We all perhaps know the feeling of mental exhaustion, but what does it mean physiologically to have mental fatigue? A new study carried out using brain scans could help scientists uncover the neurobiological mechanisms underlying mental fatigue. According to Bui Ha Duc and Xiaoping Li of the National University of Singapore writing in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal Computer Applications in Technology, mental fatigue has become commonplace as many people face increasing mental demands from stressful jobs, longer working hours with less time to relax and ...

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Granada Group of Neuropsychology and Clinical Psychoneuroimmunology has demonstrated that cortisol levels in saliva are associated with a person's ability to make good decisions in stressful situations. To perform this study, the researchers exposed the participants (all women) to a stressful situation by using sophisticated virtual reality technology. The study revealed that people who are not skilled in decision-making have lower baseline cortisol levels in saliva as compared to skilled people. Cortisol –known ...

Experiments at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have revealed a potential new way to attack common stomach bacteria that cause ulcers and significantly increase the odds of developing stomach cancer. The breakthrough, made using powerful X-rays from SLAC's Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), was the culmination of five years of research into the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, which is so tough it can live in strong stomach acid. At least half the world's population carries H. pylori and hundreds of millions suffer ...

At this time of year it is hard to escape the Three Wise Men, riding their camels across Christmas cards and appearing in minature form in countless school nativity plays across the world, bearing their gifts for the infant Jesus. Whilst we are all familiar with gold (especialliy in this Olympic year), it is the mention of frankincense and myrrh that really says "Christmas" to us and and takes our imaginations back to ancient times. But you might be surprised to learn that these two fragrances are still big business today; for example, Ethiopia alone trades around 4000 ...

Philadelphia, PA, December 10, 2012 – A large body of research has focused on the ability of oxytocin to facilitate social bonding in both marital and parenting relationships in human females. A new laboratory study, led by Dr. Ruth Feldman from Bar-Ilan University in Israel and published in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry, has found that oxytocin administration to fathers increases their parental engagement, with parallel effects observed in their infants. Oxytocin is a neuropeptide that plays an important role in the formation of attachment bonds. Studies ...

Onion and garlic waste from the food industry could be used to mop up hazardous heavy metals, including arsenic, cadmium, iron, lead, mercury and tin in contaminated materials, according to a research paper published in the International Journal of Environment and Pollution. Biotechnologists Rahul Negi, Gouri Satpathy, Yogesh Tyagi and Rajinder Gupta of the GGS Indraprastha University in Delhi, India, explain how waste from the processing and canning of onion (Allium cepa L.) and garlic (Allium sativum L.) could be used as an alternative remediation material for removing ...

A system that uses ultrasound technology to look inside car engines could lead to more efficient engines – and huge fuel savings for motorists. Ultrasound scans have long been a fundamental tool in healthcare for looking inside the human body, but they have never before been put to use in testing the health of a modern combustion engine. In the University of Sheffield's Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rob Dwyer-Joyce, Professor of Lubrication Engineering, has devised a method of using ultrasound to measure how efficiently an engine's pistons are moving up and ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — As we get older, the trillions of cells in our body do too. And like us, they become less resilient and able to weather the stress of everyday life. Our skin especially tells the tale of what's happening throughout our bodies. But recently, scientists have learned that aging cells bear only part of the blame for this downward spiral. And a new study shows that it might be possible to slow the decline of aging tissue – and even make it act younger -- by focusing on the stuff that surrounds those cells. In an independent study at the University of Michigan ...

Strasbourg, France, 10 December, 2012: Dedicated funding and support is required to ensure personalised medicine can be implemented across Europe's healthcare systems, according to a new report issued by the European Science Foundation's (ESF) membership organisation for all medical research councils in Europe, the European Medical Research Councils (EMRC). The report entitled Personalised Medicine for the European Citizen, brought together experts from a wide range of disciplines to identify the most pressing issues affecting the development and implementation of personalised ...

The most pressing issues that UK marine science needs to address over the next two decades are the subject of a prospectus published as a themed issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A last month. The volume is co-edited and carries contributions by scientists based at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOCS). Human-induced changes in ocean processes are already being observed, and are projected to intensify as demand for the ocean's resources continues to increase. The prospectus, introduced as `A strategy for UK marine science for ...

A study at the Jaume I University in Castellón has verified the decrease in press consumption among young people between the ages of 16 and 30 years, which now stands at 28.8%. What is more, three out of every four individuals within this age bracket use social networking sites more than the television to get up to date. News consumption habits among young people have changed radically in recent years. Since the beginning of the 21st century, various studies have indicated a decrease in readership of printed newspapers along with a constant fall in young readers. "Just ...

In a study published today in Pediatrics, scientists at Umeå University in Sweden conclude that giving iron supplements to low birth weight infants reduces the risk of behavior problems like ADHD later in life. The study, Effects of Iron Supplementation on LBW Infants on Cognition and Behavior at 3 Years, is published in the January 2013 issue, released online Dec. 10, 2012. In the randomized controlled trial, researchers in Sweden gave 285 marginally low birth weight infants either 0, 1 or 2 mg/kg and day of iron supplements from 6 weeks to 6 months of age. At age ...

