College Park, MD (June 17, 2011)--A team of researchers has proposed a way to turn the material graphene into a semiconductor, enabling it to control the flow of electrons with a laser "on-off switch". Graphene is thinnest and strongest material ever discovered. It's a layer of carbon atoms only one-atom thick, but 200 times stronger than steel. It also conducts electricity extremely well and heat better than any other known material. It is almost completely transparent, yet so dense that not even atoms of helium can penetrate it. In spite of the impressive list of promising ...

Fish catches in Madagascar over the last half-century are double the official reports, and much of that fish is being caught by unregulated traditional fishers or accessed cheaply by foreign fishing vessels. Seafood exports from Madagascar often end up in a European recipe, but are a recipe for political unrest at home, where two-thirds of the population face hunger. These are the findings of a recent study led by researchers from the University of British Columbia's Sea Around Us Project in collaboration with the Madagascar-based conservation organisation Blue Ventures. ...

Co-author Professor Tony Bacic from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Walls, School of Botany and the Bio21 Institute, at the University of Melbourne, said plant cell walls (plant biomass) represent the world's largest renewable resource. "Plant sciences have become a major new driver of international research due to their central role as renewable sources of transport fuels, as functional foods to improve human health, and as a source of raw materials for industrial processes," he said. The study has been published in the current issue of the international ...

RIKEN and the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI) have successfully produced a first beam of X-ray laser light with a wavelength of 1.2 Angstroms. This light was created using SACLA, a cutting-edge X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) facility unveiled by RIKEN in February 2011 in Harima, Japan. SACLA (SPring-8 Angstrom Compact free electron LAser) opens a window into the structure of atoms and molecules at a level of detail never seen before. The use of ultra high-intensity X-ray free electron laser light to explore the miniature structure of matter, until ...

The potentially lasting implications of day-to-day couple conflict on physical and mental well-being are revealed in a study published today in the journal Personal Relationships. Until now research has concentrated on the immediate effects of romantic conflict, typically in controlled laboratory settings. In one of the first studies to look at the longer term, Professor Angela Hicks investigated the physiological and emotional changes taking place in couples the day after conflict occurred, specifically taking into account the differing styles of emotional attachment ...

Luiz Tadeu Moraes Figuedo's paper on dengue in Brazil confirms the country's worsening trend; from 1999-2009, where cases rose at 6.2% per year and dengue deaths at 12.0% per year. Carmen Perez and co-workers, reporting on dengue vector control in Puerto Rico, found that 83% of the costs ($1.97 per person per year) were funded by the lowest and often the least financed level of government: municipalities. Examining dengue cases imported into France, Guy LaRuche documented the alarming increase in cases originating from Cote d'Ivoire from only one case in 2006-07 to ...

Negative-pressure wound therapy probably does not promote healing. This is the conclusion of Frank Peinemann and Stefan Sauerland's meta-analysis in the current edition of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2011; 108[22]: 381-9). In negative-pressure wound therapy (NPWT), wounds are covered with an airtight film and an adjustable negative pressure is applied using an electronically controlled pump. The negative pressure drains wound exudate and is thought to promote healing. This procedure is used in particular for chronic persistent wounds and complicated ...

A University of Exeter biologist has discovered a 'lost' species of bat breeding on the Isles of Scilly (UK). A pregnant female brown long-eared bat is the first of its species to be found on the islands for at least 40 years. It was discovered by Dr Fiona Mathews, Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter, a postgraduate student and a team from the Wiltshire Bat Group. The Scilly Isles Bat Group called in Dr Mathews and her team to help them find out more about bats on the islands. The researchers set up a radiotracking study, with funding from the Isles of Scilly ...

Researchers headed by Joan Massagué at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York and by María Macías at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) have identified a complex mechanism by which some proteins that are essential for life, called Smads, regulate the activity of genes associated with cancer. The fruit of three years of intense work, the study reports on the life cycle of this protein, a process that ensures that the protein is destroyed when it has completed its function. These results have been published today in the top journal ...

Scientists and educators alike have long known that cramming is not an effective way to remember things. With their latest findings, researchers at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan, studying eye movement response in trained mice, have elucidated the neurological mechanism explaining why this is so. Published in the Journal of Neuroscience, their results suggest that protein synthesis in the cerebellum plays a key role in memory consolidation, shedding light on the fundamental neurological processes governing how we remember. The "spacing effect", first discovered ...

A compound that for about 60 years has been used as a drug against tapeworm infection is also apparently effective against colon cancer metastasis, as studies using mice have now shown. The compound silences a gene that triggers the formation of metastases in colon cancer. Professor Ulrike Stein (Experimental and Clinical Research Center, a joint cooperation between the Charité Medical Faculty and the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, (MDC)) and her research group made this discovery in collaboration with Professor Robert H. Shoemaker of the National Cancer Institute ...

VIDEO: A movie of the encounter made by combining 100 images of the June 1, 2011 Phobos–Jupiter conjunction. The High Resolution Stereo Camera on Mars Express took this sequence. Click here for more information. Earlier this month, ESA's Mars Express performed a special manoeuvre to observe an unusual alignment of Jupiter and the martian moon Phobos. The impressive images have now been processed into a movie of this rare event. At the moment when Mars Express, Phobos, and ...

