Fermat's Last Theorem—the idea that a certain simple equation had no solutions— went unsolved for nearly 350 years until Oxford mathematician Andrew Wiles created a proof in 1995. Now, Case Western Reserve University's Colin McLarty has shown the theorem can be proved more simply. The theorem is called Pierre de Fermat's last because, of his many conjectures, it was the last and longest to be unverified. In 1630, Fermat wrote in the margin of an old Greek mathematics book that he could demonstrate that no integers (whole numbers) can make the equation xn + yn = zn ...

For hundreds of years, plant taxonomists have worked to understand how species are related. Until relatively recently, their only reliable source of information about these relationships was the plants' morphology—traits that could be observed, measured, counted, categorized, and described visually. And paramount among these morphological traits were aspects of flower shape and arrangement. In the papilionoid legumes—a large, diverse group that includes the common pea and bean—most species have highly specialized, "butterfly-shaped" flowers with bilateral symmetry, fused ...

(Baltimore, MD) – New findings published in Pediatrics (Epub ahead of print) by the Kennedy Krieger Institute's Center for Autism and Related Disorders reveal that 70 percent of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who have a history of severe language delay, achieved phrase or fluent speech by age eight. This suggests that more children presenting with ASD and severe language delay at age four can be expected to make notable language gains than was previously thought. Abnormalities in communication and language are a defining feature of ASD, yet prior research ...

March 4, 2013 (Toronto) – A new study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) shows that alcohol is now the third leading cause of the global burden of disease and injury, despite the fact most adults worldwide abstain from drinking. This research, part of the 2010 Global Burden of Disease study, was published in this month's issue of the journal Addiction. It also found that Canadians drink more than 50 per cent above the global average. "Alcohol consumption has been found to cause more than 200 different diseases and injuries," said Kevin Shield, the ...

WASHINGTON, DC, March 4, 2013—Exercise can affect your sleep. The results of the National Sleep Foundation's 2013 Sleep in America® poll show a compelling association between exercise and better sleep. "Exercise is great for sleep. For the millions of people who want better sleep, exercise may help," says David Cloud, CEO of the National Sleep Foundation (NSF). Exercisers say they sleep better Self-described exercisers report better sleep than self-described non-exercisers even though they say they sleep the same amount each night (6 hours and 51 minutes, average on ...

Ann Arbor, Mich. — Scoring methods commonly used to evaluate Newborn Intensive Care Units (NICU) are inconsistent, according to new research from the University of Michigan. The research published last week in the journal Pediatrics compared 10 well-known scores that have been developed to evaluate NICUs. The researchers found more differences than similarities. "This raises the question: do these scores level the playing field well enough, or are scores still somewhat unfair? And what more can we learn about the major causes of mortality for infants in neonatal intensive ...

1. Research Results Show Current CDC HIV Screening Guidelines Are Too Conservative and Not Cost-Effective 2. Study Says Heavy Drinking Leads to Increased HIV Risk for Men Who Have Sex with Men Philadelphia, Pa. (March 4, 2013) –The results of two important studies have been published in the March issue of AIDS, the official journal of the International AIDS Society. One study notes that screening for HIV should be performed more frequently—up to every three months for the highest-risk patients, while low-risk groups to be tested every three years. A second study demonstrates ...

Humidity measurements in the atmosphere are of essential importance, since water vapour, as the most important natural greenhouse gas, has a strong influence on the Earth's atmospheric radiation balance and, thus, decisively influences our climate. In addition, water is responsible for meteorological phenomena such as the formation of clouds and precipitation. Hence, the atmospheric water content is an essential measurand in all climate models, but also when it comes to forecasting the weather; this measurand has to be determined with great accuracy if reliable predictions ...

Ever find yourself briefly paralyzed as you're falling asleep or just waking up? It's a phenomenon is called sleep paralysis, and it's often accompanied by vivid sensory or perceptual experiences, which can include complex and disturbing hallucinations and intense fear. For some people, sleep paralysis is a once-in-a-lifetime experience; for others, it can be a frequent, even nightly, phenomenon. Researchers James Allan Cheyne and Gordon Pennycook of the University of Waterloo in Canada explore the factors associated with distress after sleep paralysis episodes in a ...

A century after Western explorers first crossed the dangerous landscapes of the Arctic and Antarctic, researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) have successfully deployed a self-guided robot that uses ground-penetrating radar to map deadly crevasses hidden in ice-covered terrains. Deployment of the robot--dubbed Yeti--could make Arctic and Antarctic explorations safer by revealing unseen fissures buried beneath ice and snow that could potentially claim human lives and expensive equipment. Researchers say Yeti opens the door to making polar travel ...

Infectious disease experts at Johns Hopkins have found that among people infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), co-infection with HIV, speeds damage and scarring of liver tissue by almost a decade. In a second study of HCV infection, the Johns Hopkins research team participated in the discovery of two genetic mutations that make it more likely that patients' immune systems can rid the body of HCV. Both studies are described in articles published online in February ahead of print in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. "Our latest study results suggest that ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Research by legal and psychological scholars has shown that apologies can result in better outcomes for wrongdoers in a number of legal settings, especially when the party perceived as the victim receives the apology. But new research conducted by a pair of University of Illinois law professors examines the influence of apologies on a different kind of legal decision – the decision of a bankruptcy judge to approve a debtor's proposed repayment plan. Debtors who apologized were seen as more remorseful and were expected to manage their finances more carefully ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (March 4, 2013) – Patients undergoing cerebral angiography and neurointerventional procedures on the brain are at very low risk of infection—even without preventive antibiotics, reports a study in the March issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. "These data suggest that the overall risk of infection associated with most neuroangiographic procedures is very low," according to the study by Dr. Prashant S. Kelkar and colleagues ...

