The Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable searches and seizures is a cornerstone of our criminal justice system. Unfortunately for some, that protection is being unwittingly eroded through data mining. The practice of analyzing vast amounts of electronic data on personal dealings, from shopping preferences to Facebook updates, is commonly used by marketing agencies to streamline advertising campaigns. However, law enforcement agencies are now mining data to monitor suspected criminal activity and identify potential terrorist threats. Personal data derived from ...

Columbus Dispatch photojournalist Doral Chenoweth III captured the world's attention and dramatically changed the life of one man this week, simply by stopping to hear his story. Ted Williams, now known as the "Homeless Man with a Golden Voice," went from homeless to headlines with the simple click of a video post on www.dispatch.com. The wild popularity of the video, which has received more than 10 million hits online, has drawn the attention of international media, garnering coverage everywhere from the BBC to CBS News, and on tens of thousands of blogs originating around ...

Frontline Test Equipment is pleased to announce the introduction of Message Sequence Chart (MSC) technology in their complete line of Bluetooth protocol analyzers. This new feature is available in the latest software release found on the web Frontline website - www.fte.com and is included in: BPA 500 - Dual Mode ("Classic" BR/EDR and low energy) Bluetooth protocol analyzer, FTS4BT - "Classic" Bluetooth protocol analyzer and Frontline Bluetooth low energy Analyzer. MSC displays a concise overview of a Bluetooth connection, highlighting the essential elements of the connection. ...

An unexpected discovery by UCLA life scientists holds promise for the future development of treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders, and potentially for Alzheimer's disease and other memory-impairment diseases. The researchers, led by UCLA professor of psychology Michael Fanselow, have discovered what may be a completely unexplored drug target for the treatment of anxiety disorders. The research is published Jan. 7 in the journal Science. Normally, when people or animals experience a frightening event, they learn to fear the place ...

Babies, even those too young to talk, can understand many of the words that adults are saying – and their brains process them in a grown-up way. Combining the cutting-edge technologies of MRI and MEG, scientists at the University of California, San Diego show that babies just over a year old process words they hear with the same brain structures as adults, and in the same amount of time. Moreover, the researchers found that babies were not merely processing the words as sounds, but were capable of grasping their meaning. This study was jointly led by Eric Halgren, PhD, ...

Quality of life measures tend to be most useful for clinical decision-making in trials in which quality of life is the primary outcome, according to a recent study published online January 7 in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute. There has been increasing interest in the value of patient-reported symptom assessment in trials and their potential usage as primary or secondary endpoints in new trials. Both the World Health Organization and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have endorsed quality of life, but they are not always incorporated into trials because ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Most college students in the United States do not grasp the scientific basis of the carbon cycle – an essential skill in understanding the causes and consequences of climate change, according to research published in the January issue of BioScience. The study, whose authors include several current and former researchers from Michigan State University, calls for a new way of teaching – and, ultimately, comprehending – fundamental scientific principles such as the conservation of matter. "Improving students' understanding of these biological principles ...

A study carried out by the University of Granada (UGR) warns of the need to unify existing plans for clinical waste management in the different autonomous communities to improve recycling and waste disposal. There is currently no specific state-wide regulation, just a framework law that the Spanish Ministry of the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs (MARM) is planning to reform. "We carried out a comparison of the clinical waste management regulations and plans in place in the autonomous communities in 2008 to see if there were any differences. We observed distinctions ...

Leuven – Scientists attached to VIB and K.U.Leuven have succeeded in decoding a potential new anti-cancer mechanism. The researchers discovered that normalizing abnormal tumor blood vessels through HRG (histidine-rich glycoprotein) prevents metastasis of tumor cells and enhances chemotherapy efficiency. In tumors, vessels formation is disturbed, leading to inefficient delivery of chemotherapeutic drugs and allowing cancer cells to escape to other parts of the body (metastasis). The normalization of tumor blood vessel formation through HRG works by repressing the production ...

When interviewed by the BBC, the now retired BP boss Tony Hayward admitted to his company's insufficient response to the Deepwater Horizon rig accident in the Gulf of Mexico. Could the company have been better prepared for what turned out to be one of the biggest oil disasters in history? "We were making it up day to day," Hayward said of BP's rescue plan. Together with chairman of the board, Carl-Henrik Svenberg, he was held responsible for 11 dead and 17 injured workers. According to the New York Times, five million barrels of oil leaked into the ocean outside the coast ...

Its stay on this planet was actually meant to be a very short one. Male twisted-wing parasites (Strepsiptera) usually have a life span of only few hours. However, accidentally a specimen of Mengea tertiara, about the size of an aphid, became preserved for 'eternity': during its wedding flight about 42 million years ago it was caught in a drop of tree resin and subsequently almost perfectly conserved in a piece of amber. PD Dr. Hans Pohl of Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany) calls this "a very exceptional stroke of luck." Together with colleagues from Jena, Hamburg ...

Cambridge, Mass., January 7, 2011 – By rethinking what happens on the surface of things, engineers at Harvard University have discovered that Bacillus subtilis biofilm colonies exhibit an unmatched ability to repel a wide range of liquids—and even vapors. Centimeters across yet only hundreds of microns thick, such slimy bacterial coatings cling to the surfaces of everything from pipes to teeth and are notoriously resistant to antimicrobial agents. The researchers now suspect they know the secret to a biofilm's resiliency. Published in the January 5th early edition of ...

