TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Treatments for Parkinson's disease, estimated to affect 1 million Americans, have yet to prove effective in slowing the progression of the debilitating disease. However, University of Alabama researchers have identified how a specific gene protects dopamine-producing neurons from dying in both animal models and in cultures of human neurons, according to a scientific article publishing in the Feb. 8 edition of The Journal of Neuroscience. This increased understanding of the gene's neuro-protective capability is, the researchers said, another step toward ...

Foam forming technology gives exciting opportunities to develop new recyclable and light weight wood fiber products. It also gives a possibility to decrease raw material and production costs remarkably compared to recent technology. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, together with industry has started setting up a new pilot scale technology platform for foam forming applications. With foam forming technology it is possible to improve paper properties and enable to manufacture high porosity, smooth and light weight products (e.g. hygiene products, insulation materials ...

Philadelphia, PA, February 7, 2012 – With no lab tests to guide the clinician, psychiatric diagnostics is challenging and controversial. Antisocial personality disorder is defined as "a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood," according to the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) of the American Psychiatric Association. DSM-IV provides formal diagnostic criteria for every psychiatric disorder. This process may be ...

On January 24, 2012, Congress was scheduled to vote on whether to debate two controversial bills regarding Internet privacy and intellectual property. The Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) were meant to limit online piracy and stem copyright infringement. However, they were met with fervent opposition from civil liberties advocates, privacy groups, online search engines and millions of consumers. Congressional offices were swamped with phone calls, letters and emails calling for legislators not to support the bill. In fact, ...

The fingers on the outside – i.e. the thumb and little finger - therefore react faster than the middle finger, which is exposed to the "cross fire" of two neighbours on each side. Through targeted learning, this speed handicap can be compensated. The working group led by PD Dr. Hubert Dinse (Neural Plasticity Lab at the Institute for Neuroral Computation) report in the current issue of PNAS. Thumb and little finger are the quickest The researchers set subjects a simple task to measure the speed of decision: they showed them an image on a monitor that represented all ...

A green thumb is required where plants are to grow abundantly – that also applies to watering them in dry areas. If they are watered too much, then the soil becomes saline; if the plants receive too little moisture, they let their leaves droop and, in the worst case, they wither. In the future, sensors in the soil, a central unit and an associated app will supplement the green thumb: one look at the smart phone and the farmer will know what moisture content the soil has. Which plants need water, which do not? If the plants get too dry, the farmer is alerted by SMS; the ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique that allows graphics processing units (GPUs) and central processing units (CPUs) on a single chip to collaborate – boosting processor performance by an average of more than 20 percent. "Chip manufacturers are now creating processors that have a 'fused architecture,' meaning that they include CPUs and GPUs on a single chip," says Dr. Huiyang Zhou, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering who co-authored a paper on the research. "This approach decreases manufacturing costs ...

In 2010, Dr. Svante Pääbo and his colleagues presented a draft version of the genome from a small fragment of a human finger bone discovered in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia. The DNA sequences showed that this individual came from a previously unknown group of extinct humans that have become known as Denisovans. Together with their sister group the Neandertals, Denisovans are the closest extinct relatives of currently living humans. The Leipzig team has now developed sensitive novel techniques which have allowed them to sequence every position in the Denisovan genome ...

At the end of 2011, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) set forth a new set of rules pertaining to truckers' work schedules. The updated FMCSA hours-of-service regulations for commercial vehicle operators were officially published on December 27. Some advocates are now applauding the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) for tightening certain requirements, but are questioning whether hours-of-service regulations could be doing more to protect motorists. In the end, the FMCSA declined to reduce the daily driving time maximum from the ...

Comparing yourself to others with the same health problem can influence your physical and emotional health, according to researchers who conducted a qualitative synthesis of over 30 studies focusing on the relationship between social comparisons and health. "If you've ever looked at another person and thought, 'Well, at least I'm doing better than he is,' or 'Wow, I wish I could be doing as well as she is,' you're not alone," said Josh Smyth, professor of biobehavioral health and of medicine, Penn State. "This phenomenon -- first proposed in the 1950s -- is common in ...

To make a silicon solar cell, you start with a slice of highly purified silicon crystal, and then process it through several stages involving gradual heating and cooling. But figuring out the tradeoffs involved in selecting the purity level of the starting silicon wafer — and then exactly how much to heat it, how fast, for how long, and so on through each of several steps — has largely been a matter of trial and error, guided by intuition and experience. Now, MIT researchers think they have found a better way. An online tool called "Impurities to Efficiency" (known ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- The abundance of false information available on the Internet, in movies and on TV has created a big challenge for educators. Students sometimes arrive in classrooms filled with inaccurate knowledge they are confident is correct, indicating it is deeply entrenched in their memory. According to Duke University researchers, educators might be able to help students overcome their misconceptions by correcting inaccurate information then having the students practice retrieving it from memory. "Errors that are deeply entrenched in memory are notoriously ...

In the U.S., there are nearly three million youth soccer players, and half of them are female. New research presented today at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) found that despite reporting appropriate body perception and attitudes toward eating, elite youth soccer athletes (club level or higher) face an increased risk for delayed or irregular menstruation. In addition, female soccer players are more likely to suffer a stress fracture or ligament injury. A separate study found that a consistent 15-minute warm-up substantially ...

