Remember Slinky®, the coiled metal spring that "walks" down stairs with just a push, momentum and gravity? Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed their own version of this classic—albeit 10 million times smaller—as a novel technology for manipulating and measuring DNA molecules and other nanoscale (billionth of a meter) materials. In the first of two recent papers,* Samuel Stavis, Elizabeth Strychalski and colleagues demonstrated that a nanoscale fluidic channel shaped like a staircase with many steps (developed previously ...

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Could widespread conjugal visitation reduce sexual offending in prisons? It's a possibility, according to Stewart D'Alessio and his team from Florida International University in the US. Their work shows that in states where conjugal visits are permitted, there are significantly fewer instances of reported rape and other sexual offenses in their prisons. The study is published online in Springer's American Journal of Criminal Justice. At present, there are two opposing theories of the causes of sexual violence. The feminist perspective asserts that sexual violence is motivated ...

CORAL GABLES, FL (March 21, 2012)—A team of researchers led by Michael H. Antoni, director of the Center for Psycho-Oncology Research at the University of Miami (UM) has shown that a stress management program tailored to women with breast cancer can alter tumor-promoting processes at the molecular level. The new study recently published in the journal Biological Psychiatry is one of the first to link psychological intervention with genetic expression in cancer patients. According to the study, the group-based Cognitive-Behavioral Stress Management (CBSM) intervention ...

According to Cardinal Web Solutions, an Internet marketing firm in Atlanta, all business pages on Facebook will be converted to the Timeline format on March 30th 2012. While this may be the biggest change from a visual standpoint, the changes to features and the heretofore virtually unlimited versatility that has made Facebook an essential social media marketing tool will be a hard pill to swallow for many businesses. Communications sent thru Facebook by businesses are being throttled to 16% per month of current Facebook fans that have "liked" your page. This ...

It turns out you can be too thin—especially if you're a nanoscale battery. Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the University of Maryland, College Park, and Sandia National Laboratories built a series of nanowire batteries to demonstrate that the thickness of the electrolyte layer can dramatically affect the performance of the battery, effectively setting a lower limit to the size of the tiny power sources.* The results are important because battery size and performance are key to the development of autonomous MEMS—microelectromechanical ...

NEW YORK – March 21, 2012 – Research by Columbia Business School's Modupe Akinola, Assistant Professor, Management, and Wendy Berry Mendes, Associate Professor, Sarlo/Ekman Endowed Chair of Emotion, University of California San Francisco in Behavioral Neuroscience examines how increases in cortisol, brought on by an acute social stressor, can influence threat-related decision making. The researchers studied a group of police officers completing a standardized laboratory stressor and then afterwards the group completed a computer simulated threat-related decision making ...

Wilmington, DE— A team of researchers led by A. K. Rajasekaran, PhD, Director of the Nemours Center for Childhood Cancer Research, has shown that a key protein involved in cell function and regulation is stopped by a substance present in cigarette smoke. Their work is published online in the American Journal of Physiology - Lung Cell and Molecular Physiology. Cigarette smoke is well recognized as a cause of lung cancer and is associated with many other forms of cancer in adults. Cigarette smoke has more than 4,000 components, many of which are linked to the development ...

Boulder, Colo., USA – Highlights include new entries to the special issues "Seeing the True Shape of Earth's Surface" and "Origin and Evolution of the Sierra Nevada and Walker Lane." Also online: 3-D modeling of the area in the Pacific Ring of Fire affected by the magnitude 8.1 earthquake on 29 Sept.; another article comparing three different 3-D modeling software packages; and the identification of ancient marine terraces in areas of dense tree cover using airborne LiDAR. Abstracts for these and other Geosphere papers are available at http://geosphere.gsapubs.org/. Representatives ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) ––Thanks to the MESSENGER spacecraft, and a mission that took more than 10 years to complete, scientists now have a good picture of the solar system's innermost planet. On March 17, MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space Environment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) completed its one-year primary mission, orbiting Mercury, capturing nearly 100,000 images, and recording data that reveals new information about the planet's core, topography, and the mysterious radar bright material in the permanently shadowed areas near the poles. The findings are presented ...

"Business owners are being squeezed from all angles. Rising gas prices, increased regulations and unemployment all affect the bottom line. When no one is hiring, more people begin starting their own businesses or become consultants. Basically, you have more people trying to get less business. And that means there's more competition. But there is one thing you can do to get a head start on your competition, and that's through innovation. "Innovation isn't just about creating new products", says Julie Austin, whose company Creative Innovation, teaches businesses ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown for the first time how brain function differs in people who have math anxiety from those who don't. A series of scans conducted while second- and third-grade students did addition and subtraction revealed that those who feel panicky about doing math had increased activity in brain regions associated with fear, which caused decreased activity in parts of the brain involved in problem-solving. "The same part of the brain that responds to fearful situations, such as seeing a spider or ...

Why does inhaling anesthetics cause unconsciousness? New insights into this century-and-a-half-old question may spring from research performed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).* Scientists from NIST and the National Institutes of Health have found hints that anesthesia may affect the organization of fat molecules, or lipids, in a cell's outer membrane—potentially altering the ability to send signals along nerve cell membranes. "A better fundamental understanding of inhaled anesthetics could allow us to design better ones with fewer side effects," ...