Scientists have identified the type of cell that is at the origin of brain tumors known as oligodendrogliomas, which are a type of glioma – a category that defines the most common type of malignant brain tumor. In a paper published in the December 2010 issue of the journal Cancer Cell, investigators found that the tumor originates in and spreads through cells known as glial progenitor cells – cells that are often referred to as "daughter" cells of stem cells. The work comes at a time when many researchers are actively investigating the role that stem cells which have ...

Despite U.S. consumers' threats of protests in response to the redesigned Starbucks logo unveiled yesterday, the new look may be a smart move in the long run as the coffee company expands into Asian markets, according to a Rice University researcher who has studied consumer reaction to logos. "The logo of a brand is much more than a pictorial representation of the brand," said Rice Professor of Marketing Vikas Mittal, who has co-authored two studies on customers, logos and brand commitment. "For consumers who are highly committed to the brand, the logo represents a visual ...

BOSTON, Mass.––Consumers may place a high value on information to predict their future health, and may be willing to pay out of pocket to get it. In a national survey conducted by researchers at Tufts Medical Center, roughly 76% of people indicated that they would take a hypothetical predictive test to find out if they will later develop Alzheimer's disease, breast or prostate cancer, or arthritis. On average, respondents were willing to pay $300 to $600, depending on the specific disease and the accuracy of the test. Published online in the journal Health Economics, ...

Theo Odijk, you win. The professor of biotechnology at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands has a new best friend in Rice University's Matteo Pasquali. Together with collaborators at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the University of Bordeaux, France, and Vrije University, Amsterdam, the Rice professor and his team have settled a long-standing controversy in the field of polymer dynamics: The researchers proved once and for all that Odijk was correct in proclaiming that a little flexibility goes a long way for stiff filaments in ...

TORONTO, Ont., January 7, 2011 — People suffering from fatty liver disease may be three times more likely to suffer a stroke than individuals without fatty liver, according to a study by researchers at St. Michael's Hospital and the London Health Sciences Centre. The study is the first to find a link between nonalcoholic fatty liver disease — a disease characterized by the accumulation of fat in the liver in non drinkers — and stroke. In a research letter to the editor in the journal Epidemiology released Thursday, Drs. Joel Ray, Ivan Ying and colleagues explain they ...

January 6, 2010 -- Nearly 10 years after the greatest human-made disaster in U.S. history-- the destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers -- there has been little research documenting the attacks' consequences among those most directly affected -- the survivors who escaped the World Trade Center towers. In a study just released by Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, in conjunction with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the federal Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry (ATSDR), researchers found that of the ...

SAN ANTONIO (Jan. 7, 2011) — Resveratrol, a compound in grapes, displays antioxidant and other positive properties. In a study published this week, researchers at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio describe a novel way in which resveratrol exerts these beneficial health effects. Resveratrol stimulates the expression of adiponectin, a hormone derived from cells that manufacture and store fat, the team found. Adiponectin has a wide range of beneficial effects on obesity-related medical complications, said senior author Feng Liu, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and ...

SAN ANTONIO (Jan. 7, 2011) — Just 5 percent of Parkinson's disease cases can be explained by genetic mutation, while the rest have no known cause. But a new discovery by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio may begin to explain why the vast majority of Parkinson's patients develop the progressive neurodegenerative disease. This week in the Journal of Neuroscience, the researchers demystified a process that leads to the death of brain cells – or neurons – in Parkinson's patients. When researchers blocked the process, the neurons survived. The ...

HOUSTON - The interplay between a major tumor-suppressing gene, a truncated chromosome and two sets of microRNAs provides a molecular basis for explaining the less aggressive form of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, an international team of researchers reports today in the Jan. 4 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association. "Our findings could reveal new mechanisms of resistance to chemotherapy among leukemia patients as this feedback mechanism could help us differentiate between patients with poor or good prognosis," said co-senior author George Adrian Calin, ...

The first drug to treat the underlying disorder instead of the symptoms of Fragile X, the most common cause of inherited intellectual disability, shows some promise according to a new study published in the January 5 issue of Science Translational Medicine. Researchers from Rush University Medical Center helped design the study and are now participating in the larger follow-up clinical trial. The data from the early trial of 30 Fragile X patients, found the drug, called AFQ056, made by Novartis Pharmaceuticals, helped improve symptoms in some patients. Patients who had ...

A Jackson Laboratory research team led by Professor Patsy Nishina, Ph.D., has identified a mutation in a gene that's essential for correct protein-processing in cells. Defects in protein folding are associated with a variety of abnormalities and diseases. Cells don't come prefabricated, with pieces plunked down and tacked together like modular homes offloaded from trucks. The structural proteins that give cells shape, tubulin and actin (think beams and girders), are themselves subject to essential processing before they become part of the assembly. Proteins must be folded ...

SAN ANTONIO (Jan. 7, 2010) — In the Old West, camps sent smoke signals across distances to share key developments or strategy. Likewise, two important signaling molecules communicate across nerve cells to regulate electrical and chemical activity, neuroscientists from the UT Health Science Center San Antonio reported today. The findings in rodent models have implications for potential future treatment of epilepsy, stroke and other problems, the researchers said. "We now have novel targets for therapeutic intervention for a range of neurological and cardiovascular diseases, ...

Sri-Lankan born Psychologist / Cognitive Neuroscientist Prof. Erantha De Mel received the President's Call to Service Award at a ceremony held in Washington DC recently. This distinguished service award by President Barack Obama was presented to him for his outstanding services to the American community in the fields of Psychology and Psychotherapy. This lifetime achievement award was established in 2003 after President George W. Bush created the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation. It is given annually to individuals who have dedicated over 4,000 ...