"Rainy days and Mondays" is the song that the residents of the northern Philippines do not want to hear if it involves the approaching Tropical Storm Songda. The Carpenters song was a hit, but a hit from Songda is making residents of the Philippines nervous as NASA's Aqua satellite has been watching the progression and intensification of the storm over the last several days. In a series of three infrared images from the period of May 19-22, 2011, NASA's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument revealed the strengthening of Tropical Storm Songda. The area with strongest ...

With this year debuting as part of the Race to the Toyota Cup, the 21st Annual Capital of Texas Triathlon (CapTexTri), announces, that they are expected to have a full field of amateur, elite and professional triathletes appearing in Austin, Texas this Memorial Day. Last year's event attracted over 3,000 athletes from 33 states and 8 countries, who competed in the swim - bike - run events staged in downtown Austin at Auditorium Shores. This year's participants also include 17 disabled service members, some fought in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Capital of Texas ...

Male disability applicants rejected for federal benefits tend to have lower earnings and labor force participation rates over the decade prior to applying for federal disability benefits, a new study finds. Rejected applicants also work less despite being in better health than accepted applicants, according to the research led by economist Seth Giertz of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. On average, the study found, those rejected for benefits made 8.5 percent less than beneficiaries six years before applying – and nearly 22 percent less just prior to application. ...

HOUSTON-(May 23, 2011)-People with diabetes have a three to five times higher risk of contracting tuberculosis (TB) than non-diabetics, according to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). Results of the study, which included 233 patients with TB who live in Texas and Mexico along the border, are published in the May issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization. It was funded by the National Institutes of Health. "With the increase in diabetes patients in TB-endemic areas, our findings highlight the re-emerging impact ...

PASADENA, Calif.—There's a wealth of health information hiding in the human immune system. Accessing it, however, can be very challenging, as the many and complex roles that the immune system plays can mask the critical information that is relevant to addressing specific health issues. Now, research led by scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has shown that a new generation of microchips developed by the team can quickly and inexpensively assess immune function by examining biomarkers—proteins that can reflect the response of the immune system ...

A Monash student has made a breakthrough in the field of astrophysics, discovering what has until now been described as the Universe's 'missing mass'. Amelia Fraser-McKelvie, working within a team at the Monash School of Physics, conducted a targeted X-ray search for the matter and within just three months found it – or at least some of it. What makes the discovery all the more noteworthy is the fact that Ms Fraser-McKelvie is not a career researcher, or even studying at a postgraduate level. She is a 22-year-old undergraduate Aerospace Engineering/Science student who ...

Too many admissions at a hospital at one time can put patients at risk. A new study published today in the Journal of Hospital Medicine suggests that "smoothing" occupancy over the course of a week could help hospitals reduce crowding and protect patients from crowded conditions. The strategy involves controlling the entry of patients, when possible, to achieve more even levels of occupancy instead of the peaks and troughs that are commonly encountered. Researchers gathered inpatient information from 39 children's hospitals during 2007, using it to compare weekday versus ...

WASHINGTON, DC––MAY 24, 2011––Two-thirds of small medical device and diagnostic companies––the drivers of innovation in the sector––are obtaining clearance for new products in Europe first, suggesting delayed market entry in the U.S., according to a comprehensive industrywide survey about FDA's 510(k) product review process by researchers at Northwestern University. Large and small companies reported that unclear guidelines, inconsistent implementation, and lead reviewer turnover are contributing to increasing unpredictability of the process. Only 8% of survey respondents ...

Women find happy guys significantly less sexually attractive than swaggering or brooding men, according to a new University of British Columbia study that helps to explain the enduring allure of "bad boys" and other iconic gender types. The study – which may cause men to smile less on dates, and inspire online daters to update their profile photos – finds dramatic gender differences in how men and women rank the sexual attractiveness of non-verbal expressions of commonly displayed emotions, including happiness, pride, and shame. Very few studies have explored the relationship ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Despite growing concern about the effects of media violence on children, violent television shows and movies continue to be produced and marketed to them. An Indiana University research study concludes that violence doesn't add anything to their enjoyment of such programs and their characters. In a research study published in the journal Media Psychology, Andrew J. Weaver, an assistant professor of telecommunications in IU's College of Arts and Sciences, and colleagues tested a common view presented by media producers that children like to watch violent ...

DALLAS – May 24, 2011 – A gynecologist and a molecular biologist at UT Southwestern Medical Center have collaborated to show for the first time that pelvic organ prolapse – a condition in which the uterus, bladder or vagina protrude from the body – is caused by a combination of a loss of elasticity and a breakdown of proteins in the vaginal wall. Pelvic organ prolapse affects many women older than 50 years of age. Besides creating pelvic pressure, prolapse can lead to other pelvic-floor disorders such as urinary and fecal incontinence, and can affect sexual function. "We ...

PULLMAN, Wash.—Don't get him wrong: Fred Gittes is, in his words, "extremely squeamish." But then a scientist with forensics training told him that crime scene investigators could use a better way to analyze blood spatters. The physicist in Gittes rose to the challenge. "It seems as though what was being done was very crude from a physics point of view and that intrigued me," he says. Along with Chris Varney, a doctoral candidate in physics, Gittes has worked out a system that can often determine exactly where blood spatters originate, a critical piece of evidence in ...

The magnitude 9 earthquake and resulting tsunami that struck Japan on March 11 were like a one-two punch – first violently shaking, then swamping the islands – causing tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars in damage. Now Stanford researchers have discovered the catastrophe was caused by a sequence of unusual geologic events never before seen so clearly. "It was not appreciated before this earthquake that this size of earthquake was possible on this plate boundary," said Stanford geophysicist Greg Beroza. "It was thought that typical earthquakes ...

