As nanotechnology progresses, it becomes increasingly important to know in detail the dynamics of the nanoworld (the world at the scale of a millionth of a millimeter). What happens, for example, when we try to drive a polyelectrolyte (a long chain of electrically charged molecules, such as DNA) through a nanopore if knots cause the translocation process to jam? It's not a pointless question, because now a new DNA sequencing method to electrochemically analyze every single strand by driving it through a nanopore, is being developed. Since those strands tend to tangle up ...

Limiting the quantity of catalysts – substances that trigger a chemical reaction – used in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals is important, and research from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has now demonstrated that small quantities of copper work well in this respect. "This is an important finding, not just academically but also for industry," says chemist Per-Fredrik Larsson. Catalysis is an incredibly valuable tool in the field of chemistry, with the Haber-Bosch process being one of the most important catalytic processes in the world. It is used to manufacture ...

A study published by Andrea Vanossi, Nicola Manini and Erio Tosatti - three SISSA researchers - in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) provides a new tool to better understand how sliding friction works in nanotribology, through colloidal crystals. By theoretically studying these systems of charged microparticles, researchers are able to analyze friction forces through molecular dynamics simulations with accuracy never experienced before. "There are several and very concrete potentialities", stated Andrea Vanossi, one of the members of the research ...

Patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder are characterised by persistent thoughts and repetitive behaviours. A new study reveals that sufferers worry considerably more than the general population in the face of morality problems. Along with the help of experts from the Barcelona's Hospital del Mar and the University of Melbourne (Australia), researchers at the Hospital de Bellvitge in Barcelona have proven that patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, known as OCD, are more morally sensitive. "Faced with a problem of this type, people suffering from this type ...

A new software product developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge could greatly improve sound perception for users of hearing aids. The software prescribes the amount of amplification of high-frequency sounds required to restore the audibility of such sounds. This increases the frequency range of sound that individuals with hearing loss are able to detect, improving speech perception, sound localisation and the ability to hear certain musical sounds, when compared with current methods. Results of an evaluation of the software were published recently in the ...

Washington, D.C.—Astronomers have discovered a new super-Earth in the habitable zone, where liquid water and a stable atmosphere could reside, around the nearby star HD 40307. It is one of three new super-Earths found around the star that has three other low-mass planets orbiting it. HD 40307 is a dwarf star that is somewhat smaller and less luminous than the Sun that is about 42 light years away (12.88 parsecs). The previously discovered planets around it are called hot super-Earths because they orbit too close to the star to support life. The international team, including ...

WASHINGTON, DC, November 8, 2012 — Higher neighborhood education is associated with better self-rated health among Asian Americans who live in Asian ethnic neighborhoods, but this correlation between individual health and neighborhood education levels does not exist for Asian Americans living in non-Asian neighborhoods, according to a recent study in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. "When Asian Americans live in neighborhoods that are not Asian ethnic neighborhoods, the education level of the neighborhood doesn't affect their health," says Emily Walton, an ...

What was your high school mascot? Where did you put your keys last night? Who was the first president of the United States? Groups of neurons in your brain are currently sending electromagnetic rhythms through established pathways in order for you to recall the answers to each of these questions. Researchers in Drexel's School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems are now getting a rare look inside the brain to discover the exact pattern of activity that produces a memory. Dr. Joshua Jacobs, a professor in Drexel's School of Biomedical Engineering, ...

Decision-making is an inevitable part of the human experience, and one of the most mysterious. For centuries, scientists have studied how we go about the difficult task of choosing A or B, left or right, North or South — and how both instinct and intellect figure into the process. Now new research indicates that the old truism "look before you leap" may be less true than previously thought. In a behavioral experiment, Prof. Marius Usher of Tel Aviv University's School of Psychological Sciences and his fellow researchers found that intuition was a surprisingly powerful ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. – A 30-minute brain injury education program taught in the hospital may increase children's use of bicycle helmets, Georgia Health Sciences University researchers report. The researchers provided bicycle helmet safety and brain injury prevention information to 120 patients age 5 to 18 at Georgia Health Sciences Children's Medical Center and found that helmet usage increased by 72.5 percent within the first month following the program – from only 11 children reporting wearing a bicycle helmet on every ride to 98 always wearing helmets. "This is a big step ...

This press release is available in German. The feel-good hormone dopamine improves long-term memory. This is the finding of a team lead by Emrah Düzel, neuroscientist at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases and the University of Magdeburg. The researchers investigated test subjects ranging in age from 65 to 75 years, who were given a precursor of dopamine. Treated subjects performed better in a memory test than a comparison group, who had taken a placebo. The study provides new insights into the formation of long lasting memories and also has implications ...

(Boston) – Physicians at Boston Medical Center (BMC) have developed a training video for health care providers about how to effectively use capnography to monitor ventilation and carbon dioxide levels for patients under anesthesia or conscious sedation. This is the sixth video published in the New England Journal of Medicine's Videos in Clinical Medicine section produced by BMC. It highlights the importance of using capnography to increase patient safety. Capnography, which graphically monitors carbon dioxide concentration and measures ventilation and respiration, is ...

