KNOXVILLE—Middle school students who are more physically fit make better grades and outperform their classmates on standardized tests, according to a newly published study from a professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The study is among the first to examine how academic achievement relates to all aspects of physical fitness including endurance, muscular strength, flexibility and body fat. It appears in this month's issue of the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness. "Not only does improving fitness have physical health implications for the child, ...

(Philadelphia, PA) – An international team of scientists, led by researchers from Temple University School of Medicine, has found that a source of mounting genomic chaos, or instability, common to chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) may lie in a pool of leukemia stem cells that are immune to treatment with potent targeted anticancer drugs. They have shown in mice with cancer that even after treatment with the highly effective imatinib (Gleevec), stem cells that become resistant to these drugs – tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) – may continue to foster DNA damage, potentially ...

URBANA – Spores from Asian soybean rust (Phakopsora pachyrhizi) pose a serious threat to soybean production in the United States because they can be blown great distances by the wind. University of Illinois researchers have developed a method to determine whether these spores are viable. "Finding spores is different from finding spores that are living and able to infect plants," said USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist and crop sciences professor Glen Hartman. Soybean rust, which first appeared in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century, is a foliar ...

Alexandria, VA – Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," has changed the energy landscape. We can now affordably produce natural gas from previously inaccessible rock formations, which has led to increasing natural gas consumption. Thanks to its low prices and abundant domestic supply, natural gas may have a chance to overtake coal as the primary energy source for electricity in the United States. Natural gas has been a part of our energy economy for more than a century; however, it wasn't until recently that it started to play a key role. While it has always been useful ...

NEW YORK — December 11, 2012 — A research study on online social networks reveals that networking sites can drive advertising revenue by encouraging the density of social ties, or boosting the level of friendship or social connections between users. According to the findings, in a forthcoming paper in Management Science, more connected users prompt increases in visitation and browsing on the site, which helps stimulate online advertising revenue growth. The research co-authored by Scott Shriver, assistant professor of marketing at Columbia Business School, Harikesh Nair, ...

Boston, Mass.—Researchers at Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center (DF/CHCC) have taken the first preliminary steps toward developing a form of gene therapy for sickle cell disease. In an abstract presented on Dec. 10 at the 54th annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology, the research team—led by DF/CHCC's Raffaele Renella, MD, PhD, Stuart H. Orkin, MD, and David A. Williams, MD—announced that they had demonstrated in an animal model the feasibility of activating a form of hemoglobin unaffected by the sickle cell mutation. The study was included as ...

An international project lead by the Molecular and Cell Biology Institute of Porto University with the participation of researchers from IMIM (Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute) has, for the first time ever, deciphered the mechanism by which a substance called anophelin binds to an enzyme (thrombin) involved in the process of blood coagulation. This discovery was published in the last issue of the PNAS journal and opens the door to, on the one hand, designing a new generation of anticoagulant drugs with a totally different functioning to current ones and, on the ...

Montreal, December 11, 2012 – Nearly 1.5 million Canadian children grow up living double lives: one at home with their parents and another in some form of childcare environment. While parents hope to be informed of what goes on when they're not around, a recent Concordia study suggests that parents ought to be more involved in the daycare experience, a major component of their child's development. Nina Howe, a professor in Concordia's Department of Education and a lead author on the study, set out to uncover what Canadian parents really know about their children's care. ...

Boston, MA – Previous research has shown that patients without a consistent primary care physician (PCP) have worse outcomes than those who do, but little is known about why this is true. New research from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) has brought to light the importance of the role of a primary care physician in a population of diabetes patients. Their findings are published in the December 10, 2012 issue of Diabetes Care. "We found that primary care physicians provide better care to diabetes patients when compared to other providers in a primary care setting ...

Does the emotion in our voice have a lasting effect? According to Annett Schirmer and colleagues from the National University of Singapore, emotion helps us recognize words quicker and more accurately straight away. In the longer term however, we do not remember emotionally intoned speech as accurately as neutral speech. When we do remember the words, they have acquired an emotional value; for example words spoken in a sad voice are remembered as more negative than words spoken in a neutral voice. The study, looking at the role of emotion in word recognition memory, ...

WHAT: In a new essay, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., and David Morens, M.D., reflect on what has been learned about emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) in the two decades since a major report from the U.S. Institute of Medicine rekindled interest in this important topic. Heightened awareness of EIDs is itself a countermeasure against disease, note the authors. The emergence of new diseases can now be monitored in real time online through Internet resources such as ProMED. In 2012 alone, such resources kept the ...

Understanding the arrangement of atoms in a solid — one of solids' fundamental properties — is vital to advanced materials research. For decades, two camps of researchers have been working to develop methods to understand these so-called crystal structures. "Solution" methods, championed by experimental researchers, draw on data from diffraction experiments, while "prediction" methods of computational materials scientists bypass experimental data altogether. While progress has been made, computational scientists still cannot make crystal structure predictions routinely. ...

