The more choices people have, the riskier the decisions they make, according to a new study which sheds light on how we behave when faced with large amounts of information. Researchers at the University of Warwick and the University of Lugano set up a gambling game in which they analysed how decision-making is affected when people are faced with a large number of potential gambles. They found that a bias in the way people gather information leads them to take more risks when they choose a gamble from a large set of options, a phenomenon which researchers have labelled ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have discovered that a protein found in the cells surrounding pancreatic cancers play a role in the spread of the disease to other parts of the body. In a finding to be published in the March 25 issue of Oncogene, researchers in the lab of Carol Otey, PhD, found that the protein palladin enhances the ability of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) to assemble organelles known as invadopodia to break down the barriers between cells and create pathways for tumors to spread throughout the ...

Adults in India are substantially more likely to abstain from smoking at home if they are prohibited from smoking at work, a new study has found. According to data from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey India, 2009/2010, 64 per cent of adults who work in smokefree environments live in a smokefree home, compared with 42 per cent of those who work where smoking is permitted. The proportion of smokefree homes is higher in states with higher proportions of smokefree workplaces. The authors of the study, from Imperial College London and the Public Health Foundation of India ...

WASHINGTON, DC – March 25, 2013 – Until now most experimental vaccines against the highly lethal H5N1 avian influenza virus have lacked effectiveness. But a new vaccine has proven highly effective against the virus when tested in both mice and ferrets. It is also effective against the H9 subtype of avian influenza. The research is published online ahead of print in the Journal of Virology. The strength of the new vaccine is that it uses attenuated, rather than "killed" virus. (Killed viruses are broken apart with chemicals or heat, and they are used because they are ...

Los Angeles, CA (March 25, 2012) While the media is replete with examples of "normal" men who seek out prostitutes regularly, how common are prostitute-seeking men and how much do they differ from men in the normal population? According to a new comparison study by Dr. Martin A. Monto, University of Portland, and Dr. Christine Milrod, only about 14% of men across the U.S. have ever paid for sex in their lives and only 1% of those men had done so in the previous year. In addition, the majority of these men do not possess any "peculiar" qualities that distinguish them from ...

A team of industrial and university researchers has shown that nanoparticles with sizes smaller than 10 nanometers – approximately the width of a cell membrane – can be successfully incorporated into scintillation devices capable of detecting and measuring a wide energy range of X-rays and gamma rays emitted by nuclear materials. The proof-of-concept study, described in the Journal of Applied Physics, suggests that "nanocrystals" – nanoparticles clustered together to mimic the densely-packed crystals traditionally used in scintillation devices – may one day yield radiation ...

Hybrid ribbons of vanadium oxide (VO2) and graphene may accelerate the development of high-power lithium-ion batteries suitable for electric cars and other demanding applications. The Rice University lab of materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan determined that the well-studied material is a superior cathode for batteries that could supply both high energy density and significant power density. The research appears online this month in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters. The ribbons created at Rice are thousands of times thinner than a sheet of paper, ...

A mysterious parasitoid wasp was found in the Böhmerwald (Northeast Austria) and reared in the garden of the amateur entomologist Ewald Altenhofer of Gross Gerungs municipality, Austria. The parasitoid was identified by Kees van Achterberg, senior researcher at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, the Netherlands, as the rare Seleucus cuneiformis. It is the first time that a tip of its biology was discovered. The study was published in the open access journal Journal of Hymenoptera Research. The parasitoids reared by Mr Altenhofer belong to the peculiar genus ...

In Robert A. Heinlein's science-fiction novel, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, one of the characters states that butterflies are just "…self-propelled flowers." While Heinlein's description of the insect's aerodynamic ability is quite poetic, it does little to scientifically explain it. Four Japanese researchers have done a bit better by developing sophisticated numerical simulations of a butterfly's forward flight. In a paper in the American Institute of Physics' journal Physics of Fluids, the researchers describe how they mathematically modeled a butterfly as a four-link ...

Collaborating scientists from Nationwide Children's Hospital, Baylor Institute for Immunology Research, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine have identified an important mechanism for stimulating protective immune responses following seasonal influenza vaccinations. The study was published in Science Translational Medicine, a journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). While seasonal influenza vaccines protect 60 to 90 percent of healthy adults from "the flu," the mechanisms providing that protection are still not well understood. The study ...

Type 1 diabetes is a condition in which the body does not produce insulin and cannot convert sugar, starches and other food into energy. Generally diagnosed during childhood or adolescence, the disease requires lifelong access to medical care and intensive daily self-management. As children with Type 1 diabetes grow into young adults, they must leave their pediatric health care providers for adult providers. But the timing of this process and its impact on the young people's health had not been fully explored. In a new study published in the April issue of the journal ...

WASHINGTON, DC – March 25, 2013 – Mice with different naturally occurring stomach bacteria have distinct susceptibilities to disease caused by Helicobacter pylori, the well-known cause of ulcers in humans, according to a study published online ahead of print in the journal Infection and Immunity. This is the first study to document (in mice) that the presence of certain bacteria in the stomach microbiota can prevent pathology from H. pylori. The gastro-intestinal tract is a veritable ecosystem packed with microbes, and over the last decade, investigators have been discovering ...

