Professional development workshops for college teachers, designed to encourage the use of active, "learner-centered" teaching methods, may be less effective than the participants believe, according to research reported in the July issue of BioScience. Diane Ebert-May of Michigan State University and her colleagues studied the teaching of participants in two such established programs for faculty teaching introductory biology courses. Although after the workshops most of the faculty judged themselves to be providing the favored, learner-centered teaching, which encourages ...

Gray whales survived many cycles of global cooling and warming over the past few million years, likely by exploiting a more varied diet than they do today, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, and Smithsonian Institution paleontologists. The researchers, who analyzed California gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) responses to climate change over the past 120,000 years, also found evidence to support the idea that the population of gray whales along the Pacific Coast before the arrival of humans was two to four times today's population, which ...

More than 99 per cent of modern vertebrates (animals with a backbone, including humans) have jaws, yet 420 million years ago, jawless, toothless armour-plated fishes dominated the seas, lakes, and rivers. There were no vertebrates yet on land and the recently evolved jawed fishes were minor players in this alien world, some sporting unusual jaw shapes and structures that bear little physical resemblance to modern animals. The researchers, led by Dr Philip Anderson of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, applied concepts from physics and engineering to unravel the potential ...

BOULDER, Colo. – Showcasing new tools for widespread development of quantum circuits made of mechanical parts, scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a flexible, broadly usable technique for steadily calming the vibrations of an engineered mechanical object down to the quantum "ground state," the lowest possible energy level. Described in a Nature paper posted online July 6,* the NIST experiments nearly stop the beating motion of a microscopic aluminum drum made of about 1 trillion atoms, placing the drum in a realm ...

Results from a study of over 50 000 pregnancies revealed that women who gave up smoking when their pregnancy was confirmed gave birth to babies with a similar birthweight to those born to mothers who had never smoked, Professor Nick Macklon, from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Southampton, UK, told the annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology today (Wednesday). Low birthweight is the most common negative outcome of smoking during pregnancy, but foetuses exposed to maternal smoking are also at risk of premature ...

The group looked at 60,650 singletons in a common Nordic database from ART registers in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and compared these to a control group of 360,022 naturally conceived (NC) singletons. In both groups 0.4 % of singletons were stillborn, with a definition of stillbirth as a dead child after 22 weeks of gestation. After having been matched with the control group regarding mother's parity and year of birth, the overall risk of stillbirth was found to be marginally higher (1.1 fold) in ART children after adjusting for factors such as maternal age and ...

Other important data the European IVF Monitoring group (EIM) on 2008 cycles and the International Committee Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ICMART) on 2007 cycles highlighted were Sweden's low rate of multiple births – the lowest in the world – and Spain's 30 % share of egg donations in Europe. The EIM collected data on frozen oocyte retrieval (FOR) cycles for the first time. Until today, egg freezing is still not offered on a wide scale but can be an option for women who wish to postpone motherhood or are facing cancer therapy to save their lives. Recently, ...

In 2009, 1,547 ART children were born in public clinics in Denmark, projecting a net tax revenue of €224 million and €247 million in 25 and 50 years respectively. The authors of the study calculated that reductions of 30-50% in ART cycles following the new policy would lead to cost savings of €67 - €111 million for the Danish government in 2034. By 2059 however, when the IVF cohort are 50 years of age, the government would have lost €74 - €123 million due to less tax contributions from fewer children born. "The most common argument governments use not to fund ART is ...

POF is not only associated with infertility but also with significantly increased morbidity and mortality, as well as a decreased quality of life equivalent to that of people with type 2 diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis, said Dr. Rumana Islam, from Imperial College, London, UK. Previous studies of POF, defined as the onset of menopause before the age of 40, have assessed the small group of women who seek hospital care, and therefore there is little information about the risks and impacts of POF across a whole population, Dr. Islam explained. With her colleague Dr. Rufus ...

TORONTO, ON – A Toronto-based researcher is at the helm of a massive, worldwide study that identifies the top global challenges in mental health. The paper resulting from the study appears in Nature today. Professor Abdallah S. Daar, senior scientist with the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health at the University Health Network (UHN) and the University of Toronto, co-authored the historic study, "Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health." The study – the world's largest of its kind – brought together more than 400 international researchers, advocates, clinicians ...

Researchers at King's College London have found a molecule in the body which controls sensitivity to pain from UVB irradiation, identifying it as a new target for medicines to treat pain caused by other common inflammatory conditions such as arthritis. The molecule, called CXCL5, is part of a family of proteins called chemokines, which recruit inflammatory immune cells to the injured tissue, triggering pain and tenderness. This is the first study to reveal this molecule's role in mediating pain. The study, funded by the Wellcome Trust (as part of the London Pain Consortium), ...

An international team of astronomers made the discovery with the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope (APEX), situated on the 5000-metre-high Chajnantor plateau in the Chilean Andes. They observed a region in our galaxy close to the star Rho Ophiuchi, about 400 light-years away. The region contains very cold (around -250 degrees Celsius), dense clouds of cosmic gas and dust, in which new stars are being born. The clouds are mostly made of hydrogen, but contain traces of other chemicals, and are prime targets for astronomers hunting for molecules in space. Telescopes ...

