MADISON, WI, JUNE 15, 2011 -- Assessing the environmental risk of pesticide use is an important, complex task that requires knowledge of the equilibrium sorption parameter. This helps researchers assess the risk of pesticides leaching into groundwater. For cost-effective assessments, this is usually determined through batch experiments that find the amount of pesticide in test soils as a function of concentration at a constant temperature. These experimental conditions differ considerably from real-world conditions. Thus, the validity of the data collected using this method ...

"We've known for over 100 years that testing is good for memory," says Kent State University psychology graduate student Kalif Vaughn. Psychologists have proven in a myriad of experiments that "retrieval practice"—correctly producing a studied item—increases the likelihood that you'll get it right the next time. "But we didn't know why." In the past, many researchers have believed that testing is good for memory, but only for the exact thing you are trying to remember: so-called "target memory." If you're asked to recall the Lithuanian equivalent of an English word, say, ...

A new survey of barrier islands published earlier this spring offers the most thorough assessment to date of the thousands of small islands that hug the coasts of the world's landmasses. The study, led by Matthew Stutz of Meredith College, Raleigh, N.C., and Orrin Pilkey of Duke University, Durham, N.C., offers new insight into how the islands form and evolve over time – and how they may fare as the climate changes and sea level rises. The survey is based on a global collection of satellite images from Landsat 7 as well as information from topographic and navigational ...

Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Marc Schumacher has granted trial attorney John H. "Jack" Hickey's motion to add a claim for punitive damages to a lawsuit alleging Royal Caribbean Cruises (RCCL) failed to fix a known toxic gas leak on board the "Monarch of the Seas" before it killed three and injured several crew members (Case Number: 08-45343CA05). The decision comes after Judge Schumacher examined evidence and reviewed deposition testimony during an extensive evidentiary hearing to determine if RCCL's alleged conduct was either intentional or constituted ...

Since its eruption in early June, several NASA satellites have captured images of the ash plume from the eruption of the Chilean Volcano called Puyehue-Cordón Caulle and have tracked it around the world. NASA has collected them in the NASA Goddard FLICKR image gallery that shows the progression of the plume around the southern hemisphere. The Puyehue-Cordón Caulle Volcanic Complex includes the Puyehue volcano, the Cordón Caulle rift zone and the Cordillera Nevada caldera. One of the instruments that provided daily imagery of the ash plume is called the Moderate Resolution ...

Thermafiber, Inc. has launched the first of two attachment clips specifically designed for their RainBarrier continuous insulation product line. RainBarrier Clips are plastic discs that clip onto many different types of masonry wall ties and facade hanging systems. These clips allow a contractor to quickly and securely install the RainBarrier insulation product as recommended. Thermafiber offers an in-depth installation guide for their RainBarrier insulation with recommended spacing for the retaining clips. "Since launching the RainBarrier product in late 2008, ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Using the deepest X-ray image ever taken, a University of Michigan astronomer and her colleagues have found the first direct evidence that massive black holes were common in the early universe. This discovery from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows that very young black holes grew more aggressively than previously thought, in tandem with the growth of their host galaxies. By pointing Chandra at a patch of sky for over six weeks, astronomers obtained what is known as the Chandra Deep Field South (CDFS). When combined with very deep optical and infrared ...

The success of world co-operation based on science and practiced since the Cold War by nations operating in Antarctica offers a model to humanity as it confronts challenges to common interests like climate change, biodiversity loss and overfishing, says the editor of a new book on science diplomacy. Since the end of the Second World War science has become an important tool of diplomacy, not only for issues involving environmental management, but for peace in the world we live in, says Paul Berkman, former Head of the Arctic Ocean Geopolitics Programme, Scott Polar Research ...

Orbiting about 31 miles above the lunar surface, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft will get a "front-row seat" to the total lunar eclipse on June 15, says Noah Petro, Associate Project Scientist for LRO at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. A lunar eclipse happens when the moon passes into Earth's shadow, and a total lunar eclipse occurs when Earth completely blocks the sun, causing the moon to darken and appear to change color. However, the moon doesn't go completely dark because Earth's atmosphere bends (refracts) indirect sunlight ...

Some satellite images are striking and memorable, while others are just interesting. On June 10, NASA's Aqua satellite flew over Hurricane Adrian from space and sent a stunning image to the science team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Meanwhile a GOES-11 Satellite animation shows how and when Adrian fizzled. Adrian is no more in the Eastern Pacific as of June 13, 2011, but the Aqua satellite image it left behind will be remembered this hurricane season. The visible image was taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) that ...

The low pressure system called System 98A was renamed tropical depression 1A over the weekend, and its strengthening was short-lived, just as it appears on NASA satellite imagery. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Depression 1A on June 11 at 21:29 UTC (5:29 p.m. EDT) as it still sat off of India's west-central coast. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument did see some strong thunderstorms in the depression at that time, that brought heavy rainfall to region near the Gir Forest National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary National Park in Bhojde, Gujarat, ...

A team of Australian scientists has discovered a new type of cell in the immune system. The new cell type, a kind of white blood cell, belongs to a family of T-cells that play a critical role in protection against infectious disease. Their findings could ultimately lead to the development of novel drugs that strengthen the immune response against particular types of infectious organisms. It is also potentially significant for many other important diseases including allergies, cancer and coronary artery disease. The research team includes Dr Adam Uldrich and Professor ...

