The highest rates of infection were in children, with 47 per cent of those aged five to 19 showing signs of having caught the virus. Older people were affected less, with only 11 per cent of people aged 65 or older becoming infected. The findings come from an international collaboration led by the World Health Organization and Imperial College London, which analysed data from 19 countries, including the UK, US, China and India, to assess the global impact of the 2009 influenza pandemic. The results, published in the journal Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, showed ...

Internationally renowned climate researcher Caroline Leck of Stockholm University has evaluated the Norwegian project and is enthusiastic. "These results are truly sensational," says Dr Leck. "If confirmed by other studies, this could have far-reaching impacts on efforts to achieve the political targets for climate." Temperature rise is levelling off After Earth's mean surface temperature climbed sharply through the 1990s, the increase has levelled off nearly completely at its 2000 level. Ocean warming also appears to have stabilised somewhat, despite the fact that ...

PITTSBURGH—The language and reading comprehension skills of low-income upper elementary-school students—especially English-language learners—can improve markedly if trained literacy coaches engage teachers in conducting interactive text discussions with students, according to a three-year University of Pittsburgh study. The Pitt researchers report in the journal Learning and Instruction that language and reading comprehension showed measurable improvement for young students when their teachers had worked "at-elbow" with content-specific literacy coaches to foster a more ...

This press release is available in Spanish. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists in Fort Pierce, Fla. are helping citrus growers and juice processors address the threat posed by Huanglongbing (HLB), a disease that is costing the citrus industry millions of dollars each year. Citrus trees infected with HLB, also called citrus greening, usually die within five to 10 years. Fruit on infected trees often falls to the ground before harvest, and fruit that remains on trees may become misshapen and sometimes only partially ripen. Supervisory horticulturalist ...

Supplementing children's diets with fish oil, enrolling them in quality preschool, and engaging them in interactive reading all turn out to be effective ways to raise a young child's intelligence, according to a new report published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Using a technique called meta-analysis, a team led by John Protzko, a doctoral student at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, combined the findings from existing studies to evaluate the overall effectiveness ...

This press release is available in German. Scientists at Aalto University, Finland, have demonstrated results that show a huge improvement in the light absorption and the surface passivation on highly absorbing silicon nanostructures. This has been achieved by applying atomic layer coating. The results advance the development of devices that require high sensitivity light response such as high efficiency solar cells. This method provides extremely good surface passivation. Simultaneously, it reduces the reflectance further at all wavelengths. These results are ...

A team of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has shown that by bringing gold nanoparticles close to the dots and using a DNA template to control the distances, the intensity of a quantum dot's fluorescence can be predictably increased or decreased.* This breakthrough opens a potential path to using quantum dots as a component in better photodetectors, chemical sensors and nanoscale lasers. Anyone who has tried to tune a radio knows that moving their hands toward or away from the antenna can improve or ruin the reception. Although ...

Two American physicists outline the role played by Austrian physicist Friedrich Hasenöhrl in establishing the proportionality between the energy (E) of a quantity of matter with its mass (m) in a cavity filled with radiation. In a paper about to be published in EPJ H, Stephen Boughn from Haverford College in Pensylvannia and Tony Rothman from Princeton University in New Jersey argue how Hasenöhrl's work, for which he now receives little credit, may have contributed to the famous equation E=mc2. According to science philosopher Thomas Kuhn, the nature of scientific progress ...

Reducing the level of mutant p53 gene increases susceptibility to treatment Scientists from the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS) have discovered the workings of the gene that has been hindering treatment response in cancer patients. This discovery was made after 5 years of studying the mutant form of the p53 gene, the major tumor suppressor in humans, which is generally found mutated in over 50% of all type of human cancers. The dominant-negative (DN) effect of the mutant p53 gene in cancers was found to affect the outcome of cancer treatment modalities. DN effect ...

The sun's energy is virtually limitless, but harnessing its electricity with today's single-crystal silicon solar cells is extremely expensive — 10 times pricier than coal, according to some estimates. Organic solar cells — polymer solar cells that use organic materials to absorb light and convert it into electricity — could be a solution, but current designs suffer because polymers have less-than-optimal electrical properties. Researchers at Northwestern University have now developed a new design for organic solar cells that could lead to more efficient, less expensive ...

This press release is available in German. The detector combines near-unity detection efficiency with high timing resolution and has a very low error rate. The results have been published by Nature Communications (doi:10.1038/ncomms2307). Ultrafast, efficient, and reliable single-photon detectors are among the most sought-after components in photonics and quantum communication, which have not yet reached maturity for practical application. Physicist Dr. Wolfram Pernice of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), in cooperation with colleagues at Yale University, ...

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has demonstrated a novel chip-scale instrument made of carbon nanotubes that may simplify absolute measurements of laser power, especially the light signals transmitted by optical fibers in telecommunications networks. The prototype device, a miniature version of an instrument called a cryogenic radiometer, is a silicon chip topped with circular mats of carbon nanotubes standing on end.* The mini-radiometer builds on NIST's previous work using nanotubes, the world's darkest known substance, to make an ultraefficient, ...

