Almost everything we do leaves a digital trace, whether we send an email to a friend or make a purchase online. That includes law-abiding citizens — and criminals. And with digital information multiplying by the second, there are seemingly endless amounts of information for criminal investigators to gather and process. Now Prof. Irad Ben-Gal, Dr. Eugene Kagan and Ph.D. student Aviv Gruber of the Department of Industrial Engineering in Tel Aviv University's Ibi and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering are using these digital traces to catch criminals and beef up homeland ...

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A Kansas State University professor is helping students improve their confidence and academic performance by creating a map of learning. Candice Shoemaker, professor of horticulture, has spent more than four years looking at students and self-efficacy. Self-efficacy involves student confidence in understanding topics and is often linked with academic motivation, learning and achievement. Shoemaker's published research appeared in a recent issue of HortTechnology. Shoemaker studied self-efficacy by creating a course map for students in the Principles ...

A female mosquito cannot tell if the male that she has mated with is fertile or 'spermless' and unable to fertilise her eggs, according to a new study from scientists at Imperial College London. The research, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help scientists in their mission to prevent the spread of malaria by interfering with the mosquitoes' ability to reproduce. Malaria is a debilitating disease that affects more than 300 million people every year, and kills nearly 800,000 annually. In Africa, a child dies of malaria ...

GREENBELT, Md. -- The NASA National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) has successfully completed its most comprehensive end-to-end compatibility test of the actual satellite and all five scientific instruments at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp's production and test facility in Boulder, Colo. During the four-week NPP Compatibility Test 4 (NCT4), all segments of the ground system were assessed including active commanding of the satellite as well as monitoring the flow of both satellite health and safety and ...

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, August 8, 2011—A Los Alamos National Laboratory research team has harnessed neutrons to view for the first time the critical role that an elusive molecule plays in certain biological reactions. The effort could aid in treatment of peptic ulcers or acid reflux disease, or allow for more efficient conversion of woody waste into transportation fuels. In a paper appearing this week in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Los Alamos researchers join an international team in describing the role played by the elusive hydronium ion in the transfer ...

It's pretty much a given that the more educated someone becomes, the more likely they are to question their religious beliefs, stop going to church and even abandon their faith entirely. Or is it? A new University of Nebraska-Lincoln study challenges that age-old notion with findings that show education actually has a positive effect on Americans' churchgoing habits, their devotional practices, their emphasis on religion in daily life and their support for religious leaders to weigh in on the issues of the day. The work, to be published in a forthcoming edition of ...

Former Tropical Storm Emily made a brief comeback this weekend after degenerating over the mountains of Hispaniola late last week, and NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of Emily just after her "rebirth." At 5 p.m. EDT on Saturday, August 6, Emily became a tropical depression for the second time in her life about 70 miles west-northwest of Great Abaco Island, near 26.9 North and 78.1 West. She was moving to the north at 8 mph and had a minimum central pressure of 1012 millibars. Maximum sustained winds were 30 mph. At 18:25 UTC 2:25 p.m. EDT, the Moderate Resolution ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers from a team funded by the National Science Foundation have examined some of last spring's massive tornado damage and conclude in a new report that more intensive engineering design and more rigorous, localized construction and inspection standards are needed to reduce property damage and loss of life. As one of the nation's most destructive tornado seasons in history begins to wane, and hurricane season approaches its peak, experts are working to determine if old, tried-and-true approaches to residential and small building construction are ...

Tropical Storm Muifa is filling up the Yellow Sea on NASA satellite imagery as it continues moving north today to a landfall in East China's Shandong province. NASA's Aqua satellite captured visible and infrared imagery that shows Muifa's cloud cover stretches across the Yellow Sea, from China to the west to South and North Korea to the east. At 18:25 UTC 2:25 p.m. EDT, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Muifa moving through the Yellow Sea on August 6 at10:50 p.m. EDT. ...

ITHACA, N.Y. — Researchers have found a potential new source for sexual problems among middle-aged and older men: The relationships between their female partners and the men's closest friends. Cornell University and University of Chicago researchers have found a connection between erectile dysfunction and the social networks shared by heterosexual men and their partners. The researchers describe the situation as "partner betweenness." In such cases, a man's female partner has stronger relationships with his confidants than the man does — in effect, the romantic partner ...

DETROIT – Prenatal pet exposure, a mother's delivery mode and race are influential factors in a child's risk of developing allergies by age 2, according to a Henry Ford Hospital study. In a study believed to be the first of its kind, Henry Ford researchers found that babies who have indoor prenatal pet exposure have a pattern of lower levels of the antibody Immunoglobulin E, or IgE, between birth and age 2. IgE is linked to the development of allergies and asthma. Key findings: IgE levels were 28 percent lower during infancy in babies who had indoor prenatal pet ...

Rosemont, Ill. – Patients receiving treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) prefer to play a more collaborative role when it comes to making decisions about their medical or surgical care, according to the findings of an August 3rd issue of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS). "While other studies have shown patients with potentially life-threatening conditions such as cancer tend to prefer a more passive role when it comes to decision-making, this study demonstrates that in carpal tunnel syndrome, which raises issues of quality of life rather than those ...

GREENBELT, Md. -- A NASA scientist and her colleagues were able to observe for the first time the power of an earthquake and tsunami to break off large icebergs a hemisphere away. Kelly Brunt, a cryosphere specialist at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., and colleagues were able to link the calving of icebergs from the Sulzberger Ice Shelf in Antarctica following the Tohoku Tsunami, which originated with an earthquake off the coast of Japan in March 2011. The finding, detailed in a paper published online today in the Journal of Glaciology, marks the first direct ...

