Irvine, Calif., Dec. 19, 2012 — Most people are impressed by how a toad jumps. UC Irvine biologist Emanuel Azizi is more impressed by how one lands. An assistant professor of ecology & evolutionary biology who specializes in muscle physiology and biomechanics, Azizi found that nature's favorite leapers possess a neuromuscular response that's specific to the intensity of a landing – a mechanism that protects muscles from injury upon impact. The research is helping reveal how the nervous system modulates motor control patterns involved with jumping and landing. Azizi's ...

Obese, postmenopausal women are at greater risk for developing breast cancer and their cancers tend to be more aggressive than those in lean counterparts. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published in the December issue of the journal Cancer Research shows how this risk might be prevented. "By using nutrient tracers for fat and sugar, we tracked where the body stored excess calories. In lean models, excess fat and glucose were taken up by the liver, mammary and skeletal tissues. In obese models, excess fat and glucose were taken up by tumors, fueling their ...

Working with mice, Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that a particular protein helps nerve cells extend themselves along the spinal cord during mammalian development. Their results shed light on the subset of muscular dystrophies that result from mutations in the gene that holds the code for the protein, called dystroglycan, and also show how the nerve and muscle failings of the degenerative diseases are related. As mammals like mice and humans develop, nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord must form connections with themselves and with muscles to assure proper ...

Computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego have built a small fleet of portable pollution sensors that allow users to monitor air quality in real time on their smart phones. The sensors could be particularly useful to people suffering from chronic conditions, such as asthma, who need to avoid exposure to pollutants. CitiSense is the only air-quality monitoring system capable of delivering real-time data to users' cell phones and home computers—at any time. Data from the sensors can also be used to estimate air quality throughout the area where the ...

For more than half a century, researchers have known that the bacteria that colonize the gastrointestinal tract of mammals influence their host's cholesterol metabolism. Now, Jens Walter and colleagues of the University of Nebraska show that changes in cholesterol metabolism induced by diet can alter the gut flora. The research was published online ahead of print in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. In the study, the researchers added plant sterol esters to the diets of hamsters. The overall effect of this was to inhibit several bacterial taxa, from ...

URBANA – Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) may have affected humans for much longer than is currently believed. Alfred Roca, an assistant professor in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, thinks that the genomes of an isolated West African human population provide important clues about how the disease has evolved. HIV is thought to have originated from chimpanzees in central Africa that were infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), a retrovirus. "If you look at the diversity present across SIV in chimpanzees, ...

This fall, the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago and the National Academy of Sciences organized a colloquium that brought together more than 100 cosmologists, particle physicists and observational astrophysicists – three fields now united in the hunt to determine what is dark matter. Their goal: to take stock of the latest theories and findings about dark matter, assess just how close we are to detecting it and spark cross-disciplinary discussions and collaborations aimed at resolving the dark matter puzzle. So where do things stand? ...

Hospital MRIs may be better at predicting long-term outcomes for people with mild traumatic brain injuries than CT scans, the standard technique for evaluating such injuries in the emergency room, according to a clinical trial led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (SFGH). Published this month in the journal Annals of Neurology, the study was led by UCSF neuroradiologist Esther Yuh, MD, PhD and followed 135 people treated for mild traumatic brain injuries over the past two years ...

PHILADELPHIA — The field of metamaterials involves augmenting materials with specially designed patterns, enabling those materials to manipulate electromagnetic waves and fields in previously impossible ways. Now, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have come up with a theory for moving this phenomenon onto the quantum scale, laying out blueprints for materials where electrons have nearly zero effective mass. Such materials could make for faster circuits with novel properties. The work was conducted by Nader Engheta, the H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor of Electrical ...

December 18, 2012 -- Researchers in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health assessed the impact of pollution on agricultural worker productivity using daily variations in ozone levels. Their results show that ozone, even at levels below current air-quality standards in most parts of the world, has significant negative impacts on worker productivity. Their findings suggest that environmental protection is important for promoting economic growth and investing in human capital in contrast to its common portrayal as a tax ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Brine water that flows back from gas wells in the Marcellus Shale region after hydraulic fracturing is many times more salty than seawater, with high contents of various elements, including radium and barium. The chemistry is consistent with brines formed during the Paleozoic era, a study by an undergraduate student and two professors in Penn State's Department of Geosciences found. The study indicates that the brine flowback elements found in high levels in the late stages of hydraulic fracturing come from the ancient brines rather than from salts ...

New York, NY, December 19, 2012 – About 30 percent of the more than 70,000 bladder cancer cases expected in 2012 are muscle invasive. In such cases, radical cystectomy is the preferred treatment. In a pilot trial, a team of investigators assessed the efficacy of open radical cystectomy (ORC) vs. robotic-assisted laparoscopic radical cystectomy (RARC). While there were no significant differences in treatment outcomes, RARC resulted in decreased estimated blood loss and shorter hospital stay compared to ORC. The results are published in the February 2013 issue of The Journal ...

Among HIV patients receiving well-organized care with free access to antiretroviral therapy, those who smoke lose more years of life to smoking than to HIV, according to a Danish study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and available online. The findings highlight the importance of smoking cessation efforts in the long-term, integrated care of patients infected with HIV. Marie Helleberg, MD, of Copenhagen University Hospital and colleagues estimated the effect of smoking on mortality, risk of death, and life expectancy, and the number of life years lost to smoking ...

