The constant hunger to break new records has turned boat building into a high-tech business. The racing yachts that compete at international regattas today are sporting machines designed to reach top speeds. The process of optimizing the boats has been ongoing for decades. However, just a short while ago it looked as if a limit had been reached. On the fifth leg of the Volvo Ocean Race in spring 2012, from New Zealand to Brazil, only one of the six teams reached its destination without technical problems – all the others were forced to either take a break from the race ...

Research from the University of Melbourne has shown that two different vaccine viruses- used simultaneously to control the same condition in chickens- have combined to produce new infectious viruses, prompting early response from Australia's veterinary medicines regulator. The vaccines were used to control infectious laryngotracheitis (ILT), an acute respiratory disease occurring in chickens worldwide. ILT can have up to 20% mortality rate in some flocks and has a significant economic and welfare impact in the poultry industry. The research found that when two different ...

Thursday, July 12, 2012 Athens, Ga. – Hypertension frequently coexists in patients with diabetes. A new University of Georgia study shows why the co-morbid conditions can result in impaired vision. "Results showed early signals of cell death in eyes from diabetic animals within the first six weeks of elevated blood pressure. Later, the tiny blood vessels around the optic nerve that nourish the retina and affect visual processing showed signs of decay as early as 10 weeks after diabetic animals develop hypertension," said Azza El-Remessy, assistant professor in the ...

Researchers at the IRCM, led by geneticist Dr. Jacques Drouin, recently defined the interaction between two essential proteins that control inflammation. This important breakthrough will be published in tomorrow's print edition of the scientific journal Molecular Cell. IRCM scientists study glucocorticoids, a class of steroid hormones that suppress the immune system and reduce inflammation. They are used in medicine to treat diseases such as allergies, asthma, and autoimmune diseases. "In molecular biology and genetics, proteins known as transcription factors bind ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed highly conductive and elastic conductors made from silver nanoscale wires (nanowires). These elastic conductors could be used to develop stretchable electronic devices. Stretchable circuitry would be able to do many things that its rigid counterpart cannot. For example, an electronic "skin" could help robots pick up delicate objects without breaking them, and stretchable displays and antennas could make cell phones and other electronic devices stretch and compress without affecting their performance. However, ...

Batteries provide the "fuel" that drives electric cars – in effect, the vehicles' lifeblood. If batteries are to have a long service life, overheating must be avoided. A battery's "comfort zone" lies between 20°C and 35°C. But even a Sunday drive in the midday heat of summer can push a battery's temperature well beyond that range. The damage caused can be serious: operating a battery at a temperature of 45°C instead of 35°C halves its service life. And batteries are expensive – a new one can cost as much as half the price of the entire vehicle. That is why it is so important ...

New Rochelle, NY, July 12, 2012 –Although acetazolamide is widely prescribed to prevent and treat acute mountain sickness (AMS), the appropriate dose at which it is effective and safe has not been clearly defined. A comprehensive review and meta-analysis of 24 studies comparing the efficacy and risks associated with increasing doses of acetazolamide is published in High Altitude Medicine & Biology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers (http://www.liebertpub.com). The article is available free online at the High Altitude Medicine & Biology (http://www.liebertpub.com/ham) ...

New Rochelle, NY, July 12, 2012—The profound sense of loss and public mourning that followed the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was a reflection of how great an impact he had on society and on the lives of individuals through the technology he helped to create. The magnitude and reasons for the outpouring of emotion upon his death by people who did not know him personally are explored in an article in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers (http://www.liebertpub.com). The article is ...

A new study published in the journal Drug Testing and Analysis found that DMAA, a stimulant often found in many nutritional and sports supplements, does not originate from natural substances and is actually comprised of synthetic compounds. The substance DMAA (1,3-dimethylamylamine) is a stimulant existing in various pre-workout supplements and often labeled as part of geranium plants. The safety and origin of DMAA in these supplements is often the subject of intense debate and has been recently linked to the death of two U.S. soldiers, causing the Army to pull the supplement ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Animals that choose to eat in the presence of a predator run the risk of being eaten themselves, so they often go into a defensive mode and pay a physical penalty for the lack of nutrients. But that's not so for the crop pest hornworm caterpillar, a study shows. While other animals increase metabolism and stop growing or developing during a defensive period, hornworm caterpillars slow or stop eating but actually keep up their weight and develop a little faster in the short term. Ian Kaplan, a Purdue University assistant professor of entomology; ...

Theoretical physicist Filippo Miatto and colleagues from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK, have found a new method of reliably assessing the information contained in photon pairs used for applications in cryptography and quantum computing. The findings, published in EPJ D¹, are so robust that they enable access to the information even when the measurements on photon pairs are imperfect. The authors focused on photon pairs described as being in a state of quantum entanglement: i.e., made up of many superimposed pairs of states. This means that these photon pairs ...

Women who go to medical school just for the financial rewards of being a doctor could be making a mistake, according to a study published in the Journal of Human Capital. The research found that after factoring in the high upfront costs of becoming a doctor, most women primary-care doctors would have made more money over their careers becoming physician assistants instead. For the median man on the other hand, becoming a doctor pays a substantial premium over becoming a PA. Two factors drive the results, say the study's authors, M. Keith Chen and Judith Chevalier ...

