Amsterdam, NL, August 20, 2012 – Amputation disrupts not only the peripheral nervous system but also central structures of the brain. While the brain is able to adapt and compensate for injury in certain conditions, in amputees the traumatic event prevents adaptive cortical changes. A group of scientists reports adaptive plastic changes in an amputee's brain following implantation of multielectrode arrays inside peripheral nerves. Their results are available in the current issue of Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience. "We found that a neurally-interfaced hand prosthesis ...

Amsterdam, NL, August 20, 2012 – Research has found that declines in temporal information processing (TIP), the rate at which auditory information is processed, underlies the progressive loss of function across multiple cognitive systems in the elderly, including new learning, memory, perception, attention, thinking, motor control, problem solving, and concept formation. In a new study, scientists have found that elderly subjects who underwent temporal training improved not only the rate at which they processed auditory information, but also in other cognitive areas. ...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20—From the early days of cinema, film producers have used various techniques to create the illusion of depth – with mixed results. But even with digital technology, the latest Hollywood blockbusters still rely on clunky glasses to achieve a convincing 3-D effect. New optics research by a team of South Korean investigators offers the prospect of glasses-free, 3-D display technology for commercial theaters. Their new technique, described in a paper published today in the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal Optics Express, can bring this added ...

New Rochelle, NY, August 20, 2012—Major depression affects as many as 16% of reproductive-aged women in the U.S. Yet pregnant women have a higher rate of undiagnosed depression than nonpregnant women, according to a study published in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Women's Health website at http://www.liebertpub.com/jwh. Jean Ko, PhD and coauthors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, GA, found that more than 1 in 10 women ages ...

Researchers at King's College London, in collaboration with European research institutes ICFO (Barcelona) and AMOLF (Amsterdam), have succeeded in mapping how light behaves in complex photonic materials inspired by nature, like iridescent butterfly wings. Scientists have broken the limit of light resolution at the nanoscale and delivered a fundamental insight into how light and matter interact, which could lead to the development of enhanced bio-sensors for healthcare and more efficient solar cells and displays. Optical measurements of light waves at the nanoscale have ...

Scientists have discovered that a space inside a special type of carbon molecule can be used to imprison other smaller molecules such as hydrogen or water. The nano-metre sized cavity of the hollow spherical C60 Buckminsterfullerene — or bucky ball — effectively creates a 'nanolaboratory', allowing detailed study of the quantum mechanical principles that determine the motion of the caged molecule, including the mysterious wave-like behaviour that is a fundamental property of all matter. Experiments by the international collaboration of researchers, including physicists ...

Thirty years into the HIV epidemic, many people who are at high risk of HIV infection cannot or will not adopt safer sexual practices, such as abstinence and condom use. This means there is room in the market for alternative methods to reduce either exposure to or transmission of HIV among these individuals. One such strategy, HIV home testing (HT), is the subject of a recent study by Alex Carballo-Dieguez and his colleagues at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at New York. Their work appears online in the journal AIDS and Behavior published by Springer. A ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Intel Corp. have collaborated to synthesize and study a grid-like array of short pieces of a disease-associated protein on silicon chips normally used in computer microprocessors. They used this chip, which was created through a process used to make semiconductors, to identify patients with a particularly severe form of the autoimmune disease lupus. Although the new technology is focused on research applications, it has the potential to eventually improve diagnoses of a multitude of diseases, ...

Despite differences in rituals and beliefs among the world's major religions, spirituality often enhances health regardless of a person's faith, according to University of Missouri researchers. The MU researchers believe that health care providers could take advantage of this correlation between health – particularly mental health – and spirituality by tailoring treatments and rehabilitation programs to accommodate an individual's spiritual inclinations. "In many ways, the results of our study support the idea that spirituality functions as a personality trait," said ...

DENVER — New research indicates that urban American Indian youth who follow American Indian traditional spiritual beliefs are less likely to use drugs and alcohol. Arizona State University social scientists will present their findings at the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. The study, "Spirituality and Religion: Intertwined Protective Factors for Substance Use Among Urban American Indian Youth," was recently published in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. The authors are: Stephen Kulis, the study's principal investigator and ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Adults across the U.S. rate not getting enough exercise as the top health concern for children in 2012, according to a new University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. In the poll's annual top 10 list, a nationwide sample of adults were asked to identify the top 10 biggest health concerns for kids in their communities. For the first time, not enough exercise was rated by most adults at the top of the list (39 percent). That was followed closely by childhood obesity (38 percent) and smoking and tobacco use ...

A trawl of the genome of the deadly bacterium Bacillus anthracis has revealed a clutch of targets for new drugs to combat an epidemic of anthrax or a biological weapons attack. The targets are all proteins that are found in the bacteria but not in humans and are involved in diverse bacterial processes such as metabolism, cell wall synthesis and bacterial persistence. The discovery of a range of targets might bode well for creating a drug cocktail that could preclude the emergence of drug resistance. Ravi Gutlapalli of the Department of Biotechnology, at Acharya Nagarjuna ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Algae are high on the genetic engineering agenda as a potential source for biofuel, and they should be subjected to independent studies of any environmental risks that could be linked to cultivating algae for this purpose, two prominent researchers say. Writing in the August 2012 issue of the journal BioScience, the researchers argue that ecology experts should be among scientists given independent authority and adequate funding to explore any potential unintended consequences of this technological pursuit. A critical baseline concern is whether genetically ...

