CORVALLIS, Ore. – Even as policy makers and health experts point to an increased need for exercise, more than half of four-year colleges and universities in the United States have dropped physical education requirements compared to historic levels. Almost every U.S. college student was required to take physical education and exercise requirements in the 1920s; today, that number is at an all-time low of 39 percent, according to a new study. Oregon State University researcher Brad Cardinal, lead author of the study, examined data from 354 randomly selected four-year ...

A woman's exposure to high pollen levels in late pregnancy increases the risk of early asthma in the child, according to a group of researchers at Sweden's Umeå University in a recent study. A number of studies have previously shown that there is an association with being born during a pollen season and an increased risk of allergies. Although the pollen season is a regular annual event, there are large variations between years in pollen levels. Few studies have closely examined the significance of actual pollen content in different time periods before and after birth, ...

The surprising discovery of a massive outburst in a neighboring galaxy is giving astronomers a tantalizing look at what likely is a powerful belch by a gorging black hole at the galaxy's center. The scientists were conducting a long-term study of molecules in galaxies, when one of the galaxies showed a dramatic change. "The discovery was entirely serendipitous. Our observations were spread over a few years, and when we looked at them, we found that one galaxy had changed over that time from being placid and quiescent, to undergoing a hugely energetic outburst at the end," ...

Irvine, Calif., Jan. 7, 2013 – Halting climate change will require "a fundamental and disruptive overhaul of the global energy system" to eradicate harmful carbon dioxide emissions, not just stabilize them, according to new findings by UC Irvine and other scientists. In a Jan. 9 paper in Environmental Research Letters, UC Irvine Earth system scientist Steve Davis and others take a fresh look at the popular "wedge" approach to tackling climate change outlined in a 2004 study by Princeton scientists Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow. They had argued that the rise of dangerous ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Research findings from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine are shining a light on an important regulatory role performed by the so-called dark matter, or "junk DNA," within each of our genes. The new study reveals snippets of information contained in dark matter that can alter the way a gene is assembled. "These small sequences of genetic information tell the gene how to splice, either by enhancing the splicing process or inhibiting it. The research opens the door for studying the dark matter of genes. And it helps us further understand ...

Although immigrants from Italy and their offspring form one of the largest demographic groups in Switzerland, there are hardly any studies on their state of health and risk of mortality. In a first for Switzerland, Silvan Tarnutzer and Matthias Bopp from the University of Zurich's Institute of Social and Preventative Medicine calculated unbiased mortality risks for people with an Italian migrant background. Immigrants from Italy live longer than Swiss people Compared to Swiss people born in Switzerland, immigrant Italians exhibit a mortality risk that is roughly ten ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Peanuts are one of the most common triggers of severe food-induced allergic reactions, which can be fatal, and the prevalence of peanut allergy is increasing. However, there is currently no clinical treatment available for peanut allergy other than strict dietary elimination and, in cases of accidental ingestion, injections of epinephrine. But a new multicenter clinical trial shows promise for sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT), a treatment in which patients are given daily doses, in gradually increasing amounts, of a liquid containing peanut powder. ...

VIDEO: The human TFIID core complex contains two copies each of TAF4 (green), TAF5 (red), TAF6 (blue), TAF9 (light blue) and TAF12 (light green). The density determined by cryo-electron microscopy is... Click here for more information. A research team of scientists from EMBL Grenoble and the IGBMC in Strasbourg, France, have, for the first time, described in molecular detail the architecture of the central scaffold of TFIID: the human protein complex essential for transcription ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Short interruptions – such as the few seconds it takes to silence that buzzing smartphone – have a surprisingly large effect on one's ability to accurately complete a task, according to new research led by Michigan State University. The study, in which 300 people performed a sequence-based procedure on a computer, found that interruptions of about three seconds doubled the error rate. Brief interruptions are ubiquitous in today's society, from text messages to a work colleague poking his head in the door and interrupting an important conversation. ...

Volunteers from the Planethunters.org website, part of the Oxford University-led Zooniverse project, have discovered 15 new planet candidates orbiting in the habitable zones of other stars. Added to the 19 similar planets already discovered in habitable zones, where the temperature is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water, the new finds suggest that there may be a 'traffic jam' of all kinds of strange worlds in regions that could potentially support life. Rather than being seen directly, the new planet candidates were found by Planethunters.org volunteers looking ...

Scientists at The University of Manchester have developed a camera that can be used to take powerful three dimensional colour X-ray images, in near real-time, without the need for a synchrotron X-ray source. Its ability to identify the composition of the scanned object could radically improve security screening at airports, medical imaging, aircraft maintenance, industrial inspection and geophysical exploration. The X-Ray system developed by Professor Robert Cernik and colleagues from The School of Materials can identify chemicals and compounds such as cocaine, semtex, ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (January 7, 2012) - Abnormalities of eye movement and fixation may contribute to difficulty in perceiving and recognizing faces among older adults with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), suggests a study "Abnormal Fixation in Individuals with AMD when Viewing an Image of a Face" appearing in the January issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part ofWolters Kluwer Health. Unlike people with normal vision focus, those with AMD don't ...

When it comes to solving puzzles, animals in captivity are, well, different animals than their wild brethren. Testing animals' ability to solve new problems has been historically conducted on animals in captivity. Only recently has a shift been made to run these tests on animals in their natural habitat. In a study appearing in Animal Behaviour, however, researchers at Michigan State University found vast differences in the problem solving skills between captive and wild spotted hyenas. Applying lessons learned from captive animals is potentially problematic because ...

