Milan, Italy, 8 December 2010 – Learning to read and write are complex processes, which can be disrupted in various ways, leading to disorders known as dyslexia and dysgraphia. Two new studies, published in a recent special issue of Elsevier's Cortex (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00109452) provide evidence of this variety, suggesting that effective treatment needs to take it into account. A group of researchers from the Universities of Bari and Rome in Italy studied the reading and writing abilities of 33 Italian dyslexic children, comparing their performance ...

Catnip, the plant that attracts domestic cats like an irresistible force, has proven 99 percent effective in repelling the blood-sucking flies that attack horses and cows, causing $2 billion in annual loses to the cattle industry. That's the word from a report published in ACS' biweekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Junwei Zhu and colleagues note that stable flies not only inflict painful bites, but also transmit multiple diseases. Cattle harried by these bloodsuckers may produce less meat and milk, have trouble reproducing, and develop diseases that can ...

Contrary to popular belief, birth control pills account for less than 1 percent of the estrogens found in the nation's drinking water supplies, scientists have concluded in an analysis of studies published on the topic. Their report suggests that most of the sex hormone — source of concern as an endocrine disruptor with possible adverse effects on people and wildlife — enters drinking water supplies from other sources. The report appears in ACS' biweekly journal Environmental Science & Technology. Amber Wise, Kacie O'Brien and Tracey Woodruff note ongoing concern about ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Under just the right conditions---which involve an ultra-high-intensity laser beam and a two-mile-long particle accelerator---it could be possible to create something out of nothing, according to University of Michigan researchers. The scientists and engineers have developed new equations that show how a high-energy electron beam combined with an intense laser pulse could rip apart a vacuum into its fundamental matter and antimatter components, and set off a cascade of events that generates additional pairs of particles and antiparticles. "We can ...

The enzyme that makes fireflies glow is lighting up the scientific path toward a long-sought new medical imaging agent to better monitor treatment with heparin, the blood thinner that millions of people take to prevent or treat blood clots, scientists are reporting. Their study appears in the ACS' monthly journal Bioconjugate Chemistry. Bruce Branchini and colleagues describe a need for new medical imaging agents that emit near-infrared light — the light rays that "night vision" technology detects, enabling soldiers to see in the dark. Those rays penetrate deeper into ...

High-fiber foods are on the way to becoming tastier and more appealing to consumers thanks to new types of dietary fiber now under development. These consumer friendlier forms of fiber, which could be a boon to health, are the topic of an article in the current issue of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine. C&EN Associate Editor Jyllian Kemsley notes that dietary fiber plays key roles in human health. Fiber creates a feeling of fullness that can reduce calorie intake, and provides an energy source for beneficial bacteria in the digestive tract. ...

The European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) welcomes the outcomes of yesterday's Council of the European Union (EPSCO Council). In its meeting on 7 December, ministers for health adopted Council Conclusions on chronic diseases, in which the Council calls on Member States and the European Commission to adopt concrete, coordinated measures to tackle chronic diseases in Europe. EULAR is pleased to note that the Council Conclusions reflect many of the recommendations made at the 19 October Presidency conference on Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal diseases. The conference was ...

Home health care technology may provide one important solution to global concerns about how to sustain health care systems threatened by rising costs and manpower shortages, but such a change faces multiple obstacles to adoption, according to a new RAND Corporation study. The study finds that a wide array of health care stakeholders agree that expanding home-based health tools could give patients a greater ability to self-manage their conditions in partnership with their medical providers, and help improve their health and overall well-being. However, moving care to ...

Experts at The University of Nottingham have developed a new 'score' to help GPs detect heart disease in younger people - before it damages their health. Using data from the electronic health records of over two and half million people researchers have developed, validated and evaluated the new lifetime 'score' which takes account, among many other factors, social deprivation and ethnicity. The results of their research is published today (9 Dec 2010) in the BMJ. Julia Hippisley-Cox, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and General Practice in the School of Community ...

The report "Assessment of Arsenic Concentrations in Domestic Well Water, by Town, in Maine, 2005-09" and maps are posted online. Potentially harmful arsenic levels have been found in private water wells in towns across Maine where elevated arsenic risks were not previously suspected. Arsenic levels in some private wells exceeded the federal safety standard for public drinking water by ten to one-hundred times or more, according to findings released today by the U.S. Geological Survey. The study is the largest of its kind in Maine. "We found large differences in concentrations ...

Researchers from Queen Mary, University of London, the University of Fribourg and the Paul Scherrer Institut (Villigen, Switzerland) have shown that a magnetically polarised current can be manipulated by electric fields. Published this week in the journal Nature Materials, this important discovery opens up the prospect of simultaneously processing and storing data on electrons held in the molecular structure of computer chips - combining computer memory and processing power on the same chip. "This is especially exciting, as this discovery has been made with flexible ...

Montreal, December 8, 2010 – Zen meditation has many health benefits, including a reduced sensitivity to pain. According to new research from the Université de Montréal, meditators do feel pain but they simply don't dwell on it as much. These findings, published in the month's issue of Pain, may have implications for chronic pain sufferers, such as those with arthritis, back pain or cancer. "Our previous research found that Zen meditators have lower pain sensitivity. The aim of the current study was to determine how they are achieving this," says senior author Pierre ...

