DURHAM, N.C. -- Hydraulically fractured natural gas wells are producing less wastewater per unit of gas recovered than conventional wells would. But the scale of fracking operations in the Marcellus shale region is so vast that the wastewater it produces threatens to overwhelm the region's wastewater disposal capacity, according to new analysis by researchers at Duke and Kent State universities. Hydraulically fractured natural gas wells in the Marcellus shale region of Pennsylvania produce only about 35 percent as much wastewater per unit of gas recovered as conventional ...

Alexandria, VA – Throughout history, humanity has steadily increased its dependence upon technology. Although technology has vastly improved the quality of life for billions of people, it has also opened us up to new risks and vulnerabilities. Terrorism and natural disasters might be at the forefront of the minds of policymakers and the U.S. population, but a significant threat lurks over our heads: the sun. A massive solar storm, the size last seen a century and a half ago, could easily leave hundreds of millions of people in the dark for days, weeks or even months. The ...

Glaciers in the tropical Andes have been retreating at increasing rate since the 1970s, scientists write in the most comprehensive review to date of Andean glacier observations. The researchers blame the melting on rising temperatures as the region has warmed about 0.7°C over the past 50 years (1950-1994). This unprecedented retreat could affect water supply to Andean populations in the near future. These conclusions are published today in The Cryosphere, an Open Access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). The international team of scientists – uniting researchers ...

Over 500 billion cells in our bodies will be replaced daily, yet natural selection has enabled us to develop defenses against the cellular mutations which could cause cancer. It is this relationship between evolution and the body's fight against cancer which is explored in a new special issue of the Open Access journal Evolutionary Applications. "Cancer is far from a single well-defined disease which we can identify and eradicate," said Dr Athena Aktipis, Director, Human and Social Evolution, Center for Evolution and Cancer at the University of California, San Francisco. ...

Ann Arbor, Mich. — Egg allergic children, including those with a history of anaphylaxis to egg, can safely receive a single dose of the seasonal influenza vaccine, according to a new study from the University of Michigan. Historically, the CDC recommended that the seasonal influenza vaccine not be administered to egg allergic children. Recent research conducted at the University of Michigan, and elsewhere, helped modify this recommendation in 2011 so that caution was warranted for only those with severe egg allergy. The new study, published in the Annals of Allergy, ...

Women with hypertensive disorders in pregnancy are at higher risk of chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease compared with women without the disorders, according to a study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "We found that women with hypertensive disorders during pregnancy were at higher risk of end-stage renal disease than women without complicated pregnancies," writes Dr. I-Kuan Wang, Division of Nephrology, China Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan, with coauthors. Hypertensive disorders such as gestational hypertension and preeclampsia ...

When people wash their hands with antibacterial soap, most don't think about where the chemicals contained in that soap end up. University of Minnesota engineering researchers do. A new University of Minnesota study determined that the common antibacterial agent, called triclosan, used in soaps and many other products is found in increasing amounts in several Minnesota freshwater lakes. The findings are directly linked to increased triclosan use over the past few decades. In addition, the researchers found an increasing amount of other chemical compounds, called chlorinated ...

NEW YORK (January 22, 2012) —Wildlife Conservation Society scientists have documented a thriving population of lowland tapirs – the strange forest and grassland-dwelling herbivore with the trunk-like snout – living in a network of remote national parks spanning the Peru-Bolivia border. Using a combination of camera traps, along with interviews with park guards and subsistence hunters, WCS estimates at least 14,500 lowland tapirs in the region. The population bridges five connected national parks in northwest Bolivia and southeastern Peru. The WCS findings were described ...

This press release is available in German. Dendritic cells, or DCs for short, perform a vital role for the immune system: They engulf pathogens, break them down into their component parts, and then display the pieces on their surface. This in turn signals other immune cells capable of recognizing these pieces to help kick-start their own default program for fighting off the invaders. In order to do their job, the DCs are dependent upon the support from a class of immune system molecules, which have never before been associated with dendritic cells: antibodies, best ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (January 22, 2013) – Researchers are making new strides in understanding the health consequences and treatment and rehabilitation needs of combat veterans and other service members affected by traumatic brain injury (TBI). The January-February issue of The Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, official journal of the Brain Injury Association of America, is a special issue devoted to new research in military TBI. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. "For the second consecutive year, we've expedited ...

The strong binding of gold on electronically modified calcium oxide can now be understood in detail. In a computational study, researchers Jenni Andersin, Janne Nevalaita, Karoliina Honkala and Hannu Häkkinen at the University of Jyväskylä Nanoscience Center have shown how redox chemistry entirely determines the adsorption strength of gold on the modified oxide where one metal atom is replaced with molybdenum. The study was funded by the Academy of Finland. The research team applied the so-called Born-Haber cycle to analyse how different terms contribute to adsorption ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (January 22, 2013) – The most comprehensive review of new legal and regulatory issues affecting advanced nursing practice across the United States is now available in the "25th Annual Legislative Update," presented exclusively by The Nurse Practitioner: The American Journal of Primary Healthcare. The Nurse Practitioner is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. Compiled by Susanne J. Phillips, MSN, FNP-BC, the annual supplement presents a comprehensive review of the legislative proceedings, bills, and laws pertaining ...