The main causes of increases in blood pressure over a lifetime are modifiable and could be targeted to help prevent cardiovascular disease: although high blood pressure sometimes has no obvious symptoms, this condition, which affects about a third of the adult UK and US populations, can lead to life-threatening heart attacks and stroke, so reducing blood pressure is very important for health. As reported in this week's PLoS Medicine, a team of researchers, led by Andrew Wills from the Medical Research Council Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing, University College London, ...

This observational cohort study, by Andrew Edmonds and colleagues, reports that treatment with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) markedly improves the survival of HIV-infected children in Kinshasa, DRC, a resource-deprived setting. The findings presented suggest that HAART is as effective for improving the survival of HIV-infected children in a severely resource-deprived country (still recovering from civil war) as in more resource-privileged settings. Most observational studies on the effects of antiretroviral treatment on child survival have been undertaken ...

HIV prevention activities aiming to reduce incidence could be targeted more effectively and efficiently if a quick, easy, valid, and precise method of estimating incidence in populations were available. These are the conclusions of a group of international experts convened to discuss the challenges and progress in the field, with the aim of stimulating new investment in technologies for identifying recent HIV infections. To tackle the challenges—which include technical and market-related issues—and move towards the goal of having a thoroughly validated incidence assay, ...

In the fifth article of a six-part PLoS Medicine series on migration & health, Zachary Steel from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia and colleagues discuss the health risks associated with "interception strategies" that are used by governments to control and order international migration, especially in terms of halting the movement of irregular migrants, including asylum seekers. Some strategies like immigration detention, the authors argue, pose a serious threat to health and mental health, while others like visa restrictions have a potentially large ...

PHILADELPHIA — Scientists at Harvard University have created a laboratory model using time-lapse video microscopic technology that allows observation of early stages of ovarian cancer metastasis. "We were able to observe key molecular mechanisms that are necessary for the force-dependent processes associated with metastasis," said Joan Brugge, Ph.D., professor and chair of cell biology at Harvard University. These findings are published in Cancer Discovery, the newest journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. According to Brugge, who served as program ...

BOSTON, Mass. (June 14, 2011) — A team led by Joan Brugge, the Louise Foote Pfeiffer Professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School, recently shed light on how ovarian cancer spreads. In a paper published in the July edition of the journal Cancer Discovery, the newest journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, Brugge and colleagues found that ovarian cancer cells act like bullies, using brute force to plow their way through tissue and colonize additional organs. "This is the first time that mechanical force has been implicated in the spread of ovarian ...

Genes control everything from eye color to disease susceptibility, and inheritance - the passing of the genes from generation to generation after they have been duplicated - depends on centromeres. Located in the little pinched waist of each chromosome, centromeres control the movements that separate sister chromosomes when cells divide ensuring that each daughter cell inherits a complete copy of each chromosome. It has long been known that centromeres are not formed solely from DNA; rather, centromere proteins (CENPs) facilitate the assembly of a centromere on each chromosome. ...

With an increased emphasis on grading hospitals and a push to withhold payments from hospitals who don't meet certain standards, two Johns Hopkins researchers argue that more attention needs to be paid to the quality of the measurement tools used to praise and punish. The science of outcomes reporting is young and lags behind the desire to publically report adverse medical outcomes, write Elliott R. Haut, M.D., an associate professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Peter J. Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., a Johns Hopkins professor of anesthesiology ...

In an examination of trends of malpractice claims, there has been a greater decline in the rate of paid claims for inpatient settings than outpatient settings, and in 2009, the number of malpractice claims for events resulting in paid malpractice claims in outpatient and inpatient settings were similar, according to a study in the June 15 issue of JAMA. Much attention has been given to patient safety, but most initiatives have centered around inpatient care. "For example, in the past 5 years, the number of studies funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality ...

In an analysis of data from several studies, watching television for 2-3 hours per day or more was associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular disease and all-cause death, according to a study in the June 15 issue of JAMA. Television (TV) viewing is the most commonly reported daily activity apart from working and sleeping in many populations around the world. In the United States, the average number of daily hours of TV viewing has recently been reported to be 5 hours. "Beyond altering energy expenditure by displacing time spent ...

Patients in the early stages of chronic kidney disease who had elevated levels of the endocrine hormone fibroblast growth factor 23 (that regulates phosphorus metabolism) had an associated increased risk of end-stage renal disease and death, according to a study in the June 15 issue of JAMA. Circulating levels of fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF-23) increase progressively as kidney function declines. A high level of FGF-23 is associated with mortality in patients with end-stage renal disease, but little is known about its relationship with adverse outcomes in the larger ...

Boston, MA – Watching television is the most common daily activity apart from work and sleep in many parts of the world, but it is time for people to change their viewing habits. According to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers, prolonged TV viewing was associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and premature death. The study appears in the June 15, 2011, edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association. "The message is simple. Cutting back on TV watching can significantly reduce risk of type ...

(14 June 2011) Singapore and Trondheim, Norway: Quantum key distribution (QKD) is an advanced tool for secure computer-based interactions, providing confidential communication between two remote parties by enabling them to construct a shared secret key during the course of their conversation. QKD is perfectly secure in principle, but researchers have long been aware that loopholes may arise when QKD is put into practice. Now, for the first time, a team of researchers at the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) at the National University of Singapore, the Norwegian University ...