Using ESA's Herschel space observatory, astronomers have discovered vast comet belts surrounding two nearby planetary systems known to host only Earth-to-Neptune-mass worlds. The comet reservoirs could have delivered life-giving oceans to the innermost planets. In a previous Herschel study, scientists found that the dusty belt surrounding nearby star Fomalhaut must be maintained by collisions between comets. In the new Herschel study, two more nearby planetary systems – GJ 581 and 61 Vir – have been found to host vast amounts of cometary debris. Herschel detected ...

Autism is a poorly understood family of related conditions. People with autism generally lack normal social interaction skills and engage in a variety of unusual and often characteristic behaviors, such as repetitive movements. While there is no specific medical treatment for autism, some success has been shown with early behavioral intervention. Understanding the importance of early diagnosis, researchers at Women & Infants' Brown Center for the Study of Children at Risk in collaboration with researchers at University of Pittsburgh have been studying the cry acoustics ...

Contact: David Hosansky hosansky@ucar.edu 303-497-8611 Zhenya Gallon zhenya@ucar.edu 303-497-8607 National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Flu outbreaks predicted with weather forecast techniques BOULDER – Scientists at Columbia University and the National Center for Atmospheric Research have adapted techniques used in modern weather prediction to generate local forecasts of seasonal influenza outbreaks. By predicting the timing and severity of the outbreaks, this system can eventually help health officials ...

Putnam Valley, NY. (Nov. 27, 2012) – A study published in the current issue of Cell Transplantation (21:8), now freely available on-line at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/ , reports that a team of researchers in South Korea have successfully engineered islet cell clusters (ICCs) that will improve pancreatic islet transplantation and offer promise for curing diabetes mellitus. Carried out by collaborating researchers at three universities in Seoul, Korea, the new process of creating ICCs included delivering a gene to single islet cells that increased their ...

As homeowners we are becoming cannier about turning down the thermostat to save our pennies and the planet but are we as energy conscious when we get to work? A new £1.3m project, being led by researchers at The University of Nottingham, is to look at people's attitudes to energy consumption in the workplace and how to encourage colleagues to work together in reducing their organisation's carbon footprint. Drawing on technical expertise at Nottingham's Horizon Digital Economy Research and design skills of experts at The University of Southampton, the five-year study ...

Putnam Valley, NY. (Nov. 27, 2012) – A study published in the current issue of Cell Transplantation (21:8), now freely available on-line at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/, has found that when mesenchymal cells derived from skeletal muscle (SM-MSCs) or adipose tissue (ADSCs) were injected into the heart muscle (myocardium) of separate groups of laboratory rats that had suffered a myocardial infarction, rats in both groups experienced significantly improved left ventricle function and smaller infarct size after cell therapy. The study, carried out by researchers ...

The thickest layers of global smog — caused by traffic, industry, and natural minerals, among other factors — are found over the world's megacities. But getting an accurate measurement of pollution is no easy task. On-the-ground monitoring stations do not always provide the most accurate picture —monitoring stations depend heavily on local positioning and some cities put stations in urban centers, while others build on the edge of a city. Now Prof. Pinhas Alpert of Tel Aviv University's Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences and head of the Porter School of Environmental ...

Water repelling molecules are said to be hydrophobic. The hydration – or formation of water interfaces around hydrophobic molecules – is important for many biological processes: protein folding, membrane formation, transport of proteins across an interface, the transmission of action potentials across membranes. It is involved as well in the process of creating mayonnaise, or in the fact that you can get rid of fat with soap. Hydrophobic interfaces although long studied, are poorly understood. Here's an amusing kitchen-table experiment to illustrate waters unusual properties: ...

Measles vaccine given with painless and easy-to-administer microneedle patches can immunize against measles at least as well as vaccine given with conventional hypodermic needles, according to research done by the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In the study, the researchers developed a technique to dry and stabilize the measles vaccine – which depends on a live attenuated virus – and showed that it remained effective for at least 30 days after being placed onto the microneedles. They also demonstrated that the ...

URBANA – University of Illinois scientists have found a way to boost current industry capabilities when it comes to reducing the number of E. coli 0157:H7 cells that may live undetected on spinach leaves. "By combining continuous ultrasound treatment with chlorine washing, we can reduce the total number of foodborne pathogenic bacteria by over 99.99 percent," said Hao Feng, a U of I professor of food science and human nutrition. According to Feng, the USDA is looking for proposed technologies that can achieve a 4 to 6 log reduction in pathogen cells (a 6 log reduction ...

Researchers at the University of Southampton are to undertake a new stage of a study aimed at improving the health and mobility of those suffering from the common complaint of 'walking on marbles' associated with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) in the feet. RA is the second most common form of arthritis in the UK, affecting almost 600,000 people, which results in the destruction of joints around the body caused by inflammation. Forefeet often contain some of the first joints to be affected and those with the condition often say that they feel like they are 'walking on marbles'. ...

She is a captive bred Sumatran orangutan. He is a neuroscientist specialising in cognitive and sensory systems research. With the help of specially adapted eye tracking equipment they are hoping to explain some of the mysteries of the visual brain and improve the lives of captive bred animals. Dr Neil Mennie, from The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC), has received funding from Ministry of Science and Technology and Innovation, Malaysia (MOSTI) to study the eye movements of Tsunami — a seven year old orangutan at The National Zoo of Malaysia (Zoo Negara). ...

