The notion that feeling good may be good for your health is not new, but is it really true? A new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reviews the existing research on how positive emotions can influence health outcomes in later adulthood. "We all age. It is how we age, however, that determines the quality of our lives," said Anthony Ong of Cornell University, author of the review article. The data he reviews suggest that positive emotions may be a powerful antidote to stress, pain, ...

CINCINNATI—For years, RNA has seemed an elusive tool in nanotechnology research—easily manipulated into a variety of structures, yet susceptible to quick destruction when confronted with a commonly found enzyme. "The enzyme RNase cuts RNA randomly into small pieces, very efficiently and within minutes," explains Peixuan Guo, PhD, Dane and Mary Louise Miller Endowed Chair and professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Cincinnati (UC). "Moreover, RNase is present everywhere, making the preparation of RNA in a lab extremely difficult." But by replacing a ...

RUSTON, La. – While most people were busy shopping during the holiday season, Dr. Daniela Mainardi, associate professor of chemical engineering at Louisiana Tech University and member of the Institute for Micromanufacturing, was preparing for a trip that would take her half way around the world. As part of a joint effort, Mainardi, together with Virendra Mathur from the University of New Hampshire, and Suddhasatwa Basu and Shantanu Roy from The Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi, was in charge of organizing a workshop titled, "Energy and Environment: Challenges and ...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20, 2011 — The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS) award-winning podcast series, "Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions," focuses on development of a new ultra-light biodegradable foam plastic material made from two unlikely ingredients: The protein in milk and ordinary clay. The material could be used in numerous products, researchers report in the ACS' Biomacromolecules, a monthly journal. The finding comes amid ongoing concern about plastic waste accumulating in municipal landfills, and reliance on imported oil to make plastics. David ...

LA JOLLA, CA – January 20, 2011 – Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have found that a known enzyme in cells protects against measles virus, likely by altering the virus's genetic material, RNA. Cells lacking the enzyme become highly vulnerable to the virus's destructive effects. The enzyme also protects against several other respiratory viruses, including influenza A. "We believe that host cells use this RNA-editing enzyme to slow these viruses' ability to replicate," said Michael B. A. Oldstone, the study's senior author and a professor at Scripps Research's ...

Stanford, CA— Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes had an impact on the global carbon cycle as big as today's annual demand for gasoline. The Black Death, on the other hand, came and went too quickly for it to cause much of a blip in the global carbon budget. Dwarfing both of these events, however, has been the historical trend towards increasing deforestation, which over centuries has released vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as crop and pasture lands expanded to feed growing human populations. Even Genghis Kahn couldn't stop it for long. "It's a common ...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 – The eyes of moths, which allow them to see well at night, are also covered with a water-repellent, antireflective coating that makes their eyes among the least reflective surfaces in nature and helps them hide from predators in the dark. Mimicking the moth eye's microstructure, a team of researchers in Japan has created a new film, suitable for mass-production, for covering solar cells that can cut down on the amount of reflected light and help capture more power from the sun. In a paper appearing in Energy Express (www.OpticsInfoBase.org/ee), a ...

VIDEO: A two-minute video, "Morphological Change in Machines Accelerates the Evolution of Robust Behavior, " was produced by the Morphology, Evolution and Cognition Laboratory, University of Vermont, 2011. Click here for more information. Want to build a really tough robot? Forget about Terminator. Instead, watch a tadpole turn into a frog. Or at least that's not too far off from what University of Vermont roboticist Josh Bongard has discovered, as he reports ...

AURORA, Colo. (Jan. 20, 2011)--Cancer scientists have designed the first molecular test to predict which bladder cancer patients may have cancer involvement in their lymph nodes at the time of surgery—which could help doctors determine which patients are good candidates for pre-surgical, or neo-adjuvant, chemotherapy. The test analyzes 20 genes on tumor biopsies, according to a paper published online Jan. 20, 2011, in Lancet Oncology. "Randomized clinical trials have shown that giving neo-adjuvant chemotherapy extends patient lives, but only 5 to 15 percent of patients ...

In a paper published today in the journal Science, a University of California, Davis, researcher and his co-authors challenge a widely held assumption that plants will move uphill in response to warmer temperatures. Between 1930 and 2000, instead of colonizing higher elevations to maintain a constant temperature, many California plant species instead moved downhill an average of 260 feet, said Jonathan Greenberg, an assistant project scientist at the UC Davis Center for Spatial Technologies and Remote Sensing. "While the climate warmed significantly in this period, ...

With little more than a conventional photocopier and transparency film, anyone can build a functional microfluidic chip. A local Cambridge high school physics teacher invented the process; now, thanks to a new undergraduate teaching lab at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), students will be able explore microfluidics and its applications. The Microfluidics Lab, developed by Dr. Anas Chalah, Director of Instructional Technology at SEAS, takes advantage of a simple but ingenious new method of creating lab-on-a-chip devices that are quick to produce, ...

DETROIT—Wayne State University researchers have found that when patients and providers speak the same language, patients report less confusion and better health care quality. The findings were based on data from the Pew Hispanic Center/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Latino Health Survey. Understanding the relationship between language and health care quality has important public health implications for providing services in an increasingly diverse U.S. population, according to Hector M. González, Ph.D., assistant professor of family medicine and public health at WSU's ...

Breast cancer patients who have a strong social support system in the first year after diagnosis are less likely to die or have a recurrence of cancer, according to new research from Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) and the Shanghai Institute of Preventive Medicine. The study, led by first author Meira Epplein, Ph.D., assistant professor of Medicine at VICC, was published in a recent edition of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Patients in the study were enrolled in the Shanghai Breast Cancer Survivor Study, a large, population-based review of female breast cancer ...

