Parents may be misinformed during prenatal scans on whether their twins are identical or non-identical, say UCL researchers in a new commentary piece published today (29 February) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Determining if same-sex twins are identical or non-identical (from one egg or two; monozygotic or dizygotic) is not always straight forward, say the researchers. They looked at data from the Gemini study, a birth cohort of 2402 families with twins born in England and Wales in 2007. Parents of same sex twins (1586) were asked ...

The bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae, which causes atypical pneumonia, is helping scientists uncover how cells make the most of limited resources. By measuring all the proteins this bacterium produces, scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and collaborators, have found that the secret is fine-tuning. Like a mechanic can fine-tune a car after it has left the factory, cells have ways to tweak proteins, changing their chemical properties after production – so-called post-translational modifications. Anne-Claude Gavin, Peer ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Often faced with overwhelming anxiety, patients newly diagnosed with lung cancer can find themselves in distress, and new research recommends nurses play a key role in alleviating concerns, leading to a better quality of life for patients. A diagnosis of lung cancer – the leading cause of cancer death in the United States – brings with it high levels of stress and raises existential issues and death-related thoughts and concerns in patients, said Rebecca H. Lehto, assistant professor in the College of Nursing at Michigan State University. In a ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Rising sea levels are likely to change Southern California beaches in the coming century, but not in ways you might expect. While some beaches may shrink or possibly disappear, others are poised to remain relatively large -- leaving an uneven distribution of economic gains and losses for coastal beach towns, according to a study by researchers at Duke University and five other institutions. "Some beaches actually stand to benefit economically from sea level rise, creating winners and losers among California beach towns," said Linwood Pendleton, director ...

Trying to make a big decision while you're also preparing for a scary presentation? You might want to hold off on that. Feeling stressed changes how people weigh risk and reward. A new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reviews how, under stress, people pay more attention to the upside of a possible outcome. It's a bit surprising that stress makes people focus on the way things could go right, says Mara Mather of the University of Southern California, who cowrote the new review paper ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Women gradually use condoms less frequently during their first year of college, according to a new study by researchers from The Miriam Hospital's Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine. This was particularly true for women who binge drink, have lower grade point averages or come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. The findings, published online in the Journal of Sex Research, offer some of the first clues to how condom use changes during the college years – a time when young people are sexually active and use condoms inconsistently. "We ...

Obesity is considered the leading preventable cause of death worldwide — until you reach old age, that is. Though obesity increases the risk of an early death, shaving an average of six to seven years off a person's lifespan, Tel Aviv University researchers have found that this trend may reverse itself after the age of 85. In these people, excess fat seems to have a "protective" effect, decreasing the risk of death when compared to those who are considered at a normal body weight. When we reach a very old age, some of the factors that affect mortality in younger people ...

The quest for treatments for motor neurone disease, spinal cord injury and strokes could be helped by new research that shows how key cells are produced. Scientists at the University of Edinburgh have been able to manipulate the production of motor neurones – which control all muscle activity – in zebrafish. Zebrafish are important in helping scientists understand how motor neurones are produced, because unlike mammals, they are able to create new motor neurones as adults. Humans can generate motor neurones during embryonic development but lose the ability to generate ...

A UT Dallas professor is studying the differences between the social impairments found in autism and schizophrenia to help develop better treatments for people with both disorders. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia are distinct disorders with unique characteristics, but they share similarities in social dysfunction. For many years, this similarity resulted in confusion in diagnosis. Many young people with ASD were thought to have a childhood version of schizophrenia, said Dr. Noah Sasson, assistant professor in the UT Dallas School of Behavioral and Brain ...

Using genome sequencing and household surveillance, National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists and their colleagues from Columbia University Medical Center and St. George's University of London have pieced together how a newly emerging type of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria has adapted to transmit more easily among humans. Their new study underscores the need for vigilance in surveillance of S. aureus. A methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) strain known as livestock-associated (LA)-ST398 is a cause of severe infections in people in Europe who have close contact ...

A physical activity and diet program implemented by health educators working in a doctor's office may be a more effective way to get obese people to lose abdominal fat than advice from a doctor alone, according to a study from Queen's University. Most primary care physicians do not have the time to provide high-intensity behavioral counseling to their patients, says the report by Robert Ross, a professor from the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies. "The cornerstone of health care delivery is the doctor's office and the doctor doesn't have a lot of time to counsel ...

A new study reveals for the first time that activating the brain's visual cortex with a small amount of electrical stimulation actually improves our sense of smell. The finding published in the Journal of Neuroscience by researchers at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital - The Neuro, McGill University and the Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, revises our understanding of the complex biology of the senses in the brain. "It's known that there are separate specialized brain areas for the different senses such as vision, smell, touch and so forth ...

People with heart disease may not be able to compensate for their bodies' higher demand for oxygen when inhaling cold air, according to Penn State researchers, making snow shoveling and other activities dangerous for some. "This study can help us understand why cold air is such a trigger for coronary events," said Lawrence I. Sinoway, Distinguished Professor of Medicine and director of the Heart and Vascular Institute, Penn State College of Medicine. Breathing cold air during exercise can cause uneven oxygen distribution throughout the heart. But a healthy body generally ...

