Under Virginia law prosecutors bear the burden to prove each and every element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. In short, that means they bear the burden of excluding every reasonable hypothesis of innocence. In drug cases there are generally three prevailing defenses. Each defense is fact driven so although a defense may work in one case it may not actually work on all. The three prevailing defenses in drug cases are (1) search and seizure issues (2) possession issues and (3) whether the commonwealth can prove that the substance found is illegal. All searches ...

WASHINGTON — Facial expressions have been called the "universal language of emotion," but people from different cultures perceive happy, sad or angry facial expressions in unique ways, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. "By conducting this study, we hoped to show that people from different cultures think about facial expressions in different ways," said lead researcher Rachael E. Jack, PhD, of the University of Glasgow. "East Asians and Western Caucasians differ in terms of the features they think constitute an angry face ...

Distracted driving takes a horrible toll on innocent Missouri drivers every year. It does not matter whether the distraction comes from applying makeup, checking a map, talking to a passenger or changing a radio station; a moment's negligence, even at moderate speeds, is enough for a car or truck to miss a stop sign or veer into an opposing lane and cause a serious or fatal auto accident. Missouri personal injury attorneys are all too familiar with the horrific harm that such accidents can cause to injury victims and surviving family members. Personal electronic devices ...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1—Blood tests are important diagnostic tools. They accurately tease-out vanishingly small concentrations of proteins and other molecules that help give a picture of overall health or signal the presence of specific diseases. Current testing procedures, however, are expensive and time-consuming, while sophisticated test equipment is bulky and difficult to transport. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Toledo in Ohio has addressed all these drawbacks by developing a low-cost, portable technique that is able to quickly and reliably detect ...

It might seem like an accident that could only happen in a horror movie, but the reality of unsecured cargo is much more serious and more prevalent than most people assume. AAA reported that around 25,000 vehicle accidents and 80-90 deaths occur as a direct result of unsecured cargo per year. Unsecured cargo is essentially insufficient stability of the materials a trucker is transporting. Typically, materials transported by 18-wheelers include steel coils, lumber, auto parts and various construction supplies, but the list can also extends to liquid or hazardous materials ...

How do you protect your child's safety when there are 30,000 tons of potentially dangerous toys pouring into the United States from foreign countries every year? These boatloads of foreign toys account for 95 percent of the toys sold in the U.S. every year -- and many of them cause serious injuries to children. Of course, American-made toys can cause children's injuries too. Regardless of their origin, toys should not put children at undue risk of injury. Trouble in Toyland Report That's why a leading consumer advocacy group, U.S. PIRG, tries to educate the public ...

Patients with ALK-rearranged non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) responded significantly better to pemetrexed (brand name: Alimta) than patients whose cancer did not show ALK translocation, according to research published in the September issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, the official publication of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC). Lung adenocarcinoma can display genetic mutations, including anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) rearrangement and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations. Knowing whether the tumor displays ...

Porphyrins are organic molecules that appear in the central region of macromolecules such as chlorophyll and hemoglobin, and have a metal atom at their center that determines their specific function. The importance of these molecules in the field of molecular electronics lies in their "ease of transfer electrons from one region to another" explains the responsible of the work at the Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology Research Center (a joint research center of the CSIC, the University of Oviedo and the Government of the Principality of Asturias) Víctor Manuel García. ...

Commercial tractor-trailers are involved in an increasing number of serious, and often fatal, accidents. To learn why, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) conducted the Large Truck Crash Causation Study (LTCCS). This study provided vital information, including the reasons behind serious crashes involving large trucks. Researchers reviewed 120,000 crashes that occurred between April 2001 and December 2003 and selected a nationally representative sample of 963 accidents. These accidents, ...

A study by the University of Liverpool has found that a decrease in smoking rapidly reduces mortality rates in individuals and entire populations within six months. Research by Professor Simon Capewell and Dr Martin O'Flaherty at the Institute of Psychology, Health and Well-being, examined evidence from clinical trials and natural experiments. They found that a reduction in smoking has a positive impact on mortality rates in both individuals and populations within six months. Likewise, dietary improvements get very positive results within one to three years. Professor ...

In a rare eye disease, the retina degenerates because light-receiving cells fail to regenerate, research led by a student at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine shows. The researchers include Dr. Samuel G. Jacobson's group at the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Andreas Engel's group at University of Basel, Switzerland. They found that when the natural renewal process fails, metabolites are locked in, build up and turn toxic, killing cells over time in Enhanced S-Cone Syndrome. A description of their work is online and will be published in print in ...

When it comes to big-budget action movies, Rice University astronomer Patrick Hartigan prefers Hubble to Hollywood. Using Hubble Space Telescope images collected over 14 years, Hartigan has created time-lapse movies that offer astronomers their first glimpse of the dynamic behavior of stellar jets, huge torrents of gas and particles that spew from the poles of newborn stars. An analysis of the movies that was published in The Astrophysical Journal is forcing astronomers to rethink some of the processes that occur during the latter stages of star birth. And in an effort ...

With more than 22 million drivers on its roads, California became the largest state to enact formal distracted driving laws in 2008. Sections 23123 and 23124 of the California Vehicle Code prohibited use of cell phones without a hands-free device, which enables drivers to dial phone numbers or complete calls without taking their hands from the steering wheel. The law also prohibited all drivers under age 18 from using cell phones behind the wheel. Proponents of the new law suggested that hands-free devices provided the safety and convenience drivers needed to make calls ...

