The eye of the peacock mantis shrimp has led an international team of researchers to develop a two-part waveplate that could improve CD, DVD, blu-ray and holographic technology, creating even higher definition and larger storage density. Peacock mantis shrimp are one of only a few animal species that can see circularly polarized light -- like the light used to create 3-D movies. Some researchers believe the mantis shrimp's eyes are better over the entire visual spectrum than any man-made waveplates. A waveplate is a transparent slab that can alter the polarization of ...

According to Maryland driving instructor Charlie Hook (who has been teaching people how to drive for more than 40 years), teen drivers can be "just as good" as drivers with years of experience, as Vanessa Junkin of the Carroll County Times reports. But, Hook also said, "The attitude's more important than anything," weighting attitude as a heavier factor than age when it comes to good driving. And when you think of attitude, you think of your orientation to responsible driving. A teen driver with the right attitude will avoid drinking and driving, ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Astronomers' research on celestial bodies may have an impact on the human body. Ohio State University astronomers are working with medical physicists and radiation oncologists to develop a potential new radiation treatment – one that is intended to be tougher on tumors, but gentler on healthy tissue. In studying how chemical elements emit and absorb radiation inside stars and around black holes, the astronomers discovered that heavy metals such as iron emit low-energy electrons when exposed to X-rays at specific energies. Their discovery raises the ...

This release is available in German. The quantum mechanical entanglement is at the heart of the famous quantum teleportation experiment and was referred to by Albert Einstein as "spooky action at a distance". A team of researchers led by Anton Zeilinger at the University of Vienna and the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences used a system which does not allow for entanglement, and still found results which cannot be interpreted classically. Their findings were published in the latest issue of the renowned scientific ...

In September and October 2010, several major mortgage lenders confessed that many of their employees had been signing and notarizing home foreclosure documents (affidavits) without reviewing their content. Lenders including GMAC/Ally, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase all revealed they had filed thousands of documents without verifying the underlying mortgage information. As these documents were used in court proceedings, the inaccuracies often resulted in unintended and unfortunate outcomes for people trying to salvage what they could after a foreclosure. The revelation ...

AURORA, Colo. (June 25, 2011) New research shows that adolescents and young adults with type 1 (juvenile) diabetes have thicker and stiffer carotid arteries, also known as atherosclerosis, a risk factor for heart attack and stroke in adults. This research is believed to be the first to examine whether type 1 diabetes has a measurable effect on carotid arteries in this age group. The research is part of The SEARCH CVD Study, a collaborative effort between investigators at the Colorado School of Public Health and the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Dana ...

DALLAS – June 24, 2011 – A new anti-inflammatory drug used by patients with type 2 diabetes improved their kidney function during a year-long study involving researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center. The study findings, reported in today's New England Journal of Medicine, mark the first time a drug therapy has led to improved kidney function for patients with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease. Previous studies have identified drugs that slowed the deterioration of kidney function, said Dr. Robert Toto, director of the Houston J. and Florence A. Doswell ...

INDIANAPOLIS – A large, long-term study confirms that medications with anticholinergic activity, which include many drugs frequently taken by older adults, cause cognitive impairment. The research is also the first to identify a possible link between these drugs – which include over-the-counter and prescription sleep aids and incontinence treatments – and risk of death. The two-year study of the impact of these medications on 13,000 men and women aged 65 and older is part of the Medical Research Council (UK) Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies (CFAS), a large UK-based ...

May was a popular month for auto accidents on Florida's I-95. Several car accidents took the lives of a handful of Florida drivers. Northbound I-95 Car Accident Causes Explosion, Kills Taxi Cab Driver Last month, a vehicle struck the rear end of a taxi cab while traveling northbound on I-95 in close proximity to 95th street causing both vehicles to catch on fire. The Florida Highway Patrol indicates that the vehicle struck the rear of the cab after the taxi blew a tire. The cab driver was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the other vehicle sustained minor ...

(Boston) - Researchers from Boston University's Slone Epidemiology Center have found four new genetic variants in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) that confer a higher risk of systemic lupus erythemathosus ("lupus") in African American women. The study, which currently appears on-line in Human Genetics, is believed to be the first to comprehensively assess the association between genetic variants in the MHC region and risk of lupus in African American women. The findings were based on the ongoing Black Women's Health Study, a prospective study of the health ...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - An archaeological team from the University of Maryland is unearthing a unique picture of the Baltimore-area's early Irish immigrants - of city children taught to read and write at home before widespread public education and child labor laws, as well as insular rural residents who resisted assimilation for one hundred years. The excavation in the city represents the first formal archaeological research to focus on Baltimore's early Irish settlement and labor force. "Behind the closed doors of their modest Baltimore homes, beyond the view of their ...

The process of sorting out contested child-custody or visitation arrangements is almost always hard on families. And, individuals with disabilities commonly face additional challenges in these circumstances. The story of one California mother and her parents demonstrates these challenges as they fight to prove in court that even severely disabled parents have the right to see their children. Fighting for Visitation In 2006, Abbie Dorn was paralyzed following several medical errors during the process of giving birth to triplets. She was left unable to speak or move, ...

Mate choice, competition, and the variety of resources available are the key factors influencing how a species evolves into separate species, according to a new mathematical model that integrates all three factors to reveal the dynamics at play in a process called sympatric speciation. Titled "Factors influencing progress toward sympatric speciation," the paper appears in today's edition of the Journal of Evolutionary Biology. New species more commonly occur when plants or animals cannot interbreed because of strong mate choice, and therefore they become isolated genetically. ...

