Justin Crepp, assistant professor of physics at the University of Notre Dame, provided the high-contrast imaging observations that confirmed the first extrasolar planet discovered in a quadruple star system. He is a coauthor on a paper about the discovery, "Planet Hunters: A Transiting Circumbinary Planet in a Quadruple Star System," recently posted to the open-access arXiv.org, and submitted for publication to the Astrophysical Journal. Crepp's images revealed that the system involved two sets of binary stars. The planet was first noticed by volunteer citizen scientists ...

CHICAGO --- Women who exercise regularly spend as much time sitting as women who don't, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study. Emerging research shows that prolonged sitting has significant health consequences---and the new Northwestern study suggests that being a dedicated exerciser doesn't prevent women from spending too much of their day sitting. This research is the latest indication that public health recommendations should be established to encourage Americans to limit the amount of time they spend sitting every day, said Lynette L. Craft, first author ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Controlling depression in patients with heart failure can improve health status, social functioning and quality of life, according to a new study by psychiatrists and cardiologists at the UC Davis and Duke University schools of medicine. While depression is known to worsen a variety of diseases, the current study is one of the first to show that reducing symptoms of the mental health condition can benefit physical health. The study is available online now and will be distributed in the print issue of Circulation: Heart Failure on Nov. 20. "The ...

There is an urgent need for new drugs to treat Rett syndrome, a rare and severe neurological disease mainly affecting girls. A bottleneck in drug development for this syndrome is a lack of clarity at the level of preclinical research. Key researchers in this field now tackle this issue, proposing standards and guidelines for Rett syndrome research, in an Open Access review article published on Oct. 31, 2012 in Disease Models & Mechanisms (DMM) at http://dmm.biologists.org/. This "state of the science" assessment serves as a comprehensive resource of all findings and citations ...

BOSTON, MA (October 31, 2012)—A routine blood test may help predict survival in patients with an aggressive form of skin cancer known as Merkel cell carcinoma, according to new findings by Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers. The results will be presented on Wednesday, October 31 at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's 54th Annual Meeting. "With such a fast-growing cancer, we get one question a lot: 'how long do I have?'," says Matthew Johnson, MD, a resident physician in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Fox Chase and lead author on the study. "That's ...

This colourful view of the globular star cluster NGC 6362 was captured by the Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. This new picture, along with a new image of the central region from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, provide the best view of this little-known cluster ever obtained. Globular clusters are mainly composed of tens of thousands of very ancient stars, but they also contain some stars that look suspiciously young. Globular star clusters are among the oldest objects in the Universe, and NGC 6362 ...

The risk of maternal complications and preterm deliveries is significantly higher for women undergoing their fifth or more caesarean section, finds a new study published today (31 October) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. The study explored the incidence of UK women having Multiple Repeat Caesarean Sections (MRCS), defined as five or more, and the outcomes for them and their babies compared to women having their second to fourth caesarean section. The researchers, from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and the University of Oxford ...

CLEVELAND – A first-of-its-kind clinical trial conducted at University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center Seidman Cancer Center has shown encouraging results for the use of stereotactic radiosurgery to treat kidney cancer. This non-invasive treatment technique may represent a potential new non-surgical option for patients with this deadly disease who have limited treatment options. Rod Ellis, MD, lead author of the study along with Lee Ponsky, MD, who is the Principal Investigator, presented results of a Phase 1 clinical trial in 20 patients with localized primary renal ...

In response to the on-line publication by the European Journal of Human Genetics today (Wednesday) of an article by US researchers led by Dr. Robert Cook-Degan, a former member of the US Office of Technology Assessment, showing that Myriad Genetics, providers of the BRCA1/2 genetic test in the US, has amassed vast quantities of clinical data without sharing it, Professor Martina Cornel, chair of the European Society of Human Genetics' Professional and Public Policy committee, said: "We are very concerned that such important data is being withheld from those who most need ...

Veterinary scientists at the University of Liverpool have found that, like humans, obese dogs can experience metabolic syndrome, a condition that describes multiple health issues that occur in the body at the same time. The condition occurs when a number of health problems, such as increased blood glucose and increased cholesterol levels, develop together, with the potential to increase the risk of other diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Although canine obesity is known to cause insulin resistance, mild hypertension, and high blood cholesterol ...

Wide differences in death rates from disease still persist throughout England – but effective healthcare can help to reduce these inequalities, a new study has discovered. Researchers from the University of Leicester led a two-year project funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) into why differences in death rates from diseases like heart disease, strokes, lung disease and cancers still persist. They found that age and poverty were among the biggest factors that accounted for the differences – but they also discovered that effective delivery of healthcare ...

WASHINGTON--Around the globe, mariners and navies alike have long observed and included weather and sea states in navigational planning when plotting course or developing military strategy. And although forecasting had become an integral function by the start of the 20th century, these predictions were often crude and qualitative. For the U.S. Navy, the years 1941 through 1946 provided an unusual stimulus to ocean wave research, according to pioneer World War II oceanographer Charles Bates. During this brief five-year period, theory, observation, and prediction of sea, ...

