ANN ARBOR—A University of Michigan study challenges previous research that suggests umpire discrimination exists in Major League Baseball. The study, a collaboration between researchers at U-M and the universities of Illinois and Florida, looks deeper into the controversial argument over whether MLB umpires discriminate by calling more strikes for pitchers of the same race. It found little statistical evidence to support that claim, said Jason Winfree, associate professor of sport management at the U-M School of Kinesiology. Winfree and co-authors Scott Tainsky of ...

For decades, Landsat satellites have documented the desiccation of the Aral Sea in Central Asia. Once one of the largest seas in the world, it shrunk to a tenth of its original volume after Russia diverted its feeder rivers in the 1960s. Scientists studying the Aral Sea's changing ecology and retreating shoreline have looked to Landsat -- and a new feature of the Landsat Data Continuity Mission will help ensure they get a clear, cloud-free view. One of two new spectral bands identifies high-altitude, wispy cirrus clouds that are not apparent in the images from any of ...

The sun emitted a mid-level solar flare on the morning of May 22, 2013. The flare peaked at 9:38 a.m. EDT and was classified as an M7. M-class flares are the weakest flares that can still cause some space weather effects near Earth. In the past, they have caused brief radio blackouts at the poles. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however -- when intense enough -- they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study shows there is a gender gap when it comes to behavior and self-control in American young children – one that does not appear to exist in children in Asia. In the United States, girls had higher levels of self-regulation than boys. Self-regulation is defined as children's ability to control their behavior and impulses, follow directions, and persist on a task. It has been linked to academic performance and college completion, in past studies by Oregon State University researchers. In three Asian countries, the gender gap in the United States ...

MADISON, Wis. — Large-river specialist fishes — from giant species like paddlefish and blue catfish, to tiny crystal darters and silver chub — are in danger, but researchers say there is greater hope to save them if major tributaries identified in a University of Wisconsin-Madison study become a focus of conservation efforts. The study says 60 out of 68 U.S. species, or 88 percent of fish species found exclusively in large-river ecosystems like the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio rivers, are of state, federal or international conservation concern. The report is in the ...

Boston, Mass, May 23, 2013— Existing research shows that bicyclists who wear helmets have an 88 percent lower risk of brain injury, but researchers at Boston Children's Hospital found that simply having bicycle helmet laws in place showed a 20 percent decrease in deaths and injuries for children younger than 16 who were in bicycle-motor vehicle collisions. The cross-sectional study, conducted by William P. Meehan III, MD, Lois K. Lee, MD, MPH, Rebekah C. Mannix, MD, MPH of Boston Children's Hospital, and Christopher M. Fischer, MD, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, ...

Boston, MA – New research from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) finds that a genetic risk factor for pulmonary fibrosis, an uncommon but deadly lung disease, may be effective in identifying individuals at risk for this disease. These findings will be presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference and publish online simultaneously at the New England Journal of Medicine on May 22 and will appear in the July 4, 2013 print edition. "While this variant of the MUC5B gene is fairly common, pulmonary fibrosis is not. Our findings suggest that pulmonary ...

Study leader, Professor John Mathews from the University of Melbourne said this small increase in cancer risk must be weighed against the undoubted benefits from CT scans in diagnosing and monitoring disease. The study findings are reported in the British Medical Journal today and involved researchers at eight other centres in Australia, Oxford University, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France. Professor Mathews said: "CT scans were very useful in providing detailed three dimensional pictures to diagnose or exclude disease in internal ...

21 May 2013, Paris, France: Results from a large observational study reported at EuroPCR 2013 today question whether bivalirudin is superior to heparin in the absence of GPIIb/IIIa blockade, showing similar 30-day mortality in patients with non-ST segment elevation acute coronary syndromes (NSTE-ACS) undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). European and US NSTE-ACS guidelines currently recommend bivalirudin alone as an alternative to unfractionated heparin plus GP IIb/IIIa receptor inhibitors in patients undergoing an intended urgent or early invasive strategy. Researchers ...

Blood thinners are the preferred treatment option to prevent heart attacks, blood clots and stroke, but they are not without risk, and not just because of their side effects. These high-risk drugs, known as anticoagulants, account for nearly 7 percent of medication errors in hospitalized patients. With health care organizations facing greater pressure to ensure the safe and effective use of anticoagulants, new guidelines have been developed by a panel of health care experts led by Edith Nutescu, clinical pharmacy professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and ...

21 May 2013, Paris, France: The DESolve bioresorbable coronary scaffold system achieves good efficacy and safety with low rates of late lumen loss and major coronary adverse events at six months, show first results from the pivotal DESolve Nx trial reported at EuroPCR 2013 today. DESolve (Elixir Medical Corporation) is the first bioresorbable PLLA-based polymer scaffold that releases novolimus, a major metabolite of sirolimus. "The degradation time is about one year," explained the lead study author Alexandre Abizaid, Director of Interventional Cardiology at Institute ...

"We spent 15 percent of home energy on gadgets in 2009, and we're buying more gadgets all the time," says Peter Fischer of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Fischer lets you know right away that while it's scientific curiosity that inspires his research at the Lab's Advanced Light Source (ALS), he intends it to help solve pressing problems. "What we're working on now could make these gadgets perform hundreds of times better and also be a hundred times more energy efficient," says Fischer, a staff scientist in the Materials ...