WHAT: A new study supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) suggests that sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) can reduce the allergic response to peanut in adolescents and adults. SLIT is a treatment approach in which, under medical supervision, people place a small amount of allergen under the tongue to decrease their sensitivity to the allergen. This is one of the first randomized, placebo-controlled studies to test the efficacy and safety of SLIT to treat peanut allergy and is one of several federally funded trials investigating immune-based approaches to ...

Amsterdam, NL, 7 January 2013 – Scientists have wrestled to understand why Huntington's disease, which is caused by a single gene mutation, can produce such variable symptoms. An authoritative review by a group of leading experts summarizes the progress relating cell loss in the striatum and cerebral cortex to symptom profile in Huntington's disease, suggesting a possible direction for developing targeted therapies. The article is published in the latest issue of the Journal of Huntington's Disease. Huntington's disease (HD) is an inherited progressive neurological disorder ...

CHAMPAIGN, lll. — Researchers have discovered a new compound that restores the health of mice infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), an otherwise dangerous bacterial infection. The new compound targets an enzyme not found in human cells but which is essential to bacterial survival. The research team, led by scientists at the University of Illinois and the University of California, San Diego, reports the new findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The team discovered and developed several compounds that are promising ...

Gastrointestinal bleeds which occur in the hospital, although rare, are a significant source of morbidity and mortality when they occur. Currently, the prophylactic use of acid-suppressive medication in non-critically ill patients in the hospital is not widely recommended. Despite this, these medications continue to be widely utilized for this purpose. Shoshana Herzig from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Massachusetts, USA, and her colleagues believe that there is a group of patients whose risk of gastrointestinal bleeds is high enough to warrant the routine ...

Social practices and cultural beliefs of modern life are preventing healthy brain and emotional development in children, according to an interdisciplinary body of research presented recently at a symposium at the University of Notre Dame. "Life outcomes for American youth are worsening, especially in comparison to 50 years ago," says Darcia Narvaez, Notre Dame professor of psychology who specializes in moral development in children and how early life experiences can influence brain development. "Ill-advised practices and beliefs have become commonplace in our culture, ...

An international team of astrophysicists has shown that planetary systems with very distant binary stars are particularly susceptible to violent disruptions, more so than if the systems had two stellar companions with tighter orbits around each other. The team, led by Northwestern University's Nathan Kaib, conducted 3,000 computer simulations to study the effects of binary stellar companions (some with tight orbits around each other and others with wide or distant orbits) on the formation and evolution of planetary systems. The researchers found that wide binary stars ...

This press release is available in Spanish. First detected in the United States a decade ago, the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) is now in at least 39 states, is wreaking havoc in homes and gardens, and is a major economic threat to orchard fruits, garden vegetables and row crops. It's no wonder the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) ranks this pest as its top "invasive insect of interest." But help may be on the way: USDA scientists at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Invasive Insect Biocontrol and Behavior Laboratory in Beltsville, Md., are searching ...

BOSTON -- Critically ill patients in hospital intensive care units (ICUs) are routinely prescribed acid-suppressive medications to reduce their risk of developing stress ulcers and gastrointestinal bleeding, both of which can result from being in a stressful environment and from being intubated. Over the years, this routine practice has often been extended to patients outside the ICU, despite a lack of evidence that this population is at significant risk of these complications. Now a study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) describes ...

Understanding how thoughts of mortality influence individuals' beliefs sheds light on the commonalities among different groups' motivations and could help ease tensions between opposing viewpoints, according to University of Missouri experiments that tested the relationship between awareness of death and belief in a higher power. The study found that thoughts of death increased atheists, Christians, Muslims and agnostics conviction in their own world views. For example, contrary to the wartime aphorism that there are no atheists in foxholes, thoughts of death did not cause ...

EUGENE, Ore. -- (Jan. 7, 2013) -- The ability to focus and switch tasks readily amid distractions was compromised for up to two months following brain concussions suffered by high school athletes, according to a study at the University of Oregon. Research team members, in an interview, said the discovery suggests that some athletes may need longer recovery periods than current practices dictate to lower the risk of subsequent concussions. Conventional wisdom, said lead author David Howell, a graduate student in the UO Department of Human Physiology, has typical recovery ...

In France, more than 860,000 people suffer from Alzheimer's disease and related disorders, making them the largest cause of age-related loss of intellectual function. Cognitive impairments observed in Alzheimer's disease result from the accumulation of abnormal tau proteins in nerve cells undergoing degeneration . We know that obesity, a major risk factor in the development of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, increases the risk of dementia during the aging process. However, the effects of obesity on 'Taupathies' (i.e. tau protein-related disorders), including Alzheimer's ...

PHILADELPHIA — Though churning smokestacks, cud-chewing cows and gasoline-burning vehicles are contributing constantly to greenhouse gas emissions, there are also many processes that do the reverse, pulling molecules like carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. One of these is chemical weathering, which occurs when rock turns into soil. Carbon dioxide molecules and rain combine to dissolve rock, and the weathering products, including sediment, eventually make their way through waterways to the ocean where some become trapped on the ocean bottom and in coral reefs and seashells. For ...