Religious and nonreligious organizations may have a similar impact on the ability of immigrants to acclimate to life in the U.S., despite the organizations' different motivations for providing charitable services, according to new research from Rice University. "There's been a lot of discussion as to whether religious organizations offer some special or unique benefit to immigrant groups that will help them better adapt to American society," said the study's lead author, Elaine Howard Ecklund, the Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Sociology and director of Rice's Religion ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. – The relationship between obesity and polycystic ovary syndrome may be exaggerated, likely because the women who actively seek care for the condition tend to be heavier than those identified through screening of the general population, researchers report. PCOS affects about 10 percent of women and is characterized by excess male hormone, irregular ovulation and menstruation as well as increased risk of metabolic diseases often associated with being overweight. The study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism looked at what have long been ...

Imagine a solar panel more efficient than today's best solar panels, but using 10 000 times less material. This is what EPFL researchers expect given recent findings on these tiny filaments called nanowires. Solar technology integrating nanowires could capture large quantities of light and produce energy with incredible efficiency at a much lower cost. This technology is possibly the future for powering microchips and the basis for a new generation of solar panels. Despite their size, nanowires have tremendous potential for energy production. "These nanowires capture ...

Some species of birds reproduce not by rearing their own young, but by handing that task on to adults of other species. Known as brood parasitism, this habit has been most thoroughly researched in the cuckoo. Previous research has found, however, that the nests of martins and swallows in Europe are rarely parasitized by cuckoos. A new study by Wen Liang from the Hainan Normal University in China and his colleagues suggests that swallows build their nests close to humans to reduce their susceptibility to brood parasitism. The findings are published in Springer's journal ...

Shaken, not stirred, is the essence of new research that's showing promise in creating the chemical reactions necessary for industries such as pharmaceutical companies, but eliminating the resulting waste from traditional methods. James Mack, a University of Cincinnati associate professor of chemistry, will present this research into greener chemistry on April 9, at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans. Instead of using solutions to create chemical reactions needed to manufacture products such as detergents, plastics and pharmaceuticals, ...

An analysis of U.S. Supreme Court decisions suggests "historical amnesia" regarding the growing power of speech rights for corporations in electronic media, versus the First Amendment rights of individuals. Jeff Blevins, associate professor and head of the University of Cincinnati's Department of Journalism, will present his research on Tuesday, April 9, at the 58th annual convention of the Broadcast Education Association in Las Vegas. Blevins' presentation, titled "Historical Amnesia in First Amendment Jurisprudence on Corporate Power and Electronic Media," suggests ...

Scientists have described small genetic changes that enable the H5N1 bird flu virus to replicate more easily in the noses of mammals. So far there have only been isolated cases of bird flu in humans, and no widespread transmission as the H5N1 virus can't replicate efficiently in the nose. The new study, using weakened viruses in the lab, supports the conclusions of controversial research published in 2012 which demonstrated that just a few genetic mutations could enable bird flu to spread between ferrets, which are used to model flu infection in humans. Researchers ...

London (08 April 2013). New research on patients' experiences of health services and how these relate to their expectations and satisfaction, published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, reveals that older people have higher expectations of their care and that they believe that their expectations are being met. The research questions prevailing stereotypes that characterise older patients as being satisfied with their care because their expectations are lower. Patients visiting their GP and hospital outpatient departments were surveyed before and after their ...

Contact: Ken Chawkin kchawkin@mum.edu 641-470-1314 Maharishi University of Management Transcendental Meditation significantly reduces posttraumatic stress in African refugees New study reports immediate and dramatic reductions to a non-symptomatic level after 30 days of TM practice remaining low at endpoint of 135 days VIDEO: This video was taken of Esperance Ndozi, one of the Congolese refugees in the study. She was interviewed before learning the Transcendental ...

Mobile phone batteries that last longer, car batteries that enable you to drive further, storage that accumulates a lot of energy from wind and solar generators: many applications require better batteries. The research essentially focuses on three aspects here: researchers want to increase the energy density – in other words store more energy in a smaller battery. They are also looking to improve the discharging and charging speed by changing and controlling the material, shape and size of the electrochemically active particles and the structure of the battery electrodes ...

VIDEO: Research from Nathalie Bérubé, Ph.D., Western's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and Lawson Health Research Institute, found that the loss of the gene ATRX increases DNA damage locally in... Click here for more information. Research from Western University and Lawson Health Research Institute sheds new light on a gene called ATRX and its function in the brain and pituitary. Children born with ATRX syndrome have cognitive defects and developmental ...

This press release is available in Spanish. A study led by the Membrane Nanomechanics group of the Biophysics Unit of the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country has made it possible to characterise the functioning of a protein responsible for cell membrane splitting. The results of the study, published in the prestigious journal Science, make it possible to see the basic mechanisms of cell life from a fresh perspective, like the fusion and splitting of cell membranes. What is more, the methodology developed will allow various neuromuscular disorders to be diagnosed. Cells ...