Researchers at Royal Holloway university have found that Brazilians and Chileans want the state to buy on social and environmental criteria, not just on price. Based on this pioneering research, researchers from Royal Holloway have been invited to be the first academics to join the UN Environmental Programme's global Sustainable Public Procurement Initiative and attend its meeting in Paris this week. The Choices Project is a collaboration between Royal Holloway, the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and Universidad Diego Portales. The project team also involves ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Bathing a tiny newborn can be an exciting experience for parents, but it can also be intimidating. Newborns are small and vulnerable, slippery when wet, and the products marketed for their delicate skin can leave parents with abundant choices. As newborns are welcomed into the world, their skin needs to adapt to the new environmental changes around them. It's important for parents to understand proper bathing techniques and the appropriate skin care needed for their little one. Pediatric dermatologist Dawn Davis, M.D., of Mayo Clinic Children's Center ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — While working out the structure of a cell-killing protein produced by some strains of the bacterium Enterococcus faecalis, researchers stumbled on a bit of unusual biochemistry. They found that a single enzyme helps form distinctly different, three-dimensional ring structures in the protein, one of which had never been observed before. The new findings, reported in Nature Chemical Biology, should help scientists find new ways to target the enterococcal cytolysin protein, a "virulence factor that is associated with acute infection in humans," said University ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists have identified genetic circumstances under which common mutations on two genes interact in the presence of cocaine to produce a nearly eight-fold increased risk of death as a result of abusing the drug. An estimated one in three whites who died of cocaine exposure is a carrier of variants that make cocaine abuse particularly deadly. The variants are found in two genes that affect how dopamine modulates brain activity. Dopamine is a chemical messenger vital to the regular function of the central nervous system, and cocaine is known to block ...

The western Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest warming regions on the planet, and the fastest warming part of the Southern Hemisphere. Scientists have debated the causes of this warming, particularly in light of recent instrumental records of both atmospheric and oceanic warming from the region. As the atmosphere and ocean warm, so the ice sheet (holding an equivalent of 5 metres of global sea level rise, locked up in ice) becomes vulnerable to collapse. Now research led by Cardiff University published in Nature Geoscience has used a unique 12,000 year long ...

Los Angeles, CA (January 22, 2013)- A new study finds that nearly half of older teenagers and young adults break up and get back together with previous dating partners and over half of this group have sex as part of the reconciliation process. This study was recently published in the Journal of Adolescent Research, a SAGE journal. Researchers Sarah Halpern-Meekin, Wendy Manning, Peggy Giordano and Monica Longmore studied data on 792 daters and cohabiters ages 17 to 24, also known as "emerging adults." The researchers studied two relationship patterns specifically – reconciliation ...

A drug developed at Linköping University in Sweden protects against the side effects of cancer treatments while strengthening the effects on the tumour. An international drug evaluation is now starting up on a larger group of patients. The results of the studies with the compound, known as calmangafodipir, were published in the latest issue of the cancer journal Translational Oncology with Professor Rolf G. G. Andersson as the main author. The research was initiated on a substance called mangafodipir, which was used as a contrast media in magnetic resonance scans. But ...

This press release is available in German. Image sensors are at the core of every digital camera. Before a snapshot appears on the display, the sensors first convert the light from the lens to electrical signals. The image processor then uses these to create the final photo. Many compact and cellphone cameras contain silicon-based image sensors produced using CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) technology. Prof. Paolo Lugli and Dr. Daniela Baierl from TUM have developed a cost-effective process to improve the performance of these CMOS sensors. Their approach ...

Public acceptance of climate change's reality may have been influenced by the rate at which words moved from scientific journals into the mainstream, according to anthropologist Michael O'Brien, dean of the College of Arts and Science at the University of Missouri. A recent study of word usage in popular literature by O'Brien and his colleagues documented how the usage of certain words related to climate change has risen and fallen over the past two centuries. Understanding how word usage affects public acceptance of science could lead to better science communication and ...

New Orleans, LA – Research led by Dr. Suresh Alahari, the Fred Brazda Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans and its Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center, details exactly how the Her2 cancer gene promotes the progression and spread of breast cancer cells. The inactivation of a tumor suppression gene called Nischarin is among the mechanisms identified. The findings provide a new therapeutic target to block the function of Her2. The research was published in Cancer Research, OnlineFirst on January 21, 2013. About 30% of breast ...

(Garrison, NY) Arguing that obesity "may be the most difficult and elusive public health problem the United States has ever encountered" and that anti-obesity efforts having made little discernible difference, Daniel Callahan, co-founder and President Emeritus of The Hastings Center, proposes a bold and controversial approach to fighting the epidemic. Callahan says that the public health community can learn from one of the most successful public health campaigns: the anti-smoking campaign. A primary strategy has been to stigmatize smokers, he says, making it clear that ...

The kindness of mankind most likely developed from our more sinister and self-serving tendencies, according to Princeton University and University of Arizona research that suggests society's rules against selfishness are rooted in the very exploitation they condemn. The report in the journal Evolution proposes that altruism — society's protection of resources and the collective good by punishing "cheaters" — did not develop as a reaction to avarice. Instead, communal disavowal of greed originated when competing selfish individuals sought to control and cancel out one ...

NEW YORK - January 22, 2013 - In 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission mandated that public companies submit portions of annual (10-K) and quarterly (10-Q) reports—in a digitized format known as eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). The goal of this type of data was to provide more relevant, timely, and reliable "interactive" data to investors and analysts. The XBRL-formatted data is meant to allow users to manipulate and organize the financial information according to their own purposes faster, cheaper, and more easily than current alternatives. But how ...