CORAL GABLES, FL (June 20, 2011) — University of Miami professor at the College of Engineering, Jizhou Song, has helped design an light-emitting diode (LED) light that uses an array of LEDs 100 times smaller than conventional LEDs. The new device has flexibility, maintains lower temperature and has an increased life-span over existing LEDs. The findings are published online by the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." Incandescent bulbs are not very efficient, most of the power they use is converted into heat and only a small fraction of the power gets converted ...

Previous research says on average, children living in poverty are less well prepared to start school than children from middle-income homes. Now, new research says home learning experiences may help low-income children's school readiness. "Our findings indicate that enriched learning experiences as early as the first year of life are important to children's vocabulary growth, which in turn provides a foundation for children's later school success," said Eileen T. Rodriguez, survey researcher at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. Rodriguez, the study's lead author, conducted ...

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- As housing prices in the United States continue to drop, a Kansas State University professor says the best way to help the market is to stop delaying foreclosures. While negotiations continue between state attorneys general and banks over a settlement that looks at foreclosure practices, some of the settlement proposals may backfire and do more harm than good, according to two recent studies co-authored by Kansas State finance professor Eric Higgins. Higgins co-authored the studies with Charles Calomiris, a professor at Columbia Business School, and ...

A new study published in the international Nordic journal Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica (AOGS) reveals that inducing labor in the weeks around term, or from week 39 to week 41, is not connected with higher rates of cesarean section compared with waiting for a later spontaneous or induced labor. There has been much debate about this in recent years with a concern that induction as opposed to expectant management might lead to a higher risk for the woman to end up with emergency cesarean section, rather than to deliver normally. Ole Bredahl Rasmussen, MD, ...

Situated apart from the busy strip of tourist areas near Fort Lauderdale, you will find an emerging destination that is ideal for South Florida Weddings or any event where your wish is to be on the beach. Hollywood, Florida has really been buzzing across the land as the hottest spot when looking for a hometown, beachtown experience. Brides and grooms rant and rave throughout the world wide web via blogs and social sites that Hollywood has all the ingredients as that perfect experience for a Florida Wedding. Wedding venues become harder and harder to choose from, since ...

Johns Hopkins graduate students have invented a system to significantly boost the number of stem cells collected from a newborn's umbilical cord and placenta, so that many more patients with leukemia, lymphoma and other blood disorders can be treated with these valuable cells. The prototype is still in the testing stage, but initial results are promising. The student inventors have obtained a provisional patent covering the technology and have formed a company, TheraCord LLC, to further develop the technology, which may someday be used widely in hospital maternity units. ...

Hudson Ferry Capital is pleased to announce the final closing of Hudson Ferry Capital II, L.P. ("HFC II") with capital of $155 million. HFC II is a Small Business Investment Company ("SBIC") licensed by the Small Business Administration and is focused on making "buy-in" investments in established, family-owned U.S. businesses. Hudson Ferry defines "buy-ins" as control investments with existing managers who retain substantial ownership positions. This creates a true partnership with a common goal of transforming a small or regional ...

A group of American and Filipino biologists have discovered seven previously unknown species of mammals in the Philippines, increasing the number of native mammals known from Luzon Island (excluding bats) from 42 to 49 (17 percent). The formal descriptions of the seven species, all of which are members of the genus Apomys, were published on 20 May in Fieldiana, the peer-reviewed journal of The Field Museum, where the project is based. The nine co-authors included biologists from the University of the Philippines, the Philippine National Museum, Conservation International-Philippines, ...

Chicago…A national study of food allergies in the US, the largest of its kind, finds that more children have food allergies than previously reported. The study, published in the July issue of Pediatrics, and headed by Ruchi Gupta, MD, MPH, an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a pediatrician at Children's Memorial Hospital, shows food allergy affects 8 percent of children under 18 years of age, or about 5.9 million children in the US. Of those, 38.7 percent had a history of severe reactions, and 30.4 percent ...

As the weather gets warmer, many parents will turn to pools to keep their family cool. Due to their low cost and ease of use, portable pools - which include wading pools, inflatable pools and soft-sided, self-rising pools - have become an increasingly popular alternative to expensive in-ground pools or water park visits. While portable pools can be a great way for children to cool off during hot summer days, a new study conducted by researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital has found that these pools ...

Formal daycare is better for a child's cognitive development than informal care by a grandparent, sibling, or family friend, according to a study of single mothers and their childcare choices published in the July issue of the Journal of Labor Economics. According to the study, children who go to a formal preschool program or a licensed daycare center have essentially the same standardized test scores as those who stay home with mom. Conversely, each year of informal care reduces a child's test scores by 2.6 percent versus staying with mom. "Extensive research has ...

Home builder purchases of Mark Systems' enterprise software continue at a torrid pace, with Q2 2011 marking the 6th straight quarter of record sales. With 10 days remaining in the second quarter, new client sales of the Integrated Homebuilder Management System (IHMS) to residential builders and developers through June 30 are 10% higher than 2010, the company's previous record sales year, according to Mark Systems management. "After two years of cutbacks, home builders are running absolutely lean right now," said Mark Finelli, Mark Systems' President. "As ...