Finding the next Barack Obama or Warren Buffett might be as simple as looking at who attracts the most eyes in a crowd, a new University of British Columbia study finds. For the study, which used eye-tracking technology, participants who observed groups of strangers were able to accurately predict who would emerge as leader of the group in 120 seconds or less. According to the study – to appear in the forthcoming Journal of Personality and Social Psychology – two sets of behaviours will accurately predict future leadership and catch people's attention. The first is ...

Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) among children in China are a growing public health concern. Two new studies by researchers of the International Program at the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital and the Wuhan Children's Hospital in China examined pediatric TBIs that were treated at Wuhan Children's Hospital from 2002 to 2011. The first study, appearing in the December 2012 print issue of PLOS ONE, investigated the causes, characteristics and trends of pediatric TBIs in China and found that falls, struck by/against ...

The attorney representing a man accused of stabbing a man to death in an argument over $20 worth of marijuana earlier this year attempted to get some of the evidence tossed out before his client's trial. A twenty-one-year old man in State College, Pennsylvania was accused of killing a 20-year-old man over $20 worth of marijuana in January 2012. The 21-year-old was charged with first-degree, second-degree and third-degree murder, as well as robbery and aggravated assault. Centre County prosecutors alleged that what started as two men arguing over the drugs ended in one ...

Texans who are considering if they need a will should know what happens to their property if they die without one. This depends on a lot of factors and can involve a very complicated court process. Texas has laws in place to deal with property transfers after death, but people who have certain wishes for their property disposition may want to talk to an attorney about creating a will. Separate property and community property for spouses After people get married in Texas, they own two types of property. One is separate property, and the other is community property. ...

Residents of Boulder County and people throughout the nation now know that on Election Day 2012, Colorado residents voted in favor of Amendment 64, which legalizes the recreational use of marijuana. That vote will likely have important consequences not only related to the decriminalization of some uses of marijuana, but for the use of police resources as well. Use of police resources for marijuana arrests According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting, the police in the United States arrest someone for marijuana possession every 42 seconds. Of the 1.5 million drug ...

When someone is behind on his or her loan payments and has creditors calling at all hours threatening to repossess a vehicle or foreclose on a home, the best option may be to file for bankruptcy. Two forms of bankruptcy are generally available to individual filers: Chapter 13 and Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is a legal process through which debts are forgiven to give filers a fresh start. Under Chapter 13 bankruptcy, filers develop a repayment plan and after making payments on time over three to five years, have the rest of their debts forgiven. Those who are unable ...

In the past, bankruptcy often carried a stigma, but times are changing, and bankruptcy is becoming a preferable option for many. The difficult economy makes bankruptcy a viable and respectable choice, and filing for bankruptcy allows individuals and businesses to start fresh and rebuild Chapter 11 Bankruptcy for Businesses Chapter 11 Bankruptcy allows the debtor to enter into agreements with creditors that will keep the debtor's business in operation. Sole proprietorships, partnerships and corporations are all eligible for Chapter 11. Sole proprietors, since their ...

Arizona residents know a slip and fall accident in a retail store can cause significant disruption to daily life. A recently released report by the National Insurance Crime Bureau reveals over 2000 slip and fall accidents occurred in 2011. That number is a 12 percent increase from 2010. New laser technology in retail stores New 3D laser technology is proving useful in documenting scenes where slip and fall accidents occur. The security and loss department of a retail store normally assists when a customer slips and falls. They help determine if the customer is injured ...

Is an "alert" from a drug sniffing dog enough to justify a search of a home or car? That question is under review by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court has long held that the sniff of a drug detection canine is not a search under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against "unreasonable searches and seizures." However, two Florida cases before the nation's High Court could change the parameters of the law and either limit or expand the privacy rights of everyone in the United States. Florida v. Harris The first case, Florida v. Harris, goes directly ...

Personal bankruptcy filings in Utah appear to have peaked, according to a recent report, and are showing signs of significant decline for the first time since 2005. Utah bankruptcy filings fell by 13 percent during the first nine months of 2012, the Salt Lake Tribune reported recently. While this certainly is good news for Utah homeowners, the progress is relatively modest in comparison to the gains seen in the national bankruptcy rate, which declined 14 percent during the same period according to the National Bankruptcy Institute. Despite the overall improvements, Utah ...

Massachusetts residents know illegal and legal drugs can both be dangerous. A recent report reveals serious issues with prescription drugs in Dedham. Drug addiction on the rise in Dedham Dedham police have already responded to three reports of fatal drug overdoses in 2012. Additionally, prescription drug abuse has risen by 600 percent in Massachusetts between 1990 and 2003. In Dedham, drug addiction is responsible for numerous robberies, according to Dedham police detectives. Unfortunately, individuals with a severe addiction problem sometimes engage in illegal ...

Atlanta, GA - This Christmas, multi-platinum rapper/actor Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges will provide a very special Christmas for more than 400 Atlanta area children. On Tuesday December 18th, the Ludacris Foundation, will host its annual "LudaCrismas" holiday event. 150 are youth invited to the holiday event. Each year, Christopher "Ludacris" Bridges provides a Christmas celebration to inner city youth from all over the Atlanta area with the donation of toys, books, and winter clothing. Ludacris, and The Ludacris Foundation are hosting a Christmas Winter ...