Children with chronic health conditions are 88% more likely to suffer physical abuse than healthy children, according to research in the March issue of Acta Paediatrica. They are also 154% more likely to suffer a combination of physical abuse and exposure to intimate partner violence than their healthy school friends. Researchers from Karlstad University, Sweden, analysed 2,510 questionnaires completed anonymously by children aged ten, 12 and 15 from 44 schools. Nearly one in four had at least one chronic health condition, including visual, hearing or speech problems, ...

The team of Professor Burkhard Luy from KIT and Junior Professor Stefan F. Kirsch from the TUM has now shown for the first time that certain NMR parameters, the so-called residual dipolar couplings (RDCs), can make a significant contribution towards determining the constitution of chemical compounds when traditional methods fail. To do this they embedded molecules of the compound in a gel which slightly constricts their mobility. By stretching the gel, the molecules can be aligned along a preferred orientation. While residual dipolar couplings average out in solution, they ...

Depending on the level of smoking and leisure time exercise, vitamin E supplementation may decrease or increase, or may have no effect, on the risk of pneumonia, according to a study published in Clinical Epidemiology. In laboratory studies, vitamin E has influenced the immune system. In several animal studies vitamin E protected against viral and bacterial infections. However, the importance of vitamin E on human infections is not known. Dr. Harri Hemila and Professor Jaakko Kaprio, of the University of Helsinki, Finland, studied the effect of vitamin E on the risk ...

CHICAGO—Afraid of becoming disabled in old age, not being able to dress yourself or walk up and down the stairs? Staying physically active before symptoms set in could help. But so could going out to eat, playing bingo and taking overnight trips. According to research conducted at Rush University Medical Center, higher levels of social activity are associated with a decreased risk of becoming disabled. The study has just been posted online and will be published in the April issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences. "Social activity has long been recognized ...

Feb. 17, 2011– A new treatment approach which uses tiny bursts of electricity to reawaken paralyzed muscles "significantly" reduced disability and improved grasping in people with incomplete spinal cord injuries, beyond the effects of standard therapy, newly published research shows. In a study published online in the journal Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair, Toronto researchers report that functional electrical stimulation (FES) therapy worked better than conventional occupational therapy alone to increase patients' ability to pick up and hold objects. FES therapy ...

WASHINGTON – Lifestyle changes—such as getting more exercise, time in nature, or helping others—can be as effective as drugs or counseling to treat an array of mental illnesses, according to a new paper published by the American Psychological Association. Multiple mental health conditions, including depression and anxiety, can be treated with certain lifestyle changes as successfully as diseases such as diabetes and obesity, according to Roger Walsh, M.D., PhD. of the University of California, Irvine's College of Medicine. Walsh reviewed research on the effects of what ...

VIDEO: Although, in the majority of cases, the localized presence of Neisseria meningitidis in the throat has no consequence, it can sometimes lead to meningitis or septicaemia. The seriousness of these... Click here for more information. Although, in the majority of cases, the localized presence of Neisseria meningitidis in the throat has no consequence, it can sometimes lead to meningitis or septicaemia. The seriousness of these two infections is driving researchers from ...

Young children living in urban public housing spend more time playing outdoors than other urban children, according to researchers at Rice University, Columbia University and Princeton University. Contrary to the expectations of the researchers, who hypothesized that children living in poorer circumstances would be playing outside less, the study found that 5-year-olds living in public housing played outside 13 percent more per day, on average, than did other urban 5-year-olds. Children living in places of high physical disorder -- areas with visible graffiti, trash, ...

The research could eventually lead to new approaches for controlling sleeping sickness in humans and wasting diseases in livestock which are caused by trypanosomes carried by the bloodsucking tsetse fly. Biologists believe that sexual reproduction evolved very early and is now ubiquitous in organisms with complex cell structure (the eukaryotes, essentially all living organisms except bacteria). However, real evidence is lacking for a large section of the evolutionary tree. Trypanosomes represent an early and very distant branch of the eukaryote tree of life and ...

Scientists at The Wistar Institute and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine report the discovery of protein markers that could provide physicians with the first reliable blood test to predict ectopic pregnancies. Their findings are presented in the February 16 issue of the Journal of Proteome Research, currently available online. In a related small-scale study of clinical samples, published recently in the journal Fertility and Sterility, the researchers found that one of the proteins—ADAM12—showed a nearly 97 percent correlation with ectopic pregnancy. Ectopic ...

Champaign, IL – February 4, 2011 - An article in the current issue of Global Change Biology Bioenergy reviews the suitability of Agave as a bioenergy feedstock that can sustain high productivity in spite of poor soil and stressful climatic conditions accompanying climate change. Agave, which grows successfully under hot, dry conditions, is currently used in the production of beverages, food, and fiber, and has only recently been considered a promising source of biofuel. Garcia-Moya and colleagues (2011) were able to assess Agave's potential as a biomass crop by reviewing ...

U.S. military officials should improve efforts to identify those at-risk and improve both the quality and access to behavioral health treatment in response to a sharp rise in suicide among members of nation's armed forces, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Needed changes include making service members aware of the advantages of using behavioral health care, ensuring that providers and chaplains are delivering high quality care, and assuring that service members can receive confidential help for their problems, according to the report. "Efforts should focus ...

