One person dies every hour from melanoma skin cancer in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society. A technique, known as photoacoustics, can find some forms of melanoma even if only a few cancerous cells exist, but a recent study by MU researchers found that the technique was limited in its ability to identify other types of cancer. Attaching markers, called enhancers, to cancer cells could improve the ability of photoacoustics to find other types of cancer and could save lives thanks to faster diagnosis, but the technique is in its early stages. "Eventually, ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—In the first human study of its kind, researchers found that using stem cells to re-grow craniofacial tissues—mainly bone—proved quicker, more effective and less invasive than traditional bone regeneration treatments. Researchers from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry and the Michigan Center for Oral Health Research partnered with Ann Arbor-based Aastrom Biosciences Inc. in the clinical trial, which involved 24 patients who required jawbone reconstruction after tooth removal. Patients either received experimental tissue repair cells ...

Parents concerned about their children's slothful ways can do something about it, according to research at National Jewish Health. They can increase their own activity. In the July 2012 issue of the Journal of Physical Activity and Health, Kristen Holm, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at National Jewish Health, and her colleagues report that, when parents increase their daily activity, as measured by a pedometer, their children increase theirs as well. "It has long been known that parent and child activity levels are correlated," said Dr. Holm. "This is the first ...

Irvine, Calif., July 30, 2012 – UC Irvine scientists have discovered intriguing differences in the brains and mental processes of an extraordinary group of people who can effortlessly recall every moment of their lives since about age 10. The phenomenon of highly superior autobiographical memory – first documented in 2006 by UCI neurobiologist James McGaugh and colleagues in a woman identified as "AJ" – has been profiled on CBS's "60 Minutes" and in hundreds of other media outlets. But a new paper in the peer-reviewed journal Neurobiology of Learning & Memory's July issue ...

Typhoon Saola looks like a monster tropical cyclone in infrared imagery from NASA's Aqua satellite today, July 30. Although Saola's center is over 300 nautical miles (368 miles/592 km) south-southeast of Taiwan, it stretches over the north and central Philippines and has triggered a number of warnings throughout the country. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite captured an image of Typhoon Saola approaching Taiwan on July 30 at 0215 UTC (July 29 at 10:15 p.m. EDT). The image showed a ragged eye in the storm's center ...

Tropical Storm Damrey appears to be a compact tropical storm on NASA satellite imagery as it heads west. It is expected to pass north of Iwo To, Japan and later south of Kyushu, one of Japan's large islands. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Damrey on July 30 at 03:21 UTC (July 29 at 11:21 p.m. EDT) and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument captured an infrared image of the storm. It showed that strong, high, cold cloud tops of thunderstorms were in a tight circle around the center of circulation. There were bands of thunderstorms mostly north ...

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center researchers have identified how one of the genes most commonly mutated in lung cancer may promote such tumors. The investigators found that the protein encoded by this gene, called EPHA3, normally inhibits tumor formation, and that loss or mutation of the gene – as often happens in lung cancer – diminishes this tumor-suppressive effect, potentially sparking the formation of lung cancer. The findings, published July 24 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, could offer direction for personalizing cancer treatments and development ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories' wind energy researchers are re-evaluating vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) to help solve some of the problems of generating energy from offshore breezes. Though VAWTs have been around since the earliest days of wind energy research at Sandia and elsewhere, VAWT architecture could transform offshore wind technology. The economics of offshore windpower are different from land-based turbines, due to installation and operational challenges. VAWTs offer three big advantages that could reduce the cost of wind energy: a ...

Montreal, July 30, 2012 – Rows of chip bags in a vending machine, endless bottles of shampoo on pharmacy shelves, long lines of books arranged in the bestsellers section at the bookstore. From supermarket shelves to barroom beer selection, long lines of horizontally arranged products are the norm when it comes to the shopping experience. But how does where a product is placed on the storeroom shelf influence which option a consumer will ultimately choose? It turns out that the shopper's eye has a very central focus. "Consumers are more likely to purchase products ...

Scientists at the University of Liverpool have discovered that variations in the long-term reversal rate of the Earth's magnetic field may be caused by changes in heat flow from the Earth's core into the base of the overlying mantle. The Earth is made up of a solid inner core, surrounded by a liquid outer core, in turn covered by a thicker or more viscous mantle, and ultimately by the solid crust beneath our feet. The magnetic field is generated by the motions of the liquid iron alloy in the outer core, approximately 3,000 km beneath the Earth's crust. These motions ...

WASHINGTON, DC, July 25, 2012 — Policies that reward abstinence from terrorism are more successful in reducing such acts of violence than tactics that aim to punish terrorists, suggests a new study in the August issue of the American Sociological Review. Titled, "Moving Beyond Deterrence: The Effectiveness of Raising the Expected Utility of Abstaining from Terrorism in Israel," the study looked specifically at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and found that between 1987 and 2004, Israeli policies and actions that encouraged and rewarded refrain from terrorist acts were ...

A new strain of influenza virus found in harbor seals could represent a threat to wildlife and human health, according to the authors of a study appearing July 31 in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. It is crucial to monitor viruses like this one, which originated in birds and adapted to infect mammals, the authors say, so that scientists can better predict the emergence of new strains of influenza and prevent pandemics in the future. "There is a concern that we have a new mammalian-transmissible virus to which humans haven't ...

