CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — When a person living in the U.S. without legal permission or suspected of doing so is involved in a work-related lawsuit, most courts disregard their immigration status when determining remedies, says a study from a University of Illinois expert in labor relations. According to research from Michael LeRoy, a professor of law and of labor and employment relations at Illinois, by mostly ignoring the immigration status of workers who file suit against former employers, lower courts are essentially refusing to view the complaint as an occasion to enforce ...

Researchers with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have provided important new details into the activation of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), a cell surface protein that has been strongly linked to a large number of cancers and is a major target of cancer therapies. "The more we understand about EGFR and the complex molecular machinery involved in the growth and proliferation of cells, the closer we will be to developing new and more effective ways to cure and treat the many different forms ...

HOUSTON - Researchers employed an extensive analysis of genomic information to identify a new, high-risk cohort of ovarian cancer patients, characterize their tumors, find a potential treatment and test it in mouse models of the disease. The exhaustive analysis that led to micro RNA 506 (miR-506) as a potential therapeutic candidate for advanced or metastatic ovarian cancer is the cover article in the Feb. 11 edition of Cancer Cell. "Functional analysis showed that miR-506 is a robust inhibitor of a cellular transition that makes ovarian cancer cells more resistant ...

Alexandria, VA – Geoscience Currents #69 explores how female geoscience enrollments and degrees changed in the 2011-2012 academic year. New data collected shows that female geoscience enrollments and degrees in the U.S. dropped sharply at both the Bachelor's and Master's levels, but increased slightly at the Doctoral level. The percentage of women enrolled in undergraduate geoscience programs in 2011-2012 was at the lowest levels seen since the 1990s, and Master's participation rates fell below 40% for the first time since 2001. Alternatively, women's participation in geoscience ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Batten disease is a rare, fatal genetic disorder that affects children. Currently, no effective treatment exists for the disease, which ultimately kills all who are affected. Dachshunds also suffer from Batten disease, and now researchers from the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine and School of Medicine, in collaboration with BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc., have developed a treatment for the disease that has significantly delayed the onset and progression of symptoms in the Dachshunds. The effectiveness of the treatment in the dogs has ...

A new commentary in the Annals of Internal Medicine from researchers with The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research and University of California, Davis, calls for more physician engagement in the current gun policy dialogue. "Physicians are an important source of information for the public and a valued constituency for policymakers," said lead author Shannon Frattaroli, a faculty member with the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "They are uniquely poised to be at the forefront of gun violence ...

Nine out of 10 young children with moderate to severe attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) continue to experience serious, often severe symptoms and impairment long after their original diagnoses and, in many cases, despite treatment, according to a federally funded multi-center study led by investigators at Johns Hopkins Children's Center. The study, published online Feb. 11 in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, is the largest long-term analysis to date of preschoolers with ADHD, the investigators say, and sheds much-needed ...

PITTSBURGH—A musical collaboration, be it Rodgers and Hammerstein or Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, requires a mix of shared and complementary traits that is not always obvious. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University discovered elements of this unique chemistry by using an automated technique to analyze an online songwriting community. Based on four years of data collected though an international songwriting challenge called February Album Writing Month, or FAWM, the Carnegie Mellon team found that common interests or skills do not cause collaborators to seek each ...

"Sit up straight in your chair!" That command given by countless parents to their children may one day be delivered by vehicle designers to a robot that is actually a computerized model of a long-distance truck driver or other heavy equipment operator, thanks to a University of Iowa research program. That's because a UI researcher has designed a computer program that allows engineers to accurately predict the role posture plays in transferring the stress of vehicle motion to bone and muscle in the head and neck. Titled "Human head-neck models in whole-body vibration: ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - What's most important to a man as he decides whether or not to undergo prostate-specific antigen- PSA- screening for prostate cancer? What does he value most about the screening? And what's the best way to present the information to help him make an appropriate decision for himself? An international team of scientists led by the University of North Carolina has published a study evaluating different ways of helping men consider their values about PSA screening. They report that the decision-making process was influenced by the format in which information ...

HOUSTON -- (Feb. 11, 2013) -- Cancer researchers from Rice University suggest that a new man-made drug that's already proven effective at killing cancer and drug-resistant bacteria could best deliver its knockout blow when used in combination with drugs made from naturally occurring toxins. "One of the oldest tricks in fighting is the one-two punch -- you distract your opponent with one attack and deliver a knockout blow with another," said José Onuchic of Rice's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP). "Combinatorial drug therapies employ that strategy at a ...

MAYWOOD, Il. – Strokes that occur during or shortly after surgery can be devastating, resulting in longer hospital stays and increased risks of death or long-term disability. But prompt identification and treatment of such strokes can improve neurologic outcomes, according to an article in the journal Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics by Loyola University Medical Center stroke specialists Sarkis Morales-Vidal, MD and Michael Schneck, MD. The article answers commonly asked questions about the management of perioperative stroke. (A perioperative stroke is a stroke that ...