Cigarette smoking has been linked with overproduction of mucus associated with chronic bronchitis, according to a study conducted by researchers in New Mexico. The study indicates cigarette smoke suppresses a protein that causes the natural death of mucus-producing cells in the airways of bronchitis patients. The findings were published online ahead of the print edition of the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. "Although it is known that chronic mucus secretion is a hallmark of chronic bronchitis, the mechanisms underlying ...

Is it true that microbes cleaned up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Can bacteria really "eat" oil, and if so, how? To help clear up the confusion the American Academy of Microbiology has brought together the nation's leading experts to consider and answer some of the most frequently asked questions regarding microbes and oil spills. "Long before the Gulf oil spill microbes evolved the ability to degrade the complex hydrocarbon mixture we call petroleum. They were already present in the Gulf of Mexico and ready to attack the oil when the spill occurred," says Ronald ...

Tel Aviv — Discovered by archaeologists in 1952, a 28-foot-high stone tower discovered on the edge of the town of Jericho has puzzled scientists ever since. Now, eleven centuries after it was built, Tel Aviv University archaeologists at the ancient site Tel Jericho are revealing new facts about the world's first "skyscraper." Recent computer-based research by doctoral student Roy Liran and Dr. Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University's Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at the Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities sheds light on ...

Tampa, Fla. (Feb. 17, 2011) – Two studies published in the current issue of Cell Transplantation (19:12) investigate frontiers of islet cell transplantation for treating diabetes. Researchers in Milan, Italy re-examine the role of bone marrow stem cells in diabetic therapy and islet cell regeneration and Canadian researchers offer improved strategies for optimizing pancreatic islet culture in vitro. Both studies are in the current issue of Cell Transplantation, freely available on-line at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/. New perspectives on role of bone ...

Legal systems are necessary in any functioning society. Centuries ago, people realized that the only way to maintain a peaceful community was to develop a firm set of rules—laws—to punish transgressors. As laws have continued to evolve in societies around the world, psychological scientists have begun to investigate the psychological basis of many aspects of legal systems. A new special issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, presents the current state of research on psychology and law. Many lawyers ...

Athens, Ga. – New University of Georgia research has found that a statin drug that is often known by the brand-name Lipitor may help prevent blindness in people with diabetes. In a study using diabetic rats, lead author Azza El-Remessy, assistant professor in the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy, and her colleagues found that statins prevent free radicals in the retina from killing nerves important to maintaining vision. The results of the study are published in the March edition of the journal Diabetologia. "The exciting part is that there are now treatment ...

Let algae do the dirty work. Researchers at Rochester Institute of Technology are developing biodiesel from microalgae grown in wastewater. The project is doubly "green" because algae consume nitrates and phosphates and reduce bacteria and toxins in the water. The end result: clean wastewater and stock for a promising biofuel. The purified wastewater can be channeled back into receiving bodies of water at treatment plants, while the biodiesel can fuel buses, construction vehicles and farm equipment. Algae could replace diesel's telltale black puffs of exhaust with cleaner ...

The effect of a high-fat meal on blood vessel walls can vary among individuals depending on factors such as their waist size and triglyceride levels, suggests new research at UC Davis. The new research reinforces the link between belly fat, inflammation and thickening of the arterial linings that can lead to heart disease and strokes. Triglycerides are types of fat molecules, commonly associated with "bad cholesterol," known to increase risk of inflammation of the endothelium, the layer of cells that lines arteries. "The new study shows that eating a common fast food ...

When a team of scientists drilling near an Icelandic volcano hit magma in 2009, they had to abandon their planned experiments on geothermal energy. But the mishap could point the way to an alternative source of geothermal power. "Because we drilled into magma, this borehole could now be a really high-quality geothermal well," said Peter Schiffmann, professor of geology at UC Davis and a member of the research team along with fellow UC Davis geology professor Robert Zierenberg and UC Davis graduate student Naomi Marks. The project was led by Wilfred Elders, a geology professor ...

What NIST-led innovation is estimated to have saved U.S. industry $6.1 billion over the past 20 years? Well, probably several, but, perhaps surprisingly, a new economics study* points to the development of "role-based access control," a computer-security technology fostered and championed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the 1990s. Role-based access control (RBAC) is the idea of establishing standard levels of access—"permissions"— to the various computing resources and networks of an organization that are tailored to specific employee roles, ...

A researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has invented a method of making high-temperature superconducting (HTS) cables that are thinner and more flexible than demonstration HTS cables now installed in the electric power grid while carrying the same or more current. The compact cables could be used in the electric grid as well as scientific and medical equipment and may enable HTS power transmission for military applications. Described in a paper just published online,* the new method involves winding multiple HTS-coated conductors** around ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - In the ten years since the human genetic code was mapped, expectations among scientists, health care industry, policy makers, and the public have remained high concerning the promise of genomics research for improving health. But a new commentary by four internationally prominent genetic medicine and bioethics experts cautions against the dangers of inflated expectations – an unsustainable genomic bubble – and it offers ways to avoid it while still realizing "the true – and considerable – promise of the genomic revolution." "This commentary is ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — How does a scientist fuel his enthusiasm for chemistry after 60 years? By discovering a new energy source, of course. This week, SiGNa Chemistry Inc. unveiled its new hydrogen cartridges, which provide energy to fuel cells designed to recharge cell phones, laptops and GPS units. The green power source is geared toward outdoor enthusiasts as well as residents of the Third World, where electricity in homes is considered a luxury. "SiGNa has created an inherently-safe solution to produce electric power, resulting in an eco-friendly and cost-effective ...