The post-war trend of falling birth rates has been reversed across Europe, according to a new study. However, despite an increasing emphasis on family and fertility policies in Europe, this recent development involves social, cultural and economic factors more than individual policy interventions. For some decades, couples have been having children later in life. But birth-rates among younger women have stabilised and the long-term trend towards lower fertility rates has been reversed. Politicians are still left to grapple with problems associated with an ageing population ...

It pays to prevent fractures. That's one of the main findings of a landmark report 'Osteoporosis – Burden, Healthcare provision and Opportunities in the European Union' newly published in the journal Archives of Osteoporosis. The study, compiled by the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) in collaboration with the European Federation of the Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), calculates the future burden of fractures as a consequence of increasing treatment uptake in the five largest European countries as well as Sweden. Fragility fractures, which ...

The U.S. Medicaid program is likely paying far more than necessary for medications and not offering patients the most effective ones available, by ignoring international evidence-based lists of safe and effective medications, according to a new study by researchers at University of California, San Francisco. The study, which compared the Medicaid program's Preferred Drug Lists in 40 states nationwide against the World Health Organization's 2009 Essential Medicines List, found that the medications that are automatically paid for by the state-run Medicaid programs vary ...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The first three patients to undergo an investigational surgical procedure for peripheral vascular disease that involves the patient's own stem cells continue to do well, reports the University of Louisville surgeon who is the principal investigator. The "TGI-PVG IDE" clinical trial initiated at UofL involves using a patient's own stem cells to line man-made bypass grafts to better the chances at saving the limbs of patients with peripheral artery disease. Charles B. Ross, M.D., chief of the Division of Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapeutics, ...

The first six of 18 segments that will form NASA's James Webb Space Telescope's primary mirror for space observations completed final cryogenic testing this week. The ten week test series included two tests cycles where the mirrors were chilled down to -379 degrees Fahrenheit, then back to ambient temperature to ensure the mirrors respond as expected to the extreme temperatures of space. A second set of six mirror assemblies will arrive at Marshall in late July to begin testing, and the final set of six will arrive in the fall. The X-ray and Cryogenic Facility at NASA's ...

When you are considering breast augmentation it is common to wonder how long the implants will last. Stories abound about leaking implants and implant ruptures, causing some women to seriously consider if this procedure is safe and long lasting. It is important to remember that no medical device can last a lifetime. Like all medical devices, breast implants can, over time, wear down and require replacement. Why Breast Implants Fail A majority of breast implants last for ten to 25 years. Some women may enjoy a longer lifespan and others may have to replace their breast ...

A low pressure area in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, located off the western coast of Mexico, is still getting organized, and System 92E and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite spotted heavy rain and strong thunderstorms within. On Friday, June 17, 2011, System 92E appeared on satellite imagery as a broad area of low pressure that contained showers and thunderstorms. System 92E was located several hundred miles south of the Gulf of Tehuantepec. The gulf is a large area at 16 North and 95 West, which is right where the low pressure area is centered. Many ...

In an effort to prevent wrong-site and wrong-patient surgeries, the Joint Commission developed the Universal Protocol in 2004. The protocol introduced a series of steps -- preprocedure verification, site marking, and a time out prior to beginning the procedure -- to ensure the correct surgery was being performed on the right person. New research is finding that despite the introduction of the Universal Protocol, operations performed on the wrong person or wrong body part continue to happen at an alarming level. Colorado Study In a study published in the Archives ...

The sixth western Pacific tropical cyclone (06W) of 2011 has developed near the Philippines and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite saw some heavy rainfall in the storm. Tropical Depression 06W was dropping the heaviest rain over the open waters of the Western North Pacific Ocean on June 17 as the storm continues to move toward China. The TRMM satellite is operated by the Japanese Space Agency and NASA, and continually monitors the tropics and measures rainfall in tropical cyclones. TRMM captured an early morning look at the forming depression on ...

A recent Smart Money article warns of financial mistakes made by those older than 50 years of age when they divorce. A divorce at age 50 or beyond is more complex, simply because there are usually more assets at stake and less time to recoup assets after divorce, making the division of marital property more complex. The story highlights areas where people over or undervalue assets. For instance, retirement accounts are usually a high value asset at this point in most couple's lives, second in value only to their homes. Don't Forget About the Taxes What people often ...

Hedge-Fund Mogul Raj Rajaratnam Sunk by Wiretap Evidence Last month, a U.S. District Court jury in New York convicted Raj Rajaratnam, co-founder of hedge giant The Galleon Group, of fraud and conspiracy after two and one-half weeks of deliberation. As the principal player in the nation's largest illegal stock-tipping case since Ivan Boesky in the 1980s, Rajaratnam may be compelled to surrender millions in profits gained from his illegal activities. He also faces potentially 25 years in prison when he is sentenced on July 29. A major player on Wall Street, Rajaratnam ...

Much coverage of the economic downturn has focussed on its immediate impact, yet it is likely to hold long-term implications for family life. A research study 'Changing Lives and Times' funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) at Cardiff University has explored the impact of the financial crisis on the daily lives and future plans of new fathers, finding that several men were making significant life changes. New dad William described how he and his wife decided to stick with one child rather than have the three children they originally planned for, because ...

Bankruptcy is usually one of the last steps a consumer will take when his or her financial situation has hit a critical stage. Along with considering bankruptcy, a debtor also may want to think about making some financial changes. In a survey conducted by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, researchers found that a majority of consumers felt frustrated at having to practice unending frugality because of job loss or underemployment. Also contributing to the frustration are the increasing costs of medical supplies and services, food and gasoline, and stagnant ...