Seniors in long-term care experienced a significant reduction in emergency room visits and depression when receiving palliative care services, according to a recent collaborative study by researchers at Hebrew SeniorLife's Hebrew Rehabilitation Center (HRC) and Institute for Aging Research, both affiliated with Harvard Medical School (HMS). The results of the study, published today in The Gerontologist, demonstrate the potential for improved end-of-life quality of care when palliative services are implemented in a long-term care setting. The researchers analyzed the ...

A new method that could give a deeper insight into evolutional biology by tracing directionality in gene migration has just appeared in EPJ Data Science. Paolo Masucci from the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, at University College of London, UK, and colleagues identified the segregation of genes that a marine plant underwent during its evolution. They found that the exchange of genes, or gene flow, between populations of a marine plant went westward from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. This methodology could also be used to estimate the information flow in complex ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- A nanomaterial engineered by researchers at Duke can help regulate chloride levels in nerve cells that contribute to chronic pain, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury. The findings, published online Dec. 10, 2012, in the journal Small, were demonstrated in individual nerve cells as well as in the brains of mice and rats, and may have future applications in intracranial or spinal devices to help treat neural injuries. Carbon nanotubes are a nanomaterial with unique features, including mechanical strength and electrical conductivity. These characteristics, ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Silicon's crown is under threat: The semiconductor's days as the king of microchips for computers and smart devices could be numbered, thanks to the development of the smallest transistor ever to be built from a rival material, indium gallium arsenide. The compound transistor, built by a team in MIT's Microsystems Technology Laboratories, performs well despite being just 22 nanometers (billionths of a meter) in length. This makes it a promising candidate to eventually replace silicon in computing devices, says co-developer Jesús del Alamo, the Donner ...

Contact: Rachel Griffith rgriffith@hmhb.org 703-797-1945 Contact: Kathy Fackelmann kfackelmann@gwu.edu 202-994-8354 George Washington University Study of text messaging service shows participants prepared for motherhood Following last week's mHealth Summit, the largest event of its kind where leaders focus on how wireless technology can improve health outcomes, text4baby announced results from the first randomized evaluation of its service. The largest mobile health initiative in the U.S., text4baby was found to be an effective service for pregnant women. ...

Mountaintop mining is the practice of using huge machines to remove layers of soil and rock to reach thin seams of coal. It is an efficient way to reach the high-thermal value, low-impurity coal in the central Appalachian range, which accounts for one-fifth of the nation's coal, and it is a resource for American energy independence. But it has disadvantages — mountaintops are deposited into valleys, trees and habitats are destroyed, chemical drainage may pollute streams, and many find it ugly. Taking conflicts into account — such as the benefits of steady jobs and ...

Radiation and chemotherapy can pack a powerful punch against all kinds of cancers. Those who survive, however, are often left with bad news: Their treatments have rendered them infertile. A UTSA professor has now demonstrated that it is possible to remove testicular stem cells from a monkey prior to chemotherapy, freeze them and later, after cancer treatments, transplant these cells where they can restart sperm production and restore fertility. UTSA Assistant Professor Brian Hermann worked in collaboration with researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine's ...

For patients in whom a recurrence of bowel cancer is suspected, the study data currently available allow no robust conclusions as to the advantages and disadvantages of using positron emission tomography (PET), alone or in combination with computed tomography (CT). This is because no studies have directly compared the benefits of these imaging techniques in recurrent colorectal carcinoma (bowel cancer) with conventional diagnostic techniques. Although PET or PET/CT show a higher diagnostic accuracy, i.e. in certain cases recurrences can be detected more reliably, it is ...

Free fatty acids created during the digestion of infant formula cause cellular death that may contribute to necrotizing enterocolitis, a severe intestinal condition that is often fatal and occurs most commonly in premature infants, according to a study by University of California, San Diego bioengineers. Their report, which was based on in vitro tests comparing the digestion of fresh human breast milk and nine different infant formulas, was published online in the journal Pediatric Research. Scientists have long known that premature infants fed formula are more likely ...

Chevy Chase, MD ––Metformin therapy has a beneficial treatment effect over placebo in improving body mass index (BMI) and fasting glucose levels in obese children, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). The study showed reduction in BMI was sustained for six months. Childhood obesity has increased globally over the last two decades and it is linked to an increase in the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes in childhood, previously a condition that was only diagnosed in adults. Metformin ...

Chevy Chase, MD –– Mothers' vitamin D levels at a gestation of 26 weeks or less were positively related to birth weight and head circumference, and, in the first trimester were negatively associated with risk of a baby being born small for gestational age, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). The major source of vitamin D for children and adults is exposure to natural sunlight. Very few foods naturally contain or are fortified with vitamin D. Thus, the major cause of vitamin ...

The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) yesterday released a report titled Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities: 2010 that unveils important trends in U.S. doctoral education. The report calls attention to the changing characteristics of U.S. doctorate recipients over time, including the increased representation of women, minorities and foreign nationals; the emergence of new fields of study; the time it takes to complete doctoral study; the expansion of the postdoctoral pool; and employment opportunities after graduation. Understanding ...

"Some of the most pressing occupational health hazard risks in construction" are associated with masonry operations, asphalt roofing, and welding, wrote Deborah Young-Corbett in an article recently accepted by the Journal of Civil Engineering and Management. To reduce these health risks to construction workers, Young-Corbett, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech and a member of the university's Myers-Lawson School of Construction since 2007, has studied much of the existing literature, identifying numerous gaps or problems in current ...