Preliminary research out of the University of Cincinnati is providing a rare look at the construction of masculinity on the covers of mainstream and gay-themed sports magazines. The research by Jodi Stooksberry and J. A. Carter, both doctoral students in the UC Department of Sociology, was presented at the 108th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in New York, N.Y. Stooksberry and Carter did a comparative analysis of two sports magazines: Sports Illustrated, one of the nation's most recognized mainstream sports magazines, and Compete. Published out ...

The synapses in the brain act as key communication points between approximately one hundred billion neurons. They form a complex network connecting various centres in the brain through electrical impulses. New research from Lund University suggests that it is precisely here, in the synapses, that Huntington's disease might begin. The researchers at Lund University looked into the brains of mice with real-time imaging methods, following some of the very first stages of the disease through advanced microscopes. What they discovered was an unprecedented degradation of synaptic ...

Todd Callais, an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati's Blue Ash College, is one of the select sociologists from across the world to be named to present at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. Professor Callais' presentation, Music and Social Movements: Historical Hip-Hop Participation Frames and Modern Rap as Social Movement Participation, explores the evolution of hip-hop from party music into a political platform. Callais focused on this particular music industry because of its impact on society and because there is a clear ...

It is possible to see how advanced a bowel cancer is by looking at its metabolic 'fingerprint', according to new research. Bowel cancer is the third most common type of cancer globally, with over one million new cases diagnosed every year. Accurately determining the stage that a tumour has reached is crucial for deciding which treatments to offer. Metabolic fingerprinting looks at the levels of many different metabolites, which are the products of chemical reactions in the body's cells, in a sample of blood, urine or tissue. This mix of metabolites alters as cancer ...

Morning sickness, shiny hair and bizarre and intense cravings for pickles and ice cream -- what expectations do pregnant women impose on their bodies, and how are those expectations influenced by cultural perspectives on pregnancy? University of Cincinnati researcher Danielle Bessett, an assistant professor of sociology, presented her research at the 108th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in New York, N.Y. Although previous surveys have indicated that women turn to medical sources to find out what to expect when they're expecting, Bessett's research, ...

Discussions surrounding race and racism are prevalent in an online community in which users can hide their own race, gender and any other identifying information. Russell Spiker, a doctoral student in the University of Cincinnati's Department of Sociology, will presented his research at the 108th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in New York, N.Y. Spiker's presentation, "From My Living Room to Yours: A Grounded Theory of Typology of Racial Discussions on YouTube.com," examined English-language comments posted from YouTube's top 10 most viewed videos ...

A new study out of the University of Cincinnati not only finds that parents feel responsible about taking action when their children struggle with social issues, but also that parents are influenced by their own childhood memories. Jennifer Davis Bowman, a recent graduate of the special education doctoral program at the University of Cincinnati, will present her research on Aug. 12, at the 108th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in New York, N.Y. Bowman's study examined parents' use of what's called bibliotherapy -- using books as interventions for ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- Designing products for the developing world can be a hit-or-miss endeavor: While there may be a dire need for products addressing problems, such as access to clean water, sanitation and electricity, designing a product that consumers will actually buy is a complicated process. More often than not, such products — even those that are distributed at no charge — go unused due to poor quality, unreliability or differences in cultural expectations. And yet, an increasing number of organizations, companies and startups are targeting products at developing ...

Ancient Egyptian mummies revealed that humans have been hosting parasitic flatworms called schistosomes for more than 5,000 years. Today these parasites continue to plague millions of people across the world, causing roughly 250,000 deaths each year. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign believe that one key to controlling this destructive parasite is being able to control their incredibly prolific life cycle that can produce tens to hundreds of thousands of schistosomes each generation. In a recent study published in the journal eLife, they ...

Bethesda, MD (August 12, 2013) — Patients with diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS-D, treated with eluxadoline achieved better clinical response and experienced more symptom improvement than those using placebo, according to a recent study in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. Eluxadoline, which is currently in phase 3 trials, is under development as a potential treatment for IBS-D. "There is a critical need for a safe and effective treatment for IBS-D, a disorder affecting approximately 10 to 15 percent ...

In 1958 a group of scientists working in Denmark made the striking observation that bacterial cells are about twice as large when they are cultured on a rich nutrient source than when they are cultured on a meager one. When they are shifted from a nutrient-poor environment to a nutrient-rich one, they bulk up until they have achieved a size more appropriate to their new growth conditions. It has taken 60 years to figure out how the bacteria are able to sample their surroundings and alter their cell cycles so that they grow to a size suited to the environment. In 2007 ...

CHD5 has previously been proposed as a tumour suppressor, acting as a brake that prevents healthy cells from developing into cancer cells. But the part played by the protein in healthy tissue, and whether this role is important for its ability to counter tumour growth, has remained largely uncharted. Working with colleagues at Trinity College in Dublin and BRIC in Copenhagen, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have revealed its function in normal nervous system development and as a tumour suppressor. The recently published study shows that when stem cells approach the ...

PITTSBURGH -- Articles that people share on social networks can reveal a lot about those readers, research has shown. But a new Carnegie Mellon University study reverses the proposition, asking the question: What can be learned about an article from the attributes of its readers? To find out, the CMU researchers, along with colleagues at the University of Washington, analyzed almost 3 million news articles and the public profiles of the people who shared those articles on Twitter. This enabled them to generate a few thousand "badges" that characterized the content of ...

