Virginia Tech physics researchers have discovered a quasar with the most energetic outflow ever, a finding that may answer questions about how the mass of a galaxy is linked to its central black hole mass and why there are so few large galaxies in the universe. Researchers studied the quasar known as SDSS J1106+1939 in great detail using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Paranal, Chile – the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory, and found the most energetic quasar outflow ever discovered. The rate that energy is carried ...

New research has revealed a significant gap between what the government claims are the biggest security threats facing the UK and the fears of the population. Terrorism is not perceived as the most important threat to everyday life despite claims by policy makers. Politics researchers at the Universities of Warwick and Exeter led detailed focus groups across the UK and conducted a nationwide survey as part of an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded project which looked at public attitudes towards security threats. Since 2005, key objectives of successive ...

For Immediate Release – November 28, 2012 – (Toronto) – Most adults are drinking responsibly, and fewer are smoking or using illicit substances – but several areas of concern were found in the 2011 CAMH Monitor survey of Ontario substance use trends, released today by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). "More young adults are reporting that they drive within an hour of using cannabis - even more than those who report drinking and driving," says Dr. Robert Mann, CAMH Senior Scientist and lead researcher. "Yet the risks of doing so are significant." Nine ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – It probably won't come as a surprise to hear that most adult entertainment club workers – exotic dancers and other female club employees such as bartenders, waitresses and hostesses – don't have great medical benefits. The nature of their work makes them easy prey for repeated unwanted sexual advances and behavior. Add in the prevalence of risky sexual behavior and substance abuse and you've got a perfect storm for unchecked health risks. To measure the incidence of substance abuse and risky sexual behavior as they related to healthcare, Esther Choo, ...

A cornerstone of physics may require a rethink if findings at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are confirmed. Recent experiments suggest* that the most rigorous predictions based on the fundamental theory of electromagnetism—one of the four fundamental forces in the universe, and harnessed in all electronic devices—may not accurately account for the behavior of atoms in exotic, highly charged states. The theory in question is known as quantum electrodynamics, or QED, which physicists have held in high regard for decades because of its excellent ...

Picture two charged particles in a vacuum. Thanks to laws of elementary electrostatics, we can easily calculate the force these particles exert upon one another, and therefore predict their movements. Submerge those particles in a simple medium — say, water — and the calculation grows more complex. The charged particles' movements influence the water, which in turn may slow, speed, or otherwise alter the particles' paths. In this environment a prediction must also consider the water's reaction, or its dielectric response. But in real biological and material systems, ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Pound for pound, spider silk is one of the strongest materials known: Research by MIT's Markus Buehler has helped explain that this strength arises from silk's unusual hierarchical arrangement of protein building blocks. Now Buehler — together with David Kaplan of Tufts University and Joyce Wong of Boston University — has synthesized new variants on silk's natural structure, and found a method for making further improvements in the synthetic material. And an ear for music, it turns out, might be a key to making those structural improvements. The work ...

Using an enhanced form of "chemical microscopy" developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), researchers there have shown that they can peer into the structure of blended polymers, resolving details of the molecular arrangement at sub-micrometer levels.* The capability has important implications for the design of industrially important polymers like the polyethylene blends used to repair aging waterlines. Polyethylene is one of the most widely produced and used polymers in the world. It's used in many familiar applications—milk bottles, for ...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 26, 2012—Analysis published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS) in the most recent issue of the journal Science examine the relationship between public and private investments in research and development (R&D) and their importance in agricultural input industries. The Science article is drawn from a recent ERS study that provides new details on the rapid growth and changing composition of private investments in global agricultural R&D and traces the implications for agriculture. "Agriculture is more dependent ...

Nylon, Kevlar and other synthetic fabrics: Step aside. If new scientific research pans out, people may be sporting shirts, blouses and other garments made from fibers modeled after those in the icky, super-strong slime from a creature called the hagfish. The study appears in ACS' journal Biomacromolecules. Lead author Atsuko Negishi, her supervisor Douglas S. Fudge and colleagues explain that petroleum is the raw material for making modern synthetics. Rising prices and the quest for more sustainable alternatives have led scientists to consider the possibilities of using ...

Scientists are reporting an increasing use of flame retardants in the main gathering spot for adults, children and family pets in the home — the couch. In a study published in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology, they describe the first efforts to detect and identify the flame retardants applied to the foam inside couches found in millions of family rooms and living rooms across the U.S. Heather Stapleton and colleagues explain that many U.S. manufacturers adhere to California's flammability standard — termed "Technical Bulletin 117" (TB117) — and use flame ...

The latest effort to decipher the unique aroma signature of the durian — revered as the "king of fruits" in southeast Asia but reviled elsewhere as the world's foulest smelling food — has uncovered several new substances that contribute to the fragrance. The research appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Martin Steinhaus and colleagues explain that durian, available in Asian food shops in the United States and elsewhere, has a creamy yellowish flesh that can be eaten fresh or used in cakes, ice cream and other foods. Some people relish the durian's ...

A youth offending facility in the East Midlands has been criticised in a new report for taking criminals from rival gangs in Leicester and Nottingham. The research, led by an academic at Nottingham University Business School, said that the policy by Glen Parva Young Offenders Institution to take criminals from both cities was a recipe for trouble and has led to an increase in violence and gang warfare. In the report Dr Richard Simper, an associate professor in financial economics, says that rival young offenders should be separated in a bid to decrease the incidence ...