BINGHAMTON, NY – Is there a double standard for gay parents? A new study published this month by a Binghamton University research team suggests that gay parents are being judged more harshly than straight parents. Members of Binghamton University's Interdisciplinary Research Group for the Study of Sexuality and Gender conducted a study of people's reactions to the parenting behaviors of gay and straight parents. Their results showed a clear pattern of negative reactions from study participants towards a gay couple engaging in exactly the same negative parenting behaviors ...

Irvine, Calif., March 25, 2013 — UC Irvine neurobiologists have found a novel molecular mechanism that helps trigger the formation of long-term memory. The researchers believe the discovery of this mechanism adds another piece to the puzzle in the ongoing effort to uncover the mysteries of memory and, potentially, certain intellectual disabilities. In a study led by Marcelo Wood of UC Irvine's Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory, the team investigated the role of this mechanism – a gene designated Baf53b – in long-term memory formation. Baf53b is one of several ...

On the morning of December 6, 1917, in the port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, near the U.S. border in Maine, a French ship, the Mont Blanc, filled with military explosives collided with another vessel. Twenty minutes later, a fire set off the Mont Blanc's volatile cargo and caused a catastrophic explosion—killing thousands and destroying an entire section of the city. Rescue efforts were dispatched immediately from the Canadian mainland as well as the United States, but confusion and lack of immediate information delayed some of the rescue efforts for hours. A recent joint ...

Two children with an aggressive form of childhood leukemia had a complete remission of their disease—showing no evidence of cancer cells in their bodies—after treatment with a novel cell therapy that reprogrammed their immune cells to rapidly multiply and destroy leukemia cells. A research team from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania published the case report of two pediatric patients Online First today in The New England Journal of Medicine. It will appear in the April 18 print issue. One of the patients, 7-year-old Emily Whitehead, ...

Being exposed to arguments between parents is associated with the way babies' brains process emotional tone of voice, according to a new study to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study, conducted by graduate student Alice Graham with her advisors Phil Fisher and Jennifer Pfeifer of the University of Oregon, found that infants respond to angry tone of voice, even when they're asleep. Babies' brains are highly plastic, allowing them to develop in response to the environments and encounters they experience. ...

(BOSTON) -- A flame retardant removed from children's pajamas 30 years ago but now used in polyurethane foam is prevalent in office environments, especially in older buildings, where urine testing of workers turned up widespread evidence of its biomarker, a new study led by Boston University School of Public Health researchers has found. The study, published in the journal Environment International, found that the chemical known as TDCPP -- chlorinated tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate, or 'chlorinated tris' -- was present in 99 percent of dust samples taken from participants' ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have released study results that show national treatment trends in the surgical management of patients with kidney disease. The study found that partial and complete kidney removal (total nephrectomy) and energy-based techniques to destroy tumors are all on the rise. Surprisingly, the patients most in need of kidney-sparing surgery are still more likely to undergo total nephrectomy. The findings recently published online in BJU International. "While the overall proportion of patients receiving kidney ...

NEW YORK (March 25, 2013) -- Two studies led by investigators at Weill Cornell Medical College shed light on the molecular biology of three blood disorders, leading to novel strategies to treat these diseases. The two new studies -- one published online March 17 by Nature Medicine and the other March 25 in the online edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation -- propose two new treatments for beta-thalassemia, a blood disorder which affects thousands of people globally every year. In addition, they suggest a new strategy to treat thousands of Caucasians of Northern ...

New England is expected to experience a "moderate" red tide this spring and summer, report NOAA-funded scientists studying the toxic algae that cause blooms in the Gulf of Maine. The "red tide" is caused by an alga Alexandrium fundyense, which produces a toxin that can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP). Red tide typically occurs annually along some portions of the Gulf of Maine coast. This year's outlook is similar to the 2012 red tide which was also classified as "moderate." As with the past five forecasts for this region, the 2013 outlook is based on the quantities ...

As the nation continues to grapple with the long-simmering issue of gun control, solutions are stymied by heated debates. To effectively influence a divided America, elected officials must take a broad perspective rather than focusing on specific incidents, according to a new psychology study from The University of Texas at Austin. The study, led by University of Texas at Austin psychology researchers Erin Burgoon and Marlone Henderson, is published in the March online issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. According to the findings, public officials ...

Scientists from the Nano-Science Center at the Niels Bohr Institut, Denmark and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, have shown that a single nanowire can concentrate the sunlight up to 15 times of the normal sun light intensity. The results are surprising and the potential for developing a new type of highly efficient solar cells is great. Due to some unique physical light absorption properties of nanowires, the limit of how much energy we can utilize from the sun's rays is higher than previous believed. These results demonstrate the great potential ...

Getting enough to eat is a basic human need – but at what cost to the environment? Research published in BioMed Central's journal Agriculture & Food Security demonstrates that as their crops on higher ground fail due to unreliable rainfall, people in countries like Uganda are increasingly relocating to wetland areas. Unless the needs of these people are addressed in a more sustainable way, overuse of wetland resources through farming, fishing, and hunting will continue. In 2009 it was estimated that about a third of Uganda's wetlands had been lost to growing crops and ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—March 24, 2013—Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have discovered that a certain type of DNA damage long thought to be particularly detrimental to brain cells can actually be part of a regular, non-harmful process. The team further found that disruptions to this process occur in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease—and identified two therapeutic strategies that reduce these disruptions. Scientists have long known that DNA damage occurs in every cell, accumulating as we age. But a particular type of DNA damage, known as a double-strand break, or DSB, ...