WASHINGTON D.C. Sept. 24, 2013 -- The dream of igniting a self-sustained fusion reaction with high yields of energy, a feat likened to creating a miniature star on Earth, is getting closer to becoming reality, according the authors of a new review article in the journal Physics of Plasmas. Researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) engaged in a collaborative project led by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, report that while there is at least one significant obstacle to overcome before achieving the highly stable, precisely directed ...

September 24, 2013 - A survey conducted by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) shows that a majority of those underage students in Ontario, Canada who smoke or drink are getting cigarettes and alcohol from a friend or family member. Among students in Grades 7-12 who smoked cigarettes, 58 per cent say they received their last cigarette from a friend or family member, while 19 per cent report getting them from a corner store, grocery store, gas station, or bar. Twenty-six per cent of males surveyed said they were more likely to obtain cigarettes from sources ...

LOS ANGELES (Sept. 24, 2013) – A new study of patients who died of sudden cardiac arrest, a usually fatal condition that causes the heart to stop beating, shows the majority who qualified to receive potentially lifesaving treatment did not receive it. Researchers led by Sumeet Chugh, MD, associate director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, examined medical records of 2,093 patients who died of sudden cardiac arrest and found that only 488 patients, or about 20 percent, were medically evaluated to see if they met the criteria to receive an implantable cardiac defibrillator, ...

Young adults in Greece suffer more from stress and mental health problems and are less optimistic about the future than Swedes of the same age. The grave financial problems in Greece have brought on a social crisis that has probably affected people's health, according to a study from Linköping University. In the study, recently published in the scientific journal PLOS One, groups of students at Athens University and Linköping University replied to questions about their health and perceived stress. The results show that in every respect, the Greek students reported poorer ...

The medical treatment of horses requires not only specialized knowledge but also specialized equipment. Horses' lungs are large and when they breathe horses take in a correspondingly large volume of air. It is not easy to supply this in an emergency. Suitable respirators are available in hospitals but are not always there when they are needed, for example in the barn, in the pasture, in the woods, during transport or at other places where emergencies can and do occur. A bellows to inflate lungs Yves Moens is Head of the Vetmeduni's Clinical Unit of Anaesthesiology ...

It was previously thought that the two test methods signalled the same type of asthma. But a new study, led by researchers at Uppsala University, Sweden, shows that the methods actually signal two different inflammatory processes. With the tests used in combination, the chances are probably greater for the patient to receive just the right treatment. The study is being published in the October issue of Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Measurement of the concentration of exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) is today a routine clinical method for determining the degree ...

The radar on NASA and JAXA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite saw Typhoon Usagi maintaining some of its inner-core structure an hour before landfall on Sept. 22, 2013. The data was used to create an image that showed the 3-D regions of heavy precipitation hiding under the circular cloud cover near Usagi's center of rotation. While the light precipitation regions had lost the appearance of organization, the heavy precipitation regions showed what appeared to be a ~50 km/31.0 mile-radius eye wall, with multiple rain bands further away from the center. ...

New research could improve the welfare standards of millions of fish used by scientists around the world. The study, published in PLOS ONE, is one of the first to formally assess the welfare implications of anaesthetics on fish. Researchers use fish to study the developmental origins of health and disease. The work, carried out in collaboration between the University of Bristol's School of Veterinary Sciences and AstraZeneca Brixham Environmental Laboratory, investigated whether scientists are using the right anaesthetics and if current best practice for fish could ...

This news release is available in German. Leipzig. Noise from traffic and artificial night lighting cause birds in the city centre to become active up to five hours earlier in the morning than birds in more natural areas. These were the findings from an investigation conducted on 400 blackbirds in Leipzig by the interdisciplinary research group "Loss of the Night". Scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) reported in the open-access journal PLOS ONE that these findings showed how ambient noise and light pollution caused by humans have ...

Hardly a spectroscopic method boasts so many different applications as nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, better known as "NMR". The approach of NMR spectroscopy is based on monitoring the so-called nuclear spin, namely the angular momentum of atoms, or, more precisely: the magnetic moment associated with them. The atom thus becomes a bar magnet, whose axis is aligned within a magnetic field but is otherwise arbitrarily oriented within its environment. The alignment can be altered by applying electromagnetic radiation in the radio wavelength, typically at several ...

A simple measurement of the sweat gland activity of a depressed person can determine if he or she is suicidal – with 97 per cent accuracy. Now another large clinical study confirms the correlation. Blood pressure, blood circulation and activity in the sweat glands of the fingers can reveal if a person is suicidal. "The results are so strong that I'm astonished", says Lars-Håkan Thorell, associate professor in experimental psychiatry at Linköping University, one of the researchers behind the study. "We can determine very accurately whether a person risks committing suicide, ...

BOSTON (Sept. 24, 2013) – Retinal (or fundus) photography is an essential part of any ophthalmology practice. Commercial fundus cameras can cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, making the technology out of reach for smaller ophthalmic practices and to physicians in third-world countries. In a recent study now on line, Massachusetts Eye and Ear researchers describe the relatively simple technique of fundus photography in human and rabbit eyes using a smartphone, an inexpensive app for the smartphone, and instruments that are readily available in an ophthalmic practice. Smartphones ...

