When we make plans that will change a natural environment — whether it's building a new shopping mall or planting a new forest — surveyors dutifully assess the environmental risks to plant and animal life in the region. But what's environmentally good for one area may be an environmental disaster for an adjacent one, a Tel Aviv University researcher cautions. When displaced by these projects, indigenous species migrate to neighboring habitats, says Guilad Friedemann, a PhD student at TAU's Department of Zoology in the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences. This has ...

People spend 3 billion hours a week playing videogames but little is known scientifically about why they are actually fun in the first place. The vast majority of research into videogames has concentrated on the possible harmful effects of playing videogames, ignoring the simple question of why people actually want to play them. But new research led by scientists at the University of Essex sheds some light on the appeal of videogames and why millions of people around the world find playing them so much fun. The study investigated the idea that many people enjoy playing ...

Many medical devices, ranging from artificial hip joints to dentures and catheters, become sites for unwelcome guests -- complex communities of microbial pathogens called biofilms that are resistant to the human immune system and antibiotics, thus proving a serious threat to human health. However, researchers may have a new way of looking at biofilms, thanks to a study conducted by University of Iowa biologist David Soll and his colleagues published in the Aug. 2 issue of the online, open access journal PLoS Biology. Previously, researchers believed that each pathogen ...

This press release is available in Spanish. Rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels can reverse the drying effects of predicted higher temperatures on semi-arid rangelands, according to a study published today in the scientific journal Nature by a team of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and university scientists. Warmer temperatures increase water loss to the atmosphere, leading to drier soils. In contrast, higher CO2 levels cause leaf stomatal pores to partly close, lessening the amount of water vapor that escapes and the amount of water plants draw from soil. ...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Mayo Clinic orthopedic surgeon suspects that the nagging pain and inflammation that women can experience in their knees may be different from what men encounter, and she has been chosen to lead a novel U.S.-Canadian study to explore the question. The Society for Women's Health Research (SWHR) and its Interdisciplinary Studies in Sex-Differences (ISIS) Network on Musculoskeletal Health has awarded a group of researchers a $127,000 grant to lead a pilot project to understand whether biological differences between men and women affect the incidence and ...

RICHLAND, Wash. – Today, farming often involves transporting crops long distances so consumers from Maine to California can enjoy Midwest corn, Northwest cherries and other produce when they are out of season locally. But it isn't just the fossil fuel needed to move food that contributes to agriculture's carbon footprint. New research published in the journal Biogeosciences provides a detailed account of how carbon naturally flows into and out of crops themselves as they grow, are harvested and are then eaten far from where they're grown. The paper shows how regions that ...

Cambridge, Mass. - August 3, 2011 - Materials scientists and applied physicists collaborating at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have invented a new device that can instantly identify an unknown liquid. The device, which fits in the palm of a hand and requires no power source, exploits the chemical and optical properties of precisely nanostructured materials to distinguish liquids by their surface tension. The finding, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), offers a cheap, fast, and portable way to perform quality ...

Arriving at a rapid and accurate diagnosis is critical during flu outbreaks, but until now, physicians and public health officials have had to choose between a highly accurate yet time-consuming test or a rapid but error-prone test. A new detection method developed at the University of Georgia and detailed in the August edition of the journal Analyst, however, offers the best of both worlds. By coating gold nanoparticles with antibodies that bind to specific strains of the flu virus and then measuring how the particles scatter laser light, the technology can detect influenza ...

New Rochelle, NY, August 3, 2011—A move toward smaller and smaller sample sizes is leading to a new generation of mass spectrometry instrumentation, reports Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN). From a specific application point of view, novel nanoflow separation methodologies are ramping up the speed and precision with which scientists are able to validate biomarkers, according to the August issue of GEN (www.genengnews.com/gen-articles/nanoliter-volumes-push-ms-to-new-lows/3741). "Basing biomarker validation on more sophisticated mass spec tools could help ...

RICHMOND, Va. (Aug. 3, 2011) – A single compound with dual function – the ability to deliver a diagnostic and therapeutic agent – may one day be used to enhance the diagnosis, imaging and treatment of brain tumors, according to findings from Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia Tech. Glioblastomas are the most common and aggressive brain tumor in humans, with a high rate of relapse. These tumor cells often extend beyond the well-defined tumor margins making it extremely difficult for clinicians and radiologists to visualize with current imaging techniques. Researchers ...

Anyone who follows science has read enthusiastic stories about medical breakthroughs that include the standard disclaimer that the results were obtained in mice and might not carry over to humans. Much later, there might be reports that a drug has been abandoned because clinical trials turned up unforeseen side effects or responses in humans. Given the delay, most readers probably don't connect the initial success and the eventual failure. But Igor Efimov, PhD, a biomedical engineer at Washington University in St. Louis who studies the biophysical and physiological ...

Public awareness about the role and interaction of microbes is essential for promoting human and environmental health, say scientists presenting research at the Ecological Society of America's (ESA) 96th Annual Meeting from August 7-12, 2011. Researchers shed light on the healthy microbes of the human body and other research on microbial and disease ecology to be presented at ESA's 2011 meeting in Austin, Texas. Bellybutton microbiomes Human skin is teeming with microbes—communities of bacteria, many of which are harmless, live alongside the more infamous microbes sometimes ...

Infants who live in "moldy" homes are three times more likely to develop asthma by age 7—an age that children can be accurately diagnosed with the condition. Study results are published in the August issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI). "Early life exposure to mold seems to play a critical role in childhood asthma development," says Tiina Reponen, PhD, lead study author and University of Cincinnati (UC) professor of environmental health. "Genetic factors are also ...

