Ever find yourself briefly paralyzed as you're falling asleep or just waking up? It's a phenomenon is called sleep paralysis, and it's often accompanied by vivid sensory or perceptual experiences, which can include complex and disturbing hallucinations and intense fear. For some people, sleep paralysis is a once-in-a-lifetime experience; for others, it can be a frequent, even nightly, phenomenon. Researchers James Allan Cheyne and Gordon Pennycook of the University of Waterloo in Canada explore the factors associated with distress after sleep paralysis episodes in a ...

A century after Western explorers first crossed the dangerous landscapes of the Arctic and Antarctic, researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) have successfully deployed a self-guided robot that uses ground-penetrating radar to map deadly crevasses hidden in ice-covered terrains. Deployment of the robot--dubbed Yeti--could make Arctic and Antarctic explorations safer by revealing unseen fissures buried beneath ice and snow that could potentially claim human lives and expensive equipment. Researchers say Yeti opens the door to making polar travel ...

Infectious disease experts at Johns Hopkins have found that among people infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), co-infection with HIV, speeds damage and scarring of liver tissue by almost a decade. In a second study of HCV infection, the Johns Hopkins research team participated in the discovery of two genetic mutations that make it more likely that patients' immune systems can rid the body of HCV. Both studies are described in articles published online in February ahead of print in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. "Our latest study results suggest that ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Research by legal and psychological scholars has shown that apologies can result in better outcomes for wrongdoers in a number of legal settings, especially when the party perceived as the victim receives the apology. But new research conducted by a pair of University of Illinois law professors examines the influence of apologies on a different kind of legal decision – the decision of a bankruptcy judge to approve a debtor's proposed repayment plan. Debtors who apologized were seen as more remorseful and were expected to manage their finances more carefully ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (March 4, 2013) – Patients undergoing cerebral angiography and neurointerventional procedures on the brain are at very low risk of infection—even without preventive antibiotics, reports a study in the March 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. "These data suggest that the overall risk of infection associated with most neuroangiographic procedures is very low," according to the study by Dr. Prashant S. Kelkar and colleagues ...

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA (12:15 EST MARCH 4, 2013) — Researchers with the Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) today announced results of the Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epidemic (VOICE) study at the Conference for Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Atlanta, Georgia. The VOICE study tested oral and vaginal antiretroviral-based approaches as HIV prevention methods in 5,029 women in South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and managed by the MTN, the VOICE study was a major undertaking, which has provided ...

ENERGY – Reducing biorefinery waste . . . By introducing microbial fuel cells into the corn stover biorefinery waste recovery process, a team of researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has demonstrated a new way to produce bioenergy from the process waste stream. The process developed by ORNL's Abhijeet Borole and colleagues from the University of Tennessee and National Renewable Energy Laboratory provides a direct alternative to generate electricity compared to a mature but multi-step path that uses anaerobic digestion. Major advantages of the ORNL method include ...

A two-year-old child born with HIV infection and treated with antiretroviral drugs beginning in the first days of life no longer has detectable levels of virus using conventional testing despite not taking HIV medication for 10 months, according to findings presented today at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Atlanta. This is the first well-documented case of an HIV-infected child who appears to have been functionally cured of HIV infection—that is, without detectable levels of virus and no signs of disease in the absence of antiretroviral ...

If the word's nations are going to prevent tobacco smoking from causing one projected billion deaths by the end of this century, they must: Make tobacco control part of the agendas of United Nation's and other development agencies worldwide; Assure every sector of a nation including health, trade and finance officials work collectively to protect not only health but the harm tobacco places on their economy by passing laws to reduce use; Place health as the centerpiece of any decision on a trade treaty that includes tobacco; Diligently work toward a goal of reducing ...

University of Leicester psychologists have made an analysis of Richard III's character – aiming to get to the man behind the bones. Professor Mark Lansdale, Head of the University's School of Psychology, and forensic psychologist Dr Julian Boon have put together a psychological analysis of Richard III based on the consensus among historians relating to Richard's experiences and actions. They found that, while there was no evidence for Shakespeare's depiction of Richard III as a psychopath, he may have had "intolerance to uncertainty syndrome" – which may have manifested ...

In February, Greenpeace activist and actress Lucy Lawless, star of "Xena: Warrior Princess," was sentenced to 120 hours of community service for boarding a Shell oil rig to protest offshore Arctic drilling. Dramatic protests by Netherlands-based Greenpeace contrast sharply with the lobbying and letter-writing of the U.S.-based Sierra Club. The differences among those two groups and other international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) reflect the cultures of the nations where they are based, according to research by a University of Missouri political scientist. Individuals ...

University of Chicago physicists have succeeding in creating a vortex knot—a feat akin to tying a smoke ring into a knot. Linked and knotted vortex loops have existed in theory for more than a century, but creating them in the laboratory had previously eluded scientists. Vortex knots should, in principle, be persistent, stable phenomena. "The unexpected thing is that they're not," said Dustin Kleckner, a postdoctoral scientist at UChicago's James Franck Institute. "They seem to break up in a particular way. They stretch themselves, which is a weird behavior." This behavior ...

