DAVIS, CA, April 22, 2013 – Three new studies involving tree nuts (almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamias, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios and walnuts) were presented this week at the Experimental Biology Meeting in Boston, MA. Tree nut consumption was associated with a better nutrient profile and diet quality; lower body weight and lower prevalence of metabolic syndrome; and a decrease in several cardiovascular risk factors compared to those seen among non-consumers. First, the Adventist Health Study looked at the effect of nut intake on the risk of metabolic ...

Two Spanish scientists have designed an equation that provides a highly accurate estimate of an individual's speed based on stride length. They used data from professional athletes and walking and running experiments on a beach in order to come up with the equation. The result has applications in the study of fossil trackways of human footprints. In the spring of 2008, 14 palaeontology students from the Complutense University of Madrid ran along a beach in Asturias (Spain) at the request of a planetary geologist who was a friend of their fieldwork director. Javier Ruiz, ...

Individual cancer cells that break away from the original tumor and circulate through the blood stream are considered responsible for the development of metastases. These dreaded secondary tumors are the main cause of cancer-related deaths. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) detectable in a patient's blood are associated with a poorer prognosis. However, up until now, experimental evidence was lacking as to whether the "stem cell" of metastasis is found among CTCs. "We were convinced that only very few of the various circulating tumor cells are capable of forming a secondary ...

In various studies across different countries the reported one year mortality risks after hip fracture can vary anywhere from 5 to 50 %. In India, however, there has been little research on the risk of mortality and functional impairment following hip fracture. In an oral presentation held during the European Congress on Osteoporosis & Osteoarthritis in Rome, Italy, held from April 17 to 20 in Rome, Italy, researchers from Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, India presented findings from a prospective study which found that patients had a high rate of one-year mortality ...

Philadelphia, PA, April 22, 2013 – Biological Psychiatry is proud to announce this week's publication of a special issue focusing on the question of food as an addiction. Addiction is the continued or compulsive use of a substance, despite negative and/or harmful consequences. Over the years, addiction has come to be re-defined to include behaviors, as well as substances, and the term is now used to describe significant problems with alcohol, nicotine, drugs, gambling, internet use, and sex. The 'major' addictions, like alcoholism and drug abuse, stimulate significant ...

Although hip fractures in older patients are known to be a major cause of long term disability and increased risk of death, less is known about the relationship between surgical delay after hip fracture and mortality risk. A study by Belgian investigators shows that that in older patients with hip fracture, surgical delay of more than 48 hours is significantly and independently associated with increased long-term mortality, even after adjusting for age, sex, and co-morbidities. The study analysed data from 32,383 participants with 1 years of follow-up, extracted from ...

North Carolina State University researchers studying aquatic organisms called Daphnia have found that exposure to a chemical pesticide has impacts that span multiple generations – causing the so-called "water fleas" to produce more male offspring, and causing reproductive problems in female offspring. "This work supports the hypothesis that exposure to some environmental chemicals during sensitive periods of development can cause significant health problems for those organisms later in life – and affect their offspring and, possibly, their offspring's offspring," says ...

Fragility fractures due to osteoporosis are a major cause of disability or premature death in older adults. Those at highest risk are patients who have already suffered one fragility fracture; they are at twice the risk of suffering a future fracture compared to others who have not fractured. Nevertheless health care systems around the world are failing to identify and treat these patients, leaving them exposed to debilitating and life-threatening secondary fractures. Based on evidence from numerous global studies, a new report, 'Capture the Fracture: A Best Practice ...

Amsterdam, April 22, 2013 – A target article recently published in Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition (JARMAC) reviews various high-profile false convictions. It provides an overview of classic psychological research on expectancy and observer effects and indicates in which ways forensic science examiners may be influenced by information such as confessions, eyewitness identification, and graphical evidence. The target article authors, Saul Kassin and Jeff Kukucka, of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and Itiel Dror, University College, London, point ...

ANN ARBOR, MI - Consuming grapes may help protect against organ damage associated with the progression of metabolic syndrome, according to research presented Monday at the Experimental Biology conference in Boston. Natural components found in grapes, known as polyphenols, are thought to be responsible for these beneficial effects. The study, led by investigator E. Mitchell Seymour, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan Health System, studied the effects of a high fat, American-style diet both with added grapes and without grapes (the control diet) on the heart, liver, ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — A Michigan State University criminologist dug into the seamy underbelly of online credit card theft and uncovered a surprisingly sophisticated network of crooks that is unique in the cybercrime domain. The thieves, Thomas Holt found, run an online marketplace for stolen credit data similar to eBay or Amazon where reputations drive sales. Thieves sell data and money laundering services, advertised via web forums, and send and receive payments electronically or through an intermediary. They even provide feedback on transactions to help weed out sellers ...

(Boston)—Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have discovered that eating mushrooms containing Vitamin D2 can be as effective at increasing and maintaining vitamin D levels (25–hydroxyvitamin D) as taking supplemental vitamin D2 or vitamin D3. These findings will be presented at the American Society for Biochemistry and Microbiology annual meeting in Boston on April 22 and also concurrently appear in Dermato-Endocrinology on line open access. Vitamin D is crucial for good bone health and muscle strength; adequate amounts help the body maintain ...