Some infants are more susceptible to potentially life-threatening breathing problems after birth, and rare, inherited DNA differences may explain why, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study is the first to identify a single gene — ABCA3 — that is associated with a significant number of cases of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) in babies born at or near full term. RDS is the most common respiratory problem in newborns and the most common lung-related cause of death and disease among U.S. infants less than a year old. Their ...

Berkeley, CA — The installed price of solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems in the United States fell substantially in 2011 and through the first half of 2012, according to the latest edition of Tracking the Sun, an annual PV cost-tracking report produced by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The median installed price of residential and commercial PV systems completed in 2011 fell by roughly 11 to 14 percent from the year before, depending on system size, and, in California, prices fell by an additional 3 to 7 percent within ...

Philadelphia, PA, November 27, 2012 – Delayed wound healing is a major complication of diabetes because the physiological changes in tissues and cells impair the wound healing process. This can result in additional disease outcomes such as diabetic foot ulcer, a significant cause of morbidity in the growing population of diabetic patients. A new study has found that topically applied simvastatin accelerates wound healing in diabetic mice, suggesting important implications for humans with diabetes. This study is published in the December issue of The American Journal of ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (November 27, 2012) – A test to detect brain amyloid deposits associated with Alzheimer disease (AD) provides doctors with useful information on treatment and further testing for patients with cognitive impairment, according to a study published online by the journal Alzheimer Disease & Associated Disorders. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part ofWolters Kluwer Health. Positron emission tomography (PET) scans using a biomarker called florbetapir F18 can show amyloid plaques in the brain—a characteristic feature of AD. ...

PHILADELPHIA — Most healthy cells rely on a complicated process to produce the fuel ATP. Knowing how ATP is produced by the cell's energy storehouse – the mitochondria -- is important for understanding a cell's normal state, as well as what happens when things go wrong, for example in cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegeneration, and many rare disorders of the mitochondria. Two years ago, Kevin Foskett, PhD, professor of Physiology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues discovered that fundamental control of ATP production ...

A new review of existing studies points toward a potential role for vitamin D in helping to prevent dental caries, or tooth decay. The review, published in the December issue of Nutrition Reviews, encompassed 24 controlled clinical trials, spanning the 1920s to the 1980s, on approximately 3,000 children in several countries. These trials showed that vitamin D was associated with an approximately 50 percent reduction in the incidence of tooth decay. "My main goal was to summarize the clinical trial database so that we could take a fresh look at this vitamin D question," ...

Log exports from Washington, Oregon, northern California, and Alaska increased about nine percent in the third quarter of 2012, totaling 412 million board feet, according to the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station. At the same time, lumber exports decreased about eight percent to 186 million board feet, compared to the second quarter of this year. "Sixty-two percent of West coast log exports went to China during the third quarter," said Xiaoping Zhou, a research economist with the station who compiled the data. "China increased its importation of ...

1. Task Force Reviews Evidence to Update Hepatitis C Screening Recommendations for Asymptomatic Adults In 2004, the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommended against routine screening for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in asymptomatic adults who are not at increased risk for infection. At the time, the Task Force also found insufficient evidence to recommend for or against routine HCV screening for adults at high risk for infection. Since then, other groups have recommended screening higher-risk patients, including a recommendation by the Centers for ...

LOS ANGELES — Research conducted by University of Southern California (USC) and Children's Hospital Los Angeles scientists demonstrates that polluted air – whether regional pollution or coming from local traffic sources – is associated with autism. The study titled "Traffic Related Air Pollution, Particulate Matter, and Autism," shows that exposure to traffic-related air pollution during pregnancy and the first year of life is associated with a more than two-fold risk of autism. In addition, exposure to regional pollution consisting of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and small ...

What happens when the modern evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium collides with the older theory of mosaic evolution? Part of the answer comes from a new, wide-ranging study by paleobiologists Melanie J Hopkins at the Museum fuer Naturkunde Berlin and Scott Lidgard at the Field Museum in Chicago. Their results are published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). While processes of evolution are largely studied by observation and experiment in the living world, evolutionary tempo and mode – rates and patterns of change, respectively ...

While ensuring the safety of high school and college athletes is hardly controversial, the method and associated costs of doing so are hotly debated. Conducting electrocardiographic (ECG) screenings of all young competitive athletes in the United States would cost up to $69 billion over 20 years and save about 4,813 lives, making the cost per life saved over $10 million, according to a study published online today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. A corresponding editorial suggests that this number is inflated and "misleading" and blames the high ...

CHICAGO – Exposure to traffic-related air pollution, particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide during pregnancy and during the first year of a child's life appears to be associated with an increased risk of autism, according to a report published Online First by Archives of General Psychiatry, a JAMA Network publication. Autism is a diverse disorder with genetic and environmental factors likely contributing to its origins. Autism spectrum disorders are commonly characterized by problems in communication, social interaction and repetitive behaviors. Emerging evidence suggests ...

CHICAGO – A study of Medicare claims data suggests that eliminating payments for consultations commonly billed by specialists was associated with a net increase in spending on visits to both primary care physicians and specialists, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. Before 2010, Medicare payments for consultations were substantially higher than for office visits of similar complexity that were commonly billed by primary care physicians (PCPs). In January 2010, Medicare eliminated consultation payments ...