An antibody that mimics features of the influenza virus's entry point into human cells could help researchers understand how to fine-tune the flu vaccine to protect against a broad range of virus strains. Such protection could potentially reduce the need to develop, produce, and distribute a new vaccine for each flu season. A multi-institutional team led by Stephen C. Harrison, PhD, chief of the Division of Molecular Medicine at Children's Hospital Boston, report their work and its implications for improving influenza vaccination this week in the Early Edition of the ...

PITTSBURGH—Traditional motion capture techniques use cameras to meticulously record the movements of actors inside studios, enabling those movements to be translated into digital models. But by turning the cameras around — mounting almost two dozen, outward-facing cameras on the actors themselves — scientists at Disney Research, Pittsburgh (DRP), and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have shown that motion capture can occur almost anywhere — in natural environments, over large areas and outdoors. Motion capture makes possible scenes such as those in "Pirates of the Caribbean: ...

PITTSBURGH, Aug. 8 – Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have identified a molecular pathway that helps explain how an enzyme elevated in asthma patients can lead to increased mucus production and inflammation that is characteristic of the lung condition. Their findings, reported online in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveal unique interactions between biological molecules that could be targeted to develop new asthma treatments. An enzyme called epithelial 15-lipoxygenase 1 (15LO1) metabolizes fatty acids to produce ...

Athens, Ga. – Increased seawater temperatures are known to be a leading cause of the decline of coral reefs all over the world. Now, researchers at the University of Georgia have found that extreme low temperatures affect certain corals in much the same way that high temperatures do, with potentially catastrophic consequences for coral ecosystems. Their findings appear in the early online edition of the journal Global Change Biology. Lead author Dustin Kemp, a postdoctoral associate in the UGA Odum School of Ecology, said the study was prompted by an abnormal episode ...

Boulder, CO, USA - Highlights from the September issue of GEOLOGY, which is now online, include debris flow hazard assessment; dune migration in the "greatest desert on Earth": Antarctica; Luizi, the first confirmed meteorite impact structure in Central Africa; a determination of the likelihood that fungal disease had accelerated latest Permian woodland deterioration; the first comprehensive compilation of sedimentary and historical records of ash-fall events in northern Europe; and high-speed video of ash fall from the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption. Keywords: Mariana ...

Boulder, CO, USA - An international team of researchers has found the strongest evidence yet that parts of North America and Antarctica were connected 1.1 billion years ago, long before the supercontinent Pangaea formed. "I can go to the Franklin Mountains in West Texas and stand next to what was once part of Coats Land in Antarctica," said Staci Loewy, a geochemist at California State University, Bakersfield, who led the study. "That's so amazing." Loewy and her colleagues discovered that rocks collected from both locations have the exact same composition of lead isotopes. ...

By 2012, an estimated 14 million people will serve as distance caregivers to family members who live across the state, across the region, even across the country. "No longer are families living just around the corner from each other," says Polly Mazanec, an assistant professor at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing and an advance practice oncology nurse at University Hospitals Case Medical Center's Seidman Cancer Center. The distance presents a challenge as family members work to gain information about their loved ones and participate in their cancer care. But ...

Social class is more than just how much money you have. It's also the clothes you wear, the music you like, the school you go to—and has a strong influence on how you interact with others, according to the authors of a new article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. People from lower classes have fundamentally different ways of thinking about the world than people in upper classes—a fact that should figure into debates on public policy, according to the authors. "Americans, although this is shifting a ...

Will graphic cigarette package warning labels significantly reduce demand? A new study suggests it will. Current US policy requires that tobacco companies cover 50 percent of one side of a cigarette pack with a text warning. But the FDA recently unveiled nine new cigarette warning labels, which include graphic images of lung and mouth cancer, to be unveiled in September 2012. A sample of 404 adult smokers from four states participated in an experimental auction on cigarette packs with four different kinds of warning labels. All packs carried the same message: smoking ...

The use of GPS technology to monitor sex offenders should be viewed as a tool rather than a control mechanism, a team of researchers at Sam Houston State University found in a recent study. In "Examining GPS Monitoring Alerts Triggered by Sex Offenders: The Divergence of Legislative Goals and Practical Applications in Community Corrections," Dr. Gaylene Armstrong and Beth Freeman examined the affects of a state law in Arizona that required the lifelong GPS monitoring of adult sex offenders convicted of dangerous crimes against children and placed on community supervision. ...

PITTSBURGH—A new tactile technology developed at Disney Research, Pittsburgh (DRP), called Surround Haptics, makes it possible for video game players and film viewers to feel a wide variety of sensations, from the smoothness of a finger being drawn against skin to the jolt of a collision. The technology is based on rigorous psychophysical experiments and new models of tactile perception. Disney will demonstrate Surround Haptics Aug. 7-11 at the Emerging Technology Exhibition at SIGGRAPH 2011, the International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques ...

CHICAGO (August 8, 2011) – The use of Acute Care Emergency Surgical Service (ACCESS) in emergency departments (EDs) can lead to significant reductions in key patient measures, such as length of stay, surgical decision-making time and "time-to-stretcher" (one measure of overall ED overcrowding), according to a study published in the August issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Emergency departments are a crucial point of access to the health care system for patients with a broad spectrum of injuries and illnesses, and overcrowding has been identified ...