Infants raised in households where Spanish and Catalan are spoken can discriminate between English and French just by watching people speak, even though they have never been exposed to these new languages before, according to University of British Columbia psychologist Janet Werker. Presented today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, Werker's latest findings provide further evidence that exposure to two native languages contributes to the development of perceptual sensitivity that extends beyond their mother ...

Predatory fish such as cod, tuna, and groupers have declined by two-thirds over the past 100 years, while small forage fish such as sardine, anchovy and capelin have more than doubled over the same period, according to University of British Columbia researchers. Led by Prof. Villy Christensen of UBC's Fisheries Centre, a team of scientists used more than 200 marine ecosystem models from around the world and extracted more than 68,000 estimates of fish biomass from 1880 to 2007. They presented the findings today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science ...

When people on airplanes ask Alan Newell what he works on, he tells them "flower arrangements." He could also say "fingerprints" or "sand ripples" or "how plants grow." "Most patterns you see, including the ones on sand dunes or fish or tigers or leopards or in the laboratory – even the defects in the patterns – have many universal features," said Newell, a Regents' Professor of Mathematics at the University of Arizona. "All these different systems exhibit strikingly similar features when it comes to the patterns they form," he said. "Patterns arise in systems when ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Introductory college science classes need to improve their coverage of issues related to sustainability, a noted chemistry educator told the American Association for the Advancement of Science today. "Across the nation, we have a problem," said Catherine Middlecamp, a distinguished faculty associate in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "We are using a 20th-century curriculum, and this is the 21st century." Students, Middlecamp says, want a curriculum that will prepare them for upcoming challenges related to climate change, pollution ...

Cost-effectiveness analysis should play a bigger role in the American health care system, argued a University of Chicago researcher Friday at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "The effects of science and technology on health care costs depend on the policy context in which those technologies are developed and applied," said David Meltzer, Associate Professor of Medicine, in his presentation, "Policies to Mobile Technology and Science for Health Care Cost Control." Meltzer, who also holds a PhD in economics, pointed out ...

Adelaide researchers have taken a step closer to the development of a universal flu vaccine, with results of a recent study showing that a vaccine delivered by a simple nasal spray could provide protection against influenza. University of Adelaide researcher Dr Darren Miller and colleagues have successfully trialled a synthetic universal flu vaccine in mice. The results have appeared this month in a paper in the Journal of General Virology. "Current flu vaccines rely on health authorities being able to predict what the forthcoming viral strain is going to be, and reformulating ...

TUCSON, Ariz. (February 18, 2011) -- A University of Arizona College of Engineering researcher and his team who are developing intelligent robots for planetary exploration will be featured in a segment of an upcoming episode of the science program "WaveLengths." The robots will be featured on the episode premiering Thursday night, February 24 at 8:30 p.m. MST on public television KUAT Channel 6. "WaveLengths" is a quarterly science program hosted by BIO5 Institute Member Dr. Vicki Chandler. The exploration robots are part of a tier-scalable, reconnaissance system prototype ...

A study by the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) has carried out the first Spanish study into the emotional differences between the sexes and generations in terms of forgiveness. According to the study, parents forgive more than children, while women are better at forgiving than men. "This study has great application for teaching values, because it shows us what reasons people have for forgiving men and women, and the popular conception of forgiveness", Maite Garaigordobil, co-author of the study and a senior professor at the Psychology Faculty of the UPV, tells ...

Patients who undergo elective orthopedic surgeries at high-volume, regional hospitals have better surgical outcomes and experience fewer complications than those who undergo those surgeries at local hospitals, according to research being presented by Hospital for Special Surgery investigators at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS). These "regionalizers"—patients who travel to a regional, high-volume hospital—also tend to be younger, white, male and have private insurance, according to the research from Hospital for Special Surgery ...

Knee replacement surgery takes far more time to conduct in overweight and obese patients than in normal weight patients, according to recent research at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. The study will be presented at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons annual meeting, held Feb. 15-19 in San Diego, Calif. The study has implications for hospital staff scheduling surgeries, operating room utilization and personnel staffing, and also raises the question of whether knee replacements should be reimbursed based on time. "When we schedule surgery, the body mass ...

For years, doctors have used platelet rich plasma (PRP) to promote healing in various surgeries, but a recent study demonstrates that a type of PRP did not improve healing after rotator cuff repair. The study, conducted by Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) investigators, will be presented at the upcoming American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) 2011 Specialty Day meeting, held Feb. 19 in San Diego, Calif., following the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. "I would not recommend platelet-rich fibrin matrix [PRFM] as we used it ...

A new study has identified factors that predict the ability of a professional dancer to return to professional performance after hip arthroscopy surgery. The study by Hospital for Special Surgery investigators will be presented at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons annual meeting, held Feb. 15-19 in San Diego, Calif. The results of this study indicated that ballet dancers were significantly less likely to be able to return to work compared with modern dancers or dance theater performers. Older age and having a variety of hip abnormalities also influenced outcome. ...

(Jena, Germany) Professor Dr. Michael Ristow's team along with Japanese colleagues from universities in Oita and Hiroshima have demonstrated by two independent approaches that even a low concentration of lithium leads to an increased life expectancy in humans as well as in a model organism, the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans. The research team presents its results in the online edition of the scientific publication European Journal of Nutrition which is now online (see hyperlink below). Lithium is one of many nutritional trace elements and is ingested mainly through ...