From the playground to the office, a key aspect of our social lives involves figuring out who "belongs" and who doesn't. Our biases lead us -- whether we're aware of it or not -- to favor people who belong to our own social group. Scientists theorize that these prevalent in-group biases may give us a competitive advantage against others, especially when important resources are limited. Psychological scientist Christopher Rodeheffer and his colleagues at Texas Christian University wanted to examine whether resource scarcity might actually lead us to change our definition ...

Reduced production of myelin, a type of protective nerve fiber that is lost in diseases like multiple sclerosis, may also play a role in the development of mental illness, according to researchers at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. The study is published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. Myelin is an insulating material that wraps around the axon, the threadlike part of a nerve cell through which the cell sends impulses to other nerve cells. New myelin is produced by nerve cells called oligodendrocytes both during development ...

CINCINNATI—The University of Cincinnati will lead a $5.2 million national trial studying removal of both corticosteroids and common immunosuppression treatments from the post-transplant drug regimen for kidney transplant patients. The Belatacept Early Steroid withdrawal Trial (BEST) seeks to determine if a belatacept-based regimen for post-transplant patients can prevent organ rejection without the harmful side effects posed by corticosteroids and calcineurin inhibitor (CNI) immunosuppressants. Belatacept is a modified version of the drug abatacept, which is used to treat ...

With new treatments for disease, test suites that safeguard computers, and even expertise to rescue miners trapped thousands of feet underground, federal laboratories have a wealth of technologies and know-how that can give U.S. companies a competitive edge and improve quality of life. These science and technology resources were developed in response to national challenges, but they also can be valuable assets for private industry and academia as well as other government agencies. Each year—as required by federal regulation—the National Institute of Standards and Technology ...

TORONTO, Nov. 28, 2012—Babies born in Ontario to mothers from the Philippines have significantly lower birth weights than those whose mothers were born in Canada or elsewhere in East Asia and are twice as likely to be classified as small for their gestational age, a new study has found. The classification is often incorrect, researchers say, because the babies are being compared to those of other ethnic backgrounds. When compared to other Filipino babies, they are well within appropriate heights and weights. The lead author of the study, published online in the Journal ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– The fog comes in, and a drop of water forms on a pine needle, rolls down the needle, and falls to the forest floor. The process is repeated over and over, on each pine needle of every tree in a forest of Bishop pines on Santa Cruz Island, off the coast of Santa Barbara. That fog drip helps the entire forest ecosystem stay alive. Thousands of years ago, in cooler and wetter times, Bishop pine trees are thought to have proliferated along the West Coast of the U.S. and Mexico. Now, stratus clouds –– the low-altitude clouds known locally as "June ...

JUPITER, FL, November 28, 2012 – Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have uncovered a group of what have been considered relatively minor regulators in the body that band together to suppress the spread of cancer from its primary site. The discovery offers a fresh batch of possible therapeutic targets as well as new diagnostic tools with the potential to predict and inhibit the spread of cancer (metastasis) in patients suffering from the disease. The research, published recently in The Journal of Biological Chemistry, was conducted ...

ANN ARBOR—University of Michigan researchers are conducting a detailed study of the potential environmental and societal effects of hydraulic fracturing, the controversial natural gas drilling process known as fracking. In hydraulic fracturing, large amounts of water, sand and chemicals are injected deep underground to break apart rock and free trapped natural gas. Though the process has been used for decades, recent technical advances have helped unlock vast stores of previously inaccessible natural gas, resulting in a fracking boom. Now U-M researchers are working ...

WACO, Texas (Nov. 28, 2012) - Cell phone and instant messaging addictions are driven by materialism and impulsiveness and can be compared to consumption pathologies like compulsive buying and credit card misuse, according to a Baylor University study in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions. A video of Dr. Roberts is available at http://www.baylor.edu/mediacommunications/news.php?action=story&story=125458 "Cell phones are a part of our consumer culture," said study author James Roberts, Ph.D., professor of marketing and the Ben H. Williams Professor of Marketing at Baylor's ...

Reaching adulthood certainly takes longer than it did a generation ago, but new research shows one way that parents are contributing to the delay. A national study found that college students think 25 years old is the "right age" to get married, while a majority of parents feel 25 is still a little too soon. So it's no coincidence that when Justin Bieber said he'd like to wed by 25, Oprah Winfrey urged him to wait longer. "The assumption has been that the younger generation wants to delay marriage and parents are hassling them about when they would get married," said ...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Five additional studies to be presented at the 2012 Quality Care Symposium provide insight on how oncology practices can improve the quality of care they provide. The Symposium will take place November 30 – December 1, at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego. Note to Media: Statements from ASCO Communications Committee Member, Jyoti Patel, MD, can be cited throughout can be used in part or in their entirety. Abstract #69 Rates of diagnostic imaging in long-term survivors of young adult malignancies Corinne Daly, BSc, MSc Institute of Medical ...

BOSTON - A new study by an international team of investigators led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists is the first to demonstrate that chemotherapy and a new, targeted therapy work better in combination than chemotherapy alone in treating patients with the most common genetic subtype of lung cancer. Published online today in The Lancet Oncology, the combination of chemotherapy and the targeted drug selumetinib was more effective than chemotherapy alone in a clinical trial involving patients with a form of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that carries a mutation ...