Family interaction and everyday activity strongly influence how television advertisements are experienced and interpreted at home, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "It is common to link advertising viewing at home to increased levels of materialism and domestic tension stemming from 'pester power' (children getting parents to buy something by asking for it repeatedly until they get it). While these are serious issues, we have found that creative and skilled viewers of television advertising in the family living room can overturn and personalize ...

Be it triumph or crushing defeat, exhilaration or agony, body language more accurately conveys intense emotions, according to recent research that challenges the predominance of facial expressions as an indicator of how a person feels. Princeton University researchers report in the journal Science that facial expressions can be ambiguous and subjective when viewed independently. The researchers asked study participants to determine from photographs if people were experiencing feelings such as loss, victory or pain from facial expressions or body language alone, or from ...

This press release is available in French. Quebec City, January 15, 2013—A team of researchers from Université Laval, CHU de Québec, and pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has discovered a way to stimulate the brain's natural defense mechanisms in people with Alzheimer's disease. This major breakthrough, details of which are presented today in an early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), opens the door to the development of a treatment for Alzheimer's disease and a vaccine to prevent the illness. One of the main characteristics ...

Toronto, January 15, 2013 –The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and Big Brothers Big Sisters Canada (BBBSC) are releasing the first results of one of the largest mentoring studies ever conducted. The five-year study, which tracks the experiences of almost 1,000 children and teenagers registered with Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies across Canada, found that those with a mentor are significantly more confident in their academic abilities and considerably less likely to display behavioural problems. One stand out finding is that girls in the study with ...

New research suggests that commonly observed differences in how groups perceive racism may be explained by ignorance about — and even denial of — the extent of racism over the course of history. The research, conducted by psychological scientists at the University of Kansas and Texas A&M University, indicates that African Americans had more accurate knowledge of historically documented racism compared to European Americans. This difference in historical knowledge partially accounted for group differences in perceptions of racism, both at a systemic and an incident-specific ...

Salmon runs are notoriously variable: strong one year, and weak the next. New research shows that the same may be true from one century to the next. Scientists in the past 20 years have recognized that salmon stocks vary not only year to year, but also on decades-long time cycles. One example is the 30-year to 80-year booms and busts in salmon runs in Alaska and on the West Coast driven by the climate pattern known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Now work led by University of Washington researchers reveals those decadal cycles may overlay even more important, centuries-long ...

PHILADELPHIA, PA (January 14, 2013)—Shutting down a specific pathway in cancer cells appears to improve the ability of common drugs to wipe those cells out, according to new research from scientists at Fox Chase Cancer Center, published in the January issue of Cancer Discovery. "Ideally, this research will eventually enable scientists to find drugs that disrupt this pathway and boost the impact of current therapies," says Igor Astsaturov, MD, PhD, Attending Physician in the Department of Medical Oncology at Fox Chase. "That's the long-term plan." The new approach appears ...

In a small study, researchers reported increased healthy tissue growth after surgical repair of damaged cartilage if they put a "hydrogel" scaffolding into the wound to support and nourish the healing process. The squishy hydrogel material was implanted in 15 patients during standard microfracture surgery, in which tiny holes are punched in a bone near the injured cartilage. The holes stimulate patients' own specialized stem cells to emerge from bone marrow and grow new cartilage atop the bone. Results of the study, published in the Jan. 9 issue of Science Translational ...

Washington, D.C. – Quitting smoking is a common New Year's resolution for Americans each year, but research has repeatedly shown it is not an easy task. Some groups, such as racial/ethnic minorities, have an even harder time quitting. New research suggests hard-hitting graphic tobacco warnings may help smokers of diverse backgrounds who are struggling to quit. A new study by researchers at Legacy® and Harvard School of Public Health provides further evidence that bold pictorial cigarette warning labels that visually depict the health consequences of smoking — such as those ...

The following highlights summarize research papers that have been recently published in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), Journal of Geophysical Research – Oceans (JGR-C), Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences (JGR-G) and Water Resources Research. In this release: 1. Seabird activity influences Arctic methane and nitrous oxide emissions 2. U.S. cities less susceptible to water scarcity than previously thought 3. First direct evidence that breaking waves cause horizontal eddies 4. Variability of transparent organic particles in Arctic floodplain lakes 5. ...

RICHMOND, Va. (Jan. 14, 2013) – Patients who undergo knee replacement surgery may be at risk of gaining more weight than their peers who have not had the surgery, according to a five-year study led by a Virginia Commonwealth University professor. Daniel Riddle, Ph.D., professor in the VCU Department of Physical Therapy in the School of Allied Health Professions, and his research team reviewed the medical records of nearly 1,000 knee-replacement surgery patients from the Mayo Clinic Health System and found that 30 percent of them gained 5 percent or more of their body ...

In the face of hard times, which strategy gives us the best shot at survival: saving for the future or spending resources on immediate gains? The answer may depend on the economic conditions we faced in childhood, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Drawing on life history theory, Vladas Griskevicius of the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management and colleagues hypothesized that the strategy a person takes when times are tight may be determined, at least in part, by features ...

Archaeologists working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama have discovered a cluster of 12 unusual stones in the back of a small, prehistoric rock-shelter near the town of Boquete. The cache represents the earliest material evidence of shamanistic practice in lower Central America. Ruth Dickau, Leverhulme Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Exeter in England, unearthed the cache of stones in the Casita de Piedra rock-shelter in 2007. A piece of charcoal found directly underneath the cache was radiocarbon dated to 4,800 years ago. A second fragment ...

