The results of an activity (physical or mental) partly depend on the efforts devoted to it, which may be incentive-motivated. For example, a sportsperson is likely to train with "increased intensity" if the result will bring social prestige or financial gain. The same can be said for students who study for their exams with the objective of succeeding in their professional career. What happens when physical and mental efforts are required to reach an objective? Mathias Pessiglione and his team from Inserm unit 975 "Centre de recherche en neurosciences de la Pitié-Salpêtrière" ...

"Broken-hearted" isn't just a metaphor—social pain and physical pain have a lot in common, according to Naomi Eisenberger of the University of Califiornia-Los Angeles, the author of a new paper published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. In the paper, she surveys recent research on the overlap between physical and social pain. "Rejection is such a powerful experience for people," Eisenberger says. "If you ask people to think back about some of their earliest negative experiences, they will often be ...

TAMPA, Fla. (Feb. 22, 2012) – Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and the University of South Florida (USF) College of Medicine evaluated the experience of medical students who participated in videotaped sessions where they practiced conveying difficult news to "standardized patients" (SPs). The SPs role-played patients with a variety of cancers and who were receiving bad medical news. The study aimed at both evaluating student perceptions of the methods used in teaching how to break bad news and also at determining the effectiveness of the educational ...

(Garrison, NY) Researchers almost always offer money as an incentive for healthy volunteers to enroll in research studies, but does payment amount to coercion or undue inducement to participate in research? In the first national study to examine their views on this question, the majority of institutional review board members and other research ethics professionals expressed persistent ethical concern about the effects of offering payment to research subjects. But they differed in their views of the meaning of coercion and undue influence and how to avoid these problems ...

Los Angeles, (February 22, 2012)—While medical professionals have long known breastfeeding positively impacts infant and maternal health, few effective tools are available to measure breastfeeding practices nationally. According to a new study, one preexisting government-funded program is a potential wealth of accurate data about the breastfeeding practices of low-income mothers. This study was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Human Lactation (published by SAGE). The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), a USDA-funded ...

NEW YORK (Feb. 22, 2012) -- Oncologists have known that in order for cancer cells to spread, they must transform themselves so they can detach from a tumor and spread to a distant organ. Now, scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College have revealed critical steps in what happens next -- how these cells reverse the process, morphing back into classical cancer that can now grow into a new tumor. Their findings, now published online and in a upcoming issue of Cancer Research and funded through a National Cancer Institute grant to the Cornell Center on the Microenvironment ...

Fallout from the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power facility in Japan was measured in minimal amounts in precipitation in the United States in about 20 percent of 167 sites sampled in a nationwide study released today. The U.S. Geological Survey led the study as part of the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP). Levels measured were similar to measurements made by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the days and weeks immediately following the March 2011 incidents, which were determined to be well below any level of public health concern. Many NADP ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The first anniversary is approaching of the March, 2011, earthquake and tsunami that devastated Fukushima, Japan, and later this year debris from that event should begin to wash up on U.S. shores – and one question many have asked is whether that will pose a radiation risk. The simple answer is, no. Nuclear radiation health experts from Oregon State University who have researched this issue following the meltdown of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant say the minor amounts of deposition on the debris field scattered in the ocean will have long since ...

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A Kansas State University researcher and former park ranger is helping people take a new view of the prairie and see it as more than a seemingly empty landscape. Tyra Olstad, doctoral student in geography, North Tonawanda, N.Y., is studying the rich -- although sometimes hidden -- beauty of Kansas landscapes. It's an abstract, yet important, field of study that may help develop new ways to promote and celebrate Kansas tourism, history and geography. "I became interested in the pejoratives that people layer on prairie landscapes," Olstad said. "I wanted ...

CHICAGO, February 22, 2012 – The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) today announced major changes in how the nation's medical residency programs will be accredited in the years ahead, putting in place an outcomes-based evaluation system where the doctors of tomorrow will be measured for their competency in performing the essential tasks necessary for clinical practice in the 21st century. Summarized in a paper published in the February 22, 2012 online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, the ACGME's next accreditation system for graduate ...

Tampa, FL (Feb. 22, 2012) -- A nicotinic drug approved for smoking cessation significantly improved the walking ability of patients suffering from an inherited form of ataxia, reports a new clinical study led by University of South Florida researchers. The randomized controlled clinical trial investigated the effectiveness of varenicline (Chantix®) in treating spinocerebellar ataxia type 3, or SCA3. The findings were published online earlier this month in Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neuroscience. Lead author Dr. Theresa Zesiewicz and colleagues ...

Following their recent string of promotions this festive season, Sky Poker is now offering players membership to the Sky Poker Priority Club, aimed to benefit and reward those who regularly play poker online with Sky. To join, players simply need to accrue over 10,000 Sky Poker Points each month by entering online games and tournaments. The membership status of each player is determined Sky Poker according to the previous months' play. Some of the fantastic advantages available to Sky Poker Priority Club members are: Direct Buy-ins to Sky Poker Tour events If playing ...