Large birds, such as storks, save energy on the flight to their wintering grounds by soaring through the air on thermal currents. Until now, however, we knew nothing about the flight patterns of small migrating songbirds, such as whether they flap their wings or soar and whether these styles of flight allow them to save energy. Now, a team of scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell, Ben-Gurion-University of the Negev, and Hebrew University of Jerusalem have tracked the movement of European bee-eaters (Merops apiaster) along the Africa-Eurasia ...

New Rochelle, NY, December 8, 2010—As the prevalence of childhood obesity approaches epidemic levels, physicians on the "front line" need to become more involved in obesity prevention and weight management to reverse this dangerous trend among their young patients. But several obstacles discourage pediatricians and other primary care physicians from taking a more active role in managing childhood obesity. An expert panel identified these barriers and explored strategies for overcoming them in a Roundtable Discussion on "New Ways to Overcome Old Barriers: Engaging Pediatricians ...

Neuroimaging—is it voodoo, new phrenology, or scientific breakthrough? See what the experts have to say in this special section on fMRI in Perspectives on Psychological Science. Neuroimaging: Voodoo, New Phrenology, or Scientific Breakthrough? Introduction to Special Section on fMRI (http://pps.sagepub.com/content/5/6/714.full) Ed Diener In response to the widespread interest following the publication of Vul et al (2009) (http://pps.sagepub.com/content/4/3/274.abstract), Perspectives Editor Ed Diener invited researchers to contribute articles for a special section ...

HOUSTON -- (Dec. 8, 2010) -- Physicists from Rice University and Princeton University have discovered how to use one of the information technology industry's mainstay materials -- gallium arsenide semiconductors -- as an ultrasensitive microwave detector that could be suitable for next-generation computers. The discovery comes at a time when computer chip engineers are racing both to add nanophotonic devices directly to microchips and to boost processor speeds beyond 10 gigahertz (GHz). "Tunable photon-detection technology in the microwave range is not well-developed," ...

The playground can be a daunting place for any kid trying to join in and be one of the gang. For kids with disabilities it's just as important to feel included, be accepted and valued – particularly by their peers. In a study to understand the perspectives of children with disabilities around inclusion in physical activities during free play, recreational sports and recess, Dr. Nancy Spencer-Cavaliere, an adapted physical activity expert, in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alberta, interviewed children with a range of disabilities ...

Researchers have developed a statistical model for projecting how many people will get sick from seasonal influenza based on analyses of flu viruses circulating that season. The research, conducted by scientists at the National Institutes of Health, appears today in the open-access publication PLoS Currents: Influenza. Building on other research that has shown that severity of infections with the Influenza A virus is related to its novelty (i.e., how much the virus has changed, or mutated, from prior seasons), the study evaluated the correlation between virus novelty ...

Investigators have demonstrated for the first time that the most common malignant childhood brain tumor, medulloblastoma, is actually several different diseases, each arising from distinct cells destined to become different structures. The breakthrough is expected to dramatically alter the diagnosis and treatment of this major childhood cancer. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators led the international effort, which confirms that certain brain tumors and possibly other cancers regarded as the same disease; are in fact separate diseases with different origins. ...

As primary caregivers, parents are often believed to have a strong influence on children's eating behaviors. However, previous findings on parent-child resemblance in dietary intakes are mixed. Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health reviewed and assessed the degree of association and similarity between children's and their parents' dietary intake based on worldwide studies published since 1980. The meta-analysis is featured in the December issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. "Contrary to popular belief, many studies ...

A team of UCSF researchers has engineered E. coli with the key molecular circuitry that will enable genetic engineers to program cells to communicate and perform computations. The work builds into cells the same logic gates found in electronic computers and creates a method to create circuits by "rewiring" communications between cells. This system can be harnessed to turn cells into miniature computers, according to findings that will be reported in an upcoming issue of Nature and appear today in the advanced online edition at www.nature.com. That, in turn, will enable ...

Raimund Muscheler is a researcher at the Department of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences at Lund University in Sweden. In the latest issue of the journal Science, he and his colleagues have described how the surface water temperature in the tropical parts of the eastern Pacific varied with the sun's activity between 7 000 and 11 000 years ago (early Holocene). Contrary to what one might intuitively believe, high solar activity had a cooling effect in this region. "It is perhaps a similar phenomenon that we are seeing here today", says Raimund Muscheler. "Last year's cold winter ...

Results from a large European study suggest that poorly educated people are more likely to be admitted to hospital with chronic heart failure than the better educated, even after differences in lifestyle have been taken into account. The study is published online today (Thursday 9 December) in the European Heart Journal [1]. Researchers followed 18,616 people for as long as 31 years (range 0-31 years, average follow-up was 21 years) between 1976 and 2007 and found that better educated men and women had nearly half the risk of hospital admission for heart failure than ...

VIDEO: This is a 3-D representation of the HR 8799 planetary system and the solar system in the Milky Way. The orbits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are shown with... Click here for more information. An international team of astronomers has discovered a fourth giant planet, HR 8799e, outside our solar system. The new planet joins the three planets that were the subjects of the first-ever images of a planetary family orbiting a star other than our Sun. The planets ...

A once fertile landmass now submerged beneath the Persian Gulf may have been home to some of the earliest human populations outside Africa, according to an article published today in Current Anthropology. Jeffrey Rose, an archaeologist and researcher with the University of Birmingham in the U.K., says that the area in and around this "Persian Gulf Oasis" may have been host to humans for over 100,000 years before it was swallowed up by the Indian Ocean around 8,000 years ago. Rose's hypothesis introduces a "new and substantial cast of characters" to the human history ...