NEW YORK (July 19, 2012)— A dramatic photo of a male leopard dragging a massive gaur (or Indian bison) calf in Karnataka's Bandipur Tiger Reserve turned out to be the same animal photographed by a WCS camera trap nearly eight years ago. The photo, taken by Indian photographer Vinay S. Kumar, was initially submitted to Conservation India, a not-for-profit portal to enable conservation action. Intrigued by the picture, CI's editors sent it to researchers at Wildlife Conservation Society's India Program who have been running a tiger-monitoring program for over two decades ...

Tired? Scientists have discovered another possible benefit of a night of restful and uninterrupted sleep. According to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health fragmented or interrupted sleep could predict future placement in a nursing home or assisted living facility. The study is featured in the July 2012 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and outlines the association between objectively measured sleep and subsequent institutionalization among older women. "Sleep disturbances are common in older people," ...

(Edmonton, AB) New research from the University of Alberta's School of Public Health has demonstrated that community-based resources in rural Uganda can successfully provide HIV treatments to patients, where economic and geographical barriers would typically prevent access to care. Working with the Kabarole District Health Department and colleagues at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, the researchers implemented a new model by which volunteers were trained to provide basic care to HIV patients in Rwimi sub-county. When comparing the viral loads of 185 patients ...

UT Dallas researchers recently demonstrated how nerve stimulation paired with specific experiences, such as movements or sounds, can reorganize the brain. This technology could lead to new treatments for stroke, tinnitus, autism and other disorders. In a related paper, The University of Texas at Dallas neuroscientists showed that they could alter the speed at which the brain works in laboratory animals by pairing stimulation of the vagus nerve with fast or slow sounds. A team led by Dr. Robert Rennaker and Dr. Michael Kilgard looked at whether repeatedly pairing vagus ...

Philadelphia, PA, July 19, 2012 – Outpatient heart failure (HF) clinics that provide patient education on ways to manage heart failure and risk factors, prescribe home-based exercises, and monitor therapy compliance have been shown to reduce morbidity, mortality, and health care costs. A new study published in the current issue of the Canadian Journal of Cardiology finds that despite guidelines that encourage physicians to recommend heart failure clinics, very few patients recently hospitalized with HF receive referrals or use one. "Given the demonstrated benefits of ...

A majority of previous epidemiologic studies have shown that moderate drinking is associated with a lower risk of kidney cancer, which may affect about 1% of the general population. In published prospective cohort studies, the risk for such cancer among moderate drinkers is usually about 25% less than the risk seen among non-drinkers. This well-done meta-analysis supports these findings: for the more-reliable prospective cohort studies (rather than case-control studies) the current study finds a 29% lower risk for subjects in the highest category of alcohol consumption ...

Philadelphia, PA, July 19, 2012 – The recent Supreme Court decision on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has cleared the way for national requirements about posting nutritional information at chain restaurants. Listing calories, fat content, and sodium levels of menu items at the point of purchase has been promoted as a way to address the obesity epidemic. Increased awareness may lead to healthier consumer choices, and may encourage restaurants to adapt their menus to meet demand. A new study has evaluated the real-life impact of menu labeling in King County, ...

Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the main cause of global warming – increased by 3% last year, reaching an all-time high of 34 billion tonnes in 2011. In China, the world's most populous country, average emissions of CO2 increased by 9% to 7.2 tonnes per capita. China is now within the range of 6 to 19 tonnes per capita emissions of the major industrialised countries. In the European Union, CO2 emissions dropped by 3% to 7.5 tonnes per capita. The United States remain one of the largest emitters of CO2, with 17.3 tones per capita, despite a decline due to the ...

New Rochelle, NY, July 19, 2012—To enable greater reliance on renewable biomass resources for power generation, combination approaches such as co-firing of high percentages of biomass with coal offer unique advantages, but also significant challenges. A comprehensive review of the strategies currently available and in development to improve the characteristics of biomass is presented in Industrial Biotechnology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.. The article is available free online at the Industrial Biotechnology website. "Comprehensive and precise ...

DETROIT – Even though the human papillomavirus (HPV) is a risk factor for certain head and neck cancers, its presence could make all the difference in terms of survival, especially for African Americans with throat cancer, say Henry Ford Hospital researchers. According to their new study, HPV has a substantial impact on overall survival in African Americans with oropharyngeal cancer, a cancer that affects part of the throat, the base of the tongue, the tonsils, the soft palate (back of the mouth), and the walls of the pharynx (throat). The study shows African Americans ...

HOUSTON — It's been a burning question in melanoma research: Tumor cells are full of ultraviolet (UV)-induced genetic damage caused by sunlight exposure, but which mutations drive this cancer? None have been conclusively tied to melanoma. The sheer abundance of these passenger mutations has obscured the search for genetic driver mutations that actually matter in melanoma development and progression. By creating a method to spot the drivers in a sea of passengers, scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and The University ...

The benefits of flirtation in negotiation Does flirtation help or hurt a woman negotiating? According to new research, it helps – creating better economic outcomes for the female negotiators, if the flirtatiousness is perceived as above and beyond friendliness. The study examined "feminine charm" in negotiations through four different experiments, looking at the balance between friendliness and flirtatiousness. Flirtation as opposed to friendliness, the research found, signals self-interest and competitiveness. "Feminine Charm: An Experimental Analysis of its Costs and ...

