The recent explosion in the number of retractions in scientific journals is just the tip of the iceberg and a symptom of a greater dysfunction that has been evolving the world of biomedical research say the editors-in-chief of two prominent journals in a presentation before a committee of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) today. "Incentives have evolved over the decades to encourage some behaviors that are detrimental to good science," says Ferric Fang, editor-in-chief of the journal Infection and Immunity, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), ...

MAYWOOD, Ill. -- Researchers have identified genetic causes in nearly 1 in 5 patients who suffer a type of heart failure called dilated cardiomyopathy. Carolyn Jones, MD, PhD, of Loyola University Medical Center, is co-author of the study, published in the Journal of Cardiac Failure. First author is Neal Lakdawala, MD, of Brigham and Women's Hospital. Researchers did genetic testing on 264 patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and found that 17.4 percent had gene mutations associated with the disease. Pediatric patients were more likely to have the mutations than older ...

This press release is available in German. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology along with Australian colleagues, have examined corals from the Great Barrier Reef affected by the Black Band Disease and identified the critical parameters that allow this prevalent disease to cause wide mortality of corals around the world. Corals infected with Black Band show a characteristic appearance of healthy tissue displaced by a dark front, the so called Black Band, which leaves the white limestone skeleton of the coral animal exposed. The dark front ...

WinADayCasino.com is consulting with players on Facebook in the development of its next one-of-a-kind online casino game. Fans of the online casino's Facebook page voted almost unanimously that the new game have a "house pet" theme. They've since been asked for their input on how many pay lines the slot game should have and all slots players are invited give their opinion this week on what kind of bonus features should be included. Previous and current polls and discussions are available at www.Facebook.com/WinADayCasino. "We're in pretty close touch with ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – People enjoy watching tragedy movies like "Titanic" because they deliver what may seem to be an unlikely benefit: tragedies actually make people happier in the short-term. Researchers found that watching a tragedy movie caused people to think about their own close relationships, which in turn boosted their life happiness. The result was that what seems like a negative experience – watching a sad story – made people happier by bringing attention to some positive aspects in their own lives. "Tragic stories often focus on themes of eternal love, and this ...

Where a child lives can greatly affect his or her risk for asthma. According to a new study by scientists at Columbia University, neighborhood differences in rates of childhood asthma may be explained by varying levels of air pollution from trucks and residential heating oil. Results appear online in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology. In New York City, where the study was conducted, asthma among school-age children ranges from a low of 3% to a high of 19% depending on the neighborhood, and even children growing up within walking distance of ...

ATHENS, Ohio -- The Great Rift Valley of East Africa—the birthplace of the human species—may have taken much longer to develop than previously believed, according to a new study published this week in Nature Geoscience that was led by scientists from James Cook University and Ohio University. The team's findings suggest that a major tectonic event occurred in East Africa as far back as 25-30 million years ago, rearranging the flow of large rivers such as the Congo and the Nile to create the unique landscapes and climates that mark Africa today. "The findings have important ...

Upside Software today announced it has launched UpsideLive for Salesforce on salesforce.com's AppExchange, helping to accelerate the market shift to the next cloud computing paradigm which is inherently social, mobile and open. UpsideLive for Salesforce allows customers to capitalize on leading technology and comprehensive contract management functionality through the power of the Force.com platform with no installation or integration required. Built on Force.com, salesforce.com's social enterprise platform for building employee-facing apps, UpsideLive for Salesforce ...

Over the years, muesli has got a notorious reputation of being boring, plain, having no flavour etc. Non Fiction Foods has developed a muesli recipe which is super healthy and more importantly developed and endorsed by none other than a True Australian Hero, Jim Stynes. About Non Fiction Foods Jim Stynes developed Jimbo Super Muesli. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2009. With his typical single minded determination, he studied and adopted an anti-cancer diet. The adoption of life force foods (a property that causes things to move, reproduce itself and repair itself ...

HEIDELBERG -- The two-and-a-half-year TARA OCEANS expedition finishes on 31 March when the ship and crew reach Lorient, France. The arrival completes a journey of 60 000 miles across all the world's major oceans to sample and investigate microorganisms in the largest ecosystem on the planet, reports Eric Karsenti in an editorial published today in Molecular Systems Biology. "Life and evolution started in the oceans, yet we know very little about the distribution of marine biodiversity," said Karsenti, senior scientist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Although women continue to lag behind men in pay, the gender wage gap has narrowed considerably since the 1960s. Now a new University of Michigan study is the first to quantify the impact of the pill on women's labor market advances. The study shows that roughly one-third of women's wage gains through the 1990s are due to the availability of oral contraceptives. Published online this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research as a working paper, the study was conducted by U-M economist Martha Bailey and colleagues Brad Hershbein at U-M and ...

University of Alberta researcher Christina Engels has discovered how to extract a compound from mustard seeds that can protect against food spoilage. Engels recovered a particular compound—sinapic acid—from mustard seed meal, which shows antibacterial effects against such strains as Staphylococcus aureus, E. coli and Listeria monocytogenes, all of which can cause grave illness and death in humans. Canada is the world's largest exporter of mustard seed. The results published recently in the European Food Research & Technology journal>. Engels' isolation of sinapic ...

