University of Washington geographer Kam Wing Chan is in China this week, explaining how that country can dismantle its 55-year-old system that limits rural laborers from moving to and settling in cities and qualifying for basic social benefits. It's an idea that he says makes economic and moral sense. China's "hukou" household registration system was established in 1958 as a way of maintaining cheap farm labor to grow food for urban dwellers. Ever since, rural residents wanting to move to urban areas must receive permission from the police – and with it, the right to ...

In a rare opportunity to directly compare plant communities in the same area now with a survey taken 50 years ago, a University of Arizona-led research team has provided the first on-the-ground evidence that Southwestern plants are being pushed to higher elevations by an increasingly warmer and drier climate. The findings confirm that previous hypotheses are correct in their prediction that mountain communities in the Southwest will be strongly impacted by an increasingly warmer and drier climate, and that the area is already experiencing rapid vegetation change. In ...

University of Arizona scientists have discovered an unknown mechanism that establishes polarity in developing nerve cells. Understanding how nerve cells make connections is an important step in developing cures for nerve damage resulting from spinal cord injuries or neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. In a study published on Aug. 12 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, UA doctoral student Sara Parker and her adviser, assistant professor of cellular and molecular medicine Sourav Ghosh, report that the decision which will be the "plus" ...

For a new study in the Journal of Animal Science, researchers evaluated how different levels of selenium affect the immune system of adult horses. According to the researchers, the effects of selenium supplementation on the immune system have been evaluated in other species but not extensively in horses. Dr. Laurie Lawrence, animal science professor at the University of Kentucky, said the amount of selenium in soil and forages varies across the United States. She said that they wanted to know whether horses grazing pasture that was marginal in selenium would react differently ...

A study by Johns Hopkins researchers shows that a fifth of U.S. neurologists appear unaware of serious drug safety risks associated with various anti-epilepsy drugs, potentially jeopardizing the health of patients who could be just as effectively treated with safer alternative medications. The findings suggest that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration needs a better way to communicate information to specialists about newly discovered safety risks, the researchers say, since the warnings are in many cases not getting through to doctors making important prescribing decisions. ...

Atmospheric physicist Nick Gorkavyi missed witnessing an event of the century last winter when a meteor exploded over his hometown of Chelyabinsk, Russia. From Greenbelt, Md., however, NASA's Gorkavyi and colleagues witnessed a never-before-seen view of the atmospheric aftermath of the explosion. Shortly after dawn on Feb. 15, 2013, the meteor, or bolide, measuring 59 feet (18 meters) across and weighing 11,000 metric tons, screamed into Earth's atmosphere at 41,600 mph (18.6 kilometers per second). Burning from the friction with Earth's thin air, the space rock exploded ...

A neonatologist at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is the senior author of a large new study that found that current non-invasive techniques for respiratory support are less effective than widely assumed, in reducing the incidence of severe lung injury in very premature infants. Neonatologists commonly use non-invasive nasal ventilation instead of mechanical ventilation via a breathing tube, in hopes of avoiding bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD). Frequently a by-product of intubation, BPD--scarring and inflammation of the lungs--is a leading cause of death or neurological ...

A new analysis has found that breastfeeding for more than six months may safeguard nonsmoking mothers against breast cancer. The same does not seem to hold true for smoking mothers, though. Published early online in the Journal of Clinical Nursing, the findings add to the list of benefits of breastfeeding for women and their babies. To look at the relationship between breast cancer and certain aspects of pregnancy and breastfeeding, Emilio González-Jiménez, PhD, of the University of Granada in Spain, and his colleagues analyzed the medical records of 504 female patients ...

CHICAGO --- Exercise is a common prescription for insomnia. But spending 45 minutes on the treadmill one day won't translate into better sleep that night, according to new Northwestern Medicine® research. "If you have insomnia you won't exercise yourself into sleep right away," said lead study author Kelly Glazer Baron, a clinical psychologist and director of the behavioral sleep program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "It's a long-term relationship. You have to keep at it and not get discouraged." This is the first long-term study to show ...

[EMARGOED UNTIL THURSDAY, AUG. 15] Diabetic patients taking oral fluoroquinolones, a frequently prescribed class of antibiotics, were found to have a higher risk of severe blood sugar-related problems than diabetic patients taking other kinds of antibiotics, according to a recent study from Taiwan published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. The increased risk was low—hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) or hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) related to the drugs occurred in fewer than one in 100 patients studied—but clinicians should consider the higher risk when treating diabetic ...

Philadelphia, August 15, 2013 – Research suggests that a patient's chronic pain affects a spouse's emotional well-being and marital satisfaction. In a novel study of behavioral health outcomes published in the journal PAIN®, researchers examined the effects of patients' daily knee osteoarthritis pain on their spouses' nightly sleep. They determined that couples who expressed a high degree of closeness in their marriage experienced a stronger association between pain levels and the spouse's ability to sleep restfully. Findings further illustrated that chronic pain may place ...

Infection by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a debilitating disorder in which progressive weakening of the immune system makes affected individuals more susceptible to potentially life-threatening infections and chronic diseases. Despite advances in the treatment and management of AIDS, there is no cure, and HIV infection remains a major global health problem. According to the WHO, there were an estimated 34 million infected individuals in 2011. Over the last three decades, a number of animal models have been developed ...