As scientists warn that the Earth is on the brink of a period of mass extinctions, they are struggling to identify ecosystem responses to environmental change. But to truly understand these responses, more information is needed about how the Earth's staggering diversity of species originated. Curiously, a vexing modeling mystery has stymied research on this topic: mathematical models have told us that complex ecosystems, such as jungles, deserts and coral reefs, in which species coexist and interact with another, cannot persist--even though they obviously do. But now, ...

Despite brutal cold and lingering darkness, life in the frigid waters off Alaska does not grind to a halt in the winter as scientists previously suspected. According to preliminary results from a National Science Foundation- (NSF) funded research cruise, microscopic creatures at the base of the Arctic food chain are not dormant as expected. After working aboard the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy for six weeks in waters where winds sometimes topped 70 knots, wind chills fell to -40 degrees and samples often had to be hustled safely inside before seawater froze to the ...

Troy, N.Y. – A new study led by nanotechnology and biotechnology experts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is providing important details on how proteins in our bodies interact with nanomaterials. In their new study, published in the Feb. 2 online edition of the journal Nano Letters, the researchers developed a new tool to determine the orientation of proteins on different nanostructures. The discovery is a key step in the effort to control the orientation, structure, and function of proteins in the body using nanomaterials. "To date, very little is known about how ...

VIDEO: Connective tissue is stripped of heart muscle cells through a cleansing process, freeze-dried and milled into powder form, and then liquefied into a fluid that can be easily injected into... Click here for more information. University of California, San Diego researchers have developed a new injectable hydrogel that could be an effective and safe treatment for tissue damage caused by heart attacks. The study by Karen Christman and colleagues appears in the Feb. ...

WASHINGTON – It takes a lot of energy to extract heavy, viscous and valuable bitumen from Canada's oil sands and refine it into crude oil. Companies mine some of the sands with multi-story excavators, separate out the bitumen, and process it further to ease the flow of the crude oil down pipelines. About 1.8 million barrels of oil per day in 2010 were produced from the bitumen of the Canadian oil sands – and the production of those fossil fuels requires the burning of fossil fuels. In the first look at the overall effect of air pollution from the excavation of oil sands, ...

This press release is available in Spanish. (SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — UC Davis scientists have uncovered a key suspect in the destructive inflammation that underlies heart disease and diabetes. The new research shows elevated levels of a receptor present on leucocytes of the innate immune response in people at risk for these chronic diseases. The receptors are the body's first line of defense against infectious invaders, and they trigger a rush of cytokines, the body's aggressive immune soldiers, into the bloodstream. The research, published in the journal Diabetes Care ...

Was your favorite childhood book crawling with wild animals and set in places like jungles or deep forests? Or did it take place inside a house or in a city, with few if any untamed creatures in sight? A new study has found that over the last several decades, nature has increasingly taken a back seat in award-winning children's picture books -- and suggests this sobering trend is consistent with a growing isolation from the natural world. A group of researchers led by University of Nebraska-Lincoln sociology professor emeritus J. Allen Williams Jr. reviewed the winners ...

Mindfulness meditation has moved from the mountains of eastern Asia to the modern computer monitor in everyone's home. MindfulnessMeditation.org has recently launched semi-weekly online meditation sessions, letting people from all over the globe participate in a meditation community online. Mindfulness meditation, the art and science of paying attention to the moment, is a set of meditation techniques that have been applied not only to spiritual growth but also to medical recovery, healthy emotional development and even corporate performance. Online group meditations have ...

By global standards, health risks caused by environmental factors are low in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), new studies by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers show. In an effort to keep those risks low, Emiratis are working with UNC public health researchers to find ways now to avoid problems in the future. What's more, researchers and officials believe their approach could be used to address similar issues in other rapidly developing nations and regions. The Middle Eastern nation is one of the fastest growing countries in the world, moving in ...

MADISON – A new study reveals a dazzling degree of biological diversity in an unexpected place – a single neural connection in the body wall of flies. The finding, reported in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, raises several interesting questions about the importance of structure in the nervous system and the evolution of neural wiring. "We know almost nothing about the evolution of the nervous system, although we know it has to happen – behaviors change, complexity changes, there is the addition of new neurons, formation ...

Investigators from Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) and 12 other centers in the United States and Australia have found that a new drug for patients with metastatic melanoma nearly doubled median overall survival. More than half of patients who were treated with the novel drug vemurafenib, known commercially as Zelboraf, responded to treatment and experienced an impressive median overall survival of nearly 16 months – far longer than the typical survival of just six to 10 months for most patients whose melanoma has spread beyond the initial tumor site. Results ...

JUPITER, FL, February 22, 2012 – While RNA is an appealing drug target, small molecules that can actually affect its function have rarely been found. But now scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have for the first time designed a series of small molecules that act against an RNA defect directly responsible for the most common form of adult-onset muscular dystrophy. In two related studies published recently in online-before-print editions of Journal of the American Chemical Society and ACS Chemical Biology, the scientists show that these ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The more afraid a person is of a spider, the bigger that individual perceives the spider to be, new research suggests. In the context of a fear of spiders, this warped perception doesn't necessarily interfere with daily living. But for individuals who are afraid of needles, for example, the conviction that needles are larger than they really are could lead people who fear injections to avoid getting the health care they need. A better understanding of how a phobia affects the perception of feared objects can help clinicians design more effective treatments ...