Chicago, October 14, 2013—The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research has released the results of a major new survey exploring the views of older Americans about their plans for work and retirement. It provides in-depth information about a rapidly growing segment of the population that by choice or circumstance is working longer. The Great Recession has had a marked impact on retirement plans. "The survey illuminates an important shift in Americans' attitudes toward work, aging, and retirement," said Trevor Tompson, director of the AP-NORC Center. "Retirement ...

This news release is available in German. Extension of cable-based telecommunication networks requires high investments in both conurbations and rural areas. Broadband data transmission via radio relay links might help to cross rivers, motorways or nature protection areas at strategic node points, and to make network extension economically feasible. In the current issue of the nature photonics magazine, researchers present a method for wireless data transmission at a world-record rate of 100 gigabits per second. (doi: 10.1038/nphoton.2013.275) In their record experiment, ...

Recent scientific findings have raised the fear that young athletes may fare worse after sustaining a sports-related concussion than older athletes. Researchers in the Vanderbilt Sports Concussion Center compared symptoms associated with concussion in middle- and high-school aged athletes with those in college-age athletes and found no significant differences between the two age groups. The study, "Does age affect symptom recovery after sports-related concussion? A study of high school and college athletes," was in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics. Lead authors ...

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have identified a protein expressed by human bone marrow stem cells that guides and stimulates the formation of blood vessels. Their findings, which could help improve the vascularization of engineered tissues, were reported online on October 12 in the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology. "Some stem cells actually have multiple jobs," says Dr. Jalees Rehman, associate professor of cardiology and pharmacology at the UIC College of Medicine and lead author of the paper. For example, stem cells in the bone marrow, ...

This news release is available in German. The endogenous hormone dopamine triggers feelings of happiness. While its release is induced, among other things, by the "feel-good" classics sex, drugs or food, the brain does not content itself with a kick; it remembers the state of happiness and keeps wanting to achieve it again. Dopamine enables us to make the "right" decisions in order to experience even more moments of happiness. Biological components reconnected Now a team of researchers headed by ETH-Zurich professor Martin Fussenegger from the Department of Biosystems ...

Walking is tricky business, as any toddler knows. And while most artificial feet and limbs do a pretty good job restoring mobility to people who have lost a leg, they have a ways to go before they equal the intricacy of a natural gait. As a result, over half of all amputees take a fall every year, compared to about one-third of people over 65. In cooperation with a Mayo Clinic scientist, researchers at Michigan Technological University are taking a giant step toward solving the problem. They are making a bionic foot that could make an amputee's walk in the park feel, ...

Nyon, Switzerland (October 14, 2013) – A new report published today by the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) warns that as a result of ageing populations and osteoporosis not being treated as a priority, health care providers will be faced with an avalanche of fractures and rising costs. Approximately 22 million women and 5.5 million men in 27 member states of the European Union (EU27)*, have osteoporosis; the total burden is expected to increase to 33.9 million (increase of 23 per cent) by 2025. The IOF report prepared in collaboration with the European ...

A team led by Chris Sullivan, a professor of molecular biosciences at The University of Texas at Austin, has provided the first positive evidence that RNA interference (RNAi), a biological process in which small RNA molecules prevent genes from being expressed, does not play a role as an antiviral in most body, or "somatic," cells in mammals. Their research was published in Cell Host & Microbe. RNAi plays an important antiviral role in plants and invertebrates, but it has long been disputed whether it plays a similar role in mammals. A better understanding of how RNAi ...

October 14, 2013—With higher populations and limited space, urban areas are not often thought of as places for agriculture. A recent surge in community gardens, though, is bringing agriculture and gardens into the cities. And certain byproducts of urban life – food and yard waste and municipal biosolids – can benefit those gardens, and the soils in them, tremendously. Sally Brown, associate professor at University of Washington will discuss the use of compost and biosolids in urban agriculture on Tuesday, Nov. 5 at 9:35 am. Her talk, Urban Soil Quality and Compost, is ...

Climate change affects forests across North America – in some cases permitting insect outbreaks, plant diseases, wildfires and other problems -- but Dartmouth researchers say warmer temperatures are also making many forests grow faster and some less susceptible to pests, which could boost forest health and acreage, timber harvests, carbon storage, water recycling and other forest benefits in some areas. The Dartmouth-led study, which appears in the journal Ecological Monographs, reviewed nearly 500 scientific papers dating to the 1950s, making it the most comprehensive ...

Buffalo, N.Y. – A new set of studies by researchers at three universities led by UB psychologist Lora E. Park has found that the previously assumed link between expansive body postures and power is not fixed, but depends on the type of posture enacted and people's cultural background. "Stand Tall, but Don't Put Your Feet Up: Universal and Culturally-Specific Effects of Expansive Postures on Power" is reported in the November 2013 issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 49, Issue 5). Park's co-authors are Lindsey Streamer, UB doctoral student in social ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – A new study of women ages 50 and older examines the 12.2 percent who say they are satisfied with their body size to unlock the secrets of body satisfaction. This minority of midlife women who report being satisfied with their body size appears to exert considerable effort to achieve and maintain this satisfaction. In addition, they are not impervious to dissatisfaction with other aspects of their physical appearance; especially those aspects affected by aging, said Cynthia Bulik, PhD, corresponding author of the study. Cristin Runfola, PhD"Of course ...

