For some older adults, the online video game World of Warcraft (WoW) may provide more than just an opportunity for escapist adventure. Researchers from North Carolina State University have found that playing WoW actually boosted cognitive functioning for older adults – particularly those adults who had scored poorly on cognitive ability tests before playing the game. "We chose World of Warcraft because it has attributes we felt may produce benefits – it is a cognitively challenging game in a socially interactive environment that presents users with novel situations," ...

A mysterious cycle of booms and busts in marine biodiversity over the past 500 million years could be tied to a periodic uplifting of the world's continents, scientists report in the March issue of The Journal of Geology. The researchers discovered periodic increases in the amount of the isotope strontium-87 found in marine fossils. The timing of these increases corresponds to previously discovered low points in marine biodiversity that occur in the fossil record roughly every 60 million years. Adrian Melott, a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Kansas ...

Sometimes our immune defence attacks our own cells. When this happens in the brain we see neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. But if the the immune defence is inhibited, the results could be disastrous. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have now discovered one of the molecular combat mechanisms in the brain that gets out of control in these diseases. In time this may enable targeted therapies to slow down the disease without harming the patient. "In their attempt to recover, diseased brain cells release chemical ...

An invasive plant may have saved an iconic Australian lizard species from death at the hands of toxic cane toads, according to research published in the March issue of The American Naturalist. It's an interesting case of one invasive species preparing local predators for the arrival of another, says Richard Shine, a biologist at the University of Sydney who led the research. Cane toads were introduced in Australia in the 1930s to control beetles that destroy sugar cane crops, but the toads quickly became an ecological disaster of their own. They produce toxins called ...

The rights of seamen who are injured while aboard vessels arise out of a complex array of established admiralty law principles, statutory provisions such as the Jones Act and general maritime law, as well as regulatory oversight. One of the most important duties of maritime lawyers is holding ship owners to their responsibility to provide maintenance and cure to injured crewmembers. Maintenance under the Jones Act means daily compensation to cover the costs of basic food and shelter that the seaman would have received aboard the vessel while working. Maintenance rates ...

Scientists are reporting use of a new technology for sifting through the world's largest remaining pool of potential antibiotics to discover two new antibiotics that work against deadly resistant microbes, including the "super bugs" known as MRSA. Their report appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Sean Brady and colleagues explain that an urgent need exists for new medications to cope with microbes that shrug off the most powerful traditional antibiotics. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections, for instance, are resistant to most ...

New analyses of more than 4,000 scientific studies have concluded that a family of "miracle materials" called MOFs have a bright future in products and technologies — ranging from the fuel tanks in hydrogen-powered cars to muting the effects of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide — that are critical for solving some of the greatest global challenges of the 21st century. The 18 articles examining 4,283 pieces of research on MOFs published in the past appear in a special edition of the ACS' journal Chemical Reviews. Discovered 15 years ago, more than 3,000 metal-organic frameworks, ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The hermetic grain storage bags that cut off oxygen to weevils and have saved West and Central African farmers hundreds of millions of dollars by putting the brakes on the insects' rapid multiplication don't merely suffocate them as once thought, a Purdue University study shows. More than 25 years after introducing the Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage (PICS) bags to farmers in Africa, Larry Murdock, a professor of insect physiology, discovered that weevils produce much of their water themselves through metabolic processes. When oxygen in the bags ...

New research has established the "miracle material" called graphene as the world's thinnest known coating for protecting metals against corrosion. Their study on this potential new use of graphene appears in ACS Nano. In the study, Dhiraj Prasai and colleagues point out that rusting and other corrosion of metals is a serious global problem, and intense efforts are underway to find new ways to slow or prevent it. Corrosion results from contact of the metal's surface with air, water or other substances. One major approach involves coating metals with materials that shield ...

Four workers at the Lutheran All Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens fell into a freshly dug grave. One worker was injured in the fall, reported the New York Post (2/6/2012). According to the New York Post, Raimundo Rodriguez was cleaning the grave site when he plunged 6 feet down into the open grave. Rodriguez broke his ankle on the hard casket, said the tabloid. His three co-workers landed on top of him. Every year, many people are seriously injured in a slip and fall accident in New York. Employees who are injured in a slip and fall accident at work ...

Mindful of lessons from a failed heart drug that cost $800 million to develop, drug companies are taking another shot at new medications that boost levels of so-called "good cholesterol," which removes cholesterol from the body. A report on how three new versions of medications in the same family as the failed torcetrapib appears in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News, the newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. In the cover story, C&EN Associate Editor Carmen Drahl explains that the drug maker Pfizer abruptly ...

Tampa, Fla. (Feb. 22, 2012) – Increasingly, institutions of higher learning are including faculty member patents and commercialization activities in their calculus for offering tenure and promotion. However, a report published in Volume 13 Number 3 of Technology and Innovation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Inventors® finds that 75 percent of institutions surveyed do not include patent and commercialization considerations in their tenure and promotion criteria. "Texas A&M University created quite a stir in May 2006 when it added commercialization considerations ...

