The amount of rainfall and number of tropical storms during the summer monsoon season greatly impact the agriculture, economy, and people in Asia. Though meteorologists and climate scientists have worked for years to develop helpful prediction systems, seasonal predictions of these two types of weather phenomena are still poor. Scientists working at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, have now made a promising breakthrough for predicting in spring both the summer monsoon rainfall over East Asia and the number of tropical storms affecting ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Residents living near an e-waste recycling site in China face elevated risks of lung cancer, according to a recent study co-authored by Oregon State University researchers. Electronic trash, such as cell phones, computers and TVs, is often collected in dumps in developing countries and crudely incinerated to recover precious metals, including silver, gold, palladium and copper. The process is often primitive, releasing fumes with a range of toxic substances, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, a group of more than 100 chemicals. PAHs, ...

Scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, and their partners have determined that water demand by many plant communities can fluctuate in response to water availability, indicating a capacity for resilience even when changing climate patterns produce periodic droughts or floods. But their research also suggests that a limit to this resilience ultimately could threaten the survival of these plant communities. Sensitive environments such as the arid grasslands in the Southwestern U.S. already are approaching this limit. Results from this study were published ...

Melbourne researchers have discovered that the death of immune system cells is an important safeguard against the development of diseases such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, which occur when the immune system attacks the body's own tissues. The finding suggests that these so-called autoimmune diseases could be treated with existing medications that force long-lived immune system cells to die. In the development of the immune system, some cells are produced that have the potential to attack the body's own tissues, causing autoimmune disease. The death ...

Astronomers using a CSIRO radio telescope have taken the Universe's temperature, and have found that it has cooled down just the way the Big Bang theory predicts. Using the CSIRO Australia Telescope Compact Array near Narrabri, NSW, an international team from Sweden, France, Germany and Australia has measured how warm the Universe was when it was half its current age. "This is the most precise measurement ever made of how the Universe has cooled down during its 13.77 billion year history," said Dr Robert Braun, Chief Scientist at CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science. Because ...

The most consistent finding of autism research lies in the revelation that the disorders are incredibly complex. Two new studies in the January 23 issue of the Cell Press journal Neuron that add to the growing appreciation of this complexity focus on identifying inherited genetic mutations linked with autism spectrum disorders. The mutations—which are distinct from the spontaneous mutations that have been the focus of previous studies—may provide valuable insights into the causes of autism. "It's long been known that autism is a heritable condition and that some cases ...

DURHAM, N.C. – All parents know the infant milestones: turning over, learning to crawl, standing, and taking that first unassisted step. Achieving each accomplishment presumably requires the formation of new connections among subsets of the billions of nerve cells in the infant's brain. But how, when and where those connections form has been a mystery. Now researchers at Duke Medicine have begun to find answers. In a study reported Jan. 23, 2013, in the scientific journal Neuron, the research team describes the entire network of brain cells that are connected to specific ...

Boston, Mass. - While autism clearly runs in some families, few inherited genetic causes have been found. A major reason is that these causes are so varied that it's hard to find enough people with a given mutation to establish a clear pattern. Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital have pinpointed several inherited mutations—among the first to be identified—through an unusual approach: using whole-exome sequencing to study large Middle Eastern families with autism. The study, published in the January 23 issue of the journal Neuron, also found evidence for some of ...

In space, dense clouds of cosmic gas and dust are the birthplaces of new stars. In visible light, this dust is dark and obscuring, hiding the stars behind it. So much so that, when astronomer William Herschel observed one such cloud in the constellation of Scorpius in 1774, he thought it was a region empty of stars and is said to have exclaimed, "Truly there is a hole in the sky here!" [1] In order to better understand star formation, astronomers need telescopes that can observe at longer wavelengths, such as the submillimetre range, in which the dark dust grains shine ...

Researchers at the University of Granada, Spain, have designed a new computing system that determines the age and sex of a corpse with a reliability of 95%. This system is based on free software called Image and a free DICOM displayer called K-Pacs. This state-of-the-art system is very different from the traditional macroscopy systems used to evaluate the osteoarticular features of a corpse, and it is much faster and user-friendly. The author of this study is Manuel López Alcaraz, a researcher at the Forensic Anthropology Laboratory of the University of Granada, in collaboration ...

BOSTON (January 23, 2013) — Neuroscience researchers from Tufts University have found that our star-shaped brain cells, called astrocytes, may be responsible for the rapid improvement in mood in depressed patients after acute sleep deprivation. This in vivo study, published in the current issue of Translational Psychiatry, identified how astrocytes regulate a neurotransmitter involved in sleep. The researchers report that the findings may help lead to the development of effective and fast-acting drugs to treat depression, particularly in psychiatric emergencies. Drugs ...

Over the past two decades, the incidence of type 1 diabetes in very young children under age 5 has increased by 70 percent in the city of Philadelphia, according to research from a University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing researcher who currently maintains the only US registry of diabetes in children that has collected data continuously since 1985. In a far-reaching study in the current issue of Diabetes Care, researchers led by nursing professor Terri H. Lipman, PhD, RN found that the overall incidence of Type 1 diabetes in children in Philadelphia has increased ...

