WACO, Texas (Sept. 23, 2013) — Baylor University professors Stephen Trumble, Ph.D., and Sascha Usenko, Ph.D., have developed a novel technique for reconstructing contaminant and hormone profiles using whale earplugs, determining—for the first time—lifetime chemical exposures and hormone profiles—from birth to death—for an individual whale, information that was previously unattainable. (Find this story on our website: http://www.baylor.edu/mediacommunications/news.php?action=story&story=132825) Using a blue whale's earplug, Trumble and Usenko were able to extract and ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Many ancient crustaceans went extinct following a massive collapse of reefs across the planet, and new University of Florida research suggests modern species living in rapidly declining reef habitats may now be at risk. Available online and scheduled to appear in the November issue of Geology, the study shows a direct correlation between the amount of prehistoric reefs and the number of decapod crustaceans, a group that includes shrimp, crab and lobster. The decline of modern reefs due to natural and human-influenced changes also could be detrimental, ...

Anyone who's stuffed a smart phone in their back pocket would appreciate the convenience of electronic devices that could bend. Flexible electronics could spawn new products: clothing wired to cool or heat, reading tablets that could fold like newspaper, and so on. Alas, electronic components such as chips, displays and wires are generally made from metals and inorganic semiconductors -- materials with physical properties that make them fairly stiff and brittle. In the quest for flexibility many researchers have been experimenting with semiconductors made from plastics ...

After more than four decades of research, strong evidence now shows that Kawasaki disease has a distinct seasonal occurrence shared by regions across the Northern hemisphere. The first global analysis of the seasonality of Kawasaki disease, published September 18 by PLOS ONE, was carried out using data obtained between 1970 and 2012. It included 296,203 cases from 39 locations in 25 countries around the globe, with 27 of those locations in the extra-tropical Northern hemisphere, eight in the tropics, and four in the extra-tropical Southern hemisphere. Kawasaki disease ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Fiber optics has made communication faster than ever, but the next step involves a quantum leap –– literally. In order to improve the security of the transfer of information, scientists are working on how to translate electrical quantum states to optical quantum states in a way that would enable ultrafast, quantum-encrypted communications. A UC Santa Barbara research team has demonstrated the first and arguably most challenging step in the process. The paper, published in Nature Physics, describes a nanomechanical transducer that provides strong ...

Certain pediatric surgeries carry such low risk of serious blood loss that clinicians can safely forgo expensive blood typing and blood stocking before such procedures, suggest the results of a small study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center. The finding, published ahead of print in the journal Pediatric Anesthesia, was accompanied by a list of 10 operations with "zero" transfusion risk, according to the investigators who reviewed the records of thousands of pediatric surgeries performed at The Johns Hopkins Hospital over 13 months. Unnecessary pre-emptive ...

Imagine an electronic display nearly as clear as a window, or a curtain that illuminates a room, or a smartphone screen that doubles in size, stretching like rubber. Now imagine all of these being made from the same material. Researchers from UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a transparent, elastic organic light-emitting device, or OLED, that could one day make all these possible. The OLED can be repeatedly stretched, folded and twisted at room temperature while still remaining lit and retaining its original shape. OLED ...

SEATTLE – Scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have uncovered a new mechanism by which influenza can infect cells – a finding that ultimately may have implications for immunity against the flu. Influenza viruses have two main proteins on their surface that allow them to do their dirty work: a protein called hemagglutinin allows viruses to infect cells, while a protein called neuraminidase allows viruses to escape from cells. Now in a paper published online ahead of the December print issue of the Journal of Virology, Jesse Bloom, Ph.D., an evolutionary ...

A new study by a team of University of Notre Dame researchers, which appears in the Sept. 2 edition of the journal PLoS ONE, is a significant step in understanding the molecular genetic and physiological basis for a spectrum of metabolic diseases related to circadian function. Obesity and diabetes have reached epidemic levels and are responsible for increased morbidity and mortality throughout the world. Furthermore, the incidence of metabolic disease is significantly elevated in shift-work personnel, revealing an important link between the circadian clock, the sleep-wake ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – New research from the University of Missouri indicates escapism, social interaction and rewards fuel problematic video-game use among "very casual" to "hardcore" adult gamers. Understanding individual motives that contribute to unhealthy game play could help counselors identify and treat individuals addicted to video games. "The biggest risk factor for pathological video game use seems to be playing games to escape from daily life," said Joe Hilgard, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychological Sciences in the MU College of Arts and Science. ...

HOUSTON – (Sept. 23, 2013) – Pacemakers, insulin pumps, defibrillators and other implantable medical devices often have wireless capabilities that allow emergency workers to monitor patients. But these devices have a potential downside: They can be hacked. Researchers at Rice University have come up with a secure way to dramatically cut the risk that an implanted medical device (IMD) could be altered remotely without authorization. Their technology would use the patient's own heartbeat as a kind of password that could only be accessed through touch. Rice electrical ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — A scientific survey of gun dealers and pawnbrokers in 43 U.S. states has found nearly unanimous support for denying gun purchases based on prior convictions and for serious mental illness with a history of violence or alcohol or drug abuse – conditions that might have prevented Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis from legally purchasing a firearm. The research, conducted by the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program, is to be published in the Journal of Urban Health. The research is the third report from the UC Davis' Firearm Licensee ...