Published today, a special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society – Biological Sciences, addresses a major challenge facing our society: feeding a global population that is simultaneously growing and increasing its per capita food consumption, while preventing widespread ecological and social impoverishment. According to Michael T. Coe, Senior Scientist at The Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) and one of the issue's co-editors, "One important finding presented in these papers is that landowners respond quickly to external and internal forces, particularly ...

TORONTO, April 22, 2013--Academic medical centres invest considerable time, money and other resources in leadership training programs, yet there is no evidence such programs work, a new study has found. In particular, researchers led by Dr. Sharon Straus at St. Michael's Hospital said they could not determine whether participation in these leadership programs addresses the "paucity of women leaders" in faculty positions at teaching hospitals or which components of leadership training are most effective for women. Her findings were published online in the journal Academic ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Older adults represent an important and growing demographic in emergency departments (ED) across the country, with urinary tract infections (UTIs) being one of the leading causes for ED visits. In fact, UTIs, which can progress to serious health concerns, are the fourth most common diagnosis in women over age 65. But a new study at Rhode Island Hospital has found that many such women receive treatment for a UTI, but have no firm evidence of such an infection, resulting in the prescribing of unnecessary antibiotics. The study is published online in advance ...

Just as humans can follow complex social situations in deciding who to befriend or to abandon, it turns out that animals use the same level of sophistication in judging social configurations, according to a new study that advances our understanding of the structure of animal social networks. The study, which appears today in the journal Animal Behaviour, is the first in which researchers applied a long-standing theory in social psychology called "structural balance," which is used to analyze human relationships, to an animal population to better understand the mechanisms ...

People who live in urban areas with more green space tend to report greater well-being than city dwellers who don't have parks, gardens, or other green space nearby, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Examining data from a national longitudinal survey of households in the United Kingdom, Mathew White and colleagues at the European Centre for Environment & Human Health at the University of Exeter Medical School found that individuals reported less mental distress and higher life satisfaction ...

New Rochelle, NY, April 22, 2013–In a team-based care approach, a diverse group of clinicians shares responsibility for a panel of patients and consults with each other regularly. This model of delivering primary care can improve patient care, practice workflows, and patient and physician satisfaction, according to a study published in Population Health Management, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Population Health Management website at http://www.liebertpub.com/pop. Debora Goetz Goldberg, PhD, MHA, ...

Recent progress in the engineering of plasmonic structures has enabled new kinds of nanometer-scale optoelectronic devices as well as high-resolution optical sensing. But until now, there has been a lack of tools for measuring nanometer-scale behavior in plasmonic structures which are needed to understand device performance and to confirm theoretical models. "For the first time, we have measured nanometer-scale infrared absorption in semiconductor plasmonic microparticles using a technique that combines atomic force microscopy with infrared spectroscopy," explained William ...

A few years ago, researchers revealed that the universe is expanding at a much faster rate than originally believed — a discovery that earned a Nobel Prize in 2011. But measuring the rate of this acceleration over large distances is still challenging and problematic, says Prof. Hagai Netzer of Tel Aviv University's School of Physics and Astronomy. Now, Prof. Netzer, along with Jian-Min Wang, Pu Du and Chen Hu of the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Dr. David Valls-Gabaud of the Observatoire de Paris, has developed a method with ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Children can get five to 10 colds each year, so it's not surprising that adults often turn to over-the-counter cough and cold medicines to relieve their little ones' symptoms. But a new University of Michigan poll shows that many are giving young kids medicines that they should not use. More than 40 percent of parents reported giving their children under age 4 cough medicine or multi-symptom cough and cold medicine, according to the latest University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. Twenty-five percent gave ...

HOUSTON -- (April 22, 2013) -- Individual freedom and social responsibility may sound like humanistic concepts, but an investigation of the genetic circuitry of bacteria suggests that even the simplest creatures can make difficult choices that strike a balance between selflessness and selfishness. In a new study the journal Scientific Reports, researchers from Rice University's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP) and colleagues from Tel Aviv University and Harvard Medical School show how sophisticated genetic circuits allow an individual bacterium within ...

DURHAM, N.H. -– Running two computer models in tandem, scientists from the University of New Hampshire have detailed for the first time how thermoelectric power plants interact with climate, hydrology, and aquatic ecosystems throughout the northeastern U.S. and show how rivers serve as "horizontal cooling towers" that provide an important ecosystem service to the regional electricity sector — but at a cost to the environment. The analysis, done in collaboration with colleagues from the City College of New York (CCNY) and published online in the current journal Environmental ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — College coaches who emphasize their players' academic abilities may be the best defense against the effects of "dumb jock" stereotypes, a Michigan State University study suggests. Researchers found that student-athletes were significantly more likely to be confident in the classroom if they believed their coaches expected high academic performance, not just good enough grades to be eligible for sports. "Coaches spend a lot of time with their players, and they can play such an important role to build academic confidence in student-athletes," said ...

On April 20, 2013, at 2:54 a.m. EDT, the sun erupted with a coronal mass ejection (CME), a solar phenomenon that can send billions of tons of solar particles into space that can affect electronic systems in satellites. Experimental NASA research models show that the CME left the sun at 500 miles per second and is not Earth-directed. However, it may pass by NASA's Messenger and STEREO-A satellites, and their mission operators have been notified. There is, however, no particle radiation associated with this event, which is what would normally concern operators of interplanetary ...