Adults increasingly are conveying their personal experiences with serious disease online, but do such chronicles help the authors or their audience? In the first known study of its kind, UCLA researchers discovered that creating a personal website to chronicle the cancer experience and communicate with one's social network can reduce depressive symptoms, increase positive mood and enhance appreciation for life among women diagnosed with breast cancer. The study, published online Aug. 12 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (and scheduled for print publication at ...

Energy consumption is growing rapidly in the 21st century, with rising energy costs and sustainability issues greatly impacting the quality of human life. Harvesting energy directly from sunlight to generate electricity using photovoltaic technologies is considered to be one of the most promising opportunities to produce electricity in an environmentally benign fashion. Among the various photovoltaic technologies, polymer (plastic) solar cells offer unique attractions and opportunities. These solar cells contain Earth-abundant and environmentally benign materials, can ...

The advantages of the "one-stop" shop have long been recognized in the retailing and services industries. Similar advantages would also be realized for the biofuels industry with the development of a "one-pot" processing system in which sugars could be extracted from biomass and turned into fuels in a single vat. A major step forward in this goal has now been achieved by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) who report the first demonstration of a one-pot, wash-free, process for the ionic liquid pretreatment and saccharification ...

LAGUNA HILLS, California, USA -- Researchers at MetroLaser, Inc., have developed a new design for a digital streak camera that captures full-color images of projectiles traveling up to 3350 m/s, which is 10 times the speed of sound. This system was designed to replace the outdated film-based streak cameras that are still in use at high-speed test tracks. Film-based streak photography records the motion of an object as it passes in front of a camera lens, while the film moves behind a vertical slit aperture during the exposure. The result is a long, continuous composite ...

Children born to obese mothers are more likely to die early as adults than those whose mothers were a normal weight, a study has found. The offspring of obese mothers are one-third more likely to die before the age of 55, mainly as a result of heart disease, researchers found. Children born to mothers who were overweight when they became pregnant were also 10 per cent more likely to die prematurely in later life than those born to mothers of a normal weight. The study, carried out by the Universities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen, examined the health records of more ...

Children of obese and overweight women have a higher risk of early cardiovascular death as adults, finds a study published on bmj.com today. The findings highlight the urgent need for strategies to prevent obesity in women of childbearing age and the need to assess the offspring of obese mothers for their cardiovascular risk, say the authors. Rates of maternal obesity have risen rapidly in the past two decades. In the United States, about 64% of women of reproductive age are overweight and 35% are obese, with a similar pattern in Europe. Many studies have shown a ...

Gut microbes have recently been linked to colorectal cancer, but it has not been clear whether and how they might cause tumors to form in the first place. Two studies published by Cell Press on August 14th in the journal Cell Host & Microbe reveal how gut microbes known as fusobacteria, which are found in the mouth, stimulate bad immune responses and turn on cancer growth genes to generate colorectal tumors. The findings could lead to more effective strategies for the early diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of colorectal cancer. "Fusobacteria may provide not only ...

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine have discovered how a common oral bacterium can contribute to colorectal cancer, a finding that opens promising new research avenues for the development of approaches to prevent and treat the disease. "We found this cancer is linked to an infection from [the bacterium]," said Yiping Han, professor of periodontics at the dental school and the study's lead investigator. "This discovery creates the potential for new diagnostic tools and therapies to treat and prevent the cancer." The results of ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Stanford University School of Medicine scientists have shown how salmonella — a bacterial menace responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year from typhoid fever and food poisoning — manages to hide out in immune cells, altering their metabolism to its own benefit, much as someone might remodel a newly rented home to suit his own comfort. Salmonella's ability to position itself inside infected people's cells for the long haul can turn them into chronic, asymptomatic carriers who, unknown to themselves or others, spread the infectious organism ...

Heavy use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may be leading to unnecessary breast removal in older women with breast cancer, according to a study by Yale School of Medicine researchers in the current issue of Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. "These data are concerning because the long-term benefits associated with bilateral mastectomy for older women with breast cancer are unclear," said the study's lead author Cary Gross. M.D., associate professor of internal medicine at Yale School of Medicine and director of the Cancer Outcomes, Public Policy, and Effectiveness ...

Barcelona, Spain – August 14, 2013 – A study published today reported the identification of what may be the earliest known biomarker associated with the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD). The results suggest that this novel potential biomarker is present in cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) at least a decade before signs of dementia manifest. "If our initial findings can be replicated by other laboratories, the results will change the way we currently think about the causes of Alzheimer's disease," said Dr. Ramon Trullas, research professor at the CSIC Institute of ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A team at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering has developed a novel way to build what many see as the next generation memory storage devices for portable electronic devices including smart phones, tablets, laptops and digital cameras. The device is based on the principles of resistive memory, which can be used to create memory cells that are smaller, operate at a higher speed and offer more storage capacity than flash memory cells, the current industry standard. Terabytes, not gigbytes, will be the norm with resistive ...

Children who suffer from intestinal failure, most often caused by a shortened or dysfunctional bowel, are unable to consume food orally. Instead, a nutritional cocktail of sugar, protein and fat made from soybean oil is injected through a small tube in their vein. For these children, the intravenous nutrition serves as a bridge to bowel adaptation, a process by which the intestine recovers and improves its capacity to absorb nutrition. But the soybean oil, which provides essential fatty acids and calories, has been associated with a potentially lethal complication known ...