Oxford, June 20, 2011 - A potentially pathogenic fungus has found a home living in extreme conditions in some of the most common household appliances, researchers have found. A new paper published in the British Mycological Society journal, Fungal Biology, published by Elsevier, shows that these sites make perfect habitats for extremotolerant fungi (which includes black yeasts). Some of these are potentially dangerous to human health. Modern living comes with an increasing need for electrical household equipment such as dishwashers, washing machines and coffee machines. ...

When a bad mimic is good Nature is full of mimics—creatures that have evolved to look or act like other more dangerous animals. However, some mimics imitate their models more convincingly than others, and new research helps explain why it sometimes pays to be a bad mimic. The research looked at three species of spider, all of which mimic, with varying degrees of accuracy, aggressive and bad-tasting ants. All of the mimics were good at avoiding being eaten by predators that target spiders, the research found. But the less accurate mimics also had a spider-like ability ...

Alexandria, VA – From Seattle to Los Angeles, anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of the water people use comes from mountain snow. Snow falls in the mountains in the winter, where it's stored as snowpack until spring and summer when it flows down the mountains into reservoirs. It's a clean, reliable source of water. But soon, it may become less dependable, thanks to climate change. In the July feature "Endangered Snow: How climate change threatens West Coast water supplies," EARTH Magazine looks at how climate change could disrupt the balance of water and snow in the mountains, ...

The parathyroid glands – four small organs the size of grains of rice located at the back of the throat – glow with a natural fluorescence in the near infrared region of the spectrum. This unique fluorescent signature was discovered by a team of biomedical engineers and endocrine surgeons at Vanderbilt University, who have used it as the basis of a simple and reliable optical detector that can positively identify the parathyroid glands during endocrine surgery. The report of the discovery of parathyroid fluorescence and the design of the optical detector was published ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Just like everyone else, people with panic disorder have real stress in their lives. They get laid off and they fight with their spouses. How such stresses affect their panic symptoms hasn't been well understood, but a new study by researchers at Brown University presents the counterintuitive finding that certain kinds of stressful life events cause panic symptoms to increase gradually over succeeding months, rather than to spike immediately. "We definitely expected the symptoms to get worse over time, but we also thought the symptoms ...

DURHAM, NC – Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have found out how mouse basal cells that line airways "decide" to become one of two types of cells that assist in airway-clearing duties. The findings could help provide new therapies for either blocked or thinned airways. "Our work has identified the Notch signaling pathway as a central regulatory 'switch' that controls the differentiation of airway basal stem cells," said Jason Rock, Ph.D., lead author and postdoctoral researcher in Brigid Hogan's cell biology laboratory. "Studies like ours will enhance efforts ...

WASHINGTON — Synthetic fat substitutes used in low-calorie potato chips and other foods could backfire and contribute to weight gain and obesity, according to a study published by the American Psychological Association. The study, by researchers at Purdue University, challenges the conventional wisdom that foods made with fat substitutes help with weight loss. "Our research showed that fat substitutes can interfere with the body's ability to regulate food intake, which can lead to inefficient use of calories and weight gain," said Susan E. Swithers, PhD, the lead researcher ...

Female bosses sometimes have a reputation for not being very nice. Some display what's called "queen bee" behavior, distancing themselves from other women and refusing to help other women as they rise through the ranks. Now, a new study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, concludes that it's wrong to blame the woman for this behavior; instead, blame the sexist environment. Belle Derks of Leiden University in the Netherlands has done a lot of research on how people respond to sexism. ...

Richmond, Va. (June 20, 2011) – Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center have revealed novel mechanisms in mitochondria that have implications for cancer as well as many other age-related diseases such as Parkinson's disease, heart disease and hypertension. This discovery has pioneered the formation of a whole new field within epigenetics research ripe with possibilities of developing future gene therapies to treat cancer and age-associated diseases. Shirley M. Taylor, Ph.D., researcher at VCU Massey Cancer Center and associate professor in ...

DeKalb, Ill. – Scientists at Northern Illinois University say they have discovered a simple method for producing high yields of graphene, a highly touted carbon nanostructure that some believe could replace silicon as the technological fabric of the future. The focus of intense scientific research in recent years, graphene is a two-dimensional material, comprised of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice. It is the strongest material ever measured and has other remarkable qualities, including high electron mobility, a property that elevates its ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Two new techniques for computer-vision technology mimic how humans perceive three-dimensional shapes by instantly recognizing objects no matter how they are twisted or bent, an advance that could help machines see more like people. The techniques, called heat mapping and heat distribution, apply mathematical methods to enable machines to perceive three-dimensional objects, said Karthik Ramani, Purdue University's Donald W. Feddersen Professor of Mechanical Engineering. "Humans can easily perceive 3-D shapes, but it's not so easy for a computer," ...

It is a common perception that bigger, stronger, faster organisms have a distinct advantage for long-term survival when competing with other organisms in a given community. But new research from the University of Washington shows that in some structured communities, organisms increase their chances of survival if they evolve some level of restraint that allows competitors to survive as well, a sort of "survival of the weakest." The phenomenon was observed in a community of three "nontransitive" competitors, meaning their relationship to each other is circular as in ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — In the 1983 movie "A Man with Two Brains," Steve Martin kept his second brain in a jar. In reality, he had two brains inside his own skull — as we all do, one on the left and one on the right hemisphere. When it comes to seeing the world around us, each of our two brains works independently and each has its own bottleneck for working memory. Normally, it takes years or decades after a brand new discovery about the brain for any practical implications to emerge. But this study by MIT neuroscientists could be put to immediate use in designing more effective ...