From The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, The University of Western Australia, and the, Kings Park and Botanic Garden, the scientists argue that deliberately increasing the frequency of fires may lead to ecosystem degradation and loss of biodiversity. In a paper published this month in Trends in Plant Science they acknowledge that as climate change increases the combustibility of vegetation, human lives and property are more at risk. However, they suggest that prescribed burning – a key practice by most environmental managers – may cause more problems because, they say, ...

Planets form in disks of dust and gas that surround young stars. A look at the birth places means a journey into the past of the earth and its siblings. Now, astronomers have been able to obtain detailed images of the protoplanetary disks of two stars using the Subaru telescope in Hawaii. This is the first time that disk structures comparable in size to our own solar system have been resolved this clearly, revealing features such as rings and gaps that are associated with the formation of giant planets. The observations are part of a systematic survey to search for planets ...

Extreme weather, major accidents, forest fires or attacks: Citizens, rescue services and the authorities need to receive as much advance warning as possible to be able to react as quickly as possible. "Independent warning systems for each of these catastrophes and for every situation that may affect people are not feasible financially, though," observes project manager Ulrich Meissen of the Fraunhofer Institute for Software and System Technology ISST in Berlin. "In addition, that would lead to a large collection of parallel items of information that can even prove a mutual ...

Using a method based on geographic positioning systems that allowed them to characterize the topography of the bats' molars in a way similar to how geographers characterize mountain surfaces, the researchers calculated a measure of dental complexity that reflects how "rugged" the surface of the tooth is. They illustrate a trend from relative simplicity of the shearing molars in insect eaters and omnivores to high complexity of the crushing molars in fruit eaters. Working with field-collected bat skulls, researchers Sharlene Santana and Betsy Dumont of UMass Amherst, with ...

Scientists have discovered the first evidence linking brain function variations between the left and right sides of the brain to size at birth and the weight of the placenta. The finding could shed new light on the causes of mental health problems in later life. The research, conducted at the University of Southampton and the Medical Research Council (MRC) Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit at Southampton General Hospital, reveals that children who were born small, with relatively large placentas, showed more activity on the right side of their brains than the left. It is this ...

Nele Festjens and Nico Callewaert of VIB and Ghent University have improved the efficacy of the vaccine for tuberculosis. The new vaccine affords - as already proven in mice - better protection against the disease. The development of a new tuberculosis vaccine is a priority in the fight against the disease which claims the lives of 1.7 million people each year. The current vaccine provides only partial protection. Nico Callewaert: "Our vaccine is more effective because it is more quickly recognized by the immune system of the vaccinated person. We have, as it were, ...

Parents and caregivers have traditionally relied on cribs, playpens and bassinets to protect children while they sleep. The massive crib recalls followed by the announcement in December 2010 by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to ban drop-side cribs have caused many families to question the safety of these products. A new study conducted by researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital examined injuries associated with cribs, playpens and bassinets among children younger than ...

Inducing labor without a medical reason is associated with negative outcomes for the mother, including increased rates of cesarean delivery, greater blood loss and an extended length of stay in the hospital, and does not provide any benefit for the newborn. As the number of scheduled deliveries continues to climb, it is important for physicians and mothers-to-be to understand the risks associated with elective induction. The new findings, published in the February issue of the Journal of Reproductive Medicine, only apply to women having their first child, and may not ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Among the many differences between girls and boys, add the effects from caffeine -- physiological, behavioral and subjective -- to the list. Results of a double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose-response study of the response of youth to caffeine found that, in general, boys get a greater rush and more energy from caffeine than girls. Boys also reported they felt that caffeine had a positive effect on their athletic performance. Girls didn't report on this issue. The study, conducted by Jennifer L. Temple, PhD, a neurobiologist and assistant professor ...

Unlike alcohol problems and antisocial behavior, depression doesn’t decline with age in addiction-prone women in their 30s and 40s – it continues to increase, a new study led by University of Michigan Health System researchers found. The longitudinal analysis examined the influences of the women’s histories, family life and neighborhood instability on their alcoholism symptoms, antisocial behavior and depression over a 12-year period covering the earlier years of marriage and motherhood. The research, published in Development and Psychopathology, is part of an ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. - Mayo Clinic researchers confirmed that patients who receive therapeutic hypothermia after resuscitation from cardiac arrest have favorable chances of surviving the event and recovering good functional status. In therapeutic hypothermia, a patient's body temperature is cooled to 33 degrees Celsius following resuscitation from cardiac arrest, in order to slow the brain's metabolism and protect the brain against the damage initiated by the lack of blood flow and oxygenation. This study was published in the December 2010 issue of Annals of Neurology. "Therapeutic ...

AMES, Iowa -- Why would anyone falsely confess to a crime they didn't commit? It seems illogical, but according to The Innocence Project, there have been 266 post-conviction DNA exonerations since 1989 -- 25 percent of which involved a false confession. A new Iowa State University study may shed light on one reason for those false confessions. In two experiments simulating choices suspects face in police interrogations, undergraduate subjects altered their behavior to confess to illegal activities in order to relieve short-term distress (the proximal consequence) while ...