Many studies have suggested that males tend to be more physically and verbally aggressive than females. According to a new study, to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, it may not be the case that women are less competitive than men—they may just be using a different strategy to come out ahead. Specifically, women may rely more on indirect forms of aggression, such as social exclusion. To investigate how men and women respond when faced with a social threat, psychological scientist Joyce F. Benenson of Emmanuel ...

Scientists are eyeing a rare genetic glitch for clues to improved treatments for some people with schizophrenia – even though they found the mutation in only one third of 1 percent of patients. In the study, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, schizophrenia patients were 14 times more likely than controls to harbor multiple copies of a gene on Chromosome 7. The mutations were in the gene for VIPR2, the receptor for vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) – a chemical messenger known to play a role in brain development. An examination of patients' blood ...

Family doctors can take more than a month to record ovarian cancer, once diagnosed by a specialist, in one in 10 cases, indicates research published in the launch issue of the new online journal BMJ Open. Ovarian cancer was also incorrectly or prematurely classified in 11% of cases, the data show. The authors base their findings on the "free text" data available in patient records, which are submitted to the General Practice Research Database (GPRD). The GPRD contains long term anonymised medical data on more than four million patients on the lists of a representative ...

Most "locked-in syndrome" patients say they are happy, and many of the factors reported by those who say they are unhappy can be improved, suggest the results of the largest survey of its kind, published in the launch issue of the new online journal BMJ Open. The findings are likely to challenge the perception that these patients can no longer enjoy quality of life and are candidates for euthanasia or assisted suicide, say the authors. The research team quizzed 168 members of the French Association for Locked in Syndrome on their medical history and emotional state, ...

A new article written by a fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy calls on the intelligence community to jointly create a policy on cybersecurity and determine the degree to which the U.S. should protect intellectual property and national infrastructure of other nations. The author also comments on how aggressive the United States should be in its proactive cyber-spying activities. "Treasure Trove or Trouble: Cyber-Enabled Intelligence and International Politics" was authored by Chris Bronk, a fellow of information technology policy at the Baker ...

SAN ANTONIO (Feb. 24, 2011) — Mouse models are yielding important clues about the nature of autism spectrum disorders, which impact an estimated one in 110 children in the U.S.[1] In labs at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio, researchers are studying strains of mice that inherently mimic the repetitive and socially impaired behaviors present in these disorders. Georgianna Gould, Ph.D., research assistant professor of physiology in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, is eyeing the role that serotonin plays in autism spectrum disorders. Serotonin is known ...

Loma Linda, California – A new research study from Loma Linda University (LLU) demonstrates that naturally occurring antioxidants in pecans may help contribute to heart health and disease prevention; the results were published in the January 2011 issue of The Journal of Nutrition. Pecans contain different forms of the antioxidant vitamin E—known as tocopherols, plus numerous phenolic substances, many of them with antioxidant abilities. The nuts are especially rich in one form of vitamin E called gamma-tocopherols. The findings illustrate that after eating pecans, gamma-tocopherol ...

After three years of exhaustive analysis led by a University of Alberta researcher, the list of known compounds in human blood has exploded from just a handful to more than 4,000. "Right now a medical doctor analyzing the blood of an ailing patient looks at something like 10 to 20 chemicals," said U of A biochemist David Wishart. "We've identified 4,229 blood chemicals that doctors can potentially look at to diagnose and treat health problems." Blood chemicals, or metabolites, are routinely analyzed by doctors to diagnose conditions like diabetes and kidney failure. ...

PITTSBURGH—A redesign of the nation's donor-liver distribution network developed by University of Pittsburgh researchers could result in several hundred more people each year receiving the transplants they need. The team reports in the journal INFORMS Management Science that donor livers currently are doled out to 11 national regions that evolved with little regard for geography and demographics, an arrangement that prevents many livers from getting to prospective recipients in time. The Pitt researchers instead trimmed the network down to six regions that better account ...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - New findings by a University of Maryland-led team of scientists indicate that a genetically engineered fungus carrying genes for a human anti-malarial antibody or a scorpion anti-malarial toxin could be a highly effective, specific and environmentally friendly tool for combating malaria, at a time when the effectiveness of current pesticides against malaria mosquitoes is declining. In a study published in the February 25 issue of the journal Science, the researchers also say that this general approach could be used for controlling other devastating ...

SEATTLE – Full-term pregnancy has long been associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer, but a new study finds that the more times a woman gives birth, the higher her risk of "triple-negative" breast cancer, a relatively uncommon but particularly aggressive subtype of the disease. Conversely, women who never give birth have a 40 percent lower risk of such breast cancer, which has a poorer prognosis than other types of breast cancer and doesn't respond to hormone-blocking therapies such as tamoxifen. These findings, from a study led by Amanda Phipps, Ph.D., a postdoctoral ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — There's more than one way to silence gene activity, according to a Michigan State University researcher. Downregulating activity is how healthy genes should shift out of their development cycle. The results, published in this week's Current Biology, discuss how specific repressor proteins – which researchers have named Hairy and Knirps – slow genes during development and how the process is comparable to slowing down a car, says molecular biologist David Arnosti. The binding of repressor proteins to DNA provides a molecular switch for such regulation. ...