This press release is available in French. Montreal, February 28, 2012 - We depend on a barrage of standardized tests to assess everything from aptitude to intelligence. But do they provide an accurate forecast when it comes to something as complex as language? A study by Diane Pesco, an assistant professor in Concordia's Department of Education, and co-author Daniela O'Neill, published earlier this year in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, shows that the Language Use Inventory (LUI) does. Developed by O'Neill at the University of Waterloo, the ...

Plan UK's campaign, which highlights the plight of the world's poorest girls, launched a groundbreaking interactive ad on a bus stop in Oxford Street on February 22. The advert uses facial recognition software with an HD camera to determine whether a man or woman is standing in front of the screen, and shows different content accordingly. Passing shoppers can opt-in to view the ad and find out more about Plan's work to help some of the world's poorest girls. Men and boys are denied the choice to view the full content in order to highlight the fact that women and girls ...

A child's cognitive development is not generally impacted by how much weight his or her mother gained during pregnancy, according to a study from Nationwide Children's Hospital. This is the first study to use methods controlling for the widest range of confounding factors when directly examining the association between gestational weight gain and childhood cognition. Insufficient or excessive weight gain in pregnancy can have negative consequences for fetuses and children including infant mortality. The Institute of Medicine recently revised gestational weight gain ...

The invention of a long-lasting incandescent light bulb in the 19th century spurred on the second wave of the industrial revolution, illuminating homes, extending leisure time and bringing us to the point today where many millions of people use a whole range of devices from mood lighting to audiovisual media centers, microwave ovens to fast-freeze ice makers, and allergy-reducing vacuum cleaners to high-speed broadband connected computers in their homes without a second thought. However, the waves of the industrialization of the west have merely lapped at the shores of ...

University of British Columbia researcher Hongshen Ma has developed a simple and accurate device to study malaria, a disease that currently affects 500 million people per year worldwide and claims a million lives. Spread by mosquitoes, malaria is caused by a tiny parasite that infects human red blood cells. Ma and his team designed a "lab on a chip" device to better understand the changes in red blood cells caused by Plasmodium falciparum, the most common species of malaria parasites. Ma explains the device will help those conducting laboratory research or clinical ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers in the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University have discovered yet another reason why the "sulforaphane" compound in broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables is so good for you – it provides not just one, but two ways to prevent cancer through the complex mechanism of epigenetics. Epigenetics, an increasing focus of research around the world, refers not just to our genetic code, but also to the way that diet, toxins and other forces can change which genes get activated, or "expressed." This can play a powerful role in everything ...

FAIRFAX, Va.—The Society of Interventional Radiology will feature minimally invasive scientific advances and new discoveries that may change the way dozens of diseases are treated at its 37th Annual Scientific Meeting March 24-29 at San Francisco's Moscone Center. More than 5,000 physicians, scientists and allied health professionals are expected to attend this premier interventional radiology event. The meeting's theme, "IR Evidence," reflects a growing commitment to develop and prove care-changing advances in dozens of practice areas important to the specialty. Nearly ...

CHICAGO -- Having a powerful member of congress could have unintended consequences for a state's economy, according to a study published today (February 28, 2012) in the Journal of Political Economy. Researchers from Harvard Business School found that when a member of a state's congressional delegation becomes chair of a powerful committee, that state sees a tremendous influx of government cash through earmarks and government contracts, as one might expect. But rather than stimulating private sector growth, the study found that the extra government spending actually causes ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A mysterious phenomenon detected by space probes has finally been explained, thanks to a massive computer simulation that was able to precisely align with details of spacecraft observations. The finding could not only solve an astrophysical puzzle, but might also lead to a better ability to predict high-energy electron streams in space that could damage satellites. Jan Egedal, an associate professor of physics at MIT and a researcher at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center, working with MIT graduate student Ari Le and with William Daughton of the Los ...

AMES, Iowa – Genetic mutations to cellulose in plants could improve the conversion of cellulosic biomass into biofuels, according to a research team that included two Iowa State University chemists. The team recently published its findings in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Mei Hong, an Iowa State professor of chemistry and an associate of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, and Tuo Wang, an Iowa State graduate student in chemistry, contributed their expertise in solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy ...

Los Angeles, CA -- People all over the world have spent almost six months in front of universities, public parks, banks, and even Wall Street to publicly protest their dissatisfaction with economic inequality. But how much disparity really exists between the rich and poor in the United States? According to a new study, it might be more than you would think. A recent study published in the Review of Radical Political Economics (published by SAGE), analyzed surveys of US households from the late 1990's and early 2000's. The author looked at differences among quintiles (or ...

Polaris Financial Technology Ltd. (POLS.BO), a leading global Financial Technology Company, today announced that AITE Group, a leading independent research and advisory firm focused on business, technology and regulatory issues, has positioned Polaris among the highest rated vendors in the matrix of SCF (Supply Chain Finance) Enablers & SCF Components Maturity Index. This was announced in AITE Group's report* on Supply Chain Finance Software Vendors. The report discusses the target markets, software functionalities, delivery models, client segmentation and partnership ...