"We have worked with young people, in this case, in the family environment, to see what happens during the 'full nest syndrome', i.e., when children reach 18 years of age and they continue living at home," explained Beatriz Rodríguez, researcher from the University of La Laguna and co-author of the study. Researchers classified adolescents into three stages: early teens (12 and 13 years), mid-teens (14 and 15), and late teens (16-18). Those 18-25 were called 'emerging adults'. In Spain, given the country's social, economic and cultural characteristics, children leave ...

This press release is available in Spanish. Research conducted in part at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has confirmed that in some production systems, planting potatoes in flat beds can increase irrigation water use efficiency. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) agricultural engineer Bradley King, who works at the ARS Northwest Irrigation and Soils Research Laboratory in Kimberly, Idaho, was one of the scientists who led these studies. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency, and this research supports the USDA commitment to enhancing ...

Philadelphia, PA, September 1, 2011 – For patients undergoing rehabilitation following cardiac events, aerobic exercise training (AT) is widely recommended. Resistance training (RT) has also been shown to be beneficial because it enhances muscular strength and endurance, functional capacity and independence, and quality of life, while reducing disability. In a study scheduled for publication in the October issue of the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, researchers compared two RT regimens of different intensity in combination with AT. They determined that ...

A truck-mounted boom tipped and hit a Brooklyn brownstone, but as New York construction accident lawyer David Perecman is happy to note, the construction workers all escaped injury. According to the New York Daily News, the non-injury construction accident in New York occurred while a construction crew was adding a third-story extension on the Cobble Hill building. The weight of the sheetrock and plywood was apparently too much and the boom collapsed, leaving the truck on a 45-degree angle. No one was injured in the New York construction accident. The construction ...

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- Two Kansas State University researchers have been collaborating on an international project involving genomes of a model plant species that can offer insights into other plants. Christopher Toomajian, assistant professor of plant pathology, and Katie Hildebrand, doctoral student in plant pathology, Stafford, are researching genetic variation in Arabidopsis thaliana, a small flowering plant that has a short life cycle, making it one of the best model species for scientific study. For some of their latest research, they have worked with researchers ...

Hospital executives should consider the value-added services of hospital-based radiology groups before allowing radiology departments to be taken over by teleradiologists or other specialists, according to an article in the September 2011 issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology. Although imaging has become an increasingly important cornerstone in the diagnosis and treatment of disease and injury, hospital-based imaging is now often read by other specialists or via teleradiology rather than hospital-based radiologists. "These problematic situations ...

HAMILTON Sept. 1, 2011 – McMaster researchers have found one more reason to exercise: working out triggers influential stem cells to become bone instead of fat, improving overall health by boosting the body's capacity to make blood. The body's mesenchymal stem cells are most likely to become fat or bone, depending on which path they follow. Using treadmill-conditioned mice, a team led by the Department of Kinesiology's Gianni Parise has shown that aerobic exercise triggers those cells to become bone more often than fat. The exercising mice ran less than an hour, three ...

GALVESTON — Researchers have found that a protein variation linked by some genetic studies to Alzheimer's disease is consistently present in the brains of people with Alzheimer's. In further biochemical and cell culture investigations, they have shown that this protein, known as ubiquilin-1, performs a critical Alzheimer's-related function: it "chaperones" the formation of amyloid precursor protein, a molecule whose malformation has been directly tied to Alzheimer's pathology. "What we saw here is that in all 20 of the Alzheimer's brains we examined the ubiquilin-1 protein ...

Birds of a feather flock together in cyberspace. At least that's what Dr. Cuihua (Cindy) Shen, assistant professor of Emerging Media and Communication at University of Texas Dallas, has shown in a research article published in the journal First Monday. Examining an online community using social network analysis, Shen tested the social drivers that shaped the collaboration dynamics among a group of users from SourceForge, the largest open source community on the Web. Who Connects with Whom? A Social Network Analysis of an Online Open Source Software Community co-written ...

It is widely acknowledged that human beings are largely responsible for the widespread alteration of ecosystems on the planet. A recent study by Dara Seidl and Peter Klepeis of Colgate University in New York traces the ways in which humans are the principal agents of dispersal of exotic earthworms in the forests of Northern America. Their findings, published online in Springer's journal Human Ecology, suggest that humans spread earthworms both inadvertently via horticulture and land disturbance, in the tires and underbodies of vehicles, but also knowingly through composting ...

Richmond, Va. (September 1, 2011) –It is widely known that mutations in the breast cancer susceptibility 1 (BRCA1) gene significantly increase the chance of developing breast and ovarian cancers, but the mechanisms at play are not fully understood. Now, researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center have shown that certain BRCA1 mutations result in excessive, uncontrolled DNA repair, which challenges the prior assumption that mutations in BRCA1 only contribute to breast cancer through a reduction in function. Recently published in the journal Aging, ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Most people have witnessed otherwise intelligent people doing embarrassing or stupid things when they are intoxicated, but what specifically happens in the brain to cause such drunken actions? A new study testing alcohol's effects on brain activity from the University of Missouri says that alcohol dulls the brain "signal" that warns people when they are making a mistake, ultimately reducing self control. "When people make mistakes, activity in a part of the brain responsible for monitoring behavior increases, essentially sending an alarm signal to other ...