The fifteenth tropical cyclone of the Southern Indian Ocean season strengthened into a tropical storm today, Feb. 11, and NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead hours after it reached tropical storm strength. Tropical Cyclone 15S was born from the low pressure area designated as System 92S. System 92S developed on Feb. 9 and intensified into a tropical storm on Feb. 11 at 0300 UTC. At that time, Tropical Cyclone 15S had maximum sustained winds near 35 knots (40.2 mph/64.8 kph), making it a tropical storm. It was centered near 12.1 south latitude and 82.5 east longitude, ...

Tropical Cyclone Haley was forming quickly as NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of the storm in the South Pacific Ocean. On Feb. 9 at 2020 UTC (3:20 p.m. EST) the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of System 93P (known in Fiji as 14F). The MODIS image showed a circular center of circulation with banding features, two things that indicated that the low pressure area was quickly organizing. The next day, the low became Tropical Storm Haley. Tropical Cyclone Haley formed on Feb. ...

Toddlers whose parents praised their efforts more than they praised them as individuals had a more positive approach to challenges five years later. That's the finding of a new longitudinal study that also found gender differences in the kind of praise that parents offer their children. The study, by researchers at the University of Chicago and Stanford University, appears in the journal Child Development. "Previous studies have looked at this issue among older students," according to Elizabeth A. Gunderson, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Temple University; Gunderson ...

Negative stereotypes about boys may hinder their achievement, while assuring them that girls and boys are equally academic may help them achieve. From a very young age, children think boys are academically inferior to girls, and they believe adults think so, too. Even at these very young ages, boys' performance on an academic task is affected by messages that suggest that girls will do better than they will. Those are the conclusions of new research published in the journal Child Development and conducted at the University of Kent. The research sought to determine the ...

Parents act differently with different children—for example, being more positive with one child and more negative with another. A new longitudinal study has found that this behavior negatively affects not only the child who receives more negative feedback, but all the children in the family. The study also found that the more risks experienced by parents, the more likely they will treat their children differentially. Carried out at the University of Toronto with researchers from McMaster University and the University of Rochester, the study appears in the journal Child ...

Teenagers from all walks of life who believe people can't change react more aggressively to a peer conflict than those who think people can change. And teaching them that people have the potential to change can reduce these aggressive reactions. Those are the findings of a new study published in the journal Child Development. The research was conducted at the University of Texas at Austin, Emory University, and Stanford University. Prior research has shown that children who grow up in hostile environments, such as high-violence neighborhoods, are more likely to interpret ...

PISCATAWAY, NJ – For problem drinkers, bouts of depressive symptoms are often the direct result of their heavy alcohol intake, according to a study in the March issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. Experts have long known that heavy drinking can spur temporary episodes of depression—what's known as "substance-induced depression." However, this information is not always apparent to busy clinicians, and the new findings strengthen the evidence that the phenomenon exists as well as how common and clinically important it is. "I don't know that the average ...

Chevy Chase, MD ––Women with a high concentration of anti-Müllerian hormone stand a better chance of giving birth after in vitro fertilization, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) is produced by the ovaries. The study found women with high AMH levels were 2.5 times more likely to have a successful IVF cycle than women of a similar age with low levels of the hormone. AMH levels were a predictor of pregnancy and live birth, even when the mother's ...

Chevy Chase, MD ––Even after successful treatment, patients with Cushing's disease who were older when diagnosed or had prolonged exposure to excess cortisol face a greater risk of dying or developing cardiovascular disease, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Cushing's disease is a rare condition where the body is exposed to excess cortisol – a stress hormone produced in the adrenal gland – for long periods of time. Researchers have long known that patients who have ...

Chevy Chase, MD ––Long a source of sibling rivalry, birth order may raise the risk of first-born children developing diabetes or high blood pressure, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). First-born children have greater difficulty absorbing sugars into the body and have higher daytime blood pressure than children who have older siblings, according to the study conducted at the University of Auckland's Liggins Institute in New Zealand. The study was the first to document a ...

Chevy Chase, MD ––African-American women battling vitamin D deficiencies need the same dose as Caucasian women to treat the condition, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Although women with darker skin tones tend to have lower levels of the biomarker used to measure Vitamin D levels, called 25-hydroxyvitamin D or 25OHD, the study found that older African-American and Caucasian women responded in the same way when they received vitamin D supplements. Unlike many vitamins ...

HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS (2/12/13) -- Victims of cyberstalking take more self-protective measures, pay higher out-of-pocket costs to combat the problem and experience greater fear over time than traditional stalking victims, said Matt Nobles of Sam Houston State University. Nobles, along with Bradford Reyns of Weber State University, Kathleen Fox of Arizona State University and Bonnie Fisher of the University of Cincinnati, recently published "Protection Against Pursuit: A Conceptual and Empirical Comparison of Cyberstalking and Stalking Victimization Among a National Sample" ...

The Anniversary II Art Contest & Exhibit was an open theme, and artists from around the world were invited to enter. This exhibit is comprised of many deserving works in a range of mediums and styles. Best in show was awarded to Steve Wilda for his masterful acrylic painting, which puts a contemporary twist on still life paintings that evoke the Dutch master's and adds the theme of decay. 2nd place went to Tai Taealii, whose fascinating piece is made of a variety of materials (ballpoint pen, spraypaint, stencils and marker inks) and references an equally wide ...