Experts believe that plain packaging of tobacco products would cut smoking, a new study has found. Tobacco control experts from around the world estimate that two years after the introduction of generic packaging the number of adult smokers would be reduced by one percentage point (in the UK - from 21 to 20%*), and the percentage of children trying smoking would be reduced by three percentage points (in the UK - from 27 to 24%*). The Cambridge research was published today in the journal BMC Public Health. Because Australia, the first country to implement plain packaging, ...

Almost 10 years after completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003, scientists are making progress toward the next major goal in applying the genetic information in that "Book of Life" in medicine, leaders of an international research effort are reporting. A package of the latest updates on the goals, organization and achievements of the Chromosome-Centric Human Proteome Project (C-HPP) appear in a special issue of ACS' Journal of Proteome Research. Young-Ki Paik, William S. Hancock and colleagues explain that C-HPP is a 10-year project, launched in 2011, in which ...

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed an automatic slipperiness detection system for cars. The system helps drivers to avoid personal injuries and damage to vehicles in slippery road conditions. Thanks to the system, vehicles are warned in advance of a road's actual slipperiness. If the road becomes slippery, other vehicles arriving in the area will also be warned immediately. VTT's system makes use of an entirely novel, real-time method of obtaining information on a road's actual slipperiness. Transmission of slippery road warnings to vehicles via, for ...

We invited some Chinese experts and researchers in the field of spintronics to write a series of review articles in this special issue, in order to assist undergraduate, master's and doctoral students, as well as young researchers to understand this fast growing field. This issue was published in Science China Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy, 2013, 56(1): 1-246 This special issue consists of seventeen review articles. We have tried to cover most of research directions and research frontiers in spintronics. This includes magneto-electronics, semiconductor spintronics, optical ...

This press release is available in Spanish. Treated wastewater solids called biosolids are sometimes used by farmers to boost soil nutrient levels. Now research by a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientist provides new information about how long those plant nutrients remain after biosolids have been applied to the soil. This work was conducted by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) agronomist Eton Codling, and supports the USDA priority of promoting international food security. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency. Biosolids used ...

Researchers from Wits University and the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, together with international scientists announced on Tuesday, 22 January 2012, the discovery of a two million year old fossil fox at the now renowned archaeological site of Malapa in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site. In an article published in the prestigious journal Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa, the researchers describe the previously unknown species of fox named Vulpes Skinneri - named in honour of the recently deceased world renowned South African mammalogist ...

In a study designed to see if doctors who are told the exact price of expensive medical tests like MRIs in advance would order fewer of them, Johns Hopkins researchers got their answer: No. In a report published online in the Journal of the American College of Radiology, the researchers found that revealing the costs of MRIs and other imaging tests up front had no impact on the number of tests doctors ordered for their hospitalized patients. "Cost alone does not seem to be the determining factor in deciding to go ahead with an expensive radiographic test," says the ...

One of yesterday's most promising new tools for speeding the development of new medicines — "microdosing" — has found niches in that process today, and they include uses unanticipated a decade ago. That topic, an update on microdosing, is the cover story in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News. C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. C&EN Senior Editor Celia Henry Arnaud explains that microdosing offered promise for helping pharmaceutical companies identify potential failures earlier, before ...

Forget digital fingerprints, iris recognition and voice identification, the next big thing in biometrics could be your knobbly knees. Just as a fingerprints and other body parts are unique to us as individuals and so can be used to prove who we are, so too are our kneecaps. Computer scientist Lior Shamir of Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan, has now demonstrated how a knee scan could be used to single us out. The approach based on MRI could be used to quickly register and identify people in a moving queue as they approach passport control at airports ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. — More than one-third of Americans are obese, and these individuals often experience accompanying health issues, such as Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular problems. In response to the so-called "obesity epidemic," many medical professionals have suggested ways to improve the health outcomes of obese individuals through diet and exercise. Now, research conducted at the University of Missouri suggests certain exercises that benefit obese men may not have the same positive results for obese women. These findings could help health providers and researchers develop ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Jan. 23, 2013 – A new study from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is the first to report that high blood calcium levels might predict of ovarian cancer, the most fatal of the gynecologic cancers. Lead author Gary G. Schwartz, Ph.D., a cancer epidemiologist at Wake Forest Baptist, and colleague, Halcyon G. Skinner, Ph.D., of the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, examined associations between blood calcium and ovarian cancer in two national population-based groups. They found that women who were later diagnosed with ovarian cancer and ...

A new position paper, The Professionalisation of Academics as Teachers in Higher Education, has been published today by the European Science Foundation. In Europe, where over 19 million students are in tertiary education, it is becoming crucial to look at, study and improve the teaching skills of scientists in order to teach more effectively the next generation of innovators. This is not only of interest to the Social Sciences but an issue of basic importance to all domains of science and to society as a whole. The publication exposes current developments and challenges ...

HERSHEY, Pa. -- People who receive primary care from free clinics are less likely to use the emergency department for minor issues, according to a team of medical researchers. Nationally, the number of emergency departments (EDs) has decreased yet the number of ED visits has gone up, the team reported. Therefore, it is important to figure out how to reduce unnecessary ED visits. According to the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics, there are more than 1,200 free clinics nationwide. Many of these clinics work in cooperation with one of their local hospitals. Wenke ...