A region at the front of the brain 'lights up' when we experience beauty in a piece of art or a musical excerpt, according to new research funded by the Wellcome Trust. The study, published today in the open access journal PLoS One, suggests that the one characteristic that all works of art, whatever their nature, have in common is that they lead to activity in that same region of the brain, and goes some way to supporting the views of David Hume and others that beauty lies in the beholder rather than in the object. "The question of whether there are characteristics that ...

Chips based on ARM processor technology will be linked together to simulate the highly-complex workings of the brain, whose functionality derives from networks of billions of interacting, highly-connected neurons. The chips upon which this work critically depends were delivered last month, and have passed their functionality tests with flying colours. They will form the system architecture for a massive computer, called SpiNNaker (Spiking Neural Network architecture), which aims to map out the brain's individual functions. SpiNNaker could be a vital tool for neuroscientists, ...

Mental health experts are calling for a greater world focus on improving access to care and treatment for mental, neurological, and substance use (MNS) disorders, as well as increasing discoveries in research that will enable this goal to be met. The Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health Initiative, led by the National Institutes of Health and the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases, has identified the top 40 barriers to better mental health around the world. Similar to past grand challenges, which focused on infectious diseases and chronic, noncommunicable diseases, ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – It's like a Brownie camera for the digital age: The microscopic device fits on the head of a pin, contains no lenses or moving parts, costs pennies to make – and this Cornell-developed camera could revolutionize an array of science from surgery to robotics. The camera was invented in the lab of Alyosha Molnar, Cornell assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and developed by a group led by Patrick Gill, a postdoctoral associate. Their working prototype, detailed online in the journal Optics Letters (July 6, 2011), is 100th of a millimeter ...

PHOENIX, Ariz. — July 6, 2011 — A first-of-its-kind study of a patient with lung cancer who never smoked will be presented today by TGen and the Virginia G. Piper Cancer Center at Scottsdale Healthcare at the 14th World Conference on Lung Cancer, July 3-7 in Amsterdam. Researchers for the first time sequenced the entire DNA and RNA of a patient with metastatic adenocarcinoma of the lung, said Dr. Glen Weiss, the first author of the study, which will be published in a special supplement of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology. Dr. Weiss also is Director of Thoracic Oncology ...

Bringing fresh insight into long-standing debates about how powerful geological forces shape the planet, from earthquake ruptures to mountain formations, scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have identified a new mechanism driving Earth's massive tectonic plates. Scientists who study tectonic motions have known for decades that the ongoing "pull" and "push" movements of the plates are responsible for sculpting continental features around the planet. Volcanoes, for example, are generally located at areas where plates are moving apart or coming ...

Cultural, ethnic and gender stereotypes can significantly distort clinical judgments about "facially masked" patients with Parkinson's disease, according to a newly published study from researchers at Tufts University, Brandeis University and the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. This can lead to inappropriate and inequitable health care for those suffering from Parkinson's, a common nervous system disorder, particularly in the elderly, with some 50,000 new cases reported in the U.S. each year. "Practitioners need to better understand the complexities of ...

On July 8, at approximately 11:26 a.m. EDT, the space shuttle Atlantis will streak skyward from the Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A, for one last mission. While the STS-135 flight marks the end of the space shuttle's glory days, its final trip may open a new era of research into infectious diseases, thanks to space bound experiments conducted by Dr's. Cheryl Nickerson, and Roy Curtiss III, along with their colleagues at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute. Nickerson, a microbiologist and authority on infectious pathogens, has been using spaceflight ...

Auto Trader Uk announced today that July 4th will be the start date for "The Greatest New Car Showroom in The WWW" advertising campaign. The campaign includes all the channels that Auto Trader knows local new car buyers are using and engaging on while looking for a new car. The addition of the new cars section has already driven new traffic on the Auto Trader website partially due to the functionality and features inherent to the new pages. Consumers are taking to features like the ability to search by body type, make, model and price because they provide easy ...

Johns Hopkins and South African scientists have further compelling evidence that new, simpler and shorter treatments with antibiotic drugs could dramatically help prevent tens of millions of people worldwide already infected with the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis, and especially those co-infected with HIV, from developing full-blown TB. That population includes as many as 22 million in sub-Saharan Africa who are already HIV positive and at high risk of also picking up TB, which is endemic to the region, plus another 50,000 in the United States who are similarly ...

More needs to be done to improve the care that older adults with cognitive impairment - including dementia and delirium - receive when they visit hospital emergency departments, according to a research review in the July issue of the Journal of Advanced Nursing. Researchers from the University of Alberta reviewed 15 studies published between 1994 and 2009, covering 4,431 patients from the USA, Canada, Australia, Italy, New Zealand and Israel. They point out that a large proportion of older adults over 65 visit emergency departments (EDs) in high-income countries. ...

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Glioblastoma is the most common and most lethal form of brain tumor in people. Research published in the International Journal of Computational Biology and Drug Design offers a novel way to determine what biological functions go awry when the tumor first begins to form. Understanding the problems at the molecular level might one day reveal the underlying mechanism of carcinogenesis in glioblastoma and ultimately lead to treatments or even preventative measures. This form of brain tumor account for more than half of all cases in which the tumor is within the tissues of ...