Inflammation, cell division and cell differentiation that occur during skeletal muscle regeneration may provide an ideal environment for the highly malignant tumor, rhabdomyosarcoma to arise. These are the findings from a Nationwide Children's Hospital study that examined rhabdomyosarcoma growth in mouse models of muscular dystrophy. The new models could help investigators search for factors that drive tumor growth and help test new therapies. Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is a fast-growing, highly-malignant tumor and is the most common soft tissue sarcoma in children and adolescents. ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 22, 2012) — The University of Kentucky has announced that Dr. Daret St. Clair, the James Graham Brown Endowed Chair and professor of toxicology, has published the first comprehensive study that provides insight into the relationship between two types of suppressors in cancerous tumors. The results will enhance the understanding of transcriptional mechanisms in carcinogenesis. The study was supported by a National Cancer Institute research grant and was recently published in Cancer Research. St. Clair and her team generated transgenic mice expressing ...

To address the faculty shortage problem, schools of nursing are reexamining how they provide clinical education to undergraduate students to find ways to use faculty resources more efficiently so they can maintain student enrollment and meet the future need for nurses. To this end, researchers from the New York University College of Nursing (NYUCN), funded with a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Evaluating Innovations in Nursing Education Program, have just published a description of an evaluation study, "Shifting the Clinical Teaching Paradigm in Undergraduate ...

The manager of TDS Insurance discovered Islamaphobic vandalism on his store and reported it to police, reported the New York Daily News (2/9/2012). The apparent New York hate crime incident occurred last week. "'Allah is s--t,'" said the anti-Muslim graffiti, according to the New York Daily News. As reported by the tabloid, Bangladeshis in Kensington said they are now "living in fear" and "emotionally scarred" as a result of the apparent hate crime. "Hate crime is not acceptable," said New York civil rights violation lawyer ...

Philadelphia, PA, February 22, 2012 – Mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are cardinal injuries associated with combat stress, and TBI increases the risk of PTSD development. The reasons for this correlation have been unknown, in part because physical traumas often occur in highly emotional situations. However, scientists at University of California at Los Angeles provide new evidence from an animal model of a mechanistic link underlying the association between TBI and PTSD-like conditions. Using procedures to separate the physical ...

NEW YORK – February 22, 2012 – Research on the relationship between teacher characteristics and teacher effectiveness has been underway for over a century, yet little progress has been made in linking teacher quality with factors observable at the time of hire. A recent study by Columbia Business School's Prof. Jonah Rockoff, Sidney Taurel Associate Professor of Business, Finance and Economics; Brian Jacob, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan; Thomas Kane, Professor of Education and Economics, ...

Separating complex mixtures of cells, such as those found in a blood sample, can offer valuable information for diagnosing and treating disease. However, it may be necessary to search through billions of other cells to collect rare cells such as tumor cells, stem cells or fetal cells. "You're basically looking for a needle in a haystack," says Sukant Mittal, a graduate student in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST). Mittal and his colleagues at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have now demonstrated a new microfluidic device that ...

New Orleans, LA – Glen Palmer, PhD, Assistant Professor of Microbiology, Immunology & Parasitology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, was part of an international research team led by Luigina Romani, MD, at the University of Perugia, that discovered opportunistic fungi like Candida albicans can sense the immune status of host cells and adapt, evading immune system defenses. Unlike previous studies, this research investigated both sides of the infection equation as well as the interaction between the fungi and the cells they will invade. The findings are published ...

4t Networks, a managed virtual hosting company based in metro Atlanta, is pleased to announce that it now offers Parallels Plesk Panel 10.4 for both its VPS hosting and Cloud hosting clients. "We couldn't wait for the latest version of Plesk to be released," says Kevin Gray, President of 4t Networks. "We find that Parallels Plesk Panel 10.4 continues the improvements that were started with the release of Plesk 10." Parallels Plesk Panel 10.4 gives clients an intuitive interface to control the management of their Virtual Private Servers and their ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Contrary to common perception, state and local police are often on the front lines against product counterfeiting, yet it's unclear how prepared they are to deal with the growing crime, according to a new report from two Michigan State University criminologists. Justin Heinonen and Jeremy Wilson found that local and/or state police were involved in nearly half of the identified product counterfeiting cases related to Michigan, which range from jewelry to car windshields to cholesterol drugs. "Product counterfeiting may have links to terrorism and ...

WASHINGTON -- Young adult blacks, especially those with higher levels of education, are significantly less likely to seek mental health services than their white counterparts, according to a study published by the American Psychological Association. "Past research has indicated people with higher education levels are more likely to seek out and receive mental health services. While that may be true for whites, it appears the opposite is true for young adult blacks," said study author Clifford L. Broman, PhD, of Michigan State University. Broman's article was published ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A paper from Rhode Island Hospital and Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit examines whether different presentation formats, presenter characteristics, and patient characteristics affect decision-making for patients requiring treatment for asymptomatic carotid stenosis. Based on the study, the researchers concluded that how the treatment options are presented to a patient strongly impacts patients' decision-making, while the patient's age, gender, and education level may also influence the decision. The study was recently published in the journal Neurology. Lead ...

Howtotrainagermanshepherd.org was created with the intention to become a useful resource for those who are interested in german shepherd training. Learning how to train a German Shepherd is not as hard as it might sound since it is a breed that loves to please its owner. John considers his German Shepherd a true friend that he has actually learned a lot from. "A dog is a being that shows affection without hesitation" That is what John tries to teach all dog owners since he feels that training German Shepherds is also a time when dog owners discover more about ...