DURHAM, N.H. – Underemployment has remained persistently high in the aftermath of the Great Recession with workers younger than 30 especially feeling the pinch, according to new research from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. "While on the decline, these rates have yet to return to their prerecession levels. Moreover, as the recession and other economic forces keeps older workers in the economy, openings for full-time jobs for younger workers might remain limited in the short-term," said Justin Young, a doctoral student in sociology at UNH and a ...

Mountain View, California; November 13, 2012. Edison Pharmaceuticals today announced the initiation of a phase 2B study entitled, "A Phase 2B Randomized, Placebo-Controlled, Double-Blind Clinical Trial of EPI-743 in Children with Leigh Syndrome." Four clinical trial sites have been selected in the United States: Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, Stanford University Medical Center – Palo Alto, California; Akron Children's Hospital – Akron, Ohio; Seattle Children's Hospital – Seattle, Washington; and Texas Children's Hospital, Baylor University – Houston, Texas. The ...

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil- Resveratrol is a naturally occurring dietary compound found in grapes, berries, and peanuts. This polyphenol protects plants against pathogens such as bacteria and fungi by inducing cell death in invading organisms. The compound was discovered in red wine in 1939 but by large did not attract the attention of the scientific community. More recently, pre-clinical studies have revealed the many beneficial properties of resveratrol. These include antidiabetic, cardioprotective, and chemopreventive effects. The latter has been associated to resveratrol ...

New Rochelle, NY, November 13, 2012—The average incidence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) among service members deployed in Middle East conflict zones has increased 117% in recent years, mainly due to proximity to explosive blasts. Therapeutic exposure to a high oxygen environment was hoped to minimize the concussion symptoms resulting from mild TBI, but hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) treatment may not offer significant advantages, according to an article in Journal of Neurotrauma, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free ...

Consumers will spend more to get rid of worn bills because they evoke feelings of disgust but are more likely to hold on to crisp new currency, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "The physical appearance of money can alter spending behavior. Consumers tend to infer that worn bills are used and contaminated, whereas crisp bills give them a sense of pride in owning bills that can be spent around others," write authors Fabrizio Di Muro (University of Winnipeg) and Theodore J. Noseworthy (University of Guelph). Does the physical appearance of ...

Analysis of 90 years of observational data has revealed that summer climates in regions across the globe are changing -- mostly, but not always, warming --according to a new study led by a scientist from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences headquartered at the University of Colorado Boulder. "It is the first time that we show on a local scale that there are significant changes in summer temperatures," said lead author CIRES scientist Irina Mahlstein. "This result shows us that we are experiencing a new summer climate regime in some regions." The ...

Marginalized groups of consumers can mobilize as an online community to seek greater inclusion in and more choice from mainstream markets, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "In order to gain greater inclusion in the mainstream market, fatshionistas have tried to persuade established companies to serve them better, publicized the offerings of companies that have tried meeting their needs, and looked for opportunities to interact with influential designers and retailers in order to influence them to do more to serve their needs," write authors ...

New Rochelle, NY, November 12, 2012--Radiolabeled agents are powerful tools for targeting and killing cancer cells and may help improve outcomes and lengthen survival times of patients with advanced disease that has spread beyond the initial tumor site. Effective therapy for metastatic cancer requires a combination of treatments, and the benefits of adding radionuclide therapy are explored in three studies published in Journal of Clinical Investigation, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The articles are available free on the Journal of Clinical ...

Consumers prefer matching brands for products that are consumed together because they believe products from the same brand have been designed to go together, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "How much do brand combinations affect how much consumers enjoy products that are consumed together? It seems that matching brand labels enhance enjoyment by encouraging consumers to believe that the products were tested and designed to go well together," write authors Ryan Rahinel and Joseph P. Redden (both University of Minnesota). In one study, consumers ...

Athens, Ga. – Scientists at the University of Georgia, Harvard Medical School and the University of Utah have discovered a new gene that regulates heme synthesis in red blood cell formation. Heme is the deep-red, iron-containing component of hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells responsible for transporting oxygen in the blood. The study was published online Nov. 7 and will be in the Nov. 22 print edition of the journal Nature. The findings promise to advance the biomedical community's understanding and treatment of human anemias and mitochondrial diseases, both ...

Consumers seek out novel consumption experiences to increase their knowledge about products but do so selectively based on their level of expertise, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "It has been said that experience is the best teacher. Perhaps the lessons learned through trying new experiences can help explain the reason consumers seek out novel experiences that do not necessarily offer the greatest satisfaction?" write authors Joshua J. Clarkson (University of Cincinnati), Chris Janiszewski (University of Florida), and Melissa D. Cinelli ...

WASHINGTON — November 13, 2012 — Scientists from the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and University of California, Berkeley have demonstrated that plants and soils could release large amounts of carbon dioxide as global climate warms. This finding contrasts with the expectation that plants and soils will absorb carbon dioxide and is important because that additional carbon release from land surface could be a potent positive feedback that exacerbates climate warming. The study was published today in a Journal of Climate paper titled, "Carbon cycle uncertainty ...