This press release is available in German. It is not unusual for babies to be born with congenital heart defects. This is because the development of the heart in the embryo is a process which is not only extremely complex, but also error-prone. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim have now identified a key molecule that plays a central role in regulating the function of stem cells in the heart. As a result, not only could congenital heart defects be avoided in future, but new ways of stimulating the regeneration of damaged ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– UC Santa Barbara scientists trying to control the invasive tamarisk plant have been getting a boost from evolution, in the form of a rapidly evolving beetle that has been changing its life cycle to more efficiently consume the noxious weed. Their findings, in a paper titled "Evolution of critical day length for diapause induction enables range expansion of Diorhabda carinulata, a biological control agent against tamarisk," are published in the journal Evolutionary Applications. "This is one of the clearest cases of rapid evolution," said co-author ...

HOUSTON – (July 12, 2012) – New research at Rice University that seeks to establish points of reference between plasmonic particles and polymers might lead to smaller computer chips, better antennae and improvements in optical computing. Materials scientists take advantage of strong interactions between chemicals to form polymers that self-assemble into patterns and are the basis of things people use every day. Anything made of plastic is a good example. Now, Rice scientists have detailed similar patterns in the way that surface plasmons – charged "quasiparticles" ...

Wolverines live in harsh conditions; they range over large areas of cold mountainous low-productivity habitat with persistent snow. The paper suggests wolverines take advantage of the crevices and boulders of the mountainous terrain, as well as the snow cover to cache and "refrigerate" food sources such as elk, caribou, moose and mountain goat carrion, ground squirrels and other food collected during more plentiful times of year. These cold, structured chambers provide protection of the food supply from scavengers, insects and bacteria. In addition, the refrigerated caches ...

Pressure to be more involved in their children's lives has many middle class men turning to sports as a way to nurture their kids. This softening of gender roles might be seen on the field, but researchers found it doesn't change traditional behavior at home – where household chores and other parenting responsibilities are still seen as mom's job. "Women may be unhappy about this inequality, but at the same time they value the fact that their partners are involved with the kids -- even if it is mostly manifested on the soccer field," says Dr. Tamar Kremer-Sadlik, director ...

Daniel is no longer a tropical storm, and has weakened to a remnant low pressure system, but its circulation is still visible on satellite imagery today, July 12 as it moves south of Hawaii. A visible image from NOAA's GOES-15 satellite on July 12, 2012 shows the circulation of Daniel's remnants heading toward Hawaii, followed by Hurricane Emilia to the east, and further east is Tropical Storm Fabio. Daniel's remnants appear as a ghost-like swirl of clouds in comparison to the organized and bright white clouds in powerful Hurricane Emilia. The image was created by the ...

NASA research has indicated whenever "Hot Towering" thunderstorms are spotted within a tropical cyclone, it is more likely to strengthen. NASA's TRMM satellite saw hot towers within newborn Tropical Depression 06E when it passed overhead early on July 12 and it later became Tropical Storm Fabio. Tropical Depression 06E (TD06E) was seen by the TRMM satellite on July 12, 2012 at 0632 UTC (2:32 a.m. EDT). TD06E had mostly light to moderate rainfall where rain was falling between 20 and 40 millimeters (.78 to 1.57 inches) per hour. However, some heavy rainfall (red) and hot ...

NASA's Aqua satellite has several instruments onboard that are providing forecasters with different views of Hurricane Emilia in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. The infrared view hinted that Emilia would strengthen and it regained Category 3 Hurricane status today. On Wednesday, July 11, 2012 at 2120 UTC (5:20 p.m. EDT/2:20 p.m. PDT), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument captured a visible image of Hurricane Emilia that showed an eye with some high clouds overhead. The next day, Thursday, July 12, the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument ...

AMES, Iowa -- The April suicide of 14-year-old Kenneth Weishuhn Jr. -- a South O'Brien High School (Paulina, Iowa) student who was reportedly teased and bullied by classmates -- had Iowa lawmakers questioning the effectiveness of the state's five-year-old anti-bullying law. School officials can't always identify the bullies until it's too late. But a new study led by Douglas Gentile, an Iowa State University associate professor of psychology, may provide schools with a new tool to help them profile students who are more likely to commit aggressive acts against other students. ...

Massive explosions on the sun unleash radiation that could kill astronauts in space. Now, researchers from the U.S. and South Korea have developed a warning system capable of forecasting the radiation from these violent solar storms nearly three hours (166 minutes) in advance, giving astronauts, as well as air crews flying over Earth's polar regions, time to take protective action. Physicists from the University of Delaware and from Chungnam National University and Hanyang University developed the system and report on it in Space Weather: The International Journal ...

Fire in enclosed military environments such as ship holds, aircraft cockpits and ground vehicles is a major cause of material destruction and jeopardizes the lives of warfighters. For example, a shipboard fire on the aircraft carrier USS George Washington in May 2008 burned for 12 hours and caused an estimated $70 million in damage. For nearly 50 years, despite the severity of the threat from fire, no new methods for extinguishing or manipulating fire were developed. In 2008, DARPA launched the Instant Fire Suppression (IFS) program to develop a fundamental understanding ...

(Edmonton) A new study from the University of Alberta is challenging the notion that teaching the next generation of Sidney Crosbys how to take a bodycheck at an earlier age will help them avoid injury over the long term. Researchers with the Alberta Centre for Injury Control and Research in the School of Public Health studied hockey-related injuries using data from several emergency departments in the Edmonton region. They found little truth to the theory that introducing bodychecking at an earlier age helps prevent injuries because players gain an "instinctive ability" ...

Since the early days of iris recognition technologies, it has been assumed that the iris was a "stable" biometric over a person's lifetime — "one enrollment for life." However, new research from University of Notre Dame researchers has found that iris biometric enrollment is susceptible to an aging process that causes recognition performance to degrade slowly over time. "The biometric community has long accepted that there is no 'template aging effect' for iris recognition, meaning that once you are enrolled in an iris recognition system, your chances of experiencing ...