The following highlights summarize research papers that have been recently published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres (JGR-D), Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth (JGR-B) and Paleoceanography. In this release: 1. Statistically linking extreme precipitation to global warming 2. The mixed mechanisms of large-earthquake nucleation 3. Evaluating solutions to the faint young Sun problem 4. Updated ice core record captures Industrial Era carbon variability 5. Mechanism could explain rapid, dramatic, cyclic Arctic warming 6. Reconstructing ancient ...

VIDEO: Lead author Dr. Farzan Siddiqui, a Radiation Oncologist at Henry Ford Hospital, says the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s led to an increased transmission and infection HPV, which... Click here for more information. DETROIT – The human papillomavirus (HPV) may be to blame for the alarming increase of young adults with oropharyngeal cancer, according to researchers from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. The study reveals an overall 60 percent increase from 1973 ...

DETROIT – A highly targeted cancer radiation therapy may offer a safe and effective treatment option for elderly pancreatic cancer patients unable to undergo surgery or combined chemotherapy and radiation therapy, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Called stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), the study finds patients lived, on average, six to seven months longer following treatment with minimal side-effects even when they had other severe comorbidities such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart disease and diabetes. Two of ...

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have identified and validated two rare gene mutations that appear to cause the common form of Alzheimer's disease (AD) that strikes after the age of 60. The two mutations occur in a gene called ADAM10 – coding for an enzyme involved in processing the amyloid precursor protein – which now becomes the second pathologically-confirmed gene for late-onset AD and the fifth AD gene overall. In their report, which will appear in the October 16 issue of Neuron and has been released online, the investigators from the MassGeneral ...

VIDEO: The Western University research led by Robarts Research Institute scientist Robert Gros, Ph.D., found the heart is regulated not only by nervous systems but also by heart cells sending messages... Click here for more information. New research from Western University (London, Canada) is leading to a better understanding of what happens during heart failure; knowledge that could lead to better therapeutics or a more accurate predictor of risk. The research led by Robarts ...

NASA's Aqua satellite orbit around the Earth took it right over Typhoon Pabuk and the image showed an eye veiled with some high clouds. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Typhoon Pabuk on Sept. 24 at 04:05 UTC as it was nearing Japan. In the image, high clouds draped over Pabuk's eye. Pabuk's eye is about 30 nautical miles/34.5 miles/55.5 km wide, about three times larger than Typhoon Usagi's eye before it made landfall in China earlier in the week. On Tuesday, Sept. ...

INDIANAPOLIS - Asking three questions of parents of 5- to 12-year-olds in the waiting room before a pediatrician visit may make a lifetime of difference for their child, according to a new study from Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University investigators. Does your child OFTEN make careless mistakes or not pay close attention to details, causing problems at home or school? Does your child OFTEN have difficulty remaining seated when asked to do so, causing problems at home or school? Does your child OFTEN have a hard time paying attention to tasks or play, causing ...

A new study published in the September issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease reports that even a single mild explosion can cause changes in the brain that have similarities to those found in diseases like Alzheimer's disease and chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Flying debris or getting thrown against other objects are not the only things that make explosions so dangerous. The primary shock waves that emanate from explosions also can kill a person if they are intense enough. However, most blast survivors experience less powerful shock waves that cause less severe ...

Candida albicans is a double agent: In most of us, it lives peacefully, but for people whose immune systems are compromised by HIV or other severe illnesses, it is frequently deadly. Now a new study from Johns Hopkins and Harvard Medical School shows how targeting a specific fungal component might turn the fungus from a lion back into a kitten. Study results were reported this month in The Journal of Biological Chemistry. "Treatment options for systemic Candida infections are limited, and a major difficulty in finding new drug targets is that fungi are closely related ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Researchers at Purdue University have shown how to reduce fuel consumption while improving the efficiency of hydraulic steering systems in heavy construction equipment. The new approach incorporates several innovations: It eliminates valves now needed to direct the flow of hydraulic fluid in steering systems and uses advanced algorithms and models to precisely control hydraulic pumps. New designs might also incorporate textured "microstructured" surfaces inside pumps to improve performance. "Fuel consumption of heavy off-road equipment accounts ...

Scientists from King's College London have announced that 16 human embryonic stem (hES) cell lines have been approved by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and placed on their Stem Cell Registry, making them freely available for federally-funded research in the USA. The stem cell lines, which carry genes for a variety of hereditary disorders such as Huntington's disease, spinal muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis, are considered to be ideal research tools for designing models to understand disease progression, and ultimately in helping scientists develop new ...

TORONTO, September 24, 2013 – For the first time, scientists at Toronto Rehab have found that in people with chronic moderate-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), atrophy (shrinkage) in the brain may be countered by participating in environmental enrichment – increased physical, social and cognitive stimulation. The paper, entitled "Environmental enrichment may protect against hippocampal atrophy in the chronic stages of traumatic brain injury," was published today in the open-access journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. The principal investigator of this study is ...

Sophia Antipolis, 29 September 2013: Obese children have blood vessel damage and insulin resistance that are precursors to atherosclerosis and diabetes, reveals research by Dr Norman Mangner presented at ESC Congress 2013. The findings highlight the need to adopt a healthy lifestyle early in life to prevent cardiovascular disease (CVD) which is the theme of World Heart Day 2013, held today. Professor Grethe Tell (Norway), ESC prevention spokesperson, said: "On World Heart Day 2013 the ESC is emphasising the importance of a healthy lifestyle from a young age. One in 10 ...