A team of biologists has discovered an entirely new group of algae living in a variety of marine and freshwater environments. This group of algae, which the researchers dubbed "rappemonads," have DNA that is distinctly different from that of other known algae. In fact, humans and mushrooms are more closely related to each other than rappemonads are to some other common algae (such as green algae). Based on their DNA analysis, the researchers believe that they have discovered not just a new species or genus, but a potentially large and novel group of microorganisms. The ...

New research reveals that a hormone best known for stimulating the production of red blood cells can modulate the immune response. The study, published by Cell Press in the January 27th issue of the journal Immunity, finds that erythropoietin (EPO) has contrasting influences on infectious and inflammatory diseases and may be useful in the design of new therapeutic strategies. EPO is a cytokine hormone that stimulates the production of red blood cells by acting at EPO receptors (EPORs) on red blood cell precursors. Interestingly, other cell types also express EPORs. ...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Healthcare workers can most directly affect quality of life (QOL) of patients with advanced stage lung cancer by helping manage symptoms such as pain, lack of energy, shortness of breath, coughing, difficulty sleeping and dry mouth, according to a study recently published in the journal Oncology Nursing Forum. Understanding the symptoms, particularly symptom distress - or the degree to which a symptom bothers a person, is crucial to improved patient care. Intervention at the time of diagnosis is important because patients with stage IIIb or IV lung cancer ...

The difficult task of sorting and counting prized stem cells and their cancer-causing cousins has long frustrated scientists looking for new ways to help people who have progressive diseases. But in a development likely to delight math teachers, University of Florida researchers have devised a series of mathematical steps that accomplishes what the most powerful microscopes, high-throughput screening systems and protein assays have failed to do — assess how rapidly stem cells and their malignant, stemlike alter egos increase their numbers. The method, published in the ...

To understand the emerging science of epigenetics—a field that describes how genes may be regulated without altering the underlying DNA itself—scientists are deciphering the many ways in which enzymes act on the proteins surrounding DNA within cells. One type of these enzymes, proteins known as histone acetyltransferases (HATs), act on DNA by modifying DNA-bound proteins called histones. This act of modification, called acetlyation, can dictate how histones interact with DNA and other proteins affecting processes such as DNA replication, transcription (reading the gene), ...

Research!America's chair, former Congressman John E. Porter (R-IL), and Research!America's CEO, Mary Woolley, issued the following statement in anticipation of President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. Porter said, "I think the president understands that science, technology, innovation and research are where we lead the world and where we must make the ongoing investments to maintain that leadership. But he must, both in his State of the Union speech next Tuesday night and in the Budget he submits to Congress, make the case to both the American people and ...

WASHINGTON -- NASA's newest Earth-observing research mission is nearing launch. The Glory mission will improve our understanding of how the sun and tiny atmospheric particles called aerosols affect Earth's climate. Glory also will extend a legacy of long-term solar measurements needed to address key uncertainties about climate change. Glory is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Feb. 23 at 5:09 a.m. EST. It will join a fleet called the Afternoon Constellation or "A-train" of satellites. This group of other Earth-observing satellites, including ...

Seen in X-rays, the entire sky is aglow. Even far away from bright sources, X-rays originating from beyond our galaxy provide a steady glow in every direction. Astronomers have long suspected that the chief contributors to this cosmic X-ray background were dust-swaddled black holes at the centers of active galaxies. The trouble was, too few of them were detected to do the job. An international team of scientists using data from NASA's Swift satellite confirms the existence of a largely unseen population of black-hole-powered galaxies. Their X-ray emissions are so heavily ...

Obtaining consent for genetic studies can be an opportunity for researchers to foster respectful engagement with participants, not merely to mitigate legal risk. This shift is proposed in a policy forum appearing tomorrow, Jan. 21, in Science, the journal of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. The authors of the article, "Research Practices and Participant Preferences: The Growing Gulf" recommend new approaches that treat participants as true stakeholders in research, who willingly take on risks because they believe the potential benefits to society ...

A University of Manchester scientist has revealed the mechanism that binds skin cells tightly together, which he believes will lead to new treatments for painful and debilitating skin diseases and also lethal heart defects. Professor David Garrod, in the Faculty of Life Sciences, has found that the glue molecules bind only to similar glue molecules on other cells, making a very tough, resilient structure. Further investigation on why the molecules bind so specifically could lead to the development of clinical applications. Professor Garrod, whose Medical Research Council-funded ...

Friends of the UN Announces 2011 Tolerance Awardees: Honors Dr. Judy Kuriansky with 2011 Lifetime Achievement in Global Peace and Tolerance, Nejeed Kassam as first Youth Ambassador H/U/M and FOTUN Launches Tolerance Awareness Campaign, "Wear My Hat" with Awards U.N. Ceremony streams live on The Huntington Buzz (www.HuntingtonBuzz.tv) New York, NY 1/21/11 - Dr. Noel Brown, President of Friends of the United Nations (FOTUN) announces that as Friends of the UN grows to become the world's largest and most connected community of global citizens working to support ...

SurelyMine.com by JOlie Benoit is the newest online boutique that sells club wear, evening dresses, jewelry and accessories at a very low price. International Spokesmodel JOlie founded the company in 2010. JOlie's innovative clothing has simply changed everything and now, SurelyMine.com is offering a great way to dress with style and look overwhelmingly smart and chic while maintaining affordability. It is the place where one can easily shop for the formal dresses, cocktail dresses, club wear and what not. SurelyMine.com is about high class dressing. Looking fashionable ...