Scientists from the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), in collaboration with Linköping University, Sweden, have shown that regions of graphene of different thickness can be easily identified in ambient conditions using Electrostatic Force Microscopy (EFM). The exciting properties of graphene are usually only applicable to the material that consists of one or two layers of the graphene sheets. Whilst synthesis of any number of layers is possible, the thicker layers have properties closer to the more common bulk graphite. For device applications one- and two-layer graphene ...

In a large study of men in Japan, the presence of fatty liver disease by ultrasonography showed an inverse ( reduced risk) association with the frequency of moderate alcohol consumption; however, there was some suggestion of an increase in fatty liver disease with higher volume of alcohol consumed per day. Moderate drinkers had lower levels of obesity than did non-drinkers, and both obesity and metabolic abnormalities were positively associated with fatty liver disease. These findings support the results of a number of other recent studies showing that moderate drinking ...

We still need to halt the increase of global carbon emissions before 2020 and in the long term reduce emissions by at least 50% up to 2050. Ultimately, we will have to reduce carbon emissions to close to zero or even remove carbon completely from the atmosphere. However, climate change is not the only energy challenge: We need energy services to drive global economic development We need to provide equal access to modern energy worldwide We need to provide electricity to the 25% of the world's population still without electricity We need to provide modern energy ...

Boston, MA – Electronic medical records (EMRs) have been in use for more than 30 years, but have only increased in utilization in recent years, due in part to research supporting the benefits of EMRs and federal legislation. As EMRs have become a standard in medical care, there is a need for additional research of how the system and usage can be refined. A group of researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital have done just that, and discovered that one way false information can make its way into EMRs is due to users' reliance on copying and pasting material within the ...

A novel way to immobilise radioactive forms of iodine using a microwave, has been discovered by an expert at the University of Sheffield. Iodine radioisotopes are produced by fission of uranium fuel in a nuclear reactor. Radioactive iodine is of concern because it is highly mobile in the environment and selective uptake by the thyroid gland can pose a significant cancer risk following long term exposure. Furthermore, iodine-129, which is a type of radioactive iodine, has an extremely long half life of 15.7 million years, so is one of the most significant long term hazards ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Next time you go on vacation, you may want to think twice before shooting hundreds of photos of that scenic mountain or lake. A new study from MIT neuroscientists shows that the most memorable photos are those that contain people, followed by static indoor scenes and human-scale objects. Landscapes? They may be beautiful, but they are, in most cases, utterly forgettable. "Pleasantness and memorability are not the same," says MIT graduate student Phillip Isola, one of the lead authors of the paper, which will be presented at the IEEE Conference on ...

The recent data breaches faced by Sony, Epsilon and TJX once again highlight the risks that lapses in governance pose to enterprise data security. To protect valuable company and customer data, enterprises need to implement IT security governance as a mechanism for managing authorization and access via pre-defined rules and policies. Industry-standard technologies, such as the eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XAMCL), are helping to facilitate this governance by enabling more efficient and nuanced security policy enforcement. IT architects and developers can ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study aimed at refining the way scientists measure ice loss in Greenland is providing a "high-definition picture" of climate-caused changes on the island. And the picture isn't pretty. In the last decade, two of the largest three glaciers draining that frozen landscape have lost enough ice that, if melted, could have filled Lake Erie. The three glaciers – Helheim, Kangerdlugssuaq and Jakobshavn Isbrae – are responsible for as much as one-fifth of the ice flowing out from Greenland into the ocean. "Jakobshavn alone drains somewhere between ...

A local supernova factory has recently started production, according to a wealth of new data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory on the Carina Nebula. This discovery may help astronomers better understand how some of the Galaxy's heaviest and youngest stars race through their lives and release newly-forged elements into their surroundings. Located in the Sagittarius-Carina arm of the Milky Way a mere 7,500 light years from Earth, the Carina Nebula has long been a favorite target for astronomers using telescopes tuned to a wide range of wavelengths. Chandra's extraordinarily ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Despite significant technological improvements, children reliant on long-term mechanical ventilation often require extensive additional care, including costly hospital stays and emergency visits. A new study led by University of Michigan researchers found that children with complex chronic conditions who require long-term mechanical ventilation have significantly higher mortality, longer length of hospitalizations, higher mean charges, and more emergency department admissions. The results of this study, led by Brian D. Benneyworth, M.D., M.S., Pediatric ...

Today announced the launch of the new freeware AV RingtoneMAX, a free software program which helps users quickly create a new ringtone. Whatever it is: a song, a piece of music, a speech in a movie, or a fun clip, a funny sound, or even a human voice or any audio file, all can be used to create a new and unique ringtone. Download the program at http://mp3-player.audio4fun.com/ringtone-maker-download.htm. With AV RingtoneMAX, it only takes 3 steps to make a new ringtone. First the user selects any audio clip, or specifies the track that they want to use to make the ringtone; ...

U.S. doctors might find that their incomes start to rise – not decline – when Barack Obama's healthcare reforms are put in place says a Queen's University School of Medicine professor. "The medical-income argument in the United States against moving toward a Canadian-style system is feeble," says Jacalyn Duffin, a medical doctor who specializes in the history of medicine. "Physicians' incomes grew more quickly than those of other Canadian professions following Medicare. The universal, single-payer system has been good not only for Canadians but also for Canada's doctors." Dr. ...