A wide range of biologically inspired materials may now be possible by combining protein studies, materials science and RNA sequencing, according to an international team of researchers. "Biological methods of synthesizing materials are not new," said Melik C. Demirel, professor of engineering science and mechanics, Penn State. "What is new is the application of these principles to produce unique materials." The researchers looked at proteins because they are the building blocks of biological materials and also often control sequencing, growth and self-assembly. RNA ...

Public announcements in noisy places – such as railway stations, airports, or sports venues – could become quieter and clearer in future, thanks to new research. Scientists have developed software that can alter speech before it is broadcast over speakers, making it more audible amid background noise. In a bid to improve current synthetic voice technology, researchers studied how speech was perceived by listeners. They carried out tests to pinpoint the components of speech that are most easily heard by people in a noisy place. Experts at the University of Edinburgh, ...

PITTSBURGH—A wearable, picture-taking health monitor created by University of Pittsburgh researchers has received a recent facelift. Now, in addition to documenting what a person eats, the eButton prototype can accurately match those images against a geometric-shape library, providing a much easier method for counting calories. Published in Measurement Science and Technology, the Pitt study demonstrates a new computational tool that has been added to the eButton—a device that fastens to the shirt like a pin. Using its newly built comprehensive food-shape library, the ...

A nanoparticle shaped like a spiky ball, with magnetic properties, has been uncovered in a new method of synthesising carbon nanotubes by physicists at Queen Mary University of London and the University of Kent. Carbon nanotubes are hollow, cylindrical molecules that can be manipulated to give them useful properties. The nanoparticles were discovered accidentally on the rough surfaces of a reactor designed to grow carbon nanotubes. Described as sea urchins because of their characteristic spiny appearance, the particles consist of nanotubes filled with iron, with ...

WASHINGTON -- The growing use of social media and other mass collaboration technologies is opening up new opportunities in disaster management efforts, but is also creating new challenges for policymakers looking to incorporate these tools into existing frameworks, according to a new report from the Commons Lab at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The Commons Lab, part of the Wilson Center's Science & Technology Innovation Program, hosted a September 2012 workshop bringing together emergency responders, crisis mappers, researchers, and software programmers ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6042 Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6293 American Chemical Society Science supporting abundant, nourishing food for a growing civilization INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 8, 2013 — The diets of people in North America shed almost 1.5 billion pounds of unhealthy saturated and trans fat over the last six years thanks to a new phase in an ongoing agricultural revolution, an expert said here today. In an ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6042 Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6293 American Chemical Society New weapons on the way to battle wicked weeds INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 8, 2013 — A somber picture of the struggle against super-weeds emerged here today as scientists described the relentless spread of herbicide-resistant menaces like pigweed and horseweed that shrug off powerful herbicides and have forced farmers in some areas ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6042 Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6293 American Chemical Society New 'artificial nose' device can speed diagnosis of sepsis INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 8, 2013 — Disease-causing bacteria stink — literally — and the odor released by some of the nastiest microbes has become the basis for a faster and simpler new way to diagnose blood infections and finger the specific microbe, scientists reported ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6042 Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6293 American Chemical Society A new approach to early diagnosis of influenza INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 8, 2013 — A new technology is showing promise as the basis for a much-needed home test to diagnose influenza quickly, before the window for taking antiviral drugs slams shut and sick people spread the virus to others, scientists reported here today. In ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6042 Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6293 American Chemical Society Toward understanding the health effects of waterpipe or 'hookah' smoking lNDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 8, 2013 — With water pipes or hookahs gaining popularity in the United States and other countries, scientists today described a step toward establishing the health risks of what has been termed "the first new tobacco trend of ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6042 Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6293 American Chemical Society Water-purification plant the size of a fast-food ketchup packet saves lives INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 8, 2013 — An ambitious partnership among more than 100 organizations and governments led by Procter & Gamble's (P&G's) nonprofit program, Children's Safe Drinking Water (CSDW), has helped provide more than 6 billion quarts ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6042 Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6293 American Chemical Society Henry Ford's ideas may cut the cost and speed production of medicines INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 8, 2013 — Ideas that Henry Ford taught a century ago about the advantages of continuous mass production are finding their way into the manufacture of one of the few remaining products still made batch-wise: the billions of tablets, capsules ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6042 Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6293 American Chemical Society Purple sweet potatoes among 'new naturals' for food and beverage colors INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 8, 2013 — Mention purple sweet potatoes, black carrots or purple carrots, and people think of dining on heirloom or boutique veggies. But those plants and others have quietly become sources of a new generation of natural food colorings ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6042 Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 317-262-5907 (Indianapolis Press Center, Sept. 6-11) 202-872-6293 American Chemical Society First uses of new solar energy technology: Killing germs on medical, dental instruments INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 8, 2013 — A revolutionary new solar energy technology that turns water into steam without boiling the entire container of water has become the basis for new devices to sanitize medical and dental instruments and human ...