Bethesda, MD—Pregnant mice exposed to high levels of air pollution gave birth to offspring with a significantly higher rate of obesity and insulin resistance in adulthood than those that were not exposed to air pollution. This effect seemed especially prevalent in male mice, which were heavier regardless of diet. These findings, published online in the FASEB Journal, suggests a link between diesel exhaust exposure in utero and bulging waistlines in adulthood. "It is becoming clearer that our environment profoundly affects our health in ways that are little understood," ...

A Simon Fraser University fish-population statistician, working in collaboration with non-government organization scientists, has uncovered evidence of a potentially deadly virus in a freshwater sport fish in B.C. SFU professor Rick Routledge and Stan Proboszcz, a fisheries biologist at the Watershed Watch Salmon Society, have found evidence of the piscine reovirus (PRV) in cutthroat trout caught in Cultus Lake, in the Fraser Valley region of B.C. Tests conducted by, Fred Kibenge, a virology professor at the Atlantic Veterinary College in Prince Edward Island, found ...

Mathematicians at UC Davis have come up with a new way to crinkle up the fabric of space-time -- at least in theory. "We show that space-time cannot be locally flat at a point where two shock waves collide," said Blake Temple, professor of mathematics at UC Davis. "This is a new kind of singularity in general relativity." The results are reported in two papers by Temple with graduate students Moritz Reintjes and Zeke Vogler, respectively, both published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A. Einstein's theory of general relativity explains gravity as a ...

Athens, Ga. – Using nanoscale materials, researchers at the University of Georgia have developed a single-step method to rapidly and accurately detect viruses, bacteria and chemical contaminants. In a series of studies, the scientists were able to detect compounds such as lactic acid and the protein albumin in highly diluted samples and in mixtures that included dyes and other chemicals. Their results suggest that the same system could be used to detect pathogens and contaminants in biological mixtures such as food, blood, saliva and urine. "The results are unambiguous ...

JUPITER, FL, July 19, 2012 – A new study by scientists on the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute shows, in cell culture, a natural compound can virtually eliminate human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in infected cells. The compound defines a novel class of HIV anti-viral drugs endowed with the capacity to repress viral replication in acutely and chronically infected cells. The HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to affect 34 million individuals worldwide, including more than 3 million children, according to the World Health Organization. Current treatment involves ...

PASADENA, Calif.—The powerful magnitude-8.6 earthquake that shook Sumatra on April 11, 2012, was a seismic standout for many reasons, not the least of which is that it was larger than scientists thought an earthquake of its type could ever be. Now, researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) report on their findings from the first high-resolution observations of the underwater temblor, they point out that the earthquake was also unusually complex—rupturing along multiple faults that lie at nearly right angles to one another, as though racing through ...

CHICAGO --- When a farmer or rancher is injured on the job, there's an 11 percent chance that an amputation will occur. That's two and a half times more likely than in any other industry. Most of these amputations involve fingers or toes. But the artificial hands, arms, legs, feet and other prostheses used by agricultural workers with a major limb amputation don't seem to be durable, affordable or adaptable enough for their lifestyles, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study. Published online in the journal Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, ...

A coat of a certain color could be costly for wild boars, according to research published in the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology. The research, led by Ismael Galván of Spain's Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, found that boars with more reddish hair tend to have higher levels of oxidative stress—damage that occurs as toxins from cell respiration build up. The reason for this, the researchers suggest, is that the process of producing reddish pigment eats up a valuable antioxidant that would otherwise be fighting the free radicals that lead to oxidative ...

A sobering new study by researchers from the University of Southern California Davis School of Gerontology finds that elder abuse in low-income Latino communities goes largely unreported. More than 40 percent of Latino elders told Spanish-speaking interviewers that they had been abused or neglected in the last year — yet only 1.5 percent of victims said they had ever reported the abuse to authorities. "Our study has revealed a much higher rate of elder abuse among the Latino community than had been previously thought," said Marguerite DeLiema of the USC Davis School of ...

The end of AIDS is within our reach. But as the authors of a new special supplement in the August, 2012 Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiencies (JAIDS) point out, new financial investments – and renewed commitments – from countries around the world will be critical to fully implement proven treatment and prevention tools already at hand and to continue essential scientific research. "Only then will an AIDS-free generation be possible," write the supplement's editors -- Richard Marlink, Wafaa El-Sadr, Mariangela Simao and Elly Katabira – in their introduction. ** "Are ...

A new experiment conducted at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI)* examines the relationship between quantum coherence, an important aspect of certain materials kept at low temperature, and the imperfections in those materials. These findings should be useful in forging a better understanding of disorder, and in turn in developing better quantum-based devices, such as superconducting magnets. Most things in nature are imperfect at some level. Fortunately, imperfections---a departure, say, from an orderly array of atoms in a crystalline solid---are often ...

An international team of scientists, led by researchers from the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, have identified the first reported inhibitors of a key enzyme involved in survival of the parasite responsible for malaria. Their findings, which may provide the basis for anti-malarial drug development, are currently published in the online version of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Tropical malaria is responsible for more than 1.2 million deaths annually. Severe forms of the disease are mainly caused by the parasite ...

Tampa, Fla. (July 19, 2012) – A study comparing whether endothelial colony-forming cells (ECFCs) derived from human placenta or those derived from human umbilical cord blood are more proliferative and better for forming new blood vessels has found that ECFCs derived from human placenta are more vasculogenic. The study, carried out by researchers at the Indiana School of Medicine, is published in a recent issue of Cell Medicine [2(3)] and is freely available on-line at: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/cm. "Circulating ECFCs isolated from umbilical cord blood ...