A controversial program that uses the private market to provide affordable malaria treatments to people in Africa has dramatically increased access to care and should be continued, according to a policy article by scholars including Ramanan Laxminarayan of Princeton University in the Nov. 2 issue of the journal Science. The researchers stated that the two-year old pilot program, which is up for renewal this November and enables reduced-price malaria drugs to be sold in shops and market stalls, successfully broadened the availability of effective malaria therapies and ...

Consumers may be less satisfied with the choices they make if their options are presented one at a time rather than all at once, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Sequentially presented choices create uncertainty. Consumers know that alternatives will become available in the future, but not what those alternatives will be. So there is always the possibility that a better option could later be available," write authors Cassie Mogilner (Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania), Baba Shiv (Stanford University), and Sheena Iyengar (Columbia ...

Optical Boomerangs P. Aleahmad et al. Physical Review Letters (forthcoming) P. Zheng et al. Physical Review Letters, 109, 193901 (2012) Bending light around corners is usually done with mirrors, but now scientists have realized self-bending light beams that propagate along curved paths. Two independent groups have reported experiments on special light waves that can skid around curves. The researchers demonstrated that modified laser beams can be made to move along parabolic and elliptical paths. Furthermore, if obstacles are in their path, these beams can self-heal, ...

Different units can be used to describe product features, but what may seem a rather arbitrary choice may have profound consequences for consumer product evaluations, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Consumers find it easier to process information expressed in default units and attribute the positive feeling associated with easier understanding to the product itself," write authors Christophe Lembregts and Mario Pandelaere (both Ghent University). Would you evaluate a cell phone differently if its warranty was expressed in days instead ...

WASHINGTON — Legal responses to juvenile offending should be grounded in scientific knowledge about adolescent development and tailored to an individual offender's needs and social environment, says a new report from the National Research Council. Accountability practices should not be carried over from criminal courts to juvenile courts; in particular, confinement should be used only in rare circumstances such as when a youth poses a high risk of harming others. The specific aims of the juvenile justice system are to hold youths accountable for wrongdoing, prevent further ...

AUSTIN, Texas — University of Texas at Austin sociologist Chandra Muller and economist Sandra Black have received a $3.2 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to study the effects of cognition on health, mortality, education and employment from high school and beyond. The three-year grant will support a study, led by Muller, that follows 14,825 respondents (born in 1964-65) of the nationally representative "High School and Beyond" survey. Designed and funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the multiphase survey examines educational, vocational and personal ...

(Boston) – A new Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) study has found that improving Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination rates in black women may require culturally sensitive approaches that address ethnic-specific barriers. The findings are published online in the November/December issue of the journal, Women's Health Issues. According to the Centers for Disease Control, HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection. There are more than 40 HPV types that can infect the genital areas of males and females and in advanced stages, can cause cervical cancer. ...

Metal-binding agents rubbed into the skin, prescribed by some alternative practitioners for the treatment of autism, are not absorbed and therefore are unlikely to be effective at helping the body excrete excess mercury. The study by Jennifer Cohen and Michelle Ruha from Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in the US, and their colleagues, provides evidence against the use of these treatments in children with autism. Their work is published online in Springer's Journal of Medical Toxicology. Metal-binding agents such as DMPS* have received significant attention in recent ...

Montreal, November 13, 2012 – The psychological scars of childhood abuse can last well into adulthood. New research from Concordia University shows the harm can have longterm negative physical effects, as well as emotional ones. Scientists hypothesize that stress in early childhood causes physiological changes that affect a victim's response to stress, which puts the individual at an increased risk of disease later in life. Jean-Philippe Gouin, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Chronic Stress and Health in Concordia's Department of Psychology, tested this link and ...

Many observational epidemiologic studies have found an inverse association between alcohol consumption and hematological cancers (such as lymphoma and leukemia). This study, based on the Million Women's Study in the UK, is large enough to permit an evaluation of associations with various types of such cancers. Further, it takes into account newer coding systems for morphology so that diseases associated with the lymphatic system can be separated from those of the myeloid system. The key findings are that alcohol consumption appears to lower the risk of several types ...

This press release is available in German. Blood vessels are extremely dynamic: depending on the external conditions, they can adapt their permeability for nutrients, their contractility, and even their shape. Unlike cardiac muscle cells, for example, the smooth muscle cells in blood vessels demonstrate a high degree of plasticity, so they can specialise or multiply as required, even repairing damage to the vessel wall. This vascular remodelling is evidently precisely regulated. Disruptions are extremely significant in conditions such as atherosclerosis or high blood ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA - Many species exhibit cooperative survival strategies — for example, sharing food or alerting other individuals when a predator is nearby. However, there are almost always freeloaders in the population who will take advantage of cooperators. This can be seen even among microbes such as yeast, where "cheaters" consume food produced by their neighbors without contributing any of their own. In light of this, evolutionary biologists have long wondered why cooperation remains a viable survival strategy, since there will always be others who cheat. Now, MIT physicists ...

AMHERST, Mass. – It may seem like common sense that the quality of online video streaming affects how willing viewers are to watch videos at a website. But until computer science researcher Ramesh Sitaraman at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and collaborators at Akamai developed a way to rigorously study the question, no one had been able to scientifically test the assumption. They conducted the first large-scale study of its kind to quantitatively demonstrate how video stream quality causes changes in viewer behavior. "Video stream quality is a very big topic ...