tunicates live on smaller plankton and thus consume organic carbon. When they sink to the seafloor at the end ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – People will lie about their sexual behavior to match cultural expectations about how men or women should act – even though they wouldn't distort other gender-related behaviors, new research suggests. The study found that men were willing to admit that they sometimes engaged in behaviors seen by college students as more appropriate for women, such as writing poetry. The same was true for women, who didn't hide the fact that they told obscene jokes, or sometimes participated in other "male-type" deeds. But when it came to sex, men wanted to be seen as ...

DENVER – Most lung cancers are detected when patients become symptomatic and have late-stage disease. However, recently, computed tomography (CT) screening for lung cancer has been reported to reduce lung cancer mortality. Since the National Lung Screening Trial's results showed a 20 percent reduction in lung cancer-specific deaths in those patients who had screening performed with chest CT, the use of CT screening for lung cancer has been gaining favor. However, CT is associated with the disadvantages of high radiation dosage and cost. Digital chest tomosynthesis (DT), ...

Young people are increasingly turning to prescription drugs to get high. Research out of the University of Cincinnati sheds new light on what could increase or lower that risk. The research by Keith King, a University of Cincinnati professor of health promotion; Rebecca Vidourek, a UC assistant professor of health promotion; and Ashley Merianos, a graduate assistant in health promotion, is published in the current issue of the Journal of Primary Prevention. The study focused on more than 54,000 7th- through 12th - grade students in schools across Greater Cincinnati, ...

DENVER – Sarcomatoid carcinomas of the lung include rare subtypes of poorly differentiated non–small-cell lung carcinomas of high grade and aggressive behavior. The biology of these neoplasms is poorly understood and these tumors are aggressive and resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The identification of actionable molecular targets for such infrequent and aggressive diseases is critical for design of new clinical trials. Programmed death-1 (PD-1) is a co-inhibitory inducible receptor present on T-cells and macrophages. Tumor cells with increased programmed ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – A robot in Cornell's Personal Robotics Lab has learned to foresee human action in order to step in and offer a helping hand, or more accurately, roll in and offer a helping claw. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaa_wEkCvG0 Understanding when and where to pour a beer or knowing when to offer assistance opening a refrigerator door can be difficult for a robot because of the many variables it encounters while assessing the situation. A team from Cornell has created a solution. Gazing intently with a Microsoft Kinect 3-D camera and using a database ...

A team of UT Arlington researchers has identified two ruthenium-based complexes they believe could pave the way for treatments that control cancer cell growth more effectively and are less toxic for patients than current chemotherapies. Fred MacDonnell, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at The University of Texas at Arlington, has been researching a new generation of metal-based antitumor agents along with a team from the City of Hope Comprehensive Center Center in Duarte, Calif. Their aim is to find new therapies to complement widely used platinum-based therapies, ...

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego, have designed tiny spherical particles to float easily through the bloodstream after injection, then assemble into a durable scaffold within diseased tissue. An enzyme produced by a specific type of tumor can trigger the transformation of the spheres into netlike structures that accumulate at the site of a cancer, the team reports in the journal Advanced Materials this week. Targeting treatments specifically to cancerous or other diseased cells depends on some means of accumulating high levels of a drug or other therapeutic ...

PULLMAN, Wash. - It would be nice to think the pundits we see yelling on TV and squawking on Twitter are right all the time. It turns out they're wrong more often than they are right. Now two Washington State University economics students have demonstrated that it simply doesn't pay as much for a pundit to be accurate as it does to be confident. It's one thing to be a good pundit, but another to be popular. "In a perfect world, you want to be accurate and confident," says Jadrian Wooten. "If you had to pick, being confident will get you more followers, get you more demand." Wooten ...

A recent paper published in the Journal of Animal Science suggests producers may want to adjust pig diets when including distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS). Some producers believe that feeding pigs saturated fats will undo the fat-softening effects of DDGS. Firmer fat means longer-lasting pork. But researchers from the University of Illinois found that including saturated fats in DDGS diets makes no difference in fat quality. The researchers formulated six corn-soybean meal diets to test the effects of saturated fat additives on carcass fat quality in pigs. ...

1. Evidence Suggests Screening for Gestational Diabetes Can Improve Maternal and Fetal Outcomes Evidence review will inform recommendations on screening for gestational diabetes The oral glucose challenge test (OGCT) and testing for fasting plasma glucose levels may be the best way to rule out gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) in women who are at about 24 weeks' gestation. The OGCT may be better for diagnosing women who have GDM. GDM puts babies at risk for having a high birth weight, low blood sugar, and jaundice. GDM is also associated with seizures or still birth. ...

Irvine, CA & Seattle, WA — Scientists at UC Irvine reported this week that a synthetic compound ShK-186, originally derived from a sea anemone toxin, has been found to enhance metabolic activity and shows potential as a treatment for obesity and insulin resistance. The findings published the week of May 27 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveal that ShK-186 selectively blocks the activity of a protein that promotes inflammation through the Kv1.3 potassium channel. The study presents the first evidence that the drug candidate – which in March showed ...

Dartmouth College researchers have identified a new regulator for plant hormone signaling -- the KISS ME DEADLY family of proteins (KMDs) – that may help to improve production of fruits, vegetables and grains. The study's results will be published the week of May 27 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Journalists can access the paper, titled "SCFKMD controls cytokinin signaling by regulating the degradation of type-B response regulators," through EurekAlert!. Professor G. Eric Schaller, the paper's senior author, studies the molecular mechanisms ...

Human foetal stem cell grafts improve both motor and sensory functions in rats suffering from a spinal cord injury, according to research published this week in BioMed Central's open access journal Stem Cell Research and Therapy. This cell replacement therapy also improves the structural integrity of the spine, providing a functional relay through the injury site. The research gives hope for the treatment of spinal cord injuries in humans. Grafting human neural stem cells into the spine is a promising approach to promote the recovery of function after spinal injury. ...