Constraining choice isn't necessarily a good thing when it comes to managers' problem-solving, according to a new Canadian study. Managers tend to pick higher-risk options when forced to choose between competing alternatives to complex situations, according to researchers from the University of Guelph and University of Waterloo whose study was published recently in the Journal of Business Ethics. But when they're not forced to choose, managers tend to reflect more and solve problems with fewer negative consequences, says the study. "One of the most powerful tools ...

A candidate dengue vaccine developed by scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been found to be safe and to stimulate a strong immune response in most vaccine recipients, according to results from an early-stage clinical trial sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH. The trial results were published online on January 17 in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Dengue fever, prevalent in many tropical and subtropical regions of the world, is caused by any of four related viruses—DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3 ...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23, 2013—Silica microwires are the tiny and as-yet underutilized cousins of optical fibers. If precisely manufactured, however, these hair-like slivers of silica could enable applications and technology not currently possible with comparatively bulky optical fiber. By carefully controlling the shape of water droplets with an ultraviolet laser, a team of researchers from Australia and France has found a way to coax silica nanoparticles to self-assemble into much more highly uniform silica wires. The international team describes their novel manufacturing ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Despite data on rising rates of abuse and overdoses of narcotic pain medicines across all age groups, in a new poll from the University of Michigan, most parents said they are not very concerned about misuse of these medicines by children and teens. . In addition, parent support was lukewarm for policies that would discourage abuse of drugs like Vicodin or Oxycontin, according to the most recent University of Michigan Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. Overall, 35% of parents said they are very concerned about misuse of ...

Experts believe that plain packaging of tobacco products would cut smoking, a new study has found. Tobacco control experts from around the world estimate that two years after the introduction of generic packaging the number of adult smokers would be reduced by one percentage point (in the UK - from 21 to 20%*), and the percentage of children trying smoking would be reduced by three percentage points (in the UK - from 27 to 24%*). The Cambridge research was published today in the journal BMC Public Health. Because Australia, the first country to implement plain packaging, ...

Almost 10 years after completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003, scientists are making progress toward the next major goal in applying the genetic information in that "Book of Life" in medicine, leaders of an international research effort are reporting. A package of the latest updates on the goals, organization and achievements of the Chromosome-Centric Human Proteome Project (C-HPP) appear in a special issue of ACS' Journal of Proteome Research. Young-Ki Paik, William S. Hancock and colleagues explain that C-HPP is a 10-year project, launched in 2011, in which ...

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed an automatic slipperiness detection system for cars. The system helps drivers to avoid personal injuries and damage to vehicles in slippery road conditions. Thanks to the system, vehicles are warned in advance of a road's actual slipperiness. If the road becomes slippery, other vehicles arriving in the area will also be warned immediately. VTT's system makes use of an entirely novel, real-time method of obtaining information on a road's actual slipperiness. Transmission of slippery road warnings to vehicles via, for ...

We invited some Chinese experts and researchers in the field of spintronics to write a series of review articles in this special issue, in order to assist undergraduate, master's and doctoral students, as well as young researchers to understand this fast growing field. This issue was published in Science China Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy, 2013, 56(1): 1-246 This special issue consists of seventeen review articles. We have tried to cover most of research directions and research frontiers in spintronics. This includes magneto-electronics, semiconductor spintronics, optical ...

This press release is available in Spanish. Treated wastewater solids called biosolids are sometimes used by farmers to boost soil nutrient levels. Now research by a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientist provides new information about how long those plant nutrients remain after biosolids have been applied to the soil. This work was conducted by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) agronomist Eton Codling, and supports the USDA priority of promoting international food security. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency. Biosolids used ...

Researchers from Wits University and the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, together with international scientists announced on Tuesday, 22 January 2012, the discovery of a two million year old fossil fox at the now renowned archaeological site of Malapa in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site. In an article published in the prestigious journal Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa, the researchers describe the previously unknown species of fox named Vulpes Skinneri - named in honour of the recently deceased world renowned South African mammalogist ...

In a study designed to see if doctors who are told the exact price of expensive medical tests like MRIs in advance would order fewer of them, Johns Hopkins researchers got their answer: No. In a report published online in the Journal of the American College of Radiology, the researchers found that revealing the costs of MRIs and other imaging tests up front had no impact on the number of tests doctors ordered for their hospitalized patients. "Cost alone does not seem to be the determining factor in deciding to go ahead with an expensive radiographic test," says the ...

One of yesterday's most promising new tools for speeding the development of new medicines — "microdosing" — has found niches in that process today, and they include uses unanticipated a decade ago. That topic, an update on microdosing, is the cover story in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News. C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. C&EN Senior Editor Celia Henry Arnaud explains that microdosing offered promise for helping pharmaceutical companies identify potential failures earlier, before ...

Forget digital fingerprints, iris recognition and voice identification, the next big thing in biometrics could be your knobbly knees. Just as a fingerprints and other body parts are unique to us as individuals and so can be used to prove who we are, so too are our kneecaps. Computer scientist Lior Shamir of Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan, has now demonstrated how a knee scan could be used to single us out. The approach based on MRI could be used to quickly register and identify people in a moving queue as they approach passport control at airports ...