WHAT: Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) have found that an experimental vaccine elicits antibodies that can protect nonhuman primates from Ebola virus infection. Ebola virus causes severe hemorrhagic fever in humans and nonhuman primates, meaning that infection may lead to shock, bleeding and multi-organ failure. According to the World Health Organization, Ebola hemorrhagic fever has a fatality rate of up to 90 percent. There is no licensed treatment or vaccine for Ebola virus infection. Several research ...

An effort to develop software that unravels the complexities of how proteins fold is paying dividends in new findings on how they misfold, according to researchers at Rice University. The study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by chemist Peter Wolynes and his team at Rice's BioScience Research Collaborative should be of particular interest to those who probe the roots of degenerative diseases associated with the aggregation of amyloid fibers in the body. These include Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and Type 2 diabetes. The ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Eating diets high in sugar and fat may not affect the health outcomes of older adults ages 75 and up, suggesting that placing people of such advanced age on overly restrictive diets to treat their excess weight or other conditions may have little benefit, according to researchers at Penn State and Geisinger Healthcare System. "Historically people thought of older persons as tiny and frail," said Gordon Jensen, head of the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Penn State, "but that paradigm has changed for many older persons. Currently, 30 percent ...

The climate changes depicted by climatologists up to the year 2080 will benefit most mammals that live in northern Europe's Arctic and sub-Arctic land areas today if they are able to reach their new climatic ranges. This is the conclusion drawn by ecologists at Umeå University in a recently published article in the journal Plos ONE. The scientists Anouschka Hof, Roland Jansson, and Christer Nilsson of the Department of Ecology and Environmental Science at Umeå University investigated how future climate changes may come to impact mammals in northern Europe's Arctic and ...

NEW YORK (Jan. 14, 2013) -- Replacing the combination of brand-name, antiretroviral drugs currently recommended for control of HIV infection with soon-to-be-available generic medications could save the U.S. health care system almost $1 billion a year but may diminish the effectiveness of HIV treatment. A study led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Weill Cornell Medical College investigators, appearing in the January 15 Annals of Internal Medicine, examines the potential impact of such a change. "The switch from branded to generic antiretrovirals would place ...

LA JOLLA, CA – January 14, 2013 – Using an innovative approach, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have determined the structure of Ltn1, a recently discovered "quality-control" protein that is found in the cells of all plants, fungi and animals. Ltn1 appears to be essential for keeping cells' protein-making machinery working smoothly. It may also be relevant to human neurodegenerative diseases, for an Ltn1 mutation in mice leads to a motor-neuron disease resembling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease). "To better ...

A research team involving several scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder has found an unexpected silver lining in the devastating pine beetle outbreaks ravaging the West: Such events do not harm water quality in adjacent streams as scientists had previously believed. According to CU-Boulder team member Professor William Lewis, the new study shows that smaller trees and other vegetation that survive pine beetle invasions along waterways increase their uptake of nitrate, a common disturbance-related pollutant. While logging or damaging storms can drive stream ...

TORONTO, Jan 14, 2013—Taking a vitamin D supplement and drinking cow's milk are the two most important factors that determine how much vitamin D is in a child's body, new research has found. Those factors play a bigger role than even skin colour and exposure to the sun, according to Dr. Jonathon Maguire, a researcher and pediatrician at St. Michael's Hospital. "Early childhood is a critical stage in human development, so achieving and maintaining optimal vitamin D levels in early childhood may be important to health outcomes in later childhood and adulthood," Dr. Maguire ...

Tropical Cyclone Emang developed in the Southern Indian Ocean on Sunday, Jan. 13 about 525 nautical miles east-southeast of Diego Garcia. At that time, infrared satellite imagery revealed that the low level circulation center was partially exposed to outer winds, and there was a burst of thunderstorm development over the northwestern quadrant. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite captured rainfall rates in Tropical Storm Narelle on Jan. 13 at 0907 UTC (5:07 a.m. EST). Moderate and heavy rainfall was occurring around the center of circulation, where ...

On Jan. 13, 2013, at 2:24 a.m. EST, the sun erupted with an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection or CME. Not to be confused with a solar flare, a CME is a solar phenomenon that can send solar particles into space and reach Earth one to three days later. Experimental NASA research models, based on observations from the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and the ESA/NASA mission the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, show that the CME left the sun at speeds of 275 miles per second. This is a fairly typical speed for CMEs, though much slower than the fastest ...

Athens, Ga. – New research from the University of Georgia exposes a large discrepancy in the length of time patients expect an acute cough illness, also called acute bronchitis, to last and the reality of the illness. This mismatch may be a factor in the over-prescription of antibiotics. Examining the gap in patient expectations and the actual length of time the body takes to rid itself of a chest cold, Dr. Mark Ebell, associate professor of epidemiology in the UGA College of Public Health, recently published an article in the Annals of Family Medicine. His results show ...

Philadelphia, PA, January 15, 2013 – A new study has found that tamoxifen, a well-known breast cancer drug, can counteract some pathologic features in a mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). At present, no treatment is known to produce long-term improvement of the symptoms in boys with DMD, a debilitating muscular disorder that is characterized by progressive muscle wasting, respiratory and cardiac impairments, paralysis, and premature death. This study will be published in the February 2013 issue of The American Journal of Pathology. Using the mdx5Cv mouse ...