On June 22, 2013, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite captured this image of the West Fork fire complex burning in the San Juan and Rio Grande National Forests of southwestern Colorado. Red outlines indicate hot spots where MODIS detected unusually warm surface temperatures associated with fire. The fires were burning in rugged terrain with large amounts of beetle-killed spruce forests. South Fork, a nearby town with about 400 people, has been evacuated. INFORMATION: ...

MAYWOOD, Il. -- In women who have type 2 diabetes and show signs of depression, vitamin D supplements significantly lowered blood pressure and improved their moods, according to a pilot study at Loyola University Chicago Niehoff School of Nursing. Vitamin D even helped the women lose a few pounds. The study was presented at the American Diabetes Association 73rd Scientific Sessions in Chicago. "Vitamin D supplementation potentially is an easy and cost-effective therapy, with minimal side effects," said Sue M. Penckofer, PhD, RN, lead author of the study and a professor ...

Scientists have added another piece to the evolutionary puzzle to explain why certain mammal families evolved to be very large, while others remained tiny. In research published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, an international group of scientists including Monash University's Dr Alistair Evans proposed a new theory explaining the diversity of mammal sizes - from the Etruscan shrew which weighs around two grams, to the blue whale which clocks in at almost 200 tonnes. Surprisingly, baby weight relative to adult body mass is key. Dr Evans, of the Monash School of ...

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (June 25, 2013). Researchers at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Chicago have found that children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are more likely to demonstrate a moderate disability after sustaining a mild traumatic brain injury than children without ADHD. Detailed findings of this phenomenon are reported and discussed in "The impact of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder on recovery from mild traumatic brain injury. Clinical article," by Christopher M. Bonfield, M.D., Sandi ...

NEW YORK (June 25, 2013) – Researchers from Montefiore Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University will present findings from studies that explore a wide range of topics including hypoglycemia, the benefits of behavioral intervention, insulin pump therapy and fetal outcomes in diabetic women at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association, which begins Friday in Chicago. This year's meeting will feature more than 1,200 presentations by experts on the latest diabetes research. Selected data to be presented by Montefiore/Einstein ...

Montreal-– The next time someone snubs you at a party and you think hiding is the solution to escape your feelings of rejection, think again. Scientists have shown that reaching out to other people during a stressful event is an effective way to improve your mood, and researchers at Concordia University suggest that the hormone oxytocin may help you accomplish just that. Mark Ellenbogen and Christopher Cardoso, researchers in Concordia's Centre for Research in Human Development are taking a closer look at oxytocin, a hormone traditionally studied for its role in childbirth ...

The quality of CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) you receive may vary, depending on the EMS department or hospital administering it, according to the American Heart Association. In a statement published in its journal Circulation, the association calls for a renewed focus on improving resuscitation techniques and tracking. "There have been huge advances in CPR and there's no question that high-quality CPR saves lives," said Peter Meaney, M.D., M.P.H., lead author of the statement and assistant professor of anesthesia and critical care at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. ...

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (June 25, 2013). Researchers at Penn State College of Medicine and Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center (Hershey, Pennsylvania) have categorized the appearance and evolution of abnormalities on neuroimages that represent abusive head trauma (AHT) in infants. The researchers' descriptions of these abnormalities are important for narrowing down the timing of AHT, which can aid police in identifying and excluding potential perpetrators. Appearances of a variety of abusive traumatic injuries on cranial CT scans and MRIs at different time points are ...

An international team of astronomers has found that a nearby star previously thought to host two or three planets is in fact orbited by six or seven worlds, including an unprecedented three to five "super-Earths" in its habitable zone, where conditions could be right for life. This is the first time that so many super-Earths — planets more massive than Earth but less than 10 times more massive — have been detected in the same system. "It's exciting that we've found a nearby star that has so many planets in its habitable zone," said University of Washington astronomer ...

Gliese 667C is a very well-studied star. Just over one third of the mass of the Sun, it is part of a triple star system known as Gliese 667 (also referred to as GJ 667), 22 light-years away in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion). This is quite close to us — within the Sun's neighbourhood — and much closer than the star systems investigated using telescopes such as the planet-hunting Kepler space telescope. Previous studies of Gliese 667C had found that the star hosts three planets (eso0939 - http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso0939/, eso1214 - http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1214/) ...

Washington, D.C.—A team of astronomers, including Carnegie's Paul Butler, has combined new observations with existing data to reveal a solar system packed full of planets. The star Gliese 667C is orbited by between five and seven planets, the maximum number that could fit in stable, close orbits. A record-breaking three of these planets are super-Earths found in the so-called habitable zone around the star—the zone where liquid water could exist. This makes them good candidates for the search for life. Gliese 667C is a very well-studied star. It is just over one third ...

LOS ANGELES (June 25, 2013) – Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute have uncovered for the first time the vital role a popular protein plays in the stroma, the cell-lined area outside of a prostate tumor. Researchers have long understood the function of the protein, Caveolin-1 (Cav-1), in prostate cancer, including its role in treatment resistance and disease aggressiveness. However, prior to this study, little was known about the role of Cav-1 within the stroma. The study, published in the Journal of Pathology, found that a decreased ...

What if experts could dig into the brain, like archaeologists, and uncover the history of past experiences? This ability might reveal what makes each of us a unique individual, and it could enable the objective diagnosis of a wide range of neuropsychological diseases. New research at the Weizmann Institute hints that such a scenario is within the realm of possibility: It shows that spontaneous waves of neuronal activity in the brain bear the imprints of earlier events for at least 24 hours after the experience has taken place. The new research stems from earlier findings ...

