Some Parkinson's Disease patients can suddenly become creative when they take dopamine therapy, producing pictures, sculptures, novels and poetry. But their new-found interests can become so overwhelming that they ignore other aspects of their everyday life, such as daily chores and social activities, according to research published in the March issue of the European Journal of Neurology. Italian researchers studied 36 patients with Parkinson's Disease - 18 with increased artistic production and 18 without - and compared them with 36 healthy controls without Parkinson's. ...

To connect a laptop to an additional monitor, projector or even to a monitor wall, a special cable was required, until now. Researchers of the Saarland University's Intel Visual Computing Institute overcome this obstacle by linking computer and monitor via an 'Internet Service'. By this means, a screen's contents can be shifted freely to any terminal's display and even shown on large-scale monitor walls. The Saarland University's scientists present their results for the first time at stand F34, in hall 9 at the computer fair Cebit. The trade show takes place in Hannover ...

A study in Spain shows that insecurity at work is directly and negatively linked to satisfaction in work and life, as well as affecting performance and commitment. Furthermore, the research reveals that the consequences of this insecurity are different according to the occupational group they work in. A study led by Spanish psychologists has concluded that the feeling that one is going to lose their job worsens satisfaction levels in other areas of life, such as family, health, financial circumstances and the work-free time balance. As the fear of unemployment increases ...

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a controversial chemical widely used in the plastics industry. A new study followed people over a 10-year time period and shows that healthy people with higher urine concentrations of BPA were more likely to later develop heart disease. The study was carried out by researchers at the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry, the University of Exeter and the European Centre for the Environment and Human Health, in association with the University of Cambridge. The analysis was funded by the British Heart Foundation. The paper is published online ...

In an exclusive interview with Physics World, astronaut Drew Feustel gives a vivid account of his two missions into space and recalls his determination to make his childhood ambition – space flight – come true. In the video, Feustel discusses his two missions – his maiden flight in 2009, as part of a team sent to repair the Hubble Space telescope, and his return to space in 2011 as the lead spacewalker on Endeavour's final mission to the International Space Station. Recalling the first moments of launch, when you're sitting on the launch pad and the countdown hits ...

Researchers at the universities of Granada and Jaén, Spain, have discovered why recalling some items from memory reduces our ability to recall other related items. In the field of Psychology, this phenomenon is known as "Retrieval-Induced Forgetting" (RIF), and researchers have determined the cognitive process that causes this phenomenon and its duration. To carry out this study, the researchers designed a set of memory tasks where the participants had to learn a material and then recall it partially. Memory tasks had different levels of difficulty and included different ...

A 28-year comparative study of wild emmer wheat and wild barley populations has revealed that these progenitors of cultivated wheat and barley, which are the best hope for crop improvement, have undergone changes over this period of global warming. The changes present a real concern for their being a continued source of crop improvement. Wheats and barleys are the staple food for humans and animal feed around the world, and their wild progenitors have undergone genetic changes over the last 28 years that imply a risk for crop improvement and food production, reveals a ...

Is there such a thing as a typical criminal career? This was the question addressed by criminologist Volker Grundies from the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in Freiburg. This study examined the data of approximately 21,000 men from Baden-Württemberg, who had come into conflict with the law on one or more occasions. The results of his study challenge widely held criminological theories surrounding the development of delinquent behaviour in the life of an individual. In this project, Grundies and his colleagues at the Freiburg-based Institute ...

A new report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has documented 149 potential sources of human error in the analysis of crime scene fingerprints. The study by a working group of 34 experts recommends a series of improvements to significantly reduce or eliminate the errors, based on the findings from its three-year scientific assessment of the effects of human factors on forensic latent print analysis. The working group consisted of experts from various forensic disciplines, statisticians, ...

Cogent Road, a provider of innovative cloud-based mortgage technologies, has introduced GravityTM, the first mortgage-specific CRM/Lead Management System that helps loan officers obtain a loan commitment in a single call. Gravity is the only cloud-based CRM/lead management system fully integrated with credit, 1003, FHA Scorecard, a pricing engine (Price My Loan), loan comparison tools and anti-steering disclosure, allowing loan originators to take a complete application, select and price a loan, accurately discuss financial benefits and qualify borrowers in one call. ...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23, 2012 – National results indicate that tree cover in urban areas of the United States is declining at a rate of about 4 million trees per year, according to a U.S. Forest Service study published recently in Urban Forestry & Urban Greening. Tree cover in 17 of the 20 cities analyzed in the study declined while 16 cities saw increases in impervious cover, which includes pavement and rooftops. Land that lost trees was for the most part converted to either grass or ground cover, impervious cover or bare soil. Of the 20 cities analyzed, the greatest percentage ...

