A rare accounting document, half-concealed beneath a coat of arms design, has revealed the activities of Italian bankers working in early 15th century London, decades before the capital became a financial powerhouse. The discovery was made by economic historians at Queen Mary, University of London. Among the pages of a bound collection of traditional English crests held at the London College of Arms - the headquarters of British heraldry - are several papers belonging to a book of debtors and creditors for Florentine merchant-banking company, Domenicio Villani & Partners. The ...

(Washington) – "Repeal of Medicare's Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) is essential, but repeal by itself will not move Medicare to better ways to deliver care," David L. Bronson, MD, FACP, president of the American College of Physicians (ACP), today told the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health. "We need to transition from a fundamentally broken physician payment system to one that is based on the value of services to patients, building on physician-led initiatives to improve outcomes and lower costs." Dr. Bronson described how physician organization's efforts and ...

WASHINGTON -- For several days this month, Greenland's surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. Nearly the entire ice cover of Greenland, from its thin, low-lying coastal edges to its 2-mile-thick center, experienced some degree of melting at its surface, according to measurements from three independent satellites analyzed by NASA and university scientists. On average in the summer, about half of the surface of Greenland's ice sheet naturally melts. At high elevations, most of that melt water quickly ...

New Rochelle, NY, July 24, 2012—Hundreds of colleges and universities around the world are offering courses and even graduate degrees in ecopsychology and other forms of environmentally focused psychology. Ecopsychology examines the psychological, spiritual, and therapeutic aspects of human-nature relationships, concern about environmental issues, and responsibility for protecting natural places and other species. Educators are increasingly recognizing the value of integrating psychology and environmental content to help students appreciate the link between their own well-being ...

Papers on how best to identify trending stories on Twitter and on just how cool computers in data centers need to be kept has won accolades for faculty and students from UTSC's Department of Computer & Mathematical Sciences. Nick Koudas, UTSC computer science professor, and his graduate students Albert Angel and Nikos Sarkas, won the Best Paper award for the Very Large Databases Conference, which they will present at the meeting in Istanbul in August. The paper presents a new way of identifying stories of interest on Twitter and other streaming microblogging sites. ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — The inferior members of swimming or running relay teams – those athletes who fared poorest in individual races – showed the greatest gains when performing as part of a team, and those gains were even greater during final races as opposed to preliminary races. The new research from Michigan State University's Deborah Feltz and Kaitlynn Osborn provides some of the first real-world support for the Köhler motivation effect, which describes how less capable individuals perform better when performing a task with others as opposed to individually. The ...

Contact: David Hosansky hosansky@ucar.edu 303-497-8611 Zhenya Gallon zhenya@ucar.edu 303-497-8607 National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Reducing traffic at 2008 Olympics yielded large cut in CO2 BOULDER—China's Olympian attempt to improve air quality during the 2008 summer games did more than provide a healthier atmosphere for the athletes. It also demonstrated that widespread changes in transportation patterns could greatly reduce the threat of climate change. New research by an international team ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – JULY 24, 2012 – A study from researchers in Switzerland found that colonoscopy with polypectomy significantly reduces colorectal cancer incidence and colorectal cancer-related death in the general population. A total of 12 colorectal cancer cases were identified in the screening group of 1,912 patients and 213 cases of colorectal cancer were found in the non-screened group of 20,774 patients. One of the 12 persons of the screened individuals with a colorectal cancer and 51 of the 213 persons of the non-screened individuals with a colorectal cancer died ...

Patients with blocked arteries to their extremities, known as peripheral artery disease (PAD) or critical limb ischemia (CLI), may now find relief from lower leg pain and wounds caused by impaired leg artery circulation with the previously unproven therapy, percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA). The XCELL trial results now available in Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, a journal published by Wiley on behalf of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI), reports that infrapopliteal nitinol stenting to treat CLI is safe and effective ...

Rapid intensification of tropical cyclones is still somewhat of a mystery to forecasters, but one marker that NASA scientists confirmed is when "hot towers" appear within a tropical cyclone as they did in Typhoon Vicente before it exploded in strength on July 23. Vicente made landfall in southern China on July 23. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite spotted hot towers in Typhoon Vicente, and it rapidly intensified again within six hours on July 23. By the afternoon (Eastern Daylight time) Vicente's winds spun up to 120 knots (138 mph/222 kmh). ...

Though technology has taken much of the guesswork out of mining, mountain ranges are still notoriously difficult environments in which to hunt for valuable minerals. Various methods used to draw a picture of the underground environment, including the measurement of gravitational and magnetic fields, are easily thrown off by factors such as changes in topography height, surrounding temperature, and barometric pressure. Now Prof. Lev Eppelbaum of Tel Aviv University's Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences has developed a new method for processing and analysing ...

The finding involves the cancer gene RhoC, which has previously been shown to promote metastasis of many types of cancer. RhoC levels increase as breast cancer progresses and high levels of RhoC are associated with worse patient survival. Cancer stem cells are the small number of cells within a tumor that are believed to fuel the tumor's growth and spread. Researchers believe traditional chemotherapy and radiation treatments often become ineffective because they do not kill the cancer stem cells, and that the key to future treatments is to develop drugs that target and ...