A team of scientists at Karolinska Institutet and Harvard University has taken a major step towards treatment for heart attack, by instructing the injured heart in mice to heal by expressing a factor that triggers cardiovascular regeneration driven by native heart stem cells. The study, published in Nature Biotechnology, also shows that there was an effect on driving the formation of a small number of new cardiac muscle cells. "This is the beginning of using the heart as a factory to produce growth factors for specific families of cardiovascular stem cells, and suggests ...

Barcelona, Spain: Exposure to fumes released during the firing of military small arms can lead to a decline in lung function, according to a new study. The research, which will be presented at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Annual Congress in Barcelona today (9 September 2013), suggests that members of the armed forces who are regularly firing small arms could be putting their lung health at risk. Over the last 5 years, the armed forces in Norway have started to report ill health after live firing training. This new study aimed to characterise the health effects ...

Barcelona, Spain: Argan powder, which is used by the cosmetic industry in the production of foundation products, could be linked with occupational asthma. A small study, presented at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Annual Congress in Barcelona today (9 September 2013), has found the first evidence of a risk associated with the use of argan powder during the industrial production of cosmetics. A sample of nine patients from a cosmetic factory in France were analysed in the study. All participants were exposed to the product in three different forms: crude ...

WHAT: National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists report that a combination of two licensed antiviral drugs reduces virus replication and improves clinical outcome in a recently developed monkey model of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection. Their study, which appears as a letter in the Sept. 8 edition of Nature Medicine, expands on work published in April showing that a combination of ribavirin and interferon-alpha 2b stops MERS-CoV from replicating in cell culture. Both antivirals are routinely used together to treat viral diseases such ...

New research from the University of East Anglia shows that rising ocean temperatures will upset natural cycles of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and phosphorous. Plankton plays an important role in the ocean's carbon cycle by removing half of all CO2 from the atmosphere during photosynthesis and storing it deep under the sea – isolated from the atmosphere for centuries. Findings published today in the journal Nature Climate Change reveal that water temperature has a direct impact on maintaining the delicate plankton ecosystem of our oceans. The new research means that ocean ...

SAN ANTONIO (Sept. 8, 2013) — Biologists reported today in Nature that they have identified two pathways through which chromosomes are rearranged in mammalian cells. These types of changes are associated with some cancers and inherited disorders in people. "Our finding provides a target to prevent these rearrangements, so we could conceivably prevent cancer in some high-risk people," said senior author Edward P. (Paul) Hasty, D.V.M., of the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Partial funding came from the Cancer Therapy ...

NEW YORK, September 8, 2013 — For the first time, a genetic link specific to risk of childhood leukemia has been identified, according to a team of researchers from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, University of Washington, and other institutions. The discovery was reported online today in the journal Nature Genetics. "We're in unchartered territory," said study author Kenneth Offit, MD, MPH, Chief of the Clinical Genetics Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. "At the very least this discovery gives us a new window into inherited ...

Hamilton, ON (September 8, 2013) – A global study led by McMaster University researchers has found large differences in lung function between healthy people from different socioeconomic and geographical regions of the world which could impact their health. The highest lung function was found in individuals from North America and Europe. This was followed by South America, Middle East, China, sub-Saharan Africa, Malaysia and South Asia. South Asians had the lowest lung function, by 30% compared to North Americans and Europeans. The large differences in lung function ...

A new analysis has found that most deaths from breast cancer occur in younger women who do not receive regular mammograms. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study indicates that regular screening before age 50 should be encouraged. The use of mammograms to prevent breast cancer deaths has been controversial, especially after the United States Preventive Services Task Force proposed in 2009 to limit screening to women aged 50 to 74 years. Studies show varying benefits, and advances in treatment may have diminished ...

New research reveals that large labor wards—those handling 3,000 to 3,999 deliveries annually—have better overall approval rates compared to small, intermediate or very large obstetric units. The study, appearing in Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, a journal published by Wiley on behalf of the Nordic Federation of Societies of Obstetrics and Gynecology, suggests that greater access to in-house obstetricians and auxiliary specialists contributes to the lower obstetric injury claims from patients at large labor wards in Denmark. Nearly one million children ...

Boston, Mass. —Employing a unique quality improvement methodology, called Standardized Clinical Assessment and Management Plans (SCAMPs), physicians have demonstrated that chest pain in children, rarely caused by heart disease, can be effectively evaluated in the ambulatory setting using minimal resources, even across a diverse patient population. So found a multi-institutional study, led by cardiologists throughout New England and published September 9 in Pediatrics. "Previous research has shown that children referred for chest pain infrequently leads to a diagnosis ...