Soft horns and a tinkling piano form the backbone of "Fifty Degrees North, Four Degrees West," a jazz number with two interesting twists: it has no composer and no actual musicians. Unless you count bacteria and other tiny microbes, that is. The song is the brainchild of Peter Larsen, a biologist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. Larsen, it turns out, has no musical training at all; his interests run less towards the blues and more towards blue-green algae. When faced with an avalanche of microbial data collected from samples taken from ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- An international research team has created unique photoluminescent nanoparticles that shine clearly through more than 3 centimeters of biological tissue -- a depth that makes them a promising tool for deep-tissue optical bioimaging. Though optical imaging is a robust and inexpensive technique commonly used in biomedical applications, current technologies lack the ability to look deep into tissue, the researchers said. This creates a demand for the development of new approaches that provide high-resolution, high-contrast optical bioimaging that doctors ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Diving into a pool from a few feet up allows you to enter the water smoothly and painlessly, but jumping from a bridge can lead to a fatal impact. The water is the same in each case, so why is the effect of hitting its surface so different? This seemingly basic question is at the heart of complex research by a team in MIT's Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE) that studied how materials react to stresses, including impacts. The findings could ultimately help explain phenomena as varied as the breakdown of concrete under sudden stress ...

Orange, Calif., Sept. 28, 2012 — Routine screening for psychiatric, cognitive and social problems could enhance the quality of care and quality of life for children and adults with epilepsy, according to a study by UC Irvine neurologist Dr. Jack Lin and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Amedeo Avogadro University in Italy. Physicians who treat those with epilepsy often focus on seizures, Lin said. However, patients show an increased prevalence of psychiatric issues (mood, anxiety or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders), cognitive disorders (in ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. —Nurses and other hospital workers, especially those who work long hours or the night shift, often report trying to juggle the demands of the job and family obligations. A study out today by The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS) suggests that the higher the work-family conflict the greater the risk that health care workers will suffer from neck and other types of musculoskeletal pain. "Work-family conflict can be distracting and stressful for hospital employees," says lead author of the study Seung-Sup Kim, ...

Santa Barbara – A study published in Science magazine and co-authored by Bren School Sustainable Fisheries Group (SFG) researchers and their colleagues confirms suspicions that thousands of "data-poor" fisheries, representing some 80 percent of the world's fisheries, are in decline but could recover with proper management. The authors of "Status and Solutions for the World's Unassessed Fisheries" also found that taking quick action to allow depleted stocks to recover to sustainable levels could result in future catches that are 8 to 40 percent larger than are predicted ...

At least when it comes to female politicians, perhaps you can judge a book by its cover, suggest two UCLA researchers who looked at facial features and political stances in the U.S. House of Representatives. "Female politicians with stereotypically feminine facial features are more likely to be Republican than Democrat, and the correlation increases the more conservative the lawmaker's voting record," said lead author Colleen M. Carpinella, a UCLA graduate student in psychology. The researchers also found the opposite to be true: Female politicians with less stereotypically ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Thanks to studies of a fish that gives birth to live young and is not fished commercially, scientists at UC Santa Barbara have discovered that food availability is a critical limiting factor in the health of fish populations. The scientists were able to attach numbers to this idea, based on 16 years of data. They discovered that the availability of enough food can drive up to a 10-fold increase in the per capita birthrate of fish. And, with adequate food, the young are up to 10 times more likely to survive than those without it. This research, ...

Uncovering the sources of fresh food contamination could become faster and easier thanks to analysis done at Sandia National Laboratories' National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC). The study, in the International Journal of Critical Infrastructures, demonstrates how developing a probability map of the food supply network using stochastic network representation might shorten the time it takes to track down contaminated food sources. Stochastic mapping shows what is known about how product flows through the distribution supply chain and provides a ...

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each year nearly 100,000 hospitalized patients die from infections acquired while undergoing treatment for other conditions. While many factors may contribute to the phenomenon, nurse staffing (i.e., the number of patients assigned to a nurse) has been implicated as a major cause. A recent study by Dr. Jeannie P. Cimiotti of Rutgers College of Nursing and co-researchers concludes that the degree of "burnout" experienced by nurses could relate directly to the frequency with which patients acquire infections during ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The same "green revolution" concepts that have revolutionized crop agriculture and helped to feed billions of people around the world may now offer similar potential in forestry, scientists say, with benefits for wood, biomass production, drought stress and even greenhouse gas mitigation. Researchers at Oregon State University recently outlined the latest findings on reduced height growth in trees through genetic modification, and concluded that several advantageous growth traits could be achieved for short-rotation forestry, bioenergy, or more efficient ...

Working with mice, Johns Hopkins researchers have solved a key part of a muscle regeneration mystery plaguing scientists for years, adding strong support to the theory that muscle mass can be built without a complete, fully functional supply of muscle stem cells. "This is good news for those with muscular dystrophy and other muscle wasting disorders that involve diminished stem cell function," says Se-Jin Lee, M.D., Ph.D., lead author of a report on the research in the August issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and professor of molecular biology ...

Incarcerated patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection are just as likely to respond to treatment for the disease as patients in the community, according to findings published in the October issue of Hepatology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. The study from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) in Madison found that HCV patients in prison were just as likely to achieve a sustained viral response (SVR) as non-incarcerated patients. Medical evidence reports that chronic ...