A case-control study from Newfoundland/Labrador has reported that greater alcohol intake may increase the risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) among obese subjects, but not among non-obese subjects. This is not a particularly large study, and only 45-60% of subjects who were recruited by telephone ended up providing data. Further, it is a case-control comparison, rather than a cohort analysis, making bias in the results more likely. In this study, there was no relation of alcohol with the risk of CRC when considering the entire population. However, when subjects were ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The condensation of water is crucial to the operation of most of the powerplants that provide our electricity — whether they are fueled by coal, natural gas or nuclear fuel. It is also the key to producing potable water from salty or brackish water. But there are still large gaps in the scientific understanding of exactly how water condenses on the surfaces used to turn steam back into water in a powerplant, or to condense water in an evaporation-based desalination plant. New research by a team at MIT offers important new insights into how these droplets ...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23— In order to build the next generation of very large supercomputers, it's essential that scientists and engineers find a way to seamlessly scale computation performance without exceeding extraordinary power consumption. It is widely agreed that the major challenge to scaling future systems will no longer be the CMOS (Complementary Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor) integrated circuit technology but rather the data movement among processors and memory. The rapidly evolving technology of photonic interconnects promises to deliver this increase in computing capabilities ...

Extensive ongoing research on biotic invasions around the world constantly increases data availability and improves data quality. New research in the United States shows how using improved data from previous studies on the establishment of exotic plant species changes the understanding of patterns of species naturalization, biological invasions, and their underlying mechanisms. The study was published in the open access journal NeoBiota. Over the centuries, people brought uncounted numbers of nonnative or exotic plant species to the United States for a range of purposes. ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 23, 2012) -- A pilot study led by University of Kentucky researchers shows that the gene expression analysis of urine sediment could provide a noninvasive way to analyze interstitial cystitis in some patients. Interstitial cystitis, also known as bladder pain syndrome, is a debilitating disease of the urinary bladder. The disease can occur with or without bladder ulcers (called Hunner lesions). Interstitial cystitis is a difficult disease to study because animal models are limited, and human patients cannot ethically be subjected to invasive research ...

EVANSTON, Ill. --- If your political candidate of choice falls behind in the polls, will you lose faith in his ability to win? Probably not. A new study from Northwestern University suggests that people tend to believe that their preferred candidate will win an election, no matter what the polls predict. The study was published Feb. 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. "People thought their preferred candidate had a higher chance of winning, in every election, no matter in which state they live, no matter who was running, no matter which ...

WASHINGTON – Impulsive children with attention problems tend to play more video games, while kids in general who spend lots of time video gaming may also develop impulsivity and attention difficulties, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. "This is an important finding because most research on attention problems has focused on biological and genetic factors rather than on environmental factors," said Douglas A. Gentile, PhD, of Iowa State University and lead author of the study published this week in the debut issue of APA's journal ...

The latest edition of Brandworkz, Version 5.0 is to be revealed at marketing technology exhibition, TFM&A at Earls Court 2, London on 28 & 29 February. Brandworkz brand management technology is further strengthened with this major release. Brandworkz 5.0 gives brand and marketing managers more tools than ever before to manage their brands efficiently, increase brand consistency and grow their businesses. With new features integrated with existing modules in the software such as Digital Asset Management, the package is now second to none. Powerful new features ...

Obesity can be a dangerous risk to our physical health, but according to a Tel Aviv University researcher, avoiding the gym can also take a toll on our mental health, leading to depression and greater burnout rates at work. Dr. Sharon Toker of TAU's Recanati Faculty of Management, working with Dr. Michal Biron from the University of Haifa, discovered that employees who found the time to engage in physical activity were less likely to experience a deterioration of their mental health, including symptoms of burnout and depression. The best benefits were achieved among ...

BEER-SHEVA, Israel, February 23, 2012 – A new study on the prevalence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among firefighters in Israel indicates that approximately 90 percent show some form of full or partial symptoms. According to the study by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev's Dr. Marc Lougassi, a firefighter himself, 24 percent of active firefighters in Israel suffer from full PTSD, 67 percent display partial PTSD while only nine percent showed no symptoms. PTSD can occur after exposure to serious injury to oneself or another, or another's death and then ...

Sometimes knowing that a new technology works is not enough. You also must know why it works to get marketplace acceptance. New information from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)* about how layered switching devices for novel computer memory systems work, for example, may now allow these structures to come to market sooner, helping bring about faster, lower-powered computers. Switches based on transition-metal oxides have great potential as memory devices that retain their information even when the power is turned off. One type is made by stacking ...

A new study published in the American Journal of Transplantation reveals that cigarette smoke exposure, in a cause-effect manner, results in graft rejection that would have been prevented by certain drug treatments. Led by Zhenhua Dai, MD, PhD, of the University of Texas Health Science Center, researchers used mouse transplant models to investigate the impact of second hand smoke (SHS) on transplant survival and its mechanism of action. Seven to eight mice per group were exposed to SHS and treated with or without immunoregulatory agents. They were exposed to SHS 4 weeks ...

Washington, D.C. –Today the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues posted on its website, www.bioethics.gov, hundreds of supporting documents related to its investigation into the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) studies conducted in Guatemala in the 1940s. The documents include a spreadsheet that Commission staff painstakingly created to document the research subjects in Guatemala. In addition, the Commission has posted a Spanish translation of its report, "Ethically Impossible" STD Research in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948. As the world is now aware, ...

San Diego, Calif. – Beyond the personal tragedy of chronic alcoholism there is heartbreak in the biological sense, too. Scientists know severe alcoholism stresses the heart and that mitochondria, the cellular energy factories, are especially vulnerable to dysfunction. But they don't know the precise mechanism. Now new experiments led by a team at the Wadsworth Center of the New York State Department of Health in Albany, and Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, may provide insights into possible modes of heart damage from alcohol. The teams will present their findings ...