White Americans who are obese are twice as likely as black Americans to have surgery to tackle the problem, a study has found. Bariatric surgery is now recognised as a successful treatment for preventing serious complications of obesity such as diabetes and high blood pressure. The new study is one of the first to look at whether people who need surgery most are actually receiving it. Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina and Imperial College London studied rates of bariatric surgery in the US from 1999 to 2010. Twenty-two per cent of black women ...

FROSTBURG, MD (August 5, 2013)—Climate changes how species interact with one another—and not just today. Scientists are studying trends from fossil records to understand how climate change impacted the world in the ancient past and to identify ways to predict how things may change in the future, according to a new study published in the August 2 issue of Science. Climate change has occurred repeatedly throughout Earth's history, but the recent rate of global warming far exceeds that of any previous episode in the past 10,000 years or longer. Knowing how climate change ...

In a study carried out at the University of Eastern Finland, bone histomorphometry and infrared spectroscopy revealed abnormal bone properties in children with vertebral fractures and in children after solid organ transplantation. Bone compositional changes in children with vertebral fractures and after different types of organ transplantation have not been reported previously. Bone samples were investigated using bone histomorphometry, a microscopic method that provides information about bone metabolism and remodelling. In children with vertebral fractures, there were ...

The report, newly published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, suggests that the link may be to do with certain biological effects of breastfeeding. For example, breastfeeding restores insulin tolerance which is significantly reduced during pregnancy, and Alzheimer's is characterised by insulin resistance in the brain. Although they used data gathered from a very small group of just 81 British women, the researchers observed a highly significant and consistent correlation between breastfeeding and Alzheimer's risk. They argue that this was so strong that any potential ...

Building structures by mixing lego bricks of two different sizes is child's play. However, studying polymers endowed with an alternating nanostructure made of heterogeneous blocks is anything but straightforward. Theoretical physicist Mark Matsen, based at the University of Reading, UK, studies polymer mixes consisting of two-fold (AB) and three-fold (BAB) combinations of two types of nanoscale blocks. He has shown, in a study published in EPJ E, that the underlying heterogeneity of the blocks can cause polymers to switch to different nanoscale patterns and therefore display ...

Online game companies need to be more socially responsible for over-addictive use of their products to avoid government intervention, according to a new study by Cardiff, Derby and Nottingham Trent universities. The study, in the journal Addiction Research and Theory, was led by Dr Shumaila Yousafzai of Cardiff Business School with psychologists Dr Zaheer Hussain and Professor Mark Griffiths from the University of Derby and Nottingham Trent University respectively. While conventional videogames have an ending, or may become boring and repetitive, Massively Multiplayer ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of Texas have revealed more about graphene's mechanical properties and demonstrated a technique to improve the stretchability of graphene – developments that should help engineers and designers come up with new technologies that make use of the material. Graphene is a promising material that is used in technologies such as transparent, flexible electrodes and nanocomposites. And while engineers think graphene holds promise for additional applications, they must first have a better understanding of its ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A small new study suggests that pregnant smokers with low scores on a scale that rates emotional attachment to their fetuses may be inclined to smoke more than pregnant smokers who feel more attached to their future babies. "It would make sense psychologically that women who feel less attached to their fetus are going to smoke more, because they aren't necessarily thinking about the repercussions," said Dr. Susanna Magee, lead author of the study published online July 28 in the Maternal and Child Health Journal. Magee is an assistant ...

This news release is available in German and German. Quantum computation, quantum communication and quantum cryptography often require entanglement. For many of these upcoming quantum technologies, entanglement – this hard to grasp, counter-intuitive aspect in the quantum world – is a key ingredient. Therefore, experimental physicists often need to verify entanglement in their systems. "Two years ago, we managed to verify entanglement between up to 14 ions", explains Thomas Monz. He works in the group of Rainer Blatt at the Institute for Experimental Physics, ...

Amsterdam, NL, August 2, 2013 – Investigators have linked aluminum accumulation in the brain as a possible contributing factor to neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. A new study published in Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience sheds light on the mechanism underlying aluminum-induced neuronal cell death and identifies necrostatin-1 as a substance which counteracts several of aluminum's neurotoxic effects. Researchers have long focused on why neurons die in degenerative diseases. One process is apoptosis, a form of gene-directed programmed cell death ...

Neuropathic pain — pain that results from a malfunction in the nervous system — is a daily reality for millions of Americans. Unlike normal pain, it doesn't go away after the stimulus that provoked it ends, and it also behaves in a variety of other unusual and disturbing ways. Someone suffering from neuropathic pain might experience intense discomfort from a light touch, for example, or feel as though he or she were freezing in response to a slight change in temperature. A major part of the answer to the problem of neuropathic pain, scientists believe, is found in spinal ...

Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a way for photographers and microscopists to create a 3D image through a single lens, without moving the camera. Published in the journal Optics Letters, this improbable-sounding technology relies only on computation and mathematics—no unusual hardware or fancy lenses. The effect is the equivalent of seeing a stereo image with one eye closed. That's easier said than done, as principal investigator Kenneth B. Crozier, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences, explains. "If ...