A new regulator for heart formation has been discovered by studying how embryonic stem cells adjust the packaging of their DNA. This approach to finding genetic regulators, the scientists say, may have the power to provide insight into the development of any tissue in the body – liver, brain, blood and so on. A stem cell has the potential to become any type of cell. Once the choice is made, the cell and other stem cells committed to the same fate divide to form organ tissue. A University of Washington-led research team was particularly interested in how stem cells ...

Alexandria, Va., USA – Today, the International and American Associations for Dental Research (IADR/AADR) published a study titled "Enhancing Oral Health via Sense of Coherence: a Cluster Randomized Trial." This study by lead author Orawan Nammontri, University of Sheffield, UK, is published in the IADR/AADR Journal of Dental Research. Sense of coherence (SOC) has been related to oral health behaviors and oral health related quality of life (OHRQoL) in observational studies. This cluster randomized trial aimed to test the effect of an intervention to enhance SOC on OHRQoL ...

This press release is available in Spanish.A grass fed to cattle throughout much of the tropics may become a biofuel crop that helps the nation meet its future energy needs, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientist. Napiergrass (Pennisetum purpureum) is fairly drought-tolerant, grows well on marginal lands, and filters nutrients out of runoff in riparian areas, according to William Anderson, a geneticist in the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Crop Genetics and Breeding Research Unit in Tifton, Ga. ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific ...

The deserts of Utah and Nevada have not always been dry. Between 14,000 and 20,000 years ago, when large ice caps covered Canada during the last glacial cooling, valleys throughout the desert southwest filled with water to become large lakes, scientists have long surmised. At their maximum size, the desert lakes covered about a quarter of both Nevada and Utah. Now a team led by a Texas A&M University researcher has found a new water cycle connection between the U.S. southwest and the tropics, and understanding the processes that have brought precipitation to the western ...

Using a continent-spanning telescope, an international team of astronomers has peered to the edge of a black hole at the center of a distant galaxy. For the first time, they have measured the black hole's "point of no return" - the closest distance that matter can approach before being irretrievably pulled into the black hole. A black hole is a region in space where the pull of gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. Its boundary is known as the event horizon. "Once objects fall through the event horizon, they're lost forever," says lead author ...

Fishing hooks aren't the only hooks found in east-central Mexican waters. A new species of freshwater fish described by a North Carolina State University researcher has several interesting – and perhaps cringe-inducing – characteristics, including a series of four hooks on the male genitalia. Females of the new species – the llanos mosquitofish, or Gambusia quadruncus – also have distinguishing characteristics, including a colorful anal spot. A paper describing the new species, which lives in a diversity hotspot and seemingly branched off from its closest relative ...

Studying leukemia in mice, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have reduced a life-threatening complication of stem cell transplants, the only curative treatment when leukemia returns. About 50 percent of leukemia patients who receive stem cells from another person develop graft-versus-host disease, a condition where donor immune cells attack the patient's own body. The main organs affected are the skin, liver and gut. Now, the scientists have shown they can redirect donor immune cells away from these vital organs. Steering immune cells ...

RICHLAND, Wash. -- Anyone who owns an electronic device knows that lithium ion batteries could work better and last longer. Now, scientists examining battery materials on the nano-scale reveal how nickel forms a physical barrier that impedes the shuttling of lithium ions in the electrode, reducing how fast the materials charge and discharge. Published last week in Nano Letters, the research also suggests a way to improve the materials. The researchers, led by the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Chongmin Wang, created high-resolution 3D ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- The point of no return: In astronomy, it's known as a black hole — a region in space where the pull of gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. Black holes that can be billions of times more massive than our sun may reside at the heart of most galaxies. Such supermassive black holes are so powerful that activity at their boundaries can ripple throughout their host galaxies. Now, an international team, led by researchers at MIT's Haystack Observatory, has for the first time measured the radius of a black hole at the center of a distant ...

A strange thing about black holes: they shine. The current issue of Science Express features a paper by the Event Horizon telescope team – a collaboration that includes Avery Broderick, Associate Faculty at Perimeter Institute – that may shed light on the origin of the bright jets given off by some black holes. In a world first, the team has been able to look at a distant black hole and find out where its jets are launched from: the "launchpad". Many galaxies, including our own Milky Way, have a huge black hole lurking at their cores. In about 10 percent of such galaxies, ...

Los Angeles, CA (September 27, 2012) – Since the newspaper industry started to experience a major decrease in readership in recent years, many people have deemed the internet and other forms of new media as the culprits. However, a recent study published in the Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, a SAGE Journal, finds that sales are down because readers need more engaging and stimulating content. Study authors Rachel Davis Mersey, Edward C. Malthouse, and Bobby J. Calder suggested that it is crucial for journalists and practitioners to focus their efforts on creating ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Not all aggressive children are aggressive for the same reasons, according to Penn State researchers, who found that some kindergartners who are aggressive show low verbal abilities while others are more easily physiologically aroused. The findings suggest that different types of treatments may be needed to help kids with different underlying causes for problem behavior. "Aggressive responses to being frustrated are a normal part of early childhood, but children are increasingly expected to manage their emotions and control their behavior when ...