City leaders aspiring to transform their cities into models of sustainability must look beyond city limits and include in their calculation the global flow of goods and materials into their realm, argue researchers in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences journal Ambio. Many cities are now developing sustainable strategies to reduce pollution and congestion, improve the quality of life of their citizens, and respond to growing concern about human impact on climate and the environment. But sustainable city initiatives often ignore the environmental footprint from imported ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Amputees with a new prosthetic arm must learn how to use their device to perform everyday tasks that were once second nature. Taking off a shirt becomes a conscious, multistep effort: grasp the shirt, lift the shirt over the head, pull arms through the sleeves, place the shirt on the table, let go of the shirt. In the best cases of treatment, patients work with teams of doctors, prosthetists, and therapists to learn how their new limbs can help them regain function and quality of life. But clinicians have had few tools to assess ...

A new ground-breaking study about to be published in the Adis journal CNS Drugs provides clinical evidence that, for the first time, chronic neurological dysfunction from stroke or traumatic brain injury can rapidly improve following a single dose of a drug that targets brain inflammation, even years after the stroke or traumatic event. The observational study¹ of 629 patients, conducted over the course of nearly two years, documents a diverse range of positive effects, including statistically significant rapid clinical improvement in motor impairment, spasticity, cognition, ...

A team of physicists from Europe and South Africa showed that electrons moving randomly in graphene can mimic the dynamics of particles such as cosmic rays, despite travelling at a fraction of their speed, in a paper about to be published in EPJ B. Andrey Pototsky and colleagues made use of their knowledge of graphene, which is made of a carbon layer, one atom thick, and packed in a honeycomb lattice pattern. In such material the interaction of electrons with atoms changes the effective mass of the electrons. As a result, the energy of electrons in graphene becomes similar ...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31—As a human fetus develops, its heart has to keep pace with the new body's ever-growing demands. Much of this is controlled by following genetic blueprints, but the embryonic heart also matures in response to the intense stresses of pumping blood. For the first time, researchers have been able to visualize in 3-D the stresses induced by flowing blood in an embryonic heart. The technique, which promises to provide new insight into how and why heart defects develop, is described in a paper published today in the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal ...

Scientists from the University of Sheffield have unlocked one of the secrets to DNA repair –helping doctors identify DNA base damage and a patient's susceptibility to certain types of cancer. Groundbreaking research led by Dr David Williams from the University of Sheffield's Department of Chemistry and an international collaboration of expert researchers has discovered how some proteins recognise damaged bases within DNA which, if untreated, could lead to cancer. Dr Williams said: "Proteins carry out all the day-to-day processes needed for survival. If the DNA bases ...

The mere mention of the word "herpes" usually conjures negative images and stereotypes, but most people have been infected with some form of the virus. For most, a sore appears, heals and is forgotten, although the virus remains latent just waiting for the right circumstances to come back. Now, the mystery behind what triggers the virus to become active again is closer to being solved thanks to new research published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology's November 2012 issue. In the report, scientists show how the immune system may lose its control over the virus when facing ...

A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Cordoba links moderate physical activity in males with better hormone levels and sperm characteristics that favour reproduction compared to sedentary men. Semen quality at large has dropped in the last 50 years. Amongst other factors, this is due to exposure to external agents and alcohol and tobacco consumption. This decline in sperm properties has caused an increase in reproductive problems. Therefore, experts have studied the possible relationship between sperm quality and lifestyle habits in males. Published ...

Boston, Mass.—Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital have found that microscopic particles containing proteins and nucleic acids called exosomes could potentially protect the fragile lungs of premature babies from serious lung diseases and chronic lung injury caused by inflammation. The findings explain earlier research suggesting that while transplanting a kind of stem cell called mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) could help reduce lung injury and prevent inflammation in a mouse model, the fluid in which the cells were grown was more effective than the cells themselves. The ...

ANN ARBOR—It looks like Mother Nature was wasting her time with a multimillion-year process to produce crude oil. Michigan Engineering researchers can "pressure-cook" algae for as little as a minute and transform an unprecedented 65 percent of the green slime into biocrude. "We're trying to mimic the process in nature that forms crude oil with marine organisms," said Phil Savage, an Arthur F. Thurnau professor and a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan. The findings will be presented Nov. 1 at the 2012 American Institute of Chemical Engineers ...

Scientists have identified a molecular 'flag' in women with breast cancer who do not respond or have become resistant to the hormone drug tamoxifen. Tamoxifen – used alongside traditional chemotherapy and radiotherapy – blocks the female hormone oestrogen that, in certain breast cancers, is required by the tumour to grow; it has been shown to improve cancer survival rates by up to one third. However, about one third of patients with the appropriate type of breast cancer – known as oestrogen receptor positive breast cancer – do not respond to tamoxifen or develop resistance ...

This press release is available in German. Fog is an atmospheric phenomenon that afflicts millions of drivers every day, impairing visibility and increasing the risk of an accident. The ways people respond to conditions of reduced visibility is a central topic in vision research. It has been shown that people tend to underestimate speeds when visibility is reduced equally at all distances, as for example, when driving with a uniformly fogged windshield. But what happens when the visibility decreases as you look further into the distance, as happens when driving in ...

"Nature teaches beasts to know their friends," wrote Shakespeare. In humans, nature may be less than half of the story, a team led by University of Colorado Boulder researchers has found. In the first study of its kind, the team found that genetic similarities may help to explain why human birds of a feather flock together, but the full story of why people become friends "is contingent upon the social environment in which individuals interact with one another," the researchers write. People are more likely to befriend genetically similar people when their environment ...