By comparing infrared and X-ray background signals across the same stretch of sky, an international team of astronomers has discovered evidence of a significant number of black holes that accompanied the first stars in the universe. Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which observes in the infrared, researchers have concluded one of every five sources contributing to the infrared signal is a black hole. "Our results indicate black holes are responsible for at least 20 percent of the cosmic infrared background, which ...

A NASA team delivered in May a sophisticated microwave radiometer specifically designed to overcome the pitfalls that have plagued similar Earth-observing instruments in the past. Literally years in the making, the new radiometer, which is designed to measure the intensity of electromagnetic radiation, specifically microwaves, is equipped with one of the most sophisticated signal-processing systems ever developed for an Earth science satellite mission. Its developers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., shipped the instrument to NASA's Jet Propulsion ...

Research from the University of Alberta shows CFL players are more likely to value medical tests after concussions compared to university-level players. But the professional athletes were more apt to incorrectly believe it's OK to return to the sport within 24 to 48 hours if they had no symptoms. The study looked at how CFL athletes fared against their university-level peers when it came to concussion knowledge, and whether a one-hour concussion education program improved the two groups' knowledge. All of the CFL players realized the importance of seeking medical tests ...

Cincinnati, OH, June 6, 2013 -- Sports-related concussion has been referred to as an "epidemic" by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Emergency department visits for concussions have increased 62% between 2001 and 2009. Despite the lack of data regarding the rates of concussions in youth football (children aged 8-12 years), concerns have been raised about the sport being dangerous for this age group. In a new study scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers analyzed the incidence rates of concussion in youth football players in this ...

Philadelphia, PA, June 6, 2013 – By analyzing biopsy specimens from patients with postmenopausal osteoporosis and primary hyperparathyroidism, investigators have begun to pay increasing attention to "reversal cells," which prepare for bone formation during bone remodeling. The hope is that these reversal cells will become critical therapeutic targets that may someday prevent osteoporosis and other bone disorders. This study is published in the July 2013 issue of The American Journal of Pathology. In adults, bones are maintained healthy by a constant remodeling of the ...

A new species of lizard doesn't come along every day. Even less common is a new lizard species named for a 1960s rock star. But that's exactly what University of Iowa paleoanthropologist Russell Ciochon and his co-authors reveal in an article published in the June 5 issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The lizard was a plant-eater, like present-day iguanas, that lived in the jungles Southeast Asia about 40 million years ago. At some 60 pounds and six feet in length, the lizard was one of the largest of its kind –- making it a veritable "king" of ...

Chicago (June 4, 2013): Researchers at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, have developed a novel graduate medical education initiative that enables surgical residents to hone their skills in quality improvement (QI). Surgical trainees who completed the year-long educational program found the QI training to be beneficial, and more importantly, believe it put them in a position to lead QI initiatives in the future. The report appears in the June issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Today, there is little question that quality ...

Researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center led by Dr. Karim Chamie have found that more intense surveillance and treatment of bladder cancer in the first two years after diagnosis could reduce the number of patients whose cancer returns after treatment and lower the disease's death rate. The study was published online ahead of press today in the journal Cancer. Based on the team's previous research showing underutilization of care for patients with bladder cancer, this study is the first to examine the burden of the disease on the population. To date ...

Athens, Ga. – Many think of social networks in terms of Facebook friends and Twitter followers, but for recent University of Georgia doctoral graduate Julie Rushmore, social networks are tools in the fight against infectious diseases. Rushmore, who completed her doctorate in the Odum School of Ecology in May, analyzed the social networks of wild chimpanzees to determine which individuals were most likely to contract and spread pathogens. Her findings, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology on June 5, could help wildlife managers target their efforts to prevent outbreaks ...

The World Health Organization lists shift work as a potential carcinogen, says Erik Herzog, PhD, Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. And that's just one example among many of the troubles we cause ourselves when we override the biological clocks in our brains and pay attention instead to the mechanical clocks on our wrists. In the June 5 issue of Neuron, Herzog and his colleagues report the discovery of a crucial part of the biological clock: the wiring that sets its accuracy to within a few minutes out of the 1440 minutes per ...

CINCINNATI – As pediatric specialists become increasingly aware that surgical anesthesia may have lasting effects on the developing brains of young children, new research suggests the threat may also apply to adult brains. Researchers from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center report June 5 the Annals of Neurology that testing in laboratory mice shows anesthesia's neurotoxic effects depend on the age of brain neurons – not the age of the animal undergoing anesthesia, as once thought. Although more research is needed to confirm the study's relevance to humans, ...

ANN ARBOR—University of Michigan researchers have determined how a gene that is known to be defective in Down syndrome is regulated and how its dysregulation may lead to neurological defects, providing insights into potential therapeutic approaches to an aspect of the syndrome. Normally, nerve cells called neurons undergo an intense period of extending and branching of neuronal protrusions around the time of birth. During this period, the neurons produce the proteins of the gene called Down syndrome cell-adhesion molecule, or Dscam, at high levels. After this phase, ...