New Rochelle, NY, July 24, 2012—A naturally occurring line of immunodeficient pigs can support the growth of human tumors injected under their skin, offering a promising new large animal model for studying human cancers and testing new drugs and treatment strategies. The ability of human melanoma cells and pancreatic carcinoma cells to grow in these pig models is described in an article in BioResearch Open Access, a new bimonthly peer-reviewed open access journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (http://www.liebertpub.com). The article is available free online at the BioResearch ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Participation in competitive sports by people with long QT syndrome -- a genetic abnormality in the heart's electrical system -- has been a matter of debate among physicians. Current guidelines disqualify most LQTS patients from almost every sport. In a first-of-its-kind study, Mayo Clinic's LQTS Clinic recently examined its own experience, determining the outcome of LQTS patients who chose to remain athletes against guideline recommendations. The study is published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In the study, the records ...

The scientific community has always wanted to know why people who eat high-salt diets are prone to developing medical problems such as kidney stones and osteoporosis. Medical researchers at the University of Alberta may have solved this puzzle through their work with animal lab models and cells. Principal investigator Todd Alexander and his team recently discovered an important link between sodium and calcium. These both appear to be regulated by the same molecule in the body. When sodium intake becomes too high, the body gets rid of sodium via the urine, taking calcium ...

Human defensins, aptly named antimicrobial peptides, are made in immune system cells and epithelial cells (such as skin cells and cells that line the gut). One of these peptides, human neutrophil peptide 1, under certain circumstances hinders HIV infection, but exactly how it works remains unclear. HIV entry into mature T-helper cells (cells essential to the immune system) proceeds by attachment of the virus to specific targets on T-helper cells, uptake of the virus, fusion of its envelope with the cell membranes, and release of the virus into the cells. In a forthcoming ...

In addition to the well-known risk factor of smoking, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) increases lung cancer risk. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research details one novel mechanism of this risk: long-term oxygen depletion stimulates signals that promote tumor growth. In addition, this early study – performed in animal models – shows that tumors fueled by these COPD-induced signals may be especially susceptible to prevention or perhaps even treatment with drugs that turn off these same signals, namely ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The northern spotted owl, a threatened species in the Pacific Northwest, would actually benefit in the long run from active management of the forest lands that form its primary habitat and are increasingly vulnerable to stand-replacing fire, researchers conclude in a recent study. Whatever short-term drawbacks there may be from logging, thinning, or other fuel reduction activities in areas with high fire risk would be more than offset by improved forest health and fire-resistance characteristics, the scientists said, which allow more spotted owl habitat ...

Scientists have long speculated that high diabetes rates among Native Americans may have roots in the evolutionary past. "Thrifty" genes that helped ancient hunter-gatherers store fat for survival during famine may contribute to diabetes in modern times of plenty. But a new analysis of fossil feces from an Arizona cave suggests that the evolution of thrifty genes had little to do with famine and much more to do with the nature of the ancient feast. The research, reported in the August issue of Current Anthropology, shows that prehistoric hunter-gatherers in the Southwest ...

Emerging techniques to pull carbon dioxide from the air and store it away to stabilize the climate may become increasingly important as the planet tips into a state of potentially dangerous warming, researchers from Columbia University's Earth Institute argue in a paper out this week. The upfront costs of directly taking carbon out of the air will likely be expensive, but such technology may well become cheaper as it develops and becomes more widely used, and cost should not be a deterrent to developing such a potentially valuable tool, the authors said. The techniques ...

The famous biologist Stephen J. Gould once asked: If we rerun the tape of life, would the outcome of evolution be the same? For years, scientists have questioned whether evolution is predictable, or whether chance events make such predictability unlikely. A study published online July 23 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that in the case of insects that developed resistance to a powerful plant toxin, the same adaptations have occurred independently, in separate species in different places and times. The paper examines 18 insect species across ...

A new probe developed collaboratively at Norris Cotton Cancer Center and Dartmouth College's Thayer School of Engineering uses an innovative fluorescence-reading technology to help brain surgeons distinguish cancerous tissue from normal tissue. The probe tool, now already in use at the Cancer Center for brain surgery, may one day be used for surgeries for a variety of cancers. Performing surgery to remove a brain tumor requires surgeons to walk a very fine line. If they leave tumor tissue behind, the tumor is likely to regrow; if they cut out too much normal tissue, they ...

Six months ago, researchers at UCLA published a study that showed using a specific type of yoga to engage in a brief, simple daily meditation reduced the stress levels of people who care for those stricken by Alzheimer's and dementia. Now they know why. As previously reported, practicing a certain form of chanting yogic meditation for just 12 minutes daily for eight weeks led to a reduction in the biological mechanisms responsible for an increase in the immune system's inflammation response. Inflammation, if constantly activated, can contribute to a multitude of chronic ...

Vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV) are now recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for both teenage boys and girls. The vaccine protects against the two most common types of the virus that cause cervical cancer: HPV 16 and 18. Is there a chance that the increased number of people vaccinated might result in an increase of other types of HPV that cause cancer? A UNC-led international team of scientists studied this question in a group of 2228 Kenyan men as a "nested" trial in a larger trial. Their first paper in the Journal of Infectious ...

BETHESDA, Md. (July 24, 2012)—Childhood obesity has nearly tripled in the past three decades, and by 2009, 17 percent of those 2-19 years of age were classified as obese. If actions against childhood obesity do not take place it is likely that today's children could be the first generation in over a century to experience a decline in life expectancy due to the epidemic of childhood obesity which leads to complications in later life. While little is known about how inactivity and obesity lead to undesirable side effects such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancers, ...