Hampton Inn & Suites Atlanta Galleria Hotel, a premier Smyrna Georgia Hotel, offers convenient lodging for guests and vendors attending the Spring Jonquil Festival. The event will take place April 28-29, 2012 on the beautiful Village Green in downtown Smyrna, GA. The event will showcase arts and crafts by more than 150 artists/crafters from across the country. It will also feature: - Featured Artist's Market - Live entertainment including country music performer J. Scott Thompson - Children's section with Peter's festival puppet show and inflatable actives - ...

Yesterday, pro football prospect LaMichael James surprised students at Liberty-Eylau High School, his alma mater in Texarkana, Texas, with tools for achieving their best on the field and in life. James and representatives from SKLZ, the athletic training company for which he is a brand ambassador, shared how hard work and dedication can lead to academic and athletic successes. In addition to the words of encouragement, James donated $5,000 of SKLZ training equipment to the Liberty-Eylau High School to help its student athletes elevate their athleticism. "When you're ...

What happens on the day before a colonoscopy may be just as important as the colon-screening test itself. Gastroenterologists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that when patients don't adequately prep for the test by cleansing their colons, doctors often can't see potentially dangerous pre-cancerous lesions. Reporting in the journal Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the researchers say that doctors often missed at least one pre-cancerous growth in about one-third of patients who did not properly prepare for their colonoscopy. Those polyps ...

Though the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been steadily climbing— from 6 in 1,000 children in 2002, to nearly 10 in 1,000 children in 2006, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention— little is known about the disorder. But, research with young kids can lead to important insights in how children with developmental abnormalities view the world. This month in the Journal of Visualized Experiments, researchers demonstrate how to use eye-tracking in very young children with autism. "Generally, individuals new to this method often struggle, ...

Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have created a gut-on-a-chip microdevice lined by living human cells that mimics the structure, physiology, and mechanics of the human intestine—even supporting the growth of living microbes within its luminal space. As a more accurate alternative to conventional cell culture and animal models, the microdevice could help researchers gain new insights into intestinal disorders, such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, and also evaluate the safety and efficacy of potential ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M — Sandia National Laboratories is using its Ion Beam Laboratory (IBL) to study how to rapidly evaluate the tougher advanced materials needed to build the next generation of nuclear reactors and extend the lives of current reactors. Reactor operators need advanced cladding materials, which are the alloys that create the outer layer of nuclear fuel rods to keep them separate from the cooling fluid. Better alloys will be less likely to deteriorate from exposure to everything from coolant fluids to radiation damage. Operating a reactor causes progressive ...

BOSTON -- The H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009 underscored weaknesses in methods widely used to diagnose the flu, from frequent false negatives to long wait times for results. Now Boston University researchers have developed a prototype of a rapid, low-cost, accurate, point-of-care device that promises to provide clinicians with an effective tool to quickly diagnose both seasonal and pandemic strains of influenza, and thus limit the spread of infection. Boston University Biomedical Engineering Associate Professor Catherine Klapperich led the team of engineering and medical researchers ...

WASHINGTON -- Helping bridge the gap between photonics and electronics, researchers from Purdue University have coaxed a thin film of titanium nitride into transporting plasmons, tiny electron excitations coupled to light that can direct and manipulate optical signals on the nanoscale. Titanium nitride's addition to the short list of surface-plasmon-supporting materials, formerly comprised only of metals, could point the way to a new class of optoelectronic devices with unprecedented speed and efficiency. "We have found that titanium nitride is a promising candidate ...

Using unique proprietary technology, WTFast accelerates the online connection between gamers and servers, dramatically increasing performance for the world's most popular franchises. WTFast users can see drastic improvements in performance boosting game connection speeds by as much as 70 per cent. This is vital for gamers who live remotely from the host game servers. "Our service gives its users a huge advantage in multiplayer FPS games regardless of where you are in the world," said Rob Bartlett, CEO of WTFast. "In some cases we've seen ping rates drop ...

Your mother had a doctor's appointment for a memory test. The results are conclusive: she presents with the first signs of Alzheimer type dementia. Now, to get to her appointment, your mother, who is no longer used to driving in town, took her car, looked for a parking space for 15 minutes, got lost in a labyrinth of one-way streets, had never used those new electronic parking meters before and is convinced that the "machine" stole her credit card number. Out of breath, she walked 20 minutes looking for the doctor's office and finally arrived late for her appointment, even ...

The Government of Nicaragua recently revealed that the country received US$967.9 million in foreign direct investment (FDI) during 2011, a new record for the country in FDI inflows and a 91 percent growth when compared to the US$507.9 million attracted in 2010. The FDI attracted in 2011 was led mainly by the energy, telecommunications and free zones sectors, which together accounted for 52 percent of total FDI. The development of these sectors has contributed significantly in increasing the country's productive capacity and boosting its economy. Specifically, in the ...

Baltimore, MD -- The University of Maryland released details today of the most extensive full face transplant completed to date, including both jaws, teeth, and tongue. The 36-hour operation occurred on March 19-20, 2012 at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center and involved a multi-disciplinary team of faculty physicians from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and a team of over 150 nurses and professional staff. The face transplant, formally called a vascularized composite allograft (VCA), was part of a 72-hour ...

Dementia -- an acute loss of cognitive ability -- can be marked by memory loss, decreased attention span, and disorientation. It occurs in severe disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. Despite the fact that the condition is common, especially among older persons, there is still a lack of effective treatment. According to Prof. Jiska Cohen-Mansfield of Tel Aviv University's Herczeg Institute on Aging and Sackler Faculty of Medicine, dementia sufferers are often prescribed psychotropic drugs to mitigate symptoms such as delusions. But this tactic can cause more harm than ...