Contact: Bingyun Sun, 778.782.9097, bingyun_sun@sfu.ca Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca Simon Fraser University is Canada's top-ranked comprehensive university and one of the top 50 universities in the world under 50 years old. With campuses in Vancouver, Burnaby and Surrey, B.C., SFU engages actively with the community in its research and teaching, delivers almost 150 programs to more than 30,000 students, and has more than 120,000 alumni in 130 countries. Simon Fraser University: Engaging Students. Engaging Research. Engaging Communities. ...

Creeping climate change in the Southwest appears to be having a negative effect on pinyon pine reproduction, a finding with implications for wildlife species sharing the same woodland ecosystems, says a University of Colorado Boulder-led study. The new study showed that pinyon pine seed cone production declined by an average of about 40 percent at nine study sites in New Mexico and northwestern Oklahoma over the past four decades, said CU-Boulder doctoral student Miranda Redmond, who led the study. The biggest declines in pinyon pine seed cone reproduction were at the ...

Miniaturized laboratory-on-chip systems promise rapid, sensitive, and multiplexed detection of biological samples for medical diagnostics, drug discovery, and high-throughput screening. Using micro-fabrication techniques and incorporating a unique design of transistor-based heating, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are further advancing the use of silicon transistor and electronics into chemistry and biology for point-of-care diagnostics. Lab-on-a-chip technologies are attractive as they require fewer reagents, have lower detection limits, ...

A multi-site clinical trial including the University of Colorado Cancer Center shows that the benefit of Bright IDEAS problem-solving skills training goes beyond teaching parents to navigate the complex medical, educational, and other systems that accompany a child's diagnosis of cancer – the training also leads to durable reduction in mothers' levels of anxiety and symptoms of posttraumatic stress, and improves overall coping with a child's illness. Results of the study were published online last week in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. "Earlier research shows that ...

PHILADELPHIA – A recently described master regulator protein may explain the development of aberrant cell growth in the pancreas spurred by inflammation A team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania profiled gene expression of mouse pancreatic ductal and duct-like cells from different states - embryonic development, acute pancreatitis and K-ras mutation-driven carcinogenesis - to find the molecular regulation of these processes. Broadly speaking, two cellular compartments are important in a normal pancreas, endocrine cells, which produce ...

In certain circles, such as publishing, it has been well-documented that female authors have taken male pen names to attract a larger audience and/or get their book published. But should marketers actually highlight gender and activate stereotypes to sell more products? A new study by USC Marshall Professor Valerie Folkes and Ohio State University Professor Shashi Matta looks at the issue of product perception of consumers through the lens of gender stereotypes. The researchers conclude that while traditional gender stereotypes can still have a significant influence on ...

TORONTO, ON – Cities around the world can significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by implementing aggressive but practical policy changes, says a new study by University of Toronto Civil Engineering Professor Chris Kennedy and World Bank climate change specialist Lorraine Sugar, one of Kennedy's former students. Kennedy and Sugar make the claim in 'A low carbon infrastructure plan for Toronto, Canada,' published in the latest issue of The Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering. The paper aims to show how cities can make a positive difference using realistic, ...

Ants are just about everywhere you look, and yet it's largely unknown how they manage to be so ubiquitous. Scientists have understood the carnal mechanism of ant reproduction, but until now have known little of how successful the daughters of a colony are when they attempt to found new colonies. For the first time, Stanford biologists have been able to identify specific parent ants and their own children in wild ant colonies, making it possible to study reproduction trends. And in a remarkable display of longevity, an original queen ant was found to be producing new ...

SAN FRANCISCO – February 12, 2013 – New findings from a landmark clinical trial show that although certain gene variants may predict whether a person is likely to develop age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a potentially blinding eye disease that afflicts more than nine million Americans, these genes do not predict how patients will respond to Lucentis™ and Avastin™, the two medications most widely used to treat the "wet" form of AMD. This new data from the Comparison of AMD Treatment Trials (CATT), published online in Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy ...

Edmonton—Ever wonder how sometimes people still get through security with explosives on their person? Research done in the University of Alberta's Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering has revealed a new way to better detect these molecules associated with explosive mixtures. A team of researchers including post-doctoral fellows Seonghwan Kim, Dongkyu Lee and Xuchen Liu, with research associate Charles Van Neste, visiting professor, Sangmin Jeon from the Pohang University of Science and Technology (South Korea), and Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering ...

Women who took folic acid supplements in early pregnancy almost halved the risk of having a child with autism. Beginning to take folic acid supplements later in pregnancy did not reduce the risk. This is shown in new findings from the ABC Study and Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study published in the Journal of The American Medical Association (JAMA). Women who took folic acid supplements from four weeks before conception to eight weeks into pregnancy had a 40 per cent lower risk of giving birth to children with childhood autism (classic autism). Use of folic acid ...

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Cyclone Gino as the storm continues to wind up in the southern Indian Ocean, consolidating and strengthening. Infrared data shows the storm has strengthened but it is headed for cooler waters which will weaken it in coming days. On Feb. 12 at 0841 UTC, NASA Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument that flies aboard the Aqua satellite captured infrared imagery of Cyclone Gino that showed the storm developed a large area of very cold, high cloud top temperatures around its center indicating powerful thunderstorms. Cloud top temperatures ...

NASA and NOAA satellites have provided animations and images of the coupling of two low pressure areas that created the now historic winter-time nor'easter that brought more than two feet of snow to portions of the New England states on Feb. 8 and 9, 2013. NASA released an animation of NOAA satellite imagery that shows the lifetime of the historic nor'easter. The nor'easter dropped between 2 and 3 feet of snowfall over the U.S. Northeast and left more than 650,000 without power in eight states, according to the Associated Press. Several governors established travel bans ...

