MANHATTAN, KAN. -- Kansas State University civil engineers are developing the right mix to reduce concrete's carbon footprint and make it stronger. Their innovative ingredient: biofuel byproducts. "The idea is to use bioethanol production byproducts to produce a material to use in concrete as a partial replacement of cement," said Feraidon Ataie, doctoral student in civil engineering, Kabul, Afghanistan. "By using these materials we can reduce the carbon footprint of concrete materials." Concrete is made from three major components: portland cement, water and aggregate. ...

Completion rates for the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine series across both genders continue to remain alarmingly low nearly seven years after its introduction, suggesting that better patient education and increased public vaccine financing programs are needed, according to new research from the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB). The researchers report "startling" trends in a series of three separate studies published in Cancer, Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics and Vaccine. Using data from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey, an annual cross-sectional ...

DURHAM, NC – A potentially lethal fungal infection appears to gain virulence by being able to anticipate and disarm a hostile immune attack in the lungs, according to findings by researchers at Duke Medicine. Defense mechanisms used by the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans enable it to lead to fatal meningitis, which is one of the opportunistic infections often associated with death in HIV/AIDS patients, organ transplant recipients, diabetics and other immunosuppressed patients. In describing the complex process of how C. neoformans averts destruction in the lungs of mice, ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- Innovative medical records software developed by geriatricians and informaticians from the Regenstrief Institute and the Indiana University Center for Aging Research will provide more personalized health care for older adult patients, a population at significant risk for mental health decline and disorders. A new study published in eGEMs, a peer-reviewed online publication recently launched by the Electronic Data Methods Forum, unveils the enhanced Electronic Medical Record Aging Brain Care Software, an automated decision-support system that enables care ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Collaborators from Mayo-Illinois Alliance for Technology Based Healthcare have developed a new, single molecule test for detecting methylated DNA. Methylation -- the addition of a methyl group of molecules to a DNA strand -- is one of the ways gene expression is regulated. The findings appear in the current issue of Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group). "While nanopores have been studied for genomic sequencing and screening analysis, this new assay can potentially circumvent the need for some of the current processes in evaluating epigenetics-related ...

Rice University researchers have found a way to divide and modify enzymes to create what amounts to a genetic logic gate. Biochemist Matthew Bennett and graduate student David Shis created a library of AND gates by mutating a protein from a bacterial virus. The well-understood protein known as T7 RNA polymerase (RNAP) is a strong driver of transcription in cells. Their discovery should help overcome a bottleneck in the development of synthetic gene networks that mimic digital circuitry. These networks could become diagnostic systems that look for signs of disease and, ...

Disarming One of the Deadliest Pathogens Francisella tularensis, the cause of tularemia and one of the deadliest respiratory pathogens in existence, is considered a potential biological weapon because it is readily aerosolized and exhibits a high degree of infectivity and lethality in humans. While a live attenuated vaccine strain has been developed, it remains unlicensed because scientists have been unable to understand the basis for its attenuated virulence. In an attempt to find an acceptable live attenuated vaccine strain, researchers from Harvard Medical School ...

For the first time, a UCLA team has used a technique normally employed in treating brain aneurysms to treat severe, life-threatening irregular heart rhythms in two patients. This unique use of the method helped stop ventricular arrhythmias — which cause "electrical storms" — that originated in the septum, the thick muscle that separates the heart's two ventricles. This area is virtually impossible to reach with conventional treatment. The research is published in the February issue of Heart Rhythm, the official journal of the Heart Rhythm Society, and is highlighted ...

URBANA – College-age kids who don't consume at least three servings of dairy daily are three times more likely to develop metabolic syndrome than those who do, said a new University of Illinois study. "And only one in four young persons in the study was getting the recommended amount of dairy," said Margarita Teran-Garcia, a U of I professor of food science and human nutrition. That alarming finding means that three-fourths of the 18- to 25-year-old college applicants surveyed are at risk for metabolic syndrome, the researcher said. Metabolic syndrome occurs when ...

The six science instruments that comprise the Particles and Fields Package that will characterize the solar wind and ionosphere of Mars have been integrated aboard NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft. The spacecraft is on track for launch later this year. The Solar Wind Electron Analyzer (SWEA) was the last of the six instruments to be delivered, and was integrated late last week at Lockheed Martin in Littleton, Colo. SWEA measures the properties of electrons at Mars, one electron at a time, and can process up to one million events per second. The ...

System 96P has been moving through the Coral Sea near northeastern Australia over the last couple of days, and today, March 14, NASA's Aqua satellite captured the storm as it matured into Tropical Storm Tim. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Cyclone Tim in the Coral Sea on March 13, 2013 at 04:05 UTC (12:05 a.m. EDT). The MODIS image showed a large band of thunderstorms wrapping into the center of circulation from the south and east. Cyclone Tim's northeastern quadrant ...

On March 13, it was announced the most vigorous bursts of star birth in the cosmos took place much earlier than previously thought - results now published in a set of papers in Nature and the Astrophysical Journal. As these findings are published, three of the scientists at the forefront of this research - including the lead researcher of the latest findings – offered their insights about what this reveals about the history of our universe, and how the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is providing a "zoom lens" into the early universe. This includes ...

Ann Arbor, Mich. — Few situations can provoke more anxiety for people with peanut or tree-nut allergies than having an allergic reaction while flying on an airplane and being unable to get help. But in a new study, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology-In Practice, researchers found passengers who engaged in eight mitigating factors were less likely to report an allergic reaction. This is the first study to show that in-flight peanut and tree nut allergy is an international problem, says lead author and pediatrician Matthew Greenhawt, M.D., M.B.A., ...