Researchers from the University of Minnesota, Mayo Clinic, and University of Toronto have successfully shown that a new method for targeting mutated cells could create a major breakthrough in a personalized medicine approach to treat cancer. The team's findings are published in the Oct. 15 issue of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association of Cancer Research. The new research discovers susceptible genes in the cancer cells using synthetic lethal interactions—pairs of genes in which mutation in either gene alone causes no damage to the cell, but where mutations ...

October 14, 2013—In some areas of Africa, farmers, scientists and policymakers are beginning to win the war on hunger, says Pedro Sanchez, PhD. Several factors have come together in recent years to tip the scales and increase food production. Sanchez will present "The African Green Revolution at the Tipping Point," on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2013 at 8:45 AM. The presentation is part of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America Annual Meetings, Nov. 3-6 in Tampa, Florida. The theme of this year's conference is ...

Boulder, Colo., USA – New Geosphere pre-issue publication articles are now online and include contributions to the CRevolution 2: Origin and Evolution of the Colorado River System II; Results of IODP Exp313: The History and Impact of Sea-level Change Offshore New Jersey; New Developments in Grenville Geology; and the Seeing the True Shape of Earth's Surface: Applications of Airborne and Terrestrial LiDAR in the Geosciences themed issues. Abstracts for these and other Geosphere papers are available at http://geosphere.gsapubs.org/. Representatives of the media may obtain ...

People's willingness to help others may be influenced by a gene that affects their level of social anxiety, according to a new study led by a University of Nebraska-Lincoln scientist. The study appears to be the first to describe this particular pathway. Research participants who carry the dominant version of the gene were more likely to indicate anxiety about social interactions or being trapped in situations or places. The anxiety appears to inhibit their "prosocial" behavior and increase their reluctance to come to the aid of strangers. Scott ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have developed a system that concentrates foodborne salmonella and other pathogens faster than conventional methods by using hollow thread-like fibers that filter out the cells, representing a potential new tool for speedier detection. The machine, called a continuous cell concentration device, could make it possible to routinely analyze food or water samples to screen for pathogens within a single work shift at food processing plants. "This approach begins to address the critical need for the food industry for detecting food pathogens ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Congress should minimally modify – and not, as petroleum-related interests have increasingly lobbied for, repeal – the Renewable Fuel Standard, the most comprehensive renewable energy policy in the U.S., according to a new paper from two University of Illinois researchers. In the study, U. of I. law professor Jay P. Kesan and Timothy A. Slating, a regulatory associate with the Energy Biosciences Institute, argue that RFS mandates merely ought to be adjusted to reflect current and predicted biofuel commercialization realities. "The RFS is the first ...

WASHINGTON D.C. Oct. 11, 2013 -- Imagine if the "information superhighway" had HOV lanes so that data could be stored, processed and disseminated many times faster than possible with today's electronics. Researchers in the United States and China have teamed to develop such a speedway for future devices, an exotic type of electrical conductor called a topological insulator (TI). In a new paper in the journal AIP Advances, the international collaborators report that they grew two types of TI materials inside an ultra-high vacuum chamber on both smooth and rough surfaces ...

VIDEO: A precise model of the swimming patterns of the nematode C. elegans will lead to better drug screening and help researchers reverse engineer the worm's neural system. Click here for more information. WASHINGTON, D.C. Oct. 11, 2013 -- One might wonder why researchers would even care about the nuances of the one-millimeter long nematode worm, let alone take the time to study them. But the answer is simple: they can provide powerful insights into human health and disease. New ...

Los Angeles, CA (October 14, 2013) Public administrators draw on a number of different sources to inform their work including the news, blogs, podcasts, etc. But why aren't they drawing on scholarly research from published academics as a key resource and what can scholars themselves do about it? More than they might think, suggests new research. A new article published in State and Local Government Review (a SAGE Journal) outlines how to conduct and disseminate academic research that is relevant, collaborative, and accessible to local government practitioners. The ...

Research led by physician-scientists at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine has produced a breakthrough discovery in diagnosing retinitis pigmentosa, a blinding disease that affects about 1 in 4,000 people in the United States. Rong Wen, M.D., Ph.D., and Byron Lam, M.D., professors of ophthalmology at Bascom Palmer, in collaboration with biochemist Ziqiang Guan, Ph.D., a research associate professor at Duke University Medical School, discovered a key marker in blood and urine that can identify people who carry genetic mutations ...

DALLAS – Oct. 14, 2013 – A specific protein once thought to exist only in the brain may play a crucial role in a deadly form of thyroid cancer, as well as other cancers, and provide a fresh target for researchers seeking ways to stop its progression, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report today in Cancer Cell. The scientists found that over-activation of a certain protein in hormone-secreting cells helps fuel medullary thyroid cancer cells in mice as well as in human cells, making the protein a potentially good target for therapies to inhibit the growth of ...

Studies have long shown a difference in cognitive ability between high- and low-income children, but for the first time, scientists have found a difference between low-income children growing up in rural areas and those growing up in urban environments. Researchers at Dartmouth College have found that children growing up in rural poverty score significantly lower on visual working memory tests than their urban counterparts. However, children in urban poverty score slightly lower on tests of verbal working memory. Working memory is the ability to keep information in ...

Seattle, WA—Scientists at the University of Washington have used genetic engineering to identify a population of neurons that tell the brain to shut off appetite. Their study, "Genetic identification of a neural circuit that suppresses appetite," was published Oct. 13 in Nature. To identify these neurons, or cells that process and transmit information in the brain, researchers first considered what makes an animal lose its appetite. There are a number of natural reasons, including infection, nausea, pain or simply having eaten too much already. Nerves within the gut ...