A new study using data from a pair of gravity-measuring NASA satellites finds that large parts of the arid Middle East region lost freshwater reserves rapidly during the past decade. Scientists at the University of California, Irvine; NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., found during a seven-year period beginning in 2003 that parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran along the Tigris and Euphrates river basins lost 117 million acre feet (144 cubic kilometers) of total stored freshwater. That ...

ATLANTA- Mental health facilities that provide outpatient specialty services for youth are a critical element of the mental health care infrastructure, especially for youth who are uninsured or publically insured. In a Viewpoint article in the February 13 issue of JAMA, Janet Cummings, PhD, assistant professor of health policy and management at Emory's Rollins School of Public Health, presents data from the 2008 National Survey of Mental Health Treatment Facilities and examines the extent to which gaps exist in the mental health treatment system for youth. Based ...

LOS ANGELES (Feb. 12, 2013) – Two patients freed from severe to disabling effects of dystonia through deep brain stimulation therapy continued to have symptom relief for months after their devices accidentally were fully or partly turned off, according to a report published online Feb. 11 in the journal Movement Disorders. "Current thought is that symptoms will worsen within hours or days of device shut-off, but these two young men continued to have clinical benefit despite interruption of DBS therapy for several months. To our knowledge, these two cases represent the ...

Philadelphia, PA, February 13, 2013 – A new test may help to streamline genetic testing for Huntington Disease (HD) by generating accurate results, avoiding unnecessary additional testing, and improving turnaround time. The test, which uses chimeric or triplet repeat primed PCR (TP PCR) methodology, yielded results that were 100% concordant with standard genotyping methods in an analysis of 246 samples. The high sensitivity and specificity of the test could reduce the number of false negative results and facilitate both diagnosis and prognosis by correctly sizing the genetic ...

Researchers should study how people's social and personal norms are influenced by behavior and use their insights to help governments promote pro-environmental actions, a distinguished group of scholars writes in the March issue of BioScience. The authors maintain that effective policies induce not only short-term changes in behavior but also long-term changes in norms. More effective management of social norms will be necessary, they write, to persuade the public to accept the inconvenience and expense of many environmental policies. The interdisciplinary group, led by ...

Colorado DUI checkpoints lead to over 1,300 arrests in one weekend Article provided by James L. Finegan, P.C. Visit us at http://www.fineganduilaw.com The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) reports that over 26,000 people in the state are arrested for driving under the influence, or DUI, every year. These arrests are not just from enforcement officers pulling over obviously impaired drivers or issuing tickets after an accident, but also the result of officers testing drivers at DUI checkpoints. The state uses these checkpoints throughout the year, often ...

Slips, trips and falls: Serious hazard for nursing home residents Article provided by Ginsberg & Katsorhis, P.C. Visit us at http://www.gkf-law.com When we must place a loved one in the care of a nursing home, we must rely on the facility to protect the physical safety of the resident from a wide range of potential hazards. Falls are one of the most common risks to a resident's safety in these environments. In fact, recent research from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has revealed that nursing homes are also especially hazardous for the ...

Despite Increased Regulation, Truck Accident Fatalities Increase Article provided by Gelber & O'Connell, LLC Visit us at http://www.gelberoconnell.com When you are driving down the road, there is always a chance that you could be involved in an accident. Regardless of how safely you drive, other motorists may not do the same, making an accident inevitable. Perhaps you console yourself by thinking that if such an accident occurred, it would likely be a fender-bender with little damage and few injuries. However, if the other vehicle in the crash happens to ...

Criminal records need not haunt an ex-offender forever Article provided by Knight & Cerritell LLC Visit us at http://www.kclawyers.net/ A Connecticut resident who makes an unfortunate mistake leading to a criminal conviction can feel the consequences years later, even after serving whatever sentence and probation has been required. Problems for ex-offenders Across the nation, more than 10,000 people are released from America's prisons each week, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Within three years after release, about two-thirds of them will ...

The Small Businesses Do It Better live show platform includes an instant chat window where viewers interact with each other and the host, Carissa Dunphy. Throughout live programs, including this special episode with Barbara Corcoran, Carissa Dunphy fields questions from the audience, keeping the conversation dynamic, relevant and in absolute real-time. "Watching a live streaming interview with the exceptional Barbara Corcoran is rare," says Carissa Dunphy, host of Small Businesses Do It Better. "Having the opportunity to ask her a question is almost inconceivable. ...

Howard Cannon, Restaurant Expert Witness, and CEO says: "Each year our office receives thousands of calls requesting information about the services we provide. In response to those inquiries, and in an effort to help educate others about our restaurant litigation support and expert witness services, we developed a series of free videos that are available on our YouTube channel." http://www.youtube.com/restaurantexpertwtns Mr. Cannon's videos have already received thousands of views - one of the highlights being his recent appearance on Anderson Cooper. Cannon ...

From David Letterman and Stephen Colbert to Tina Fey and John Stewart, there's no end in sight to Prime-Time comedy firing satirical darts in the face of Conservatives. Inspired by the lack of return fire at Liberals, author JC Shannon has taken it upon himself to prove that being blue doesn't make you immune from laughter. In his new book, 'The Reparations of Bill Clinton', Shannon takes readers to his 'Teflon Hall of Fame' to meet a band of real-life characters worthy of wit. Synopsis: At the height of the Monica sex scandal, President Bill Clinton is taken to ...