ITHACA, N.Y. — U.S. physicians spend nearly $61,000 more than their Canadian counterparts each year on administrative expenses related to health insurance, according to a new study by researchers at Cornell University and the University of Toronto. The study, published in the August issue of the journal Health Affairs, found that per-physician costs in the U.S. averaged $82,975 annually, while Ontario-based physicians averaged $22,205 – primarily because Canada's single-payer health care system is simpler. Canadian physicians follow a single set of rules, but U.S. doctors ...

SEATTLE—Fatal overdoses involving prescribed opioids tripled in the United States between 1999 and 2006, climbing to almost 14,000 deaths annually—more than cocaine and heroin overdoses combined. Hospitalizations and emergency room visits related to prescription opioid pain medicines such as oxycodone (brand name Oxycontin) and hydrocodone (Vicodin) also increased dramatically in the same period. Now a report in the August issue of Health Affairs describes a major initiative at Group Health to make opioid prescribing safer while improving care for patients with chronic ...

Wearing compression stockings may be a simple low-tech way to improve obstructive sleep apnea in patients with chronic venous insufficiency, according to French researchers. "We found that in patients with chronic venous insufficiency, compression stockings reduced daytime fluid accumulation in the legs, which in turn reduced the amount of fluid flowing into the neck at night, thereby reducing the number of apneas and hypopnea by more than a third," said Stefania Redolfi, MD, of the University of Brescia in Italy, who led the research. CVI occurs when a patient's veins ...

A scientist at the Gladstone Institutes has discovered a novel way to convert human skin cells into brain cells, advancing medicine and human health by offering new hope for regenerative medicine and personalized drug discovery and development. In a paper being published online today in the scientific journal Cell Stem Cell, Sheng Ding, PhD, reveals efficient and robust methods for transforming adult skin cells into neurons that are capable of transmitting brain signals, marking one of the first documented experiments for transforming an adult human's skin cells into ...

Boston, MA (July 28, 2011) — Researchers have developed a toolkit that enables them to turn off targeted cell populations while leaving others unaffected. Led by Susan Dymecki, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, the group focused on serotonin-producing neurons, observing how mice behave in a normal environment when suddenly their serotonin neurons are turned down. While their findings affirm earlier studies, the researchers used a technique that is non-invasive and does not require anesthesia, surgeries, or knocking out a gene—each of which can cause ...

Shade & Shutter Expo and Markomm have entered into an agreement where Markomm, a SEO Denver Internet Marketing Firm, will provide PPC services to Shade & Shutter Expo. The multi layered campaign was launched July 21st in Myrtle Beach, SC and the surrounding areas. These campaigns will help Shade & Shutter Expo gain a stronger presence on the search engines, and result in more clients and sales. Consumers today live in the information age. Technology has allowed consumers to have information at their fingertips and easily searchable through Google, Bing, Yahoo, ...

New research sheds light on why, after 300,000 years of domination, European Neanderthals abruptly disappeared. Researchers from the University of Cambridge have discovered that modern humans coming from Africa swarmed the region, arriving with over ten times the population as the Neanderthal inhabitants. The reasons for the relatively sudden disappearance of the European Neanderthal populations across the continent around 40,000 years ago has for long remained one of the great mysteries of human evolution. After 300 millennia of living, and evidently flourishing, ...

Breast cancer screening has not played a direct part in the reductions of breast cancer mortality in recent years, says a new study published on bmj.com today. An international team of researchers from France, the UK and Norway found that better treatment and improving health systems are more likely to have led to falling numbers of deaths from breast cancer than screening. The number of deaths from breast cancer is falling in many developed countries, but it is difficult to determine how much of that reduction over the past 20 years of mammography screening is due ...

William D. Truax E.A. Tax Advisors, Inc. are urging those enacting a plan for estate or trust inheritance to speak with a professional tax advisor to ensure all matters of estate and trust tax are accounted for, relieving beneficiaries of the tax burden. William D. Truax and his associates have over 30 years of experience working in the field of tax preparation. Just one of the fields his firm specializes in is estate and trust tax preparation. Effective estate and gift planning ensures the orderly transfer of assets to a client's beneficiaries. Security in these matters ...

The introduction of legislation that restricts unhealthy food, for example by reducing salt content and eliminating industrial trans fats, would prevent thousands of cases of heart disease in England and Wales and save the NHS millions of pounds, finds research published on bmj.com today. Heart disease and stroke cause over 150,000 deaths every year in the UK and yet over 80% of premature heart disease is avoidable, say the authors. They add that established research has already indicated that individuals who consume too much salt and eat food which is high in industrial ...

Permeon Biologics, a biopharmaceutical company pioneering a novel class of intracellular protein biologics, today announced the discovery of an entirely new class of naturally occurring human supercharged proteins called Intraphilins™. The sequence and structure of these naturally supercharged human proteins enable biologic drugs to penetrate and function inside of mammalian cells. This new class of proteins is the foundation of Permeon Biologics' novel Intraphilin™ Technology Platform and provides an innovative approach to develop intracellular protein biologic drugs, ...

Boston, MA – Global population is expected to hit 7 billion later this year, up from 6 billion in 1999. Between now and 2050, an estimated 2.3 billion more people will be added—nearly as many as inhabited the planet as recently as 1950. New estimates from the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations also project that the population will reach 10.1 billion in 2100. These sizable increases represent an unprecedented global demographic upheaval, according to David Bloom, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and ...