Alexandria, VA – Buried more than a kilometer beneath the East Antarctica Ice sheet, the Gamburstev Subglacial Mountains have proven to be a geological puzzle for more than 5 decades. How did these mountains form? When did they form? And what makes this ancient mountain range one of the least-understood tectonic features on Earth? The Gamburstevs lie under the highest point in Antarctica: the 4,000-meter-high Dome Argus Plateau. The mountain range, in the middle of an ancient continental craton, has a thick, crustal root and high topography. Locked under the ice, frozen ...

New research presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) highlights the benefits of total knee replacement (TKR) in elderly patients with osteoarthritis, including a lower probability of heart failure and mortality. Investigators reviewed Medicare records to identify osteoarthritis patients, separating them into two groups – those who underwent TKR to relieve symptoms, and those who did not. Outcomes of interest included average annual Medicare payments for related care, mortality, and new diagnoses of congestive heart failure, ...

Workers' compensation has become part of the fabric of the employer-employee relationship in North Carolina and across the U.S. In essence, an employer purchases insurance to cover the cost of work-related employee injuries and illnesses. This mandated coverage replaces the uncertainty of an employee having to sue his or her employer for work-related medical expenses and lost wages. In almost all situations, when a work injury happens, both parties know medical costs and lost wages will be handled through the workers' compensation system, regardless of who was at fault. The ...

DURHAM, N.H. – Parents are much more likely to blame and doubt their children when their child has been sexually abused by another adolescent instead of an adult, according to new research from the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. "Parents may have higher levels of blame toward their child when sexually abused by adolescents because parents have difficulty with the concept of adolescent sex offenders. Some parents may still expect the offender to be an older stranger rather than someone who their child knows, trusts, and is close ...

Boston, MA – Despite a national mandate to implement electronic health records and computer order entry systems (CPOE) by 2014, only approximately 30 percent of hospitals nationwide have done so and around 40 percent of hospitals in the state of Massachusetts have made this transition. New research from Brigham and Women's Hospital examined the impact of a vendor-developed CPOE in five community hospitals in Massachusetts and found that these CPOE systems are effective at reducing drug-related injury and harm. This research is published online in the Journal of General ...

A new immunotherapy for companion dogs with advanced-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) has been shown to improve survival while maintaining quality of life, according to a study published in the journal Scientific Reports. The study resulted from a collaboration between The University of Texas MD Anderson Children's Cancer Hospital in Houston and Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine in College Station. Using a T-cell therapy developed at MD Anderson Children's Cancer Hospital, veterinarians from Texas A&M saw a nearly four-fold improvement in tumor-free ...

DURHAM, N.H. – Americans' knowledge of facts about the polar regions of the globe has increased since 2006, but this increase in knowledge has not translated into more concern about changing polar environments, according to new research from the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. "People's knowledge of polar regions and issues improved from 2006 to 2010, consistent with hopes that the International Polar Year in 2007 would boost public awareness. Unfortunately, we did not see a companion increase in concern about the environmental changes in these regions, ...

A woman who was an advertising executive for Y&R was recently killed in a mid-town Manhattan office building elevator accident. According to the New York Times, she "was crushed to death...after the elevator she was stepping into lurched upward, pinning her between the outside of the car and the wall of the elevator shaft." After the New York elevator accident occurred, two other passengers waited an hour inside the elevator with her body before emergency personnel could rescue them. Who is Responsible for the Elevator Accident? The New York City ...

New research presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) found that 77 percent of trauma patients had deficient or insufficient levels of vitamin D. Researchers have linked a lack of vitamin D with muscle weakness, bone fractures, and the inability of bones to fully heal. In a new study, investigators sought to determine the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among orthopaedic trauma patients. Investigators reviewed the medical records of 1,830 adult (ages 18 and older) patients at a university Level 1 trauma center from ...

When it comes to diets, cookies and cake are off the menu. Now, in a surprising discovery, researchers from Tel Aviv University have found that dessert, as part of a balanced 600-calorie breakfast that also includes proteins and carbohydrates, can help dieters to lose more weight — and keep it off in the long run. They key is to indulge in the morning, when the body's metabolism is at its most active and we are better able to work off the extra calories throughout the day, say Prof. Daniela Jakubowicz, Dr. Julio Wainstein and Dr. Mona Boaz of Tel Aviv University's Sackler ...

The terrible truth about the danger of football head injuries keeps piling up. Many former pro players are burdened later in life with dementia and other forms of long-term cognitive loss. Some of these players are suing the NFL, seeking compensation for their injuries. But the problem of brain damage suffered in sports competition isn't present only at the professional level. As knowledge of the problem increases, state legislatures have begun to respond with laws aimed at making competition safer in youth sports. This is a development that Ohio brain injury lawyers ...

When you are about to collide into something and manage to swerve away just in the nick of time, what exactly is happening in your brain? A new study from the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital – The Neuro, McGill University shows how the brain processes visual information to figure out when something is moving towards you or when you are about to head into a collision. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS), provides vital insight into our sense of vision and a greater understanding of the brain. Researchers ...