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA (12:15 EST MARCH 4, 2013) — Researchers with the Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) today announced results of the Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epidemic (VOICE) study at the Conference for Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Atlanta, Georgia. The VOICE study tested oral and vaginal antiretroviral-based approaches as HIV prevention methods in 5,029 women in South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and managed by the MTN, the VOICE study was a major undertaking, which has provided ...

ENERGY – Reducing biorefinery waste . . . By introducing microbial fuel cells into the corn stover biorefinery waste recovery process, a team of researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has demonstrated a new way to produce bioenergy from the process waste stream. The process developed by ORNL's Abhijeet Borole and colleagues from the University of Tennessee and National Renewable Energy Laboratory provides a direct alternative to generate electricity compared to a mature but multi-step path that uses anaerobic digestion. Major advantages of the ORNL method include ...

A two-year-old child born with HIV infection and treated with antiretroviral drugs beginning in the first days of life no longer has detectable levels of virus using conventional testing despite not taking HIV medication for 10 months, according to findings presented today at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Atlanta. This is the first well-documented case of an HIV-infected child who appears to have been functionally cured of HIV infection—that is, without detectable levels of virus and no signs of disease in the absence of antiretroviral ...

If the word's nations are going to prevent tobacco smoking from causing one projected billion deaths by the end of this century, they must: Make tobacco control part of the agendas of United Nation's and other development agencies worldwide; Assure every sector of a nation including health, trade and finance officials work collectively to protect not only health but the harm tobacco places on their economy by passing laws to reduce use; Place health as the centerpiece of any decision on a trade treaty that includes tobacco; Diligently work toward a goal of reducing ...

University of Leicester psychologists have made an analysis of Richard III's character – aiming to get to the man behind the bones. Professor Mark Lansdale, Head of the University's School of Psychology, and forensic psychologist Dr Julian Boon have put together a psychological analysis of Richard III based on the consensus among historians relating to Richard's experiences and actions. They found that, while there was no evidence for Shakespeare's depiction of Richard III as a psychopath, he may have had "intolerance to uncertainty syndrome" – which may have manifested ...

In February, Greenpeace activist and actress Lucy Lawless, star of "Xena: Warrior Princess," was sentenced to 120 hours of community service for boarding a Shell oil rig to protest offshore Arctic drilling. Dramatic protests by Netherlands-based Greenpeace contrast sharply with the lobbying and letter-writing of the U.S.-based Sierra Club. The differences among those two groups and other international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) reflect the cultures of the nations where they are based, according to research by a University of Missouri political scientist. Individuals ...

University of Chicago physicists have succeeding in creating a vortex knot—a feat akin to tying a smoke ring into a knot. Linked and knotted vortex loops have existed in theory for more than a century, but creating them in the laboratory had previously eluded scientists. Vortex knots should, in principle, be persistent, stable phenomena. "The unexpected thing is that they're not," said Dustin Kleckner, a postdoctoral scientist at UChicago's James Franck Institute. "They seem to break up in a particular way. They stretch themselves, which is a weird behavior." This behavior ...

Matt Johnson fell in love with San Diego in 1998, and has resided here ever since. He is familiar with the local neighborhoods inside and out, and has the ability to assist you in selecting the best one for your family's needs. Matt got his start in real estate at the age of 9, helping his Dad turn dilapidated old houses into the gem of the neighborhood. He later continued on that tradition, becoming a professional home renovator with operations in two states. Several years later, he realized his passion was in the sales and marketing side, so he obtained his license ...

NEW YORK (March 3, 2013) -- The powerful master regulatory transcription factor called Bcl6 is key to the survival of a majority of aggressive lymphomas, which arise from the B-cells of the immune system. The protein has long been considered too complex to target with a drug since it is also crucial to the healthy functioning of many immune cells in the body, not just B cells gone bad. But now, in the journal Nature Immunology, researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College report that it is possible to shut down Bcl6 in the cancer, known as diffuse large B-cell lymphoma ...

An international group of researchers has discovered seven new regions of the human genome—called loci—that are associated with increased risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of blindness. The AMD Gene Consortium, a network of international investigators representing 18 research groups, also confirmed 12 loci identified in previous studies. The findings are reported online today in the journal Nature Genetics. Supported by the National Eye Institute (NEI), a part of the National Institutes of Health, the study represents the most comprehensive ...

March 3, 2013— (Bronx, NY) — Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have discovered how the most common genetic mutations in familial Parkinson's disease damage brain cells. The study, which published online today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, could also open up treatment possibilities for both familial Parkinson's and the more common form of Parkinson's that is not inherited. Parkinson's disease is a gradually progressing disorder of the nervous system that causes stiffness or slowing of movement. According to the Parkinson's ...

PHILADELPHIA – A multi-institution group of researchers has found new candidate disease proteins for neurodegenerative disorders. James Shorter, Ph.D., assistant professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Paul Taylor, M.D., PhD, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and colleagues describe in an advanced online publication of Nature that mutations in prion-like segments of two RNA-binding proteins are associated with a rare inherited degeneration disorder affecting muscle, brain, motor neurons and bone (called ...