This year's unusually long and rocky flu season would be nothing compared to the pandemic that could occur if bird flu became highly contagious among humans, which is why UCLA researchers and their colleagues are creating new ways to predict where an outbreak could emerge. "Using surveillance of influenza cases in humans and birds, we've come up with a technique to predict sites where these viruses could mix and generate a future pandemic," said lead author Trevon Fuller, a UCLA postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability's Center ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- A University of Florida researcher has described a new genus and species of extinct saber-toothed cat from Polk County, Fla., based on additional fossil acquisitions of the animal over the last 25 years. The 5-million-year-old fossils belong to the same lineage as the famous Smilodon fatalis from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, a large, carnivorous apex predator with elongated upper canine teeth. Previous research suggested the group of saber-toothed cats known as Smilodontini originated in the Old World and then migrated to North America, but ...

New York, N.Y. (March 14, 2013) – Autism Speaks, the world's leading autism science and advocacy organization, today announced a study supported by one of Autism Speaks' first Suzanne and Bob Wright Trailblazer Awards, presents a new theory that autism may result from chronic danger signaling by mitochondria, cell structures that supply our cells with energy. This study by Trailblazer researcher and mitochondrial medicine specialist Robert Naviaux, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of California, San Diego published in the journal PLOS-ONE supports a novel theory about the ...

Researchers at the University of Toronto have shown that playing shooting or driving videogames, even for a relatively short time, improves the ability to search for a target hidden among irrelevant distractions in complex scenes. "Recent studies in different labs, including here at the University of Toronto, have shown that playing first-person shooter videogames can enhance other aspects of visual attention," says psychology professor Ian Spence. "But no one has previously demonstrated that visual search is also improved." Searching efficiently and accurately is ...

MINNEAPOLIS – The American Academy of Neurology (AAN), the world's largest professional association of neurologists, is releasing a position paper on how the practice of prescribing drugs to boost cognitive function, or memory and thinking abilities, in healthy children and teens is misguided. The statement is published in the March 13, 2013, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. This growing trend, in which teens use "study drugs" before tests and parents request ADHD drugs for kids who don't meet the criteria for the disorder, ...

Diving and plunging through the waves to feed, some whales throw their jaws wide and engulf colossal mouthfuls of fish-laden water while other species simply coast along with their mouths agape (ram or skim feeding), yet both feeding styles rely on a remarkable substance in the whales' mouths to filter nutrition from the ocean: baleen. Alexander Werth from Hampden-Sydney College, USA, explains that no one knew how the hairy substance actually traps morsels of food. 'The standard view was that baleen is just a static material and people had never thought of it moving or ...

Milk from goats that were genetically modified to produce higher levels of a human antimicrobial protein has proved effective in treating diarrhea in young pigs, demonstrating the potential for food products from transgenic animals to one day also benefit human health, report researchers at the University of California, Davis. The study is the first on record to show that goats' milk carrying elevated levels of the antimicrobial lysozyme, a protein found in human breast milk, can successfully treat diarrhea caused by bacterial infection in the gastrointestinal tract. The ...

A one-sided cellphone conversation in the background is likely to be much more distracting than overhearing a conversation between two people, according to research published March 13 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Veronica Galván and colleagues from the University of San Diego. The authors studied the effects of overhearing either one side of a cell phone call or a chat between two people on the attention and memory of people who overheard these conversations. Participants in the study were asked to complete a task involving anagrams. As they performed the task, ...

Traveling into uncharted territory in search of food can be a dangerous undertaking, but some bottlenose dolphins may benefit by moving through their habitat with relatives who may be more experienced or knowledgeable. It turns out that leaders in bottlenose dolphin groups in the Florida Keys are more likely to be related to the dolphins that follow them, according to research published March 13 by Jennifer Lewis and colleagues from Florida International University. In complex habitats like the shallow waters of the Florida Keys, individuals who follow may benefit from ...

DETROIT – Treating varicose veins with vein-stripping surgery is associated with higher costs than closing the veins with heat, according to a study at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. "Cost-effectiveness is an important factor to consider when comparing different treatments for varicose vein disease," says Judith C. Lin, M.D., vascular surgeon and lead author of the study. "And these two types of treatment have similar effectiveness." The study will be presented March 13 at the 41st Annual Symposium of the Society for Clinical Vascular Surgery in Miami. The current ...

Initial vaccinations for human papillomavirus (HPV) at a young age is important for maximizing quadrivalent HPV vaccine effectiveness according to a Swedish study published March 13 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. HPV vaccination programs have been launched around the world in hopes of preventing cervical cancer and other HPV-related cancers. While incidence of genital warts is the earliest possible disease outcome to measure the efficacy of the HPV vaccine, the results of such efficacy trials may not be fully generalizable to real-life HPV vaccination ...

HOUSTON -- (March 13, 2013) – Few things in life are inevitable – death, taxes, and, if you live long enough, osteoarthritis. No treatment will stop or significantly slow the disease, and joint replacement is the only definitive treatment. That may change, however, as researchers such as Dr. Brendan Lee (http://www.bcm.edu/genetics/index.cfm?pmid=10940), professor of molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine (http://www.bcm.edu), and his colleagues unravel the effects of a naturally occurring protein called lubricin or Proteoglycans 4 that appears to ...