ATLANTA - A potent chemotherapy agent wrapped within a monoclonal antibody selectively destroys the malignant cells responsible for acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) in either weekly or monthly dosing, researchers report at the 54th ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition. This 'Trojan horse' assault on the cancer cells has significantly increased the response rate among patients with ALL, and now a clinical trial finds that weekly dosing works well and reduces side effects. "The CD22 antigen is a specific marker for B-cell malignancies and is expressed in more than 90 percent ...

Contact: David Hosansky hosansky@ucar.edu 303-497-8611 Zhenya Gallon, NCAR/UCAR Media Relations zhenya@ucar.edu 303-497-8607 National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research New system for aircraft forecasts potential storm hazards over oceans BOULDER—The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has developed a prototype system to help flights avoid major storms as they travel over remote ocean regions. The 8-hour forecasts of potentially dangerous atmospheric conditions are designed for pilots, air traffic ...

Consumers assume their risk of getting a serious illness is higher when medications are cheaper because they believe that prices for life-saving products are based on need and not profit, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "When consumers see lower prices for a life-saving product, they infer a higher need and thereby a greater risk that they can contract the disease. On the other hand, higher prices signal that a drug or treatment is inaccessible and thus the risk of getting a disease must not be all that great," write authors Adriana Samper ...

Participating in online social networks can have a detrimental effect on consumer well-being by lowering self-control among certain users, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Using online social networks can have a positive effect on self-esteem and well-being. However, these increased feelings of self-worth can have a detrimental effect on behavior. Because consumers care about the image they present to close friends, social network use enhances self-esteem in users who are focused on close friends while browsing their social network. This ...

Caregivers view elderly consumers as "old" when they can no longer perform everyday consumption activities on their own regardless of their actual age, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Consumption activities such as shopping, preparing meals, doing housework, going to the doctor, taking medications, and managing money serve as a means of identifying someone as old and a venue for working through conflicts that arise when older consumers who do not identify as old are treated as an 'old person' by family members and service providers," write ...

A review in the December issue of the journal Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine by Paul Bunn Jr, MD, University of Colorado Cancer Center investigator and past president of ASCO, IASLC and AACI describes the current state of lung cancer care. "We're in a new paradigm in which we realize this top cause of cancer deaths is actually a number of related diseases, each potentially with its own cause and cure," Bunn says. The review describes the shift from blanketing lung cancer with radiation and chemotherapy, to targeting the specific genetic mutations that cause ...

Troy, N.Y. – A new study from engineering researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute shows, for the first time, how the little-understood protein osteocalcin plays a significant role in the strength of our bones. The findings could lead to new strategies and therapeutics for fighting osteoporosis and lowering the risk of bone fracture. Funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the study details how fractures in healthy bones begin with the creation of incredibly tiny holes, each measuring only about 500 atoms in diameter, within the bone's mineral structure. ...

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. (12-11-12)—Students from East Asian countries, in addition to a select group of European countries, outperformed students around the world in mathematics, science and reading at both the fourth and eighth grades, according to results released Dec. 11 by Lynch School of Education Professors Ina V.S. Mullis and Michael O. Martin, executive directors of the TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center. The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is the first global assessment of mathematics and science to provide data about trends over ...

Consumers seek to punish fellow consumers who violate social norms while shopping but also make exceptions depending on the situation, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Punishment is a complex decision for consumers to make as it is difficult to punish someone but also difficult to look the other way. Consumers do not seem to make these decisions lightly, and a number of interesting factors influence consumer punishment decisions," write authors Lily Lin, Darren W. Dahl (both University of British Columbia), and Jennifer J. Argo (University ...

In order to avoid the stigma and loss of status posed by their lifestyle choice, stay-at-home fathers are mobilizing to build greater legitimacy for their marginalized gender identity, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Stay-at-home fathers aggressively pursue recognition by and acceptance from mainstream institutions, with a particular emphasis on the mass market and iconic household and family-oriented brands. Accordingly, they vigilantly watch for mass media representations and advertisements that positively acknowledge their collective ...

Consumers are more likely to make emotional instead of objective assessments when the outcomes are closer to the present time than when they are further away in the future, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "The proximity of a decision's outcome increases consumer reliance on feelings when making decisions. Feelings are relied upon more when the outcome is closer in time because these feelings appear to be more informative in such situations," write authors Hannah H. Chang (Singapore Management University) and Michel Tuan Pham (Columbia University). From ...

Consumers are more likely to purchase a product if they have previously focused their attention on it but are less likely to purchase a product they have previously ignored, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "It's generally assumed that consumers will choose products that provide the greatest value. But prior consideration of a product makes it easier to process the product when it's encountered later and this influences whether or not consumers like the product, regardless of the benefits it provides. The act of attending to a product increases ...

CHICAGO --- Using a mobile app that tracks eating and activity helped people lose an average of 15 pounds and keep it off for at least a year, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study. But the technology only aided weight loss when its users also attended regular classes about nutrition and exercise. The app alone didn't help. "The app is important because it helps people regulate their behavior, which is really hard to do," said Bonnie Spring, lead investigator of the study and a professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School ...