A new study that provides surprising details on changes in Earth's climate from more than 100,000 years ago indicates that the last interglacial--the period between "ice ages"--was warmer than previously thought and may be a good analog for future climate, as greenhouse gases increase in the atmosphere and global temperatures rise. The research findings also indicate that melting of the massive West Antarctic ice sheet may have contributed more to sea-level rise at that time than melting of the Greenland ice sheet. The new results from the North Greenland Eemian Ice ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Jan. 25, 2013 – Not surprisingly, a cancer diagnosis creates stress. And patients with prostate cancer show higher levels of anxiety compared to other cancer patients. A new study by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center indicates that stress is not just an emotional side effect of the diagnosis; it also can reduce the effectiveness of prostate cancer drugs and accelerate the development of prostate cancer. The findings are published in the February issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The Wake Forest Baptist team, headed ...

Montreal, January 25, 2013 – By achieving the synthesis of a novel nanohybrid structure by means of the pulsed laser ablation (PLA) technique, Professor My Ali El Khakani and his team paved the way for a new generation of optoelectronic materials. The combination of carbon nanotubes and lead sulfide (PbS) nanoparticles was performed using an effective and relatively simple process that offers considerable latitude for creating other nanohybrids for a variety of applications. The INRS Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications Research Centre researcher's work, published in the ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The "empty nest" of past generations, in which the kids are grown up and middle-aged adults have more time to themselves, has been replaced in the United States by a nest that's full – kids who can't leave, can't find a job and aging parents who need more help than ever before. According to a new study by researchers at Oregon State University, what was once a life stage of new freedoms, options and opportunities has largely disappeared. An economic recession and tough job market has made it hard on young adults to start their careers and families. ...

Vanderbilt biochemists have discovered that the process bacteria undergo when they become drug resistant can act as a powerful tool for drug discovery. Their findings – reported this week in the Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – should give a major boost to natural products drug discovery – the process of finding new drugs from compounds isolated from living organisms – by substantially increasing the number of novel compounds that scientists can extract from individual microorganisms. Bacteria have traditionally been the ...

PULLMAN, Wash.—Washington State University researchers have lengthened their list of environmental toxicants that can negatively affect as many as three generations of an exposed animal's offspring. Writing in the online journal PLOS ONE, scientists led by molecular biologist Michael Skinner document reproductive disease and obesity in the descendants of rats exposed to the plasticizer bisephenol-A, or BPA, as well DEHP and DBP, plastic compounds known as phthalates. In a separate article in the journal Reproductive Toxicology, they report the first observation of cross-generation ...

Highlights The breast milk of mothers taking the immunosuppressant tacrolimus contains only very low levels of the drug. Women taking tacrolimus who wish to breast-feed after appropriate counseling should not be discouraged from doing so. Increasing numbers of pregnant women are taking tacrolimus after organ transplantation and for other conditions. Washington, DC (January 24, 2013) — Women taking the immunosuppressant tacrolimus can rest assured that breast feeding will not elevate their babies' exposure to the drug, according to a study appearing in an upcoming ...

Highlights Among people without diabetes or kidney disease, 10-year mortality was 7.7%. Among individuals with diabetes but without kidney disease, mortality was 11.5%. Among those with both diabetes and kidney disease, mortality was 31.1%. 26 million people in the US and 340 million people in the world have type 2 diabetes. Washington, DC (January 24, 2013) — One in every 10 Americans has diabetes, and a third or more of those with the condition will develop kidney disease. It may be possible to live a long and healthy life with diabetes, but once kidney disease ...

Northwestern University graduate student Jonathan Barnes had a hunch for creating an exotic new chemical compound, and his idea that the force of love is stronger than hate proved correct. He and his colleagues are the first to permanently interlock two identical tetracationic rings that normally are repelled by each other. Many experts had said it couldn't be done. On the surface, the rings hate each other because each carries four positive charges (making them tetracationic). But Barnes discovered by introducing radicals (unpaired electrons) onto the scene, the researchers ...

NEW YORK (Jan. 24, 2013) -- A team of researchers led by Weill Cornell Medical College is calling into question the published statistics, methods and findings of a highly publicized research study that claimed bedside electroencephalography (EEG) identified evidence of awareness in three patients diagnosed to be in a vegetative state. The new reanalysis study led by Weill Cornell neurologists Drs. Andrew Goldfine, Jonathan Victor, and Nicholas Schiff, published in the Jan. 26 issue of the journal Lancet, reports the statistical results and methodology used by a research ...

Using a satellite X-ray telescope combined with terrestrial radio telescopes the pulsar was found to flip on a roughly half-hour timescale between two extreme states; one dominated by X-ray pulses, the other by a highly-organised pattern of radio pulses. The research was led by Professor Wim Hermsen from The Netherlands Institute for Space Research and the University of Amsterdam and will appear in the journal Science on the 25th January 2013. Researchers from Jodrell Bank Observatory, as well as institutions around the world, used simultaneous observations with the ...

Nearly the entire genetic landscape of the most common form of brain tumor can be explained by abnormalities in just five genes, an international team of researchers led by Yale School of Medicine scientists report online in the Jan. 24 edition of the journal Science. Knowledge of the genomic profile of the tumors and their location in the brain make it possible for the first time to develop personalized medical therapies for meningiomas, which currently are only managed surgically. Meningioma tumors affect about 170,000 patients in the United States. They are usually ...

Claims that most species will go extinct before they can be discovered have been debunked in the latest issue of Science, by researchers from The University of Auckland, Griffith University, and the University of Oxford. The scientists show that the claims are based on two key misconceptions: an over-estimation of how many species may exist on Earth, and the erroneous belief that the number of taxonomists (people who describe and identify species) is declining. "Our findings are potentially good news for the conservation of global biodiversity," says lead author Associate ...