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 ...

TORONTO, Ont., June 20, 2011--Every second counts when performing CPR. A new study has found the number of people who survive after suffering a cardiac arrest outside a hospital drops significantly if the pause between stopping CPR and using a defibrillator to administer an electric shock is longer than 20 seconds. The number of people who survive rises significantly if the pause is less than 10 seconds. "If your pre-shock pause is over 20 seconds, the chances of surviving to reach a hospital, be treated and be discharged are 53 per cent less than if the pause is ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Frequent use of energy drinks is associated with binge drinking, alcohol-related social problems and misuse of prescription drugs among musicians, according to researchers at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions. In survey results published in the Journal of Caffeine Research this spring, UB research scientists Kathleen E. Miller and Brian M. Quigley examined substance use by 226 Western New York professional and amateur musicians aged 18-45. In the sample, 94 percent were caffeine users and 57 percent reported use of energy ...

Tropical Storm Beatriz developed from a low pressure area that NASA was watching last week. Beatriz is now expected to reach hurricane force and hit western coastal Mexico today and tomorrow. NASA satellite imagery today revealed powerful thunderstorms bubbling within, indicating further strengthening is occurring. Beatriz formed from the low pressure area System 92E that NASA and JAXA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) was watching last week. The low pressure area was coming together on Friday, June 17 and had some isolated areas of heavy rainfall. Those areas ...

The rate of sea level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years--and has shown a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level. The findings are published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The research, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), was conducted by Andrew Kemp, Yale University; Benjamin Horton, University of Pennsylvania; Jeffrey Donnelly, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Michael Mann, Pennsylvania State University; ...

A new study of employment and divorce suggest that while social pressure discouraging women from working outside the home has weakened, pressure on husbands to be breadwinners largely remains. The research, led by Liana Sayer of Ohio State University and forthcoming in the American Journal of Sociology, was designed to show how employment status influences both men's and women's decisions to end a marriage. According to the study, a woman's employment status has no effect on the likelihood that her husband will opt to leave the marriage. An employed woman is more ...

DALLAS – June 21, 2011 – Cervical ripening that instigates preterm labor is distinct from what happens at the onset of normal term labor, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found. The findings challenge the conventional premise that premature cervical ripening and remodeling is likely just an accelerated version of the term labor process, and that normal term ripening is caused primarily by activation of inflammatory responses. Cervical remodeling is the process by which the cervix is transformed to open sufficiently during the birth process. "Premature ...

TRGroup, Inc., one of Maryland's fastest growing Information Technology (IT) consulting and solutions firms, announced today that it has achieved certification as a Minority Business Enterprise with the state of Maryland. This certification makes the TRGroup, Inc. eligible to compete on the more than $80 million dollars of Maryland contracts for Information Technology services awarded through the MDOT MBE program. "As a certified MBE in the state of Maryland, we will now have a greater ability to expand our IT services, providing support to state and local government ...

SAFE International is the leading provider of self defense training in North America. It currently operates throughout Canada and has expanded into Albuquerque, New Mexico with a focused marketing campaign to provide Albuquerque self defense to women, men, corporations and high schools. SAFE International has delivered training to over one hundred thousand (100,000) people since 1994. The company is owned and managed by Chris Roberts, CEO, who is a professional teaching Director and self-defense instructor. Ryan Fellows is the Director of Operations for SAFE International ...