As if the recent prediction that half of all Americans will have diabetes or pre-diabetes by the year 2020 isn't alarming enough, a new genetic discovery published online in the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) provides a disturbing explanation as to why: we took an evolutionary "wrong turn." In the research report, scientists show that human evolution leading to the loss of function in a gene called "CMAH" may make humans more prone to obesity and diabetes than other mammals. "Diabetes is estimated to affect over 25 million individuals in the U.S., and 285 million ...

How severe can climate change become in a warming world? Worse than anything we've seen in written history, according to results of a study appearing this week in the journal Science. An international team of scientists led by Curt Stager of Paul Smith's College, New York, has compiled four dozen paleoclimate records from sediment cores in Lake Tanganyika and other locations in Africa. The records show that one of the most widespread and intense droughts of the last 50,000 years or more struck Africa and Southern Asia 17,000 to 16,000 years ago. Between 18,000 and 15,000 ...

Cambridge, MA- Adding particles to liquids to make currents visible is a common practice in the study of fluid mechanics. The approach was adopted and perfected by artist Paul Matisse in sculptures he calls Kalliroscopes. Matisse's glass-enclosed liquid sculptures contain an object whose movement through the liquid creates whorls that can be seen only because elongated particles trailing the object align with the direction of the current; light reflects off the particles, making the current visible to the viewer. Researchers at MIT recently demonstrated that this same ...

With the genetics of so many organisms that have different traits yet to study, and with the techniques for gathering full sets of genetic information from organisms rapidly evolving, the "forest" of evolution can be easily lost to the "trees" of each individual case and detail. A review paper published this week in Science by David Wake, Marvalee Wake and Chelsea Specht, all currently National Science Foundation grantees, suggests that studying examples of homoplasy can help scientists analyze the overwhelming deluge of genetic data and information that is currently ...

Montreal, February 24, 2011 – The interventional cardiology team at the Montreal Heart Institute (MHI) recently began patient enrolment for a new device, the Neovasc ReducerTM, designed to treat patients suffering from refractory angina. The treatment method is a first in North America and is being conducted as part of an international study, the COSIRA trial. This innovative treatment is promising for thousands of Canadians disabled by refractory angina and who lack alternatives for relieving their symptoms and improving their quality of life. Developed in Canada by ...

A strong link between victimization experiences and substance abuse has been discovered by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The correlation is especially prevalent among gays, lesbians and bisexuals -- more so than in heterosexuals, says Tonda Hughes, professor and interim head of health systems science in the UIC College of Nursing. Hughes is lead author of the study, published in the journal Addiction. Researchers compared victimization experiences of unwanted sexual activity, neglect, physical violence, and assault with a weapon, across four ...

ARLINGTON, Va. - One Sailor's request to replace humming fluorescent bulbs with a quiet alternative inspired the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to create the Solid State Lighting (SSL) project, currently being evaluated aboard several ships and submarines across the U.S. Navy. A product of ONR's TechSolutions program, SSL is one of several rapid-response technologies created using recommendations and suggestions from Navy and Marine Corps personnel. (Watch TechSolutions products in action via YouTube.) The SSL project introduced the energy-saving, nonhazardous LED ...

Age alters memory. But in what ways, and why? These questions comprise a vast puzzle for neurologists and psychologists. A new study looked at one puzzle piece: how older and younger adults encode and recall distracting, or irrelevant, information. The results, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association of Psychological Science, can help scientists better understand memory and aging. "Our world contains so much information; we don't always know which is relevant and which is irrelevant," said Nigel Gopie, who cowrote the study with Fergus I.M. Craik ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego say an evolutionary gene mutation that occurred in humans millions of years ago and our subsequent inability to produce a specific kind of sialic acid molecule appears to make people more vulnerable to developing type 2 diabetes, especially if they’re overweight. The findings are published in the Feb. 24 online edition of The FASEB Journal, a publication of the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology. Corresponding study author, Jane ...

Wheat growers in the Southwest have a better idea about how to adjust to climate change in the decades ahead, thanks to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists in Arizona. Researchers with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) installed infrared heaters in experimental wheat fields at the agency's Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center in Maricopa, Ariz., to simulate growing conditions expected by 2050. ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency, and this research supports the USDA priority of responding to climate change. Wheat ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research shows that a less-toxic combination of a targeted immune-based drug and a chemotherapy drug can produce long-term remissions in some chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients. And it does so without increasing the risk of later therapy-related myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia, which can often occur with a three-drug combination used to treat these patients. The multi-institutional study, led by researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research ...

Spraying malaria-transmitting mosquitoes with a genetically modified fungus can kill the malaria parasite without harming the mosquito, potentially reducing malaria transmission to humans, according to a new study published in the journal Science. Funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, the study was led by Raymond J. St. Leger, Ph.D., of the University of Maryland, College Park. An estimated 225 million malaria cases occur worldwide annually, resulting in about 781,000 deaths each year, ...

MOAB, Utah — Drier conditions projected to result from climate change in the Southwest will likely reduce perennial vegetation cover and result in increased dust storm activity in the future, according to a new study by scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of California, Los Angeles. The research team examined climate, vegetation and soil measurements collected over a 20-year period in Arches and Canyonlands National Parks in southeastern Utah. Long-term data indicated that perennial vegetation in grasslands and some shrublands declined with temperature ...