Matt Johnson fell in love with San Diego in 1998, and has resided here ever since. He is familiar with the local neighborhoods inside and out, and has the ability to assist you in selecting the best one for your family's needs. Matt got his start in real estate at the age of 9, helping his Dad turn dilapidated old houses into the gem of the neighborhood. He later continued on that tradition, becoming a professional home renovator with operations in two states. Several years later, he realized his passion was in the sales and marketing side, so he obtained his license ...

NEW YORK (March 3, 2013) -- The powerful master regulatory transcription factor called Bcl6 is key to the survival of a majority of aggressive lymphomas, which arise from the B-cells of the immune system. The protein has long been considered too complex to target with a drug since it is also crucial to the healthy functioning of many immune cells in the body, not just B cells gone bad. But now, in the journal Nature Immunology, researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College report that it is possible to shut down Bcl6 in the cancer, known as diffuse large B-cell lymphoma ...

An international group of researchers has discovered seven new regions of the human genome—called loci—that are associated with increased risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of blindness. The AMD Gene Consortium, a network of international investigators representing 18 research groups, also confirmed 12 loci identified in previous studies. The findings are reported online today in the journal Nature Genetics. Supported by the National Eye Institute (NEI), a part of the National Institutes of Health, the study represents the most comprehensive ...

March 3, 2013— (Bronx, NY) — Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have discovered how the most common genetic mutations in familial Parkinson's disease damage brain cells. The study, which published online today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, could also open up treatment possibilities for both familial Parkinson's and the more common form of Parkinson's that is not inherited. Parkinson's disease is a gradually progressing disorder of the nervous system that causes stiffness or slowing of movement. According to the Parkinson's ...

PHILADELPHIA – A multi-institution group of researchers has found new candidate disease proteins for neurodegenerative disorders. James Shorter, Ph.D., assistant professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Paul Taylor, M.D., PhD, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and colleagues describe in an advanced online publication of Nature that mutations in prion-like segments of two RNA-binding proteins are associated with a rare inherited degeneration disorder affecting muscle, brain, motor neurons and bone (called ...

Researchers at the University of Rochester and the University of Ottawa have applied a recently developed technique to directly measure for the first time the polarization states of light. Their work both overcomes some important challenges of Heisenberg's famous Uncertainty Principle and also is applicable to qubits, the building blocks of quantum information theory. They report their results in a paper published this week in Nature Photonics. The direct measurement technique was first developed in 2011 by scientists at the National Research Council, Canada, to measure ...

HOUSTON – Cancer vaccines that attempt to stimulate an immune system assault fail because the killer T cells aimed at tumors instead find the vaccination site a more inviting target, scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center report in Nature Medicine. A common substance used in many cancer vaccines to boost immune attack betrays the cause by facilitating a buildup of T cells at the vaccination site, which then summon more T cells to help with the perceived threat. "Vaccines stimulate production of T cells primed to attack the target cancer, and ...

A study led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has discovered mutations in two genes that lead to the death of nerve cells in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and related degenerative diseases. The same mutation occurred in both genes and led to the abnormal build-up of the proteins inside cells. These proteins play an essential role in normal RNA functioning and have also been linked to cancer, including the Ewing sarcoma, the second most common type of bone cancer in children and adolescents. The finding is the latest in ...

Scientists have produced an instruction manual for the human genome that provides a framework to better understand the relationship between an individual's genetic make-up and their lifestyle. The international team of researchers say their study – published in Nature Biotechnology – provides the best model yet to explain why individuals react differently to environmental factors such as diet or medication. "This research is the second important stage of our understanding of the human genome," said study author Professor Pedro Mendes, from The University of Manchester's ...

A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins Children's Center, the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the University of Massachusetts Medical School describe the first case of a so-called "functional cure" in an HIV-infected infant. The finding, the investigators say, may help pave the way to eliminating HIV infection in children. A report on the case is scheduled for presentation at a press conference on Sunday, March 3, at the 20th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Atlanta. Johns Hopkins Children's Center virologist Deborah Persaud, ...

Building on earlier pioneering work by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, an international consortium of university researchers has produced the most comprehensive virtual reconstruction of human metabolism to date. Scientists could use the model, known as Recon 2, to identify causes of and new treatments for diseases like cancer, diabetes and even psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. Each person's metabolism, which represents the conversion of food sources into energy and the assembly of molecules, is determined by genetics, environment and ...

MADISON — A multi-university team of researchers has artificially engineered a unique multilayer material that could lead to breakthroughs in both superconductivity research and in real-world applications. The researchers can tailor the material, which seamlessly alternates between metal and oxide layers, to achieve extraordinary superconducting properties — in particular, the ability to transport much more electrical current than non-engineered materials. The team includes experts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Florida State University and the University ...

(Boston) – An international group of researchers has discovered seven new regions of the human genome—called loci—that are associated with increased risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of blindness. The AMD Gene Consortium, a network of international investigators representing 18 research groups, also confirmed 12 loci identified in previous studies. The study, which is published online in Nature Genetics and represents the most comprehensive genome-wide analysis of genetic variations associated with AMD, was supported by the National Eye Institute ...