A formation mechanism of nanocrystalline cerium dioxide (CeO2), a versatile nanomaterial, has been unveiled by scientists from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. The research results were published in the scientific journal Chemistry – A European Journal (DOI: 10.1002/chem.201204101). This finding potentially simplifies and alleviates the existing synthetic processes of nanocrystalline CeO2 production. Nanocrystalline CeO2 particles are widely used, for example, in catalysts for hazardous gas treatment, ...

Athens, Greece. Tuesday 25 June 2013: Using catheter ablation to create complete linear lesions around pulmonary veins, proved more effective than the creation of incomplete lesions in preventing recurrence of atrial fibrillation (AF), reports the GAP-AF study. The study, presented today in the Late Breaking Clinical Trials session I at the EHRA EUROPACE 2013 meeting in Athens, Greece, represents the first time that a randomized controlled study has been undertaken comparing the two different ablation strategies for patients with paroxysmal AF. Identification of triggers ...

Traditional methods of marking larger farm animals rely on branding with hot irons or on ear-tagging. Dogs and cats are instead identified by the implant of a microchip transponder. With very few exceptions, it is now mandatory within the European Union to mark horses by means of transponders. Nevertheless, some sport-horse registries oppose the use of microchips because they believe that the rate of identification failure is unacceptably high. To date, no systematic examinations to see whether chips are easy to decode, have been conducted. Manuela Wulf in the group of ...

Plants possess receptors which are similar to the glutamate receptors in the brain of humans and animals. Biochemists at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) with colleagues from the University of Würzburg and the Agricultural University of China in Beijing have discovered that these receptors do not, however, recognise the amino acid glutamate, but many other different amino acids. The team reports in the journal "Science Signaling". Glutamate-like receptor in Arabidopsis recognises many amino acids To exchange information, cells send out signalling molecules that are ...

North Carolina State University researchers are using video game technology to remotely control cockroaches on autopilot, with a computer steering the cockroach through a controlled environment. The researchers are using the technology to track how roaches respond to the remote control, with the goal of developing ways that roaches on autopilot can be used to map dynamic environments – such as collapsed buildings. The researchers have incorporated Microsoft's motion-sensing Kinect system into an electronic interface developed at NC State that can remotely control cockroaches. ...

This news release is available in German. Various areas of the brain process our sensory experiences. How the areas of the cerebral cortex communicate with each other and process sensory information has long puzzled neu-roscientists. Exploring the sense of touch in mice, brain researchers from the University of Zurich now demonstrate that the transmission of sensory information from one cortical area to connected areas depends on the specific task to solve and the goal-directed behavior. These findings can serve as a basis for an improved understanding of cognitive ...

The Fundación Mutua Madrileña, in its 10th Call for Aids to Research, has selected a project to improve the diagnosis of Lynch syndrome led by researcher Marta Pineda, from the Hereditary Cancer research group of the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) and the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO). The aid is provided with 33,000 euros and has a duration of two years. Hereditary predisposition to cancer Lynch syndrome is a hereditary predisposition to cancer caused by germline mutations in DNA repair genes. Families with Lynch syndrome have a higher risk ...

A life without feelings – unimaginable. Although emotions are so important, philosophers are still discussing what they actually are. Prof. Dr. Albert Newen and Dr. Luca Barlassina of the Institute of Philosophy II at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum have drawn up a new theory. According to this, emotions are not just special cases of perception or thought but a separate kind of mental state which arises through the integration of feelings of bodily processes and cognitive contents. They describe the model in the journal "Philosophy and Phenomenological Research". Earlier ...

By managing macro-economic parameters, scientists believe that—unlike previously thought—it is possible to steer an economy around irreversible changes in its complex dynamics and avert potential economic disasters. These findings, about to be published in EPJ B, stem from the theoretical work of Michael Harré and colleagues at the Complex Systems Group at the University of Sydney, Australia. Physicists have a long experience of using statistical mechanics to study equilibrium points and small fluctuations in large numbers of interacting particles under varying pressure ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Training young children in spatial reasoning can improve their math performance, according to a groundbreaking study from Michigan State University education scholars. The researchers trained 6- to 8-year-olds in mental rotation, a spatial ability, and found their scores on addition and subtraction problems improved significantly. The mental rotation training involved imagining how two halves of an object would come together to make a whole, when the halves have been turned at an angle. Past research has found a link between spatial reasoning and ...

ANN ARBOR – A new laser that can show what objects are made of could help military aircraft identify hidden dangers such as weapons arsenals far below. "For the defense and intelligence communities, this could add a new set of eyes," said Mohammed Islam, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan. The system, which is made of off-the-shelf telecommunications technology, emits a broadband beam of infrared light. While most lasers emit light of one wavelength, or color, super-continuum lasers like ...

West Orange, NJ. June 24, 2013. U.S. and Italian researchers have determined that brain reserve, as well as cognitive reserve, independently protects against cognitive decline in multiple sclerosis (MS). Their article, "Brain reserve and cognitive reserve in multiple sclerosis: What you've got and how you use it", was published in Neurology on June 11, 2013 (Neurology 2013;80:2186-2193). Authors James Sumowski, PhD, Victoria Leavitt, PhD, and John DeLuca, PhD, are with Kessler Foundation in West Orange, NJ. Maria Rocca, MD, Gianna Riccitelli, PhD, Giancarlo Comi, MD, ...