The incidence of head and neck cancer caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV) has tripled since the 1970s and continues to grow; better therapy is needed; This study discovered a new mechanism by which HPV causes head and neck cancer, and the researchers designed a drug that blocks the mechanism; The findings could lead to a safer, more effective therapy for HPV-caused cancer. COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers have discovered a new mechanism by which the human papilloma virus (HPV) causes head and neck cancer, and they have designed a drug to block that mechanism. ...

A University of Alberta researcher has identified some of the strongest evidence ever found that dinosaurs could paddle long distances. Working together with an international research team, U of A graduate student Scott Persons examined unusual claw marks left on a river bottom in China that is known to have been a major travel-way for dinosaurs. Alongside easily identified fossilized footprints of many Cretaceous era animals including giant long neck dinosaur's researchers found a series of claw marks that Persons says indicates a coordinated, left-right, left-right ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (April 8, 2013) – The recent discovery of circulating "nano-sized extracellular vesicles" (EVs) carrying proteins and nucleic acids derived from brain tumors may lead to exciting new avenues for brain cancer diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment, according to a special article in the April 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. The review article by Dr. David Gonda from the laboratory of the corresponding author Dr. Clark ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (April 8, 2013) – A new functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technique may provide neurosurgeons with a non-invasive tool to help in mapping critical areas of the brain before surgery, reports a study in the April 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. Evaluating brain fMRI responses to a "single, short auditory language task" can reliably localize critical language areas of the brain—in healthy people as well ...

This press release is available in German. They provide power for electric cars, electric bicycles, Smartphones and laptops: nowadays, rechargeable lithium ion batteries are the storage media of choice when it comes to supplying a large amount of energy in a small space and lightweight. All over the world, scientists are currently researching a new generation of such batteries with an improved performance. Scientists headed by Maksym Kovalenko from the Laboratory of Inorganic Chemistry at ETH Zurich and Empa have now developed a nanomaterial which enables considerably ...

Philadelphia – Increasing the number of hours of sleep adolescents get each night may reduce the prevalence of adolescent obesity, according to a new study by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Results of the study show that fewer hours of sleep is associated with greater increases in adolescent body mass index (BMI) for participants between 14 and 18-years-old. The findings suggest that increasing sleep duration to 10 hours per day, especially for those in the upper half of the BMI distribution, could help to reduce the ...

Scientists from Cardiff University and the University of Barcelona have discovered new clues about past rapid climate change. The research, published this month in the journal Nature Geoscience, concludes that oceanographic reorganisations and biological processes are linked to the supply of airborne dust in the Southern Ocean and this connection played a key role in past rapid fluctuations of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, an important component in the climate system. The scientists studied a marine sediment core from the Southern Ocean and reconstructed chemical ...

The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) has just released an important new Policy Statement on "Noninvasive Prenatal Screening for Fetal Aneuploidy." The Statement can be found in the Publications section of the ACMG website at http://www.acmg.net and will soon be published in the peer-reviewed medical journal, Genetics in Medicine. As background, in recent decades there have been many changes and improvements in prenatal genetic screening and diagnosis. The risk, however, of testing with specimens obtained by invasive procedures such as amniocentesis ...

Alexandria, VA – For decades, scientists have used sophisticated instruments and computer models to predict the nature of droughts. With the threat of climate change looming large, the majority of these models have steadily predicted an increasingly frequent and severe global drought cycle. But a recent study from a team of researchers at Princeton University and the Australian National University suggests that one of these widely used tools — the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) — may be incorrect. The PDSI was developed in the 1960s as a way to convert multiyear ...

Researchers of the Psychiatry and Mental Health research group at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), in the Bellvitge University Hospital, have shown that patient age influences the onset of pathological gambling disorder and its clinical course. The study results were published in the Journal of Gambling Studies. Personality traits The study was conducted with more than 2,300 patients aged from 17 to 86 years. The coordinator of the study, Susana Jiménez-Murcia, explains that some personality traits associated with age are risk factors in different ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- For more than 40 years, snowmelt and runoff from Morocco's High Atlas Mountains has been dammed and redirected hundreds of kilometers to the south to irrigate oases farms in the arid, sub-Saharan Draa Basin. But a new study by American and Moroccan scientists finds that far from alleviating water woes for the six farm oases in the basin, the inflow of imported water has exacerbated problems by dramatically increasing the natural saltiness of their groundwater. Researchers from Duke University in Durham, N.C., and Ibn Zohr University in Agadir, Morocco, ...

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have discovered a new protein that controls the presence of the Vel blood group antigen on our red blood cells. The discovery makes it possible to use simple DNA testing to find blood donors for patients who lack the Vel antigen and need a blood transfusion. Because there has not previously been any simple way to find these rare donors, there is a global shortage of Vel-negative blood. The largest known accumulation of this type of blood donor is found in the Swedish county of Västerbotten, which exports Vel-negative blood all ...

Johns Hopkins scientists have found out how a gout-linked genetic mutation contributes to the disease: by causing a breakdown in a cellular pump that clears an acidic waste product from the bloodstream. By comparing this protein pump to a related protein involved in cystic fibrosis, the researchers also identified a compound that partially repairs the pump in laboratory tests. The mutation in question, known as Q141K, results from the simple exchange of one amino acid for another, but it prevents the protein ABCG2 from pumping uric acid waste out of the bloodstream and ...