UCLA life scientists provide important new details on how climate change will affect interactions between species in research published online May 21 in the Journal of Animal Ecology. This knowledge, they say, is critical to making accurate predictions and informing policymakers of how species are likely to be impacted by rising temperatures. "There is a growing recognition among biologists that climate change is affecting how species interact with one another, and that this is going to have very important consequences for the stability and functioning of ecosystems," ...

Irvine, Calif., May 22, 2013 – Early screening for prostate cancer could become as easy for men as personal pregnancy testing is for women, thanks to UC Irvine research published today in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. After more than a decade of work, UC Irvine chemists have created a way to clearly identify clinically usable markers for prostate cancer in urine, meaning that the disease could be detected far sooner, with greater accuracy and at dramatically lower cost. The same technology could potentially be used for bladder and multiple myeloma cancers, ...

ATS 2013, PHILADELPHIA ─More than 40 percent of patients being treated for COPD at a federally funded clinic did not have the disease, researchers found after evaluating the patients with spirometry, the diagnostic "gold standard" for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. "While there have been many studies of the under-diagnosis of COPD, there has not been a U.S.-based study that has quantified the problem of over-diagnosis," said Christian Ghattas, MD., MSc, a second-year medical resident at Saint Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown, Ohio, who will present ...

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have unraveled the molecular foundations of cocaine's effects on the brain, and identified a compound that blocks cravings for the drug in cocaine-addicted mice. The compound, already proven safe for humans, is undergoing further animal testing in preparation for possible clinical trials in cocaine addicts, the researchers say. "It was remarkably serendipitous that when we learned which brain pathway cocaine acts on, we already knew of a compound, CGP3466B, that blocks that specific pathway," says Solomon Snyder, M.D., a professor of neuroscience ...

Toronto, May 22 2013 - Research presented today shows that high-fructose corn syrup can cause behavioural reactions in rats similar to those produced by drugs of abuse such as cocaine. These results, presented by addiction expert Francesco Leri, Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Applied Cognitive Science at the University of Guelph, suggest food addiction could explain, at least partly, the current global obesity epidemic. These results were presented at the 2013 Canadian Neuroscience Meeting, the annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience - Association ...

Toronto - May 22 2013: New research shows that craving drugs such as nicotine can be visualized in specific regions of the brain that are implicated in determining the value of actions, in planning actions and in motivation. Dr. Alain Dagher, from McGill University, suggests abnormal interactions between these decision-making brain regions could underlie addiction. These results were presented at the 2013 Canadian Neuroscience Meeting, the annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience - Association Canadienne des Neurosciences (CAN-ACN). Neuroeconomics is ...

VIDEO: The video as it appears on JoVE.com. Click here for more information. On May 22, JoVE will publish details of a technique to measure the health of human genetic material in relation to a patient’s age. The method is demonstrated by the laboratory of Dr. Gil Atzmon at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Atzmon hopes that the dissemination of this technique will lead to the development of a “genetic thermometer” to assess a patient’s health in relation to ...

Costs to treat stroke are projected to more than double and the number of people having strokes may increase 20 percent by 2030, according to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. In a statement published in Stroke, an American Heart Association journal, the association cites the aging U.S. population as the main reason for the increases and predicts that by 2030: Almost 4 percent of U.S. adults — nearly one in 25 — will have a stroke. This translates into an additional 3.4 million people with stroke in 2030. Costs to treat stroke may increase ...

Scientists have reversed behavioral and brain abnormalities in adult mice that resemble some features of schizophrenia by restoring normal expression to a suspect gene that is over-expressed in humans with the illness. Targeting expression of the gene Neuregulin1, which makes a protein important for brain development, may hold promise for treating at least some patients with the brain disorder, say researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health. Like patients with schizophrenia, adult mice biogenetically-engineered to have higher Neuregulin 1 levels showed reduced ...

A new method of sourcing the origins of artefacts in high definition is set to improve our understanding of the past. Dr Ellery Frahm at the University of Sheffield developed the new technology to better study Mesopotamian obsidian tools unearthed in Syria, where cultural heritage is threatened by the ongoing conflict. The research brings five decades of research full circle and presents a significant advance in the field. While at the University of Sheffield from 1965 – 1972, Professor Lord Colin Renfrew developed a technique that matched stone tools made of obsidian, ...

NEW YORK, May 22, 2013. Plastic additives known as phthalates (pronounced THAL-ates) are odorless, colorless and just about everywhere: They turn up in flooring, plastic cups, beach balls, plastic wrap, intravenous tubing and—according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—the bodies of most Americans. Once perceived as harmless, phthalates have come under increasing scrutiny. A growing collection of evidence suggests dietary exposure to phthalates (which can leech from packaging and mix with food) may cause significant metabolic and hormonal abnormalities, ...

Toronto – If you're a small charity looking for some corporate largesse, pegging your ask to a big morale-boosting event planned for your community may help seal the deal, suggests a new study on corporate giving. The paper found that corporate philanthropy spikes upward during "mega-events" such as the Olympics, the Super Bowl, or even political conventions. The finding goes against previous research that says corporate giving tends to stay stable. "For non-profit managers, it suggests that one potentially reasonable strategy might be to tie some of their efforts in ...

PASADENA, Calif. – May 22, 2013 — The new 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) appears to be as safe as the previous version used prior to 2010, the 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7), according to a Kaiser Permanente study published today in Vaccine. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved PCV13 for use beginning in 2010 after a series of trials. These trials found that PCV13, which protects against a broader range of pneumococcal types than the previously used PCV7, did not increase the risk for any serious adverse events related to the ...