Alexandria, VA – One man's trash is quickly becoming society's new treasure. In the August issue of EARTH Magazine, we explore how materials that were once considered garbage are now being recognized for their true potential as valuable energy resources capable of solving multiple problems at once. If successful, these "waste-to-energy" options could serve as a silver bullet – displacing fossil fuels, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and decreasing the amount of trash that winds up in already teeming landfills. Although several of these options have existed for many ...

To protect a dangerous and endangered animal -- be it a tiger in Nepal or a wolf in Michigan - you really do have to ask people "how do you FEEL about your predatory neighbor?" Effective conservation calls for not only figuring out what protected species need – like habitat and food sources. It also requires an understanding of what it takes for their human neighbors to tolerate them. A Michigan State University doctoral student studying tigers in Nepal found that those feelings can provide critical information on how best to protect species. "People have complex psychological ...

An international team of scientists led by researchers at Mount Sinai School Medicine have discovered that a drug that had previously yielded conflicting results in clinical trials for Alzheimer's disease effectively stopped the progression of memory deterioration and brain pathology in mouse models of early stage Alzheimer's disease. The findings, published July 31, 2012 in Molecular Psychiatry, demonstrate renewed potential for this compound and could lead to clinical trials in patients with early stages of the disease. Latrepirdine, known commercially as Dimebon, was ...

A novel avian influenza virus has acquired the ability to infect aquatic mammals and was responsible for an outbreak of fatal pneumonia that recently struck harbor seals in New England, according to scientists at the Center for Infection & Immunity (CII) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, New England Aquarium, USGS National Wildlife Health Center, SeaWorld and EcoHealth Alliance. This research is published in mBio. Wildlife officials first became concerned in September 2011, when seals with severe ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Roughly 1.8 million Americans have celiac disease, but around 1.4 million of them are unaware that they have it, a Mayo Clinic-led analysis of the condition's prevalence has found. Meanwhile, 1.6 million people in the United States are on a gluten-free diet even though they haven't been diagnosed with celiac disease, according to the study published Tuesday in the American Journal of Gastroenterology. Researchers have estimated the rate of diagnosed and undiagnosed celiac disease at similar levels prior to this study, but this is the most definitive ...

A new UH experiment takes an unconventional look at the treatment for domestic violence, otherwise known as intimate partner violence (IPV), by focusing on changing the perpetrators' psychological abuse during arguments rather than addressing his sexist beliefs. "There is a lot of research that studies the victim of intimate partner violence, but not the perpetrator," said Julia Babcock, department of psychology and co-director of the Center for Couples Therapy, a clinical research center at UH that offers therapy for couples. "The predominant model for IPV intervention ...

Bochum, 31.7.2012 No. 256 Never again a flat battery RUB researchers develop an early warning system for vehicle batteries Battery management permanently checks the age, state of charge and operational reliability A flat battery can turn an unsuspecting car driver into an unintentional pedestrian. The fact that vehicle batteries go flat all of a sudden is a well-known problem, but one that can also be avoided in future. Scientists from the RUB working group for Energy Systems Technology and Power Mechatronics headed by Professor Dr. Constantinos Sourkounis and Philip ...

Long-term sick leave is a burden for individuals and society at large, yet very little is known about the underlying reasons for it. Researchers at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, in collaboration with Australian and British institutes, have identified anxiety as a more important risk factor than previously thought. Common mental disorders such as anxiety and depression will affect 1 of 3 of us at some point in our lives. The core symptoms of mental disorders affect a person's emotional, cognitive and social functioning, which can impact on working ability. ...

A new study by Tiina Tuovinen, from the University of Eastern Finland, and her colleagues casts doubt over the validity of models used to assess the impact of radiation on human health. Their work is published online in Springer's journal Hydrobiologia. The Chernobyl accident in 1986 led to a discharge of radioactive compounds into terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments. Over a period of time, these compounds have been taken up by organisms and have made their way into the food chain. Since the accident, the fall-out from the power plant accident has been ...

Washington D.C., July 31, 2012 – A study published in the July 2012 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that diverted medical marijuana use among adolescents receiving treatment for substance abuse is very common. Study participants from two adolescent substance abuse treatment programs in the Denver metropolitan area were asked questions about their medical marijuana use.121 of 164 adolescents (73.8%) reported using medical marijuana that had been recommended for someone else, also known as diverted medical marijuana, ...

Philadelphia, PA, July 31, 2012 – Mental disorders that emerge in childhood and adolescence, including attention-deficit disorder, depression, anxiety and substance abuse, constitute significant challenges to cognitive, emotional, and social development. As a result, it is perhaps not surprising that earnings and income are substantially reduced among people diagnosed with mental disorders. Is the association between mental disorders and earnings a correlation, or is low income a consequence of a disorder? Are mental disorders universally associated with reduced economic/social ...

Thanks to the "flightless" molecule, the spread of cancer from one tissue to another may one day be grounded. In a new report published in the August 2012 print issue of The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), laboratory experiments show that "flightless" (named after its effects on fruit flies) increases the "stickiness" that causes cells, including cancer cells, to attach to underlying tissue, which in turn, slows their movement throughout the body. "The study of flightless and its role in the control of cell movement offers the promise of developing new drugs and ...

Who would have thought that our noses and Microsoft Windows' infamous blue screen of death could have something in common? But that's the case being made by a new research report appearing online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org). Specifically, scientists now know exactly why we sneeze, what sneezing should accomplish, and what happens when sneezing does not work properly. Much like a temperamental computer, our noses require a "reboot" when overwhelmed, and this biological reboot is triggered by the pressure force of a sneeze. When a sneeze works properly, it ...