The alphabet of data processing could include more elements than the "0" and "1" in future. An international research team has achieved a new kind of bit with single electrons, called quantum bits, or qubits. With them, considerably more than two states can be defined. So far, quantum bits have only existed in relatively large vacuum chambers. The team has now generated them in semiconductors. They have put an effect in practice, which the RUB physicist Prof. Dr. Andreas Wieck had already theoretically predicted 22 years ago. This represents another step along the path ...

A new assessment of wind energy in India by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has found that the potential for on-shore wind energy deployment is far higher than the official estimates— about 20 times and up to 30 times greater than the current government estimate of 102 gigawatts. This landmark finding may have significant impact on India's renewable energy strategy as it attempts to cope with a massive and chronic shortage of electricity. "The main importance of this study, why it's groundbreaking, is that wind is one of the most cost-effective and mature renewable ...

The first day of spring brought record high temperatures across the northern part of the United States, while much of the Southwest was digging out from a record-breaking spring snowstorm. The weather, it seems, has gone topsy-turvy. Are the phenomena related? Are climate changes in one part of the world felt half a world away? To understand the present, scientists look for ways to unlock information about past climate hidden in the fossil record. A team of scientists led by Syracuse University geochemist Zunli Lu has found a new key in the form of ikaite, a rare mineral ...

A new survey commissioned by Lloyds TSB Private Banking has found the highest level of equity investment at any time in the past three and a half years. - The Investor Outlook survey by Lloyds TSB reveals investors have more in equities than at any time in the last three and a half years - Equities are good value after a period of price weakness - After months of risk-aversion, investors have more faith in stock market The Investor Outlook survey by Lloyds TSB Private Banking, a provider of international wealth management services, has revealed that private investors ...

Spanish and Danish researchers have developed a method for the in vivo study of the unknown metabolism of selenium, an essential element for living beings. The technique can help clarify whether or not it possesses the anti-tumour properties that have been attributed to it and yet have not been verified through clinical trials. "It is vox populi that doctors around the world recommend selenium supplements to complement traditional therapy against cancer and the AIDS virus but the truth is that the basics of these properties are not clear," explains to SINC Justo Giner, ...

Southern white rhinoceros populations, once thriving in zoos, have been showing severely reduced reproductivity among the captive-born population. San Diego Zoo Global researchers have a possible lead into why the southern white rhinoceros population in managed-care facilities is declining: phytoestrogens in their diet might be contributing to reproductive failure in the females. "Understanding why the captive white rhinoceros population has been dwindling for decades is an important part of protecting the future of this species," said Christopher Tubbs, researcher with ...

Bethesda, MD—A new discovery published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) may lead to a new tool to help physicians assess breast cancer risk as well as diagnose the disease. In the report, researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, explain how proteins, called "obscurins," once believed to only be in muscle cells, act as "tumor suppressor genes" in the breast. When their expression is lost, or their genes mutated in epithelial cells of the breast, cancer develops. It promises to tell physicians how breast cancer develops ...

DETROIT: Low bone density medications, such as Fosamax, Boniva and Actonel, may have a protective effect for endometrial cancer, according to a study at Henry Ford Hospital. Endometrial cancer affects more than 45,000 women a year in the U.S., usually in their 60s, although it can occur before 40. A type of uterine cancer, it's the most commonly diagnosed gynecologic cancer, and there is no known preventive medication for women at high risk of developing it. "The results of the study suggest that use of low bone density medications may have a protective effect on ...

Fleet Enterprises, a fleet maintenance company that provides mobile repair and maintenance services to the transportation industry, has announced that it has awarded a six-territory franchise agreement to Jerry Duda, as it continues to expand its franchise network presence throughout the Midwest region of the United States. With rights to open operations in Indiana and Ohio, the first of the new franchised operations opened in Indianapolis in early February of this year, with two more currently underway. By the end of the year, three additional franchise locations are ...

NEW YORK (March 21, 2012) -- Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College have developed a computer program that has tracked the manner in which different forms of dementia spread within a human brain. They say their mathematic model can be used to predict where and approximately when an individual patient's brain will suffer from the spread, neuron to neuron, of "prion-like" toxic proteins -- a process they say underlies all forms of dementia. Their findings, published in the March 22 issue of Neuron, could help patients and their families confirm a diagnosis of dementia ...

Wielding a gun increases a person's bias to see guns in the hands of others, new research from the University of Notre Dame shows. Notre Dame Associate Professor of Psychology James Brockmole, who specializes in human cognition and how the visual world guides behavior, together with a colleague from Purdue University, conducted the study, which will appear in an upcoming issue of Journal of Experimental Psychology: Perception and Performance. In five experiments, subjects were shown multiple images of people on a computer screen and determined whether the ...

Below is a news summary of an orthopaedic research study appearing in the March 21, 2012 issue of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS), as well as the issues' full Table of Contents. Thromboembolic Events are Uncommon Following Ankle Fracture Surgery Thromboembolic events – such as deep vein thrombosis (DVT), blood clots developing in the extremities; or pulmonary embolism (PE), a complication that causes a blood clot to move to the lungs – can occur following musculoskeletal injury and related surgery, and are potentially life threatening. In "The Incidence ...