URBANA – In evaluating the bioactive compounds of Illinois blueberry and blackberry wines, University of Illinois scientists have found compounds that inhibit enzymes responsible for carbohydrate absorption and assimilation. And that could mean a tasty way to help people with diabetes decrease their blood sugar. "We're thinking about a dealcoholized fermented fruit beverage that would optimize the inhibition of the alpha-amylase and alpha-glucosidase enzymes and also make use of the wines' other healthful bioactive components," said Elvira de Mejia, a U of I professor ...

The Caribbean islands have been pushed east over the last 50 million years, driven by the movement of the Earth's viscous mantle against the more rooted South American continent, reveals new research by geophysicists from USC. The results, published today in Nature Geoscience, give us a better understanding of how continents resist the constant movement of the Earth's plates – and what effect the continental plates have on reshaping the surface of the Earth. "Studying the deep earth interior provides insights into how the Earth has evolved into its present form," said ...

Even though it sounds like science fiction, researchers are taking a second look at a controversial idea that uses futuristic ships to shoot salt water high into the sky over the oceans, creating clouds that reflect sunlight and thus counter global warming. University of Washington atmospheric physicist Rob Wood describes a possible way to run an experiment to test the concept on a small scale in a comprehensive paper published this month in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. The point of the paper -- which includes updates on the latest study ...

TORONTO, ON – Have you ever wondered why you can remember things from long ago as if they happened yesterday, yet sometimes can't recall what you ate for dinner last night? According to a new study led by psychologists at the University of Toronto, it's because how much something means to you actually influences how you see it as well as how vividly you can recall it later. "We've discovered that we see things that are emotionally arousing with greater clarity than those that are more mundane," says Rebecca Todd, a postdoctoral fellow in U of T's Department of Psychology ...

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 19, 2012 — In a discovery that defies the popular meaning of the word "wire," scientists have found that Mother Nature uses DNA as a wire to detect the constantly occurring genetic damage and mistakes that ― if left unrepaired ― can result in diseases like cancer and underpin the physical and mental decline of aging. That topic ― DNA wires and their potential use in identifying people at risk for certain diseases ― is the focus of a plenary talk here today during the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical ...

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 19, 2012 — Using information about the unique mating practices of the male malaria mosquito ― which, unlike any other insect, inserts a plug to seal its sperm inside the female ― scientists are zeroing in on a birth-control drug for Anopheles mosquitoes, deadly carriers of the disease that threatens 3 billion people, has infected more than 215 million and kills 655,000 annually. They reported today at the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society on development of an approach for screening substances that could ...

Stefan Matile opts for sincerity. For him, if organic chemistry is often fond of simplifying its functional systems, it is because it is mostly impossible for it to construct and manage molecular architectures as complex as those produced with tremendous efficiency in nature. "It's a fact", says the UNIGE professor and NCCR Chemical Biology member, "that we are far from being able to match the genius of nature." Where the complexity arises The specialist attributes the genetic code to this genius of nature. "It is rather simple because it is based on four foundations—adenine, ...

Research from the University of Southampton and the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton has found that an imbalance of nutrients in reef waters can increase the bleaching susceptibility of reef corals. Corals are made up of many polyps that jointly form a layer of living tissue covering the calcareous skeletons. They depend on single-celled algae called zooxanthellae, which live within the coral polyps. The coral animal and the associated zooxanthellae depend on each other for survival in a symbiotic relationship, where the coral supplies the algae with nutrients ...

Research into the genetic factors behind certain disease mechanisms, illness progression and response to new drugs is frequently carried out using tiny multi-cellular animals such as nematodes, fruit flies or zebra fish. Often, progress relies on the microscopic visual examination of many individual animals to detect mutants worthy of further study. Now, scientists have demonstrated an automated system that uses artificial intelligence and cutting-edge image processing to rapidly examine large numbers of individual Caenorhabditis elegans, a species of nematode widely ...

A team of researchers at RIKEN and the University of Tokyo has demonstrated a new material that promises to eliminate loss in electrical power transmission. The surprise is that their methodology for solving this classic energy problem is based upon the first realization of a highly exotic type of magnetic semiconductor first theorized less than a decade ago - a magnetic topological insulator. Development of energy saving technologies is one of the central pursuits of modern science. From advancing alternative energy resources like wind and solar power to improving the ...

European paper wasps (Polistes dominula) advertise the size of their poison glands to potential predators, finds a new study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Frontiers in Zoology. The brighter the colour, the larger the poison gland. Aposematism is used by many different animals to warn potential predators that they are poisonous. Usually this takes the form of distinctive colouration or patterns which predators quickly learn to avoid. Paper wasps have conspicuous yellow and black patterns covering their bodies and researchers from University of Granada ...

PETERSHAM, Mass. (August 19, 2012)---The authors of a Harvard study published today in Nature Climate Change gathered their data from an unlikely source—the trip accounts of the Massachusetts Butterfly Club. Over the past 19 years, the amateur naturalist group has logged species counts on nearly 20,000 expeditions throughout Massachusetts. Their records fill a crucial gap in the scientific record. Once analyzed, the data show a clear trend. According to Greg Breed, lead author on the study and a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Mass., "Over the ...