Chronic stress can lead to depression and anxiety in humans. Scientists working with Herwig Baier, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried, recently discovered a very similar correlation in fish. Normally, the stress hormone cortisol helps fish, as in humans, to regulate stress. Fish that lack the receptor for cortisol as a result of a genetic mutation exhibited a consistently high level of stress. They were unable to become accustomed to a new and unfamiliar situation. The fishes' behaviour returned to normal when an antidepressant was added ...

Employment gaps may promote but also reduce cognitive function in older age, as new research from the University of Luxembourg has shown. In particular, some of the findings suggest that leaves reported as unemployment and sickness are associated with higher risk of cognitive impairment indicating that these kinds of employment gaps may decrease cognitive reserve in the long run. Strongest evidence was found for training and maternity spells being related to slower cognitive decline, suggesting beneficial associations of these kinds of leaves on cognitive function. In ...

LOS ANGELES – (August 5, 2013) – With some 300 million people around the world living with asthma, a study by Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed) researchers that was released ahead-of- print found for the first time that maternal smoking can cause the third generation of offspring to suffer from the chronic lung disease. The study, published online by the American Journal of Physiology - Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, reported that maternal nicotine exposure during pregnancy is linked to asthma in the third generation ...

Whether you hope to lose weight or just stay healthy, what you eat is a crucial factor. The right nutrients can not only trim your waistline, but also provide energy, improve your mood, and stave off disease. Now a Tel Aviv University researcher has found that it's not just what you eat — but when. Metabolism is impacted by the body's circadian rhythm – the biological process that the body follows over a 24 hour cycle. So the time of day we eat can have a big impact on the way our bodies process food, says Prof. Daniela Jakubowicz of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The strikingly high prevalence of Type 2 diabetes in the American South can be partially traced to rapid economic growth between 1950 and 1980, new research suggests. The study tests the "thrifty phenotype" hypothesis, which suggests that if economic conditions present during fetal development improve dramatically during a person's childhood, the prospects of poor health in adulthood increase. According to the hypothesis, children whose parents endured being poor were unprepared biologically to manage the riches of processed foods and the more sedentary ...

A team of scientists, led by Napoleone Ferrara, MD, has shown for the first time that a signaling protein involved in inflammation also promotes tumor resistance to anti-angiogenic therapy. The findings by Ferrara – professor of pathology at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and senior deputy director for basic science at the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center – and colleagues at Genentech, a biotechnology firm based in South San Francisco, are published in the August 4 Advance Online Publication of the journal Nature Medicine. Angiogenesis is ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A study of 47 children who began stuttering at an early age found that those who were breastfed in infancy were more likely to recover from stuttering and return to fluent speech. The analysis, reported in the Journal of Communication Disorders, found a dose-dependent association between breastfeeding and a child's likelihood of recovering from stuttering, with children who were breastfed longer more likely to recover. Boys, who are disproportionately affected by stuttering, appeared to benefit the most. Boys in the study who breastfed for more than ...

The results of a large-scale analysis of the association between DNA viruses and human malignancies suggest that many of the most common cancers are not associated with DNA viruses. The findings, published in the August 2013 issue of the Journal of Virology, challenge earlier studies suggesting as high as 40 percent of tumors are caused by viruses. For years scientists believed viruses played a role in the development of maybe 10 to 20 percent of cancers. In 2011, scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden identified potential viral links to several cancers not ...

Researchers have achieved dynamic, atomic-scale views of a protein needed to maintain the transparency of the lens in the human eye. The work, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, could lead to new insights and drugs for treating cataract and a variety of other health conditions. Aquaporin proteins form water channels between cells and are found in many tissues, but aquaporin zero (AQP0) is found only in the mammalian lens, which focuses light onto the retina, at the back of the eye. The lens is primarily made up of unique cells called lens fibers that ...

URBANA, Ill. – University of Illinois scientists have evidence that lifelong exposure to genistein, a bioactive component in soy foods, protects against colon cancer by repressing a signal that leads to accelerated growth of cells, polyps, and eventually malignant tumors. "In our study, we report a change in the expression of three genes that control an important signaling pathway," said Hong Chen, a U of I professor of food science and human nutrition. The cells in the lining of the human gut turn over and are completely replaced weekly, she noted. "However, in 90 ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- Now that the Internet's basic protocols are more than 30 years old, network scientists are increasingly turning their attention to ad hoc networks — communications networks set up, on the fly, by wireless devices — where unsolved problems still abound. Most theoretical analyses of ad hoc networks have assumed that the communications links within the network are stable. But that often isn't the case with real-world wireless devices — as anyone who's used a cellphone knows. At the Association for Computing Machinery's Symposium on Principles of Distributed ...

The world's most famous painting has now been created on the world's smallest canvas. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have "painted" the Mona Lisa on a substrate surface approximately 30 microns in width – or one-third the width of a human hair. The team's creation, the "Mini Lisa," demonstrates a technique that could potentially be used to achieve nanomanufacturing of devices because the team was able to vary the surface concentration of molecules on such short-length scales. The image was created with an atomic force microscope and a process called ...

There is no high quality evidence that antioxidant supplements help to increase a woman's chances of having a baby, according to the results of a new systematic review. The review, published in The Cochrane Library, found women were no more likely to conceive when taking oral antioxidants and that there was limited information about potential harms. Around a quarter of couples planning a baby are thought to have difficulty conceiving. Women undergoing fertility treatment often take dietary supplements, including antioxidants, to try to increase their chances of becoming ...