(CHICAGO) – An innovative approach for implanting a new aortic heart valve without open-heart surgery is being offered at Rush University Medical Center to patients with severe aortic stenosis who are at high-risk or not suitable candidates for open heart valve replacement surgery. "This breakthrough technology could save the lives of thousands of patients with heart valve disease who have no other therapeutic options," says Dr. Ziyad Hijazi, director of the Rush Center for Congenital and Structural Heart Disease and interventional cardiologist of the Rush Valve Clinic. ...

(PHILADELPHIA) -- More than 200,000 people are treated for cardiac arrest in United States hospitals each year, a rate that may be on the rise. The findings are reported online this week in Critical Care Medicine in a University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine-led study. Though cardiac arrest is known to be a chief contributor to in-hospital deaths, no uniform reporting requirements exist across the nation, leaving experts previously unable to calculate its true incidence and study trends in cardiac arrest mortality and best practices in resuscitation care. ...

New Rochelle, NY, June 24, 2011—David Satcher, MD, PhD, former U.S. Surgeon General, describes childhood obesity as "one of the greatest threats to child and adult health that we are facing today," calling for an intensive effort to promote child health, in an editorial in the June issue of Childhood Obesity, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The editorial is available online. A long-time advocate in the fight against obesity, Dr. Satcher released the first Surgeon General's Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity during ...

KCRG TV reported that Iowa hospitals do not have to publically report medical errors. The question is how this influences patient safety in Iowa. The hospitals claim that merely requiring reporting of medical errors to the state does not ensure that the errors will be corrected. Scott McIntyre, spokesman for the Iowa Hospital Association, said to KCRG TV that, "Government regulation does not create that kind of buy-in or progress," and that "it can stifle innovation as providers focus on meeting the mandate and little more." Minnesota's Experience In ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – About 100 million years ago, a tiny mayfly had a problem. Like most adult mayflies, she only had that one day to live anyway, so there was no time to waste. She took her mating flight, got fertilized, and was about to lay her eggs when something went horribly wrong. She got stuck in some oozing tree sap and died, preserved for all time in the magic of amber. There would be ho hatchlings. It was a pretty rude ending to what was already going to be a short adulthood. But her personal tragedy proved fortunate for scientists. The tiny specimen – just described ...

The coconut (the fruit of the palm Cocos nucifera) is the Swiss Army knife of the plant kingdom; in one neat package it provides a high-calorie food, potable water, fiber that can be spun into rope, and a hard shell that can be turned into charcoal. What's more, until it is needed for some other purpose it serves as a handy flotation device. No wonder people from ancient Austronesians to Captain Bligh pitched a few coconuts aboard before setting sail. (The mutiny of the Bounty is supposed to have been triggered by Bligh's harsh punishment of the theft of coconuts from ...

Much has been written in recent years about the positive impact apologies may have in civil litigation, from personal injury cases like car accidents to medical malpractice. One of the foremost advocates of this idea, Professor Jennifer Robbennold of the University of Illinois College of Law, has published the results of a variety of empirical studies showing that apologies effectively encourage settlement of civil disputes. But practical barriers to getting defense counsel to encourage clients to apologize exist. The biggest issue is the fact that such hearsay can be ...

Every winter, weather forecasters talk about the snow cover in the northern U.S. and into Canada as a factor in how deep the deep-freeze will be in the states. A new study by researchers at the University of Georgia indicates they may be looking, at least partially, in the wrong place. It turns out that snow piling up over a band of frozen tundra from Siberia to far-northern Europe may have as much effect on the climate of the U.S. as the much-better-known El Niño and La Niña. The new work, just published in the International Journal of Climatology, reports that to ...

When automobile accidents occur, drivers or their insurance companies, or both, are typically liable for any injury or property damage. However, when minor drivers are involved in car accidents, who is responsible for the resulting costs? In some states, like Colorado, the liability may fall on the parents, who may or may not have heard about a law known as the family car doctrine. Parents should know this law's main points and how to financially protect themselves if their children are involved in automobile accidents while driving. Family Car Doctrine About 20 ...

New Rochelle, NY, June 24, 2011—Basal insulin analogs have revolutionized diabetes care, and especially the treatment of type 2 diabetes, enabling patients to achieve better control of blood glucose levels while reducing hypoglycemic episodes. These revolutionary, long-acting basal insulin analogs, intended to replace the natural insulin missing in diabetes, and infusion pumps that provide subcutaneous, continuous delivery of insulin to mimic the function of a normal pancreas, are described in a special supplement to Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics, a peer-reviewed journal ...

PruHealth customers can now collect up to 200 Nectar points and 10 Vitality points each week when buying GBP20 worth of healthy foods* during the weekly shop at Sainsbury's, under PruHealth's new and exclusive partnership with Nectar, the largest loyalty programme in the UK. Enhancing PruHealth's existing partnership with Sainsbury's**, the innovative insurer that rewards healthy behaviour has become Nectar's exclusive healthcare partner within the programme. Policyholders with Nectar membership can now receive 10 Nectar points per GBP1 spent in Sainsbury's on over ...

They can be found everywhere—organized communities of bacteria sticking to surfaces both inside and outside the body. These biofilms are responsible for some of the most virulent, antibiotic-resistant infections in humans; however, scientific understanding of how these communities develop is lacking. A recent study led by a Syracuse University biologist sheds new light on the process. The scientists discovered that a complex cascade of enhancer binding proteins (EBPs) is responsible for turning on genes that initiate the formation of a biofilm. The study was published ...