If you had a time machine that could take you anywhere in the past, what time would you choose? Most people would probably pick the era of the dinosaurs in hopes of spotting a T. rex. But many astronomers would choose the period, four and a half billion years ago, that our solar system formed. In lieu of a working time machine, we learn about the birth of our Sun and its planets by studying young stars in our galaxy. New work suggests that our Sun was both active and "feisty" in its infancy, growing in fits and starts while burping out bursts of X-rays. "By studying ...

Most skygazers recognize the Orion Nebula, one of the closest stellar nurseries to Earth. Although it makes for great views in backyard telescopes, the Orion Nebula is far from the most prolific star-forming region in our galaxy. That distinction may go to one of the more dramatic stellar nurseries like the Cat's Paw Nebula, otherwise known as NGC 6334, which is experiencing a "baby boom." "NGC 6334 is forming stars at a more rapid pace than Orion - so rapidly that it appears to be undergoing what might be called a burst of star formation," said lead author Sarah Willis ...

An expert in robotics and automation problems, especially those involving manufacturing systems, NJIT Distinguished Professor and IEEE Fellow Mengchu Zhou will have two articles published in the upcoming proceedings of the 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Both papers were recently presented at this conference. "Novel Method to Simplify Supervisor for AMS Based on Petri Nets and Inequality Analysis" offers a better and more efficient way to help managers control a computer-controlled manufacturing system by using mathematical modeling tools, ...

VIDEO: This video shows typical prey behavior when predators are not confused by multiple prey in their visual field. The prey spread out as much as possible while moving around randomly. Prey... Click here for more information. Many animals – from locusts to fish – live in groups and swarm, but scientists aren't sure why or how this behavior evolved. Now a multidisciplinary team of Michigan State University scientists has used a model system to show for the first time ...

Many women get too little sleep, despite considerable evidence showing the importance of sleep to overall health. Now a new UC San Francisco study has discovered another reason why inadequate sleep may be harmful, especially to women and their hearts. The study found that poor sleep, particularly waking too early, appears to play a significant role in raising unhealthy levels of inflammation among women with coronary heart disease. The elevated inflammation affected only women, not men, even when adjusted for medical, lifestyle and socio-demographic differences, the authors ...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Peer group influences affect children much earlier than researchers have suspected, finds a new University of Maryland-led study. The researchers say the study provides a wake-up call to parents and educators to look out for undue group influences, cliquishness and biases that might set in early, the researchers say. The study appears in the May/June 2013 issue of Child Development, and is available online: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.12011/abstract The researchers say their work represents a new line of research – what they ...

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have discovered how to stop the destructive process that leads to cardiovascular disease in diabetic laboratory animals. It is well known that high blood sugar levels significantly raise the risk of cardiovascular disease. It is unclear, however, why this happens. An important part of the explanation may be NFAT, a protein activated when blood sugar is raised and which starts a chain of events that damage the blood vessels and accelerate the development of atherosclerosis. "We have now shown that it is possible to stop the atherosclerosis ...

A cheaper, more efficient technique for developing complex protein drugs from bacteria has been developed at the University of Sheffield. Using the bacterium E. coli, researchers from the University's Faculty of Engineering showed it was possible to vastly increase the efficiency of the cells producing specifically modified proteins, as well as improve its performance and stability. The modification is present in over two-thirds of human therapeutic drugs on the market and involves the addition of specific sugar groups to the protein backbone, a process termed glycosylation. Drugs ...

Health problems linked to obesity – like heart disease and diabetes – could skip an entire generation, a new study suggests. Researchers have found that the offspring of obese mothers may be spared health problems linked to obesity, while their own children then inherit them. Currently, concern about the obesity epidemic is mainly focused on the health of obese women and their children, rather than the wider family. The University of Edinburgh study has shown that moderately obese mothers can make an impact on the birth weight and diabetes risk of grandchildren, ...

Companies that claim a high level of social responsibility should lead the way in committing to greater transparency over their tax arrangements and abandoning the use of tax havens, according to new research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA). The study, published in the journal Third World Quarterly, highlights the fact that many of the companies actively engaged in tax avoidance also like to assert their credentials as responsible corporate citizens. Rhys Jenkins, professor of development economics at UEA, and Peter Newell, professor of international relations ...

Researchers from South Korea, Case Western Reserve University and University of North Texas have discovered an inexpensive and easily produced catalyst that performs better than platinum in oxygen-reduction reactions. The finding, detailed in Nature's Scientific Reports online today, is a step toward eliminating what industry regards as the largest obstacle to large-scale commercialization of fuel cell technology. Fuel cells can be more efficient than internal combustion engines, silent, and at least one type produces zero greenhouse emissions at the tail pipe. Car ...

New, fast and accurate algorithm from the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, based on the mathematical formalism used to model processes accompanying interaction of light with gas planet atmospheres, is a major step towards better understanding of physical and chemical properties of materials' surfaces studied under laboratory conditions. Solar System's gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, are among the brightest objects in the night sky. We see them, because light from our star interacts with their dense atmospheres. The mathematical ...

Researchers are still fascinated by the idea of the possibility of reprogramming the cells of any tissue, turning them into cells with the capacity to differentiate into cells of a completely different type— pluripotent cells—and they are still striving to understand how it happens. A group from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), headed by researcher Ralph P. Schneider, from the Telomeres and Telomerase Group led by María A. Blasco, publishes this week an article in Nature Communications on the discovery of a new gene called TRF1 that is essential ...