Eye experts and scientists at the University of Southampton have discovered specific cells in the eye which could lead to a new procedure to treat and cure blinding eye conditions. Led by Professor Andrew Lotery, the study found that cells called corneal limbal stromal cells, taken from the front surface of the eye have stem cell properties and could be cultured to create retinal cells. This could lead to new treatments for eye conditions such as retinitis pigmentosa or wet age-related macular degeneration, a condition which is a common cause of loss of vision in older ...

Bethesda, MD – The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) commends Air India for continuing to transport research animals. In a letter to the company, FASEB expressed its appreciation for Air India's perseverance in the face of considerable pressure from animal rights groups to discontinue shipping laboratory animals. "Animals are crucial for the advancement of biomedical research, and scientists around the world are dependent upon their safe and humane shipment," stated FASEB President Judith S. Bond. "The inability of scientists to access research ...

For the first time, the dynamics of how Facebook user communities are formed have been identified, revealing surprisingly few large communities and innumerable highly connected small-size communities. These findings are about to be published in EPJ Data Science by Italian scientist Emilio Ferrara, affiliated with both Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, USA and his home University of Messina. This work could ultimately help identify the most efficient way to spread information, such as advertising, or ideas over large networks. No previous work has attempted to ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – "Hooking up" has become such a trend on college campuses that some believe these casual, no-strings-attached sexual encounters may be replacing traditional romantic relationships. However, a new study by researchers with The Miriam Hospital's Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine suggests college students are not actually hooking up as frequently as one might think. According to their study, published online by the Journal of Adolescent Health, romantic relationships are still the most common context for sexual behavior, at least among women ...

People can lip-read themselves better than they can lip-read others, according to a new study by Nancy Tye-Murray and colleagues from Washington University. Their work, which explores the link between speech perception and speech production, is published online in Springer's Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Most people cannot read lips - just try watching television with the sound turned off and see how much of a news item you understand. If you see someone speak a sentence without the accompanying sounds, you are unlikely to recognize many words. Tye-Murray and her team ...

WASHINGTON — At least 126,000 sites across the U.S. have contaminated groundwater that requires remediation, and about 10 percent of these sites are considered "complex," meaning restoration is unlikely to be achieved in the next 50 to 100 years due to technological limitations, says a new report from the National Research Council. The report adds that the estimated cost of complete cleanup at these sites ranges from $110 billion to $127 billion, but the figures for both the number of sites and costs are likely underestimates. Several national and state groundwater cleanup ...

Researchers supported by the Wellcome Trust have discovered that we use a different part of our brain to learn about social hierarchies than we do to learn ordinary information. The study provides clues as to how this information is stored in memory and also reveals that you can tell a lot about how good somebody is likely to be at judging social rank by looking at the structure of their brain. Primates (and people) are remarkably good at ranking each other within social hierarchies, a survival technique that helps us to avoid conflict and select advantageous allies. ...

New Rochelle, NY, November 8, 2012—Concussion is a common disorder estimated to affect no fewer than 1.7-3.8 million people in the U.S. each year. Many more people with concussion likely do not seek medical care for symptoms of concussion and may suffer long-lasting, progressive, and profoundcognitive, psychiatric, and neurologic effects. The first use of teleconcussion, a novel solution for management and follow-up of a concussed athlete with remote access technology, is described in an article published in Telemedicine and e-Health, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann ...

Philadelphia, PA, November 8, 2012 – According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 28% of adolescents are overweight. This means that about 1 in every 5 parents is thinking about how to discuss this with their child. Creating a healthful home environment, modeling healthful behaviors, and providing encouragement and support to adolescents for positive behavior changes may be more effective than communicating with adolescents about weight-related topics, according to a new study released in the November/December 2012 issue of the Journal of Nutrition ...

Deliberately inflicting carefully controlled painful stimuli on human volunteers and seeing how well specific drugs reduce the feeling of pain can be an effective way of testing new drugs. So conclude two researchers who reviewed the available literature on these types of tests in a paper published in the British Journal of Pharmacology. Pain is important. It acts as an alarm mechanism, warning us that something is about to cause physical damage. It could be triggered by something physical like a cut or bruise, or a temperature driven stimulus such as extreme heat or ...

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have developed a transgenic mouse that carries a human gene known to increase risk of Alzheimer's 15-fold. This new mouse mimics the genetics of the human disease more closely than any of the dozen existing mouse models and may prove more useful in the development of candidate drugs to prevent or treat the disease. The new mouse model provides new evidence for the earliest cause of Alzheimer's, researchers report in a study to be published in the December issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry ...

This press release is available in German. MicroRNAs are essential regulators of the genetic program in multicellular organisms. Because of their potent effects, the production of these small regulators has itself to be tightly controlled. That is the key finding of a new study performed by Tübingen scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology. They identified a new component that modulates the production of micro RNAs in thale cress, Arabidopsis thaliana, by the removal of phosphate residues from a micro RNA-biogenesis enzyme. This can be as ...

Florida residents know firsthand how devastating this most recent recession has been. While the economy is showing some positive signs, many Floridians are still not seeing these benefits. With unemployment remaining high, and home values struggling to rebound, many individuals throughout the state are experiencing debt problems. In fact, the debt that some residents are experiencing is actually much higher than the national average. A recent study by Credit Karma, a consumer website, examined the debt of South Floridians to learn more about the extent of debt within ...