Researchers have determined that fingerstick cardiac troponin I assay testing using thepoint-of-care i-STAT device is not accurate enough to determine the exact troponin level without the application of a corrective term. The study was funded by the Department of Emergency Medicine, Loyola University Medical Center and was published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine. The study was conducted by Devin Loewenstein, BS, Christine Stake, MA and Mark Cichon, DO of Loyola University Chicago, Department of Emergency Medicine. "Cardiac tropnin assays commonly ...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23, 2013 – Audio CDs, all the rage in the '90s, seem increasingly obsolete in a world of MP3 files and iPods, leaving many music lovers with the question of what to do with their extensive compact disk collections. While you could turn your old disks into a work of avant-garde art, researchers in Taiwan have come up with a more practical application: breaking down sewage. The team will present its new wastewater treatment device at the Optical Society's (OSA) Annual Meeting, Frontiers in Optics (FiO) 2013, being held Oct. 6-10 in Orlando, Fla. "Optical ...

Our brains give us the remarkable ability to make sense of situations we've never encountered before—a familiar person in an unfamiliar place, for example, or a coworker in a different job role—but the mechanism our brains use to accomplish this has been a longstanding mystery of neuroscience. Now, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have demonstrated that our brains could process these new situations by relying on a method similar to the "pointer" system used by computers. "Pointers" are used to tell a computer where to look for information stored elsewhere ...

Researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Boston University, in collaboration with the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI), have found evidence of the H1N1 influenza vaccine's safety during pregnancy. The national study, which was launched shortly after the H1N1 influenza outbreak of 2009, is summarized in two companion papers published online on September 19 in the journal Vaccine. "The overall results of the study were quite reassuring about the safety of the flu vaccine formulations that contained the pandemic ...

Pediatric researchers have found race- and ethnicity-based disparities in pain management and length of stay among children who came to hospital emergency departments for treatment of abdominal pain. A study team reported on their analysis of a national database of hospital visits in the October issue of Pediatrics. Overall, black, Hispanic and "other" race children were less likely to receive analgesics than white children. After adjusting for confounders, black patients were less likely to receive any analgesic or a narcotic analgesic than white children. Similarly, ...

More than 83,000 volunteer citizen scientists. Over 16 million galaxy classifications. Information on more than 300,000 galaxies. This is what you get when you ask the public for help in learning more about our universe. The project, named Galaxy Zoo 2, is the second phase of a crowdsourcing effort to categorize galaxies in our universe. Researchers say computers are good at automatically measuring properties such as size and color of galaxies, but more challenging characteristics, such as shape and structure, can currently only be determined by the human eye. An international ...

For years, scientists have attempted to understand how Alzheimer's disease harms the brain before memory loss and dementia are clinically detectable. Most researchers think this preclinical stage, which can last a decade or more before symptoms appear, is the critical phase when the disease might be controlled or stopped, possibly preventing the failure of memory and thinking abilities in the first place. Important progress in this effort is reported in October in Lancet Neurology. Scientists at the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center at Washington ...

Friendships matter throughout life, and in early adolescence they provide validation and emotional support. Now a new study has found that friendships across ethnic groups in urban middle schools help protect youths from feeling vulnerable, making them feel less lonely and at the same time safer. As the population of children in the United States grows increasingly diverse, this study has implications for how educators oversee student interactions. The study, by researchers at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, ...

Young children readily learn words from their parents, grandparents, and child care providers in live conversations, but learning from video has proven more difficult. A new study questioned why and found that it's the responsiveness of the interactions that's key: When we respond to children in timely and meaningful ways, they learn—even when that response comes from a screen. The study, by researchers at the University of Washington, Temple University, and the University of Delaware, appears in the journal Child Development. Three dozen 2-year-olds were randomly assigned ...

Playing with blocks may help preschoolers develop the kinds of skills that support later learning in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), according to a new study by researchers at the University of Delaware and Temple University. And for low-income preschoolers, who lag in spatial skills, such play may be especially important. The study is published in the journal Child Development. More than a hundred 3-year-olds of various socioeconomic levels took part in the study. Children who were better at copying block structures were also better at early math, ...

In the U.S., there are nearly 300,000 children with juvenile arthritis and other rheumatic illnesses according to estimates from the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). For pediatric patients with systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), effective treatment for this disabling disease is imperative. New treatment recommendations that guide physicians caring for children with systemic JIA are now published in the ACR journals, Arthritis & Rheumatism and Arthritis Care & Research. Systemic JIA is defined by the International League of Associations for Rheumatology ...

Drug ads often warn of serious side effects, from nausea and bleeding to blindness, even death. New research suggests that, rather than scaring consumers away, these warnings can improve consumers' opinions and increase product sales when there is a delay between seeing the ad and deciding to buy or consume the product. "Messages that warn consumers about potentially harmful side effects — presumably with the intent to nudge them to act more cautiously — can ironically backfire," says psychological scientist Ziv Carmon of INSEAD in Singapore. Working with Yael Steinhart ...

1. A recent discovery by scientists at A*STAR's Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS), in close collaboration with researchers at the Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN), provides hope for a new personalised treatment strategy that could use a patient's own blood to treat the infection. This could help treat millions of people living with chronic infections such as HIV, Hepatitis B or Hepatitis C. These findings were published in the August 2013 issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation. 2. Patients suffering from chronic infections often have to undergo ...