This press release is available in German. Animals which maintain cooperative relationships show gains in longevity and offspring survival. However, little is known about the cognitive or hormonal mechanisms involved in cooperation. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have now found that cooperative relationships are facilitated by an endocrinological mechanism involving the hormone oxytocin, even when these are between non-kin. They collected urine samples of 33 chimpanzees from Budongo Forest, Uganda, and ...

An increase in temperatures due to climate change could mean that the Andorran ski resorts have a shorter season in the future, especially in lower areas. A study undertaken by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and the Andorran Sustainability Observatory has analysed the specific case of the Pyrenean country and predicted that financial losses could come close to 50 million euros. SINC. 22 de enero de 2013 One of the major challenges when studying climate change effects is to establish the relationship between physical impacts and environmental changes on the ...

Amongst the range of domestic livestock species, the goat is not just the 'black sheep' but a resource of survival in impoverished countries, and many breeds are at great risk of disappearing. This is the case according to researchers of the Regional Service of Agro-Food Research and Development in their first monographic study tackling the global impact of this species. A study from the Regional Service of Agro-Food Research and Development (SERIDA) has analysed the situation of the global goat population. The study took into account the state of different breeds, ...

New research by the University of Southampton has found a mechanism as to how corals use their pink and purple hues as sunscreen to protect them against harmful sunlight. Many reef corals need light to survive, as they benefit from sugars and lipids that are produced by their light-dependent symbiotic algae. However, in the shallow water of coral reefs, light levels are often higher than required by the corals, so paradoxically, the vital sunlight can become harmful for the algae and their hosts. Apart from temperature, light stress is a major driver of coral bleaching ...

This press release is available in German and Spanish. Santiago de Chile/Leipzig. Already nowadays ten per cent or more of the population in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago de Chile is affected by extreme heat or floods. These threats will tend to increase due to the continuous expansion of the Chilean capital, the consequent changes in land use and the influences of climate change. Because of that, the international research project ClimateAdaptationSantiago (CAS) has developed, during the last three years, an Adaptation Plan to climate change for the metropolitan ...

Washington, D.C. —Until now it has not been clear how salt, a scourge to agriculture, halts the growth of the plant-root system. A team of researchers, led by the Carnegie Institution's José Dinneny and Lina Duan, found that not all types of roots are equally inhibited. They discovered that an inner layer of tissue in the branching roots that anchor the plant is sensitive to salt and activates a stress hormone, which stops root growth. The study, published in the current issue of The Plant Cell, is a boon for understanding the stress response and for developing salt-resistant ...

Retirement involves a set of institutional arrangements combined with socio-cultural meanings to sustain a distinct retirement phase in life course and career pathways. The articles outline that recent forces of change may lead to reinvention of retirement. There are factors that must be recognized as having a significant impact such as the fact that life expectancy and health status of adults over 60 has increased dramatically in recent years. Reinvention could involve change to one or more of the institutional arrangements supporting retirement. New financial risks and ...

This press release is available in German. The world's smallest tunnels have a width of a few nanometers only. Researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Rice University, USA, have dug such tunnels into graphite samples. This will allow structuring of the interior of materials through self-organization in the nanometer range and tailoring of nanoporous graphite for applications in medicine and battery technology. Results are now presented in the scientific journal Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2399). The tunnels are manufactured applying ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed elastic, self-healing wires in which both the liquid-metal core and the polymer sheath reconnect at the molecular level after being severed. "Because we're using liquid metal, these wires have excellent conductive properties," says Dr. Michael Dickey, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the work. "And because the wires are also elastic and self-healing, they have a lot of potential for use in technologies that could be exposed to high-stress ...

A new USC study finds evidence suggesting that the brain works hard to understand those who have different bodies when watching them in action. According to the study's lead author, the finding supports initiatives to include more individuals with physical differences in mainstream media – such as Sarah Herron, a contestant on ABC's The Bachelor this season, who was born with a foreshortened left arm. "Generally, it's considered impolite to stare. But what these results suggest is that we need to look. It's through this visual experience that we're able to make sense ...

With climate change sparking concern about an increased risk of wildfires, scientists are reporting development of a way to detect grapes exposed to smoke from those fires, which otherwise could be vented into bad-tasting wine. Their report on the method for detecting smoke taint in both grapes and wine appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Yoji Hayasaka and colleagues point out that Australia and other areas of the world are experiencing an increase in bush and wildfires, which may continue and intensify with global climate change. Smoke from those ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The massive Tohoku, Japan, earthquake in 2011 and Sumatra-Andaman superquake in 2004 stunned scientists because neither region was thought to be capable of producing a megathrust earthquake with a magnitude exceeding 8.4. Now earthquake scientists are going back to the proverbial drawing board and admitting that existing predictive models looking at maximum earthquake size are no longer valid. In a new analysis published in the journal Seismological Research Letters, a team of scientists led by Oregon State University's Chris Goldfinger describes how ...