HOUSTON -- Rice University researchers are making strides toward a set of rules to custom-design Lego-like viral capsid proteins for gene therapy. A new paper by Rice scientists Junghae Suh and Jonathan Silberg and their students details their use of computational and bioengineering methods to combine pieces of very different adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) to create new, benign viruses that can deliver DNA payloads to specific cells. The research appears this month in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Synthetic Biology. AAVs are found in nature and commonly ...

TORONTO, ON, August 12, 2013 – Women who had a colposcopy at a sexual health clinic that provided extra support and counselling were 34 per cent more likely to undergo the cancer screening procedure compared to women who were referred to a hospital or doctor's office, according to a new study by Women's College Hospital's Dr. Sheila Dunn. Although colposcopy is an important component of cervical cancer screening, some women, particularly those who are disadvantaged, fail to attend colposcopy appointments. However, researchers in the study, published today in the Journal ...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A drug recently approved for use in multiple myeloma is now being tested for its ability to fight central nervous system (CNS) lymphoma, a deadly cancer of the immune system that can affect the brain, spinal cord and fluid, and eyes. The clinical trial, now open at the three campuses of Mayo Clinic -- in Florida, Minnesota and Arizona -- follows successful testing of the drug, pomalidomide, in mouse models of CNS lymphoma. Details of the preclinical testing are available in the science journal PLOS ONE. Approximately 5,000 patients are diagnosed ...

Older male nightingales perform faster and more demanding trills than their younger rivals. These findings were published by researchers at the University of Basel and the Netherlands Institute of Ecology in the online edition of Journal of Avian Biology. With up to 100 trill elements a second, nightingales belong to the fastest singers. Nightingales are famous for their large song repertoire: Each male can perform around 200 different song types. Facing this great variety, how can a female listener assess correctly if the male counterpart is a suitable mating partner? ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- An anonymous stranger you encounter on websites like Yelp or Amazon may seem to be just like you, and a potential friend. But a stranger on a site like eBay is a whole different story. A new study finds that on websites where people compete against each other, assumptions about strangers change. Previous research has shown that people have a bias toward thinking that strangers they encounter online are probably just like them. But when they are competitors, strangers are seen as different, and not sharing your traits and values -- and that changes ...

Researchers at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) have discovered an efficient process for hydrogen biocatalysis. They developed semi-synthetic hydrogenases, hydrogen-generating enzymes, by adding the protein's biological precursor to a chemically synthesized inactive iron complex. From these two components, the biological catalyst formed spontaneously in a test tube. "Extracting hydrogenases from living cells is highly difficult," says Prof Dr Thomas Happe, head of the work group Photobiotechnology at the RUB. "Therefore, their industrial application has always been a long ...

WASHINGTON D.C. August 12, 2013 -- Some time around 37,000 BCE a massive volcano erupted in the Campanian region of Italy, blanketing much of Europe with ash, stunting plant growth and possibly dooming the Neanderthals. While our prehistoric relatives had no way to know the ash cloud was coming, a recent study provides a new tool that may have predicted what path volcanic debris would take. "This paper provides a model for the pattern of the ash cloud if the wind is blowing past an eruption of a given size," said Peter Baines, a scientist at the University of Melbourne ...

A new strategy that dismantles a viral genome in human lung cells will ensure safe research on deadly strains of influenza, say researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Details of their "molecular biocontainment" approach, designed to prevent effective transmission of these viruses to humans, are published in Nature Biotechnology. The strategy they developed and tested will enable healthy molecules in human lung cells to latch on to these viruses and cut the bugs up before they have a chance to infect the human host. Findings from the study, ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Although planning for a comfortable retirement is a mainstay of public discussion, far less attention has been paid to the tax consequences of generating retirement income, says a University of Illinois expert on taxation and retirement benefits. According to law professor Richard L. Kaplan, the income tax consequences for retirees are varied, outdated or often outright inappropriate. "Legal and financial analyses abound regarding the various means of saving for retirement and the tax advantages that each option presents, but very few people consider ...

August 12, 2013, New York, NY – Loss of a gene required for stem cells in the brain to turn into neurons may underlie the most severe forms of neuroblastoma, a deadly childhood cancer of the nervous system, according to a Ludwig Cancer Research study. Published in Developmental Cell today, the findings also provide clues about how to improve the treatment of this often-incurable tumor. Neuroblastoma can appear in nervous tissue in the abdomen, chest and spine, among other regions of the body, and can spawn body-wracking metastasis. The most severe tumors respond poorly ...

An international scientific collaborative led by the Harvard Stem Cell Institute's Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD, has discovered why women who give birth in their early twenties are less likely to eventually develop breast cancer than women who don't, triggering a search for a way to confer this protective state on all women. The researchers now are in the process of testing p27, a mammary gland progenitor marker, in the tissue of thousands of women collected over a 20-year period—women whose histories have been followed extremely closely—to see if it is an accurate breast ...

DETROIT – Pain is the most common reason a patient sees a physician but few physicians have received adequate training to help their patients, according to a Henry Ford Hospital article published in the Journal of American Osteopathic Association. An estimated 100 million people in the United States are living with chronic pain, which accounts for up to $635 billion annually in health care costs and lost productivity. A 2011 study found that for every medical specialist, there are more than 28,500 patients with chronic pain. Consequently, pain management typically ...