CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – In 2005, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that 2-year-old children with autism have brains up to 10 percent larger than children of the same age without autism. Now a follow-up study by UNC researchers has found that the children who had enlarged brains at age 2 continued to have enlarged brains at ages 4 and 5, but the amount of the enlargement was to the same degree found at age 2. This increased brain growth did not continue beyond 2 years of age and the changes detected at age 2 were due to overgrowth prior ...

Scientists using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) observed that the brains of children with autism spectrum disorder are larger than those without autism, but this difference appears related to increased rates of brain growth before 2 years of age, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Autism researchers have long known of the connection between the developmental disorder and an increase in brain size, although the cause and timing are not well defined. "The timing of brain enlargement in autism is ...

In England, the prevalence of adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was estimated to be 9.8 per 1,000 population, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Among children and adolescents, in England, recent surveys have reported an ASD prevalence of approximately ten per 1,000, which is higher than some earlier studies estimating prevalence of 4.4 per 10,000 population and 12.7 per 10,000 population. "It is not known whether this reported increased prevalence reflects case finding changes or increasing ...

A team of researchers has identified a cellular protein that acts as a receptor for Ebola virus and Marburg virus. Furthermore, the team showed that an antibody, which binds to the receptor protein, is able to block infection by both viruses. "This is the first receptor identified for Ebola and Marburg viruses," said Wendy Maury, Ph.D., associate professor of microbiology at the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and senior study author. "That's important because if you can identify and understand the first step in infection - how the ...

Feds Look to Stem Pipeline Dangers The state of our nation's aging natural gas infrastructure has become a major concern in light of the recent string of pipeline explosions. Places like Allentown, Pennsylvania and San Bruno, California have seen firsthand the catastrophic aftermath of natural gas pipeline disasters. And, with 1.8 million miles of gas delivery lines veining the earth beneath the streets of almost every U.S. city and town, similar tragedies could happen anywhere. Stepped Up Regulations In some communities, gas pipelines that have seen continuous ...

A study documents reduction in hospital mortality over ten years in a children's hospital without a Pediatric Emergency Medical Team (PMET), according to a report in the May issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Hospital-based PMETs have been advocated as an approach to reduce rates of in-hospital cardiopulmonary arrest and mortality (death) among children. Several previous studies that have evaluated outcomes before and after implementation of PMETs have found inconsistent results, with some showing benefit and some ...

Among children whose parents and other primary caregivers have limited English proficiency, there is an associated increased length of hospital stay and decreased number of home health care referrals for pediatric inpatients with infections requiring long-term antibiotics, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "A language other than English is spoken in 14 million U.S. households by more than 55 million (roughly one in five) U.S. residents, nearly half of whom describe themselves as having ...

An ancient, bipedal hominid sporting a set of powerful jaws and huge molars that earned it the nickname "Nutcracker Man" likely didn't crack nuts at all, preferring instead to slurp up vast quantities of grasses and sedges, says a new study. The hominid, known as Paranthropus boisei, ranged across the African landscape more than 1 million years ago and lived side-by-side with direct ancestors of humans, said University of Colorado Boulder anthropology Professor Matt Sponheimer, a study co-author. It was long assumed Paranthropus boisei favored nuts, seeds and hard fruit ...

Padilla v. Kentucky and the Role of Criminal Defense Representation Since the U.S. Supreme court decided Padilla v. Kentucky in early 2010, the role of criminal defense representation related to counseling clients about the broader consequences of criminal convictions has been under scrutiny. The American Bar Association (ABA) used Padilla as a starting point to form a task force in late 2010 to study the impact of the case. While the outcome of the study could directly affect how current and past criminal cases are handled, the main practice consideration for criminal ...

Military service members who screened positive for mental health disorders before deployment, or who were injured during deployment, were more likely to develop post-deployment posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms than their colleagues without these risk factors, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "The relationship between preinjury psychiatric status and postinjury PTSD is not well understood because studies have used retrospective methods," write the authors. "The primary objective of ...

On land, being small and lurking at the bottom of the food chain is a far better strategy for species survival than being big, fierce and perched on top, at least when humans are after you – just ask the mice and grizzly bears. But talk to sharks and anchovies and they'll tell you a different story, according to a new study of fisheries collapses led by Stanford researchers. Analyzing over 200 scientific assessments of fisheries around the globe, the team found that populations of small fish such as sardines and anchovies were at least as likely to have collapsed at ...

Facing Future Education Costs for Children After a New Jersey Divorce Parents who are parting ways have a host of complex decisions to make, from alimony and division of property to child custody and child support. Every divorce is a unique legal matter with the potential for dispute at every turn, but through divorce mediation and a sense of cooperation, couples may be able to make the most of their marital assets to overcome future financial challenges. One important goal for many divorcing parents is to preserve their children's options for higher education. When ...

Austin, Texas, A Great Place To Start A New Business Austin is a great place to start a business. Austin is the U.S. market that is most conducive to the creation and development of small businesses, according to the latest On Numbers rankings. They used a six-part formula to analyze the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas, searching for the places that offer the best climates for small businesses. The ranking is based on: -Population: The Austin area added 286,000 residents between 2004 and 2009, an increase of 20.2 percent. The only metro to grow faster ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The production of wind energy in the U.S. over the next 30-50 years will be largely unaffected by upward changes in global temperature, say a pair of Indiana University Bloomington scientists who analyzed output from several regional climate models to assess future wind patterns in America's lower 48 states. Their report -- the first analysis of long-term stability of wind over the U.S. -- appears in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition. "The greatest consistencies in wind density we found were over the Great ...

EMC reseller Reliant Technology is pleased to announce the EMC CX Storage Upgrade program to help EMC storage customers upgrade their EMC CX, EMC CLARiiON CX3, and EMC CX4 systems. The upgrade program is designed to provide greater flexibility and investment stability to EMC CLARiiON customers. EMC recently released its new VNX Storage system, leaving many legacy customers curious about what options exist for EMC CLARiiON systems that are currently or soon to be End-of-Life. As the manufacturer phases out support for these systems, Reliant Technology's EMC CX Storage ...

Higher levels of cell chatter boost amyloid beta in the brain regions that Alzheimer's hits first, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report. Amyloid beta is the main ingredient of the plaque lesions that are a hallmark of Alzheimer's. These brain regions belong to a network that is more active when the brain is at rest. The discovery that cells in these regions communicate with each other more often than cells in other parts of the brain may help explain why these areas are frequently among the first to develop plaques, according to ...

A team of scientists has combined embryological observations, genetic sequencing, and supercomputing to determine that a group of small disk-shaped animals that were once thought to represent a new class of animals are actually starfish that have lost the large star-shaped, adult body from their life cycle. In a paper for the journal Systematic Biology (sysbio.oxfordjournals.org), Daniel Janies, Ph.D., a computational biologist in the department of Biomedical Informatics at The Ohio State University (OSU), leveraged computer systems at the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) ...

Atlanta countertops manufacturer Craftmark Solid Surfaces is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2011. Craftmark is a premier countertops provider, supplying quality solid surface countertops, quartz countertops, and granite countertops with a wide selection of colors and styles. Craftmark Solid Surfaces was established in April of 1991, beginning as a small fabrication shop. At the time, Craftmark worked out of a 3,000 square foot building where the company fabricated solid surface kitchen countertops, including Corian, Swan stone, Gibraltar, and Craftmark's own trademarked ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- By all counts, the 54-year-old man who collapsed on a recent winter night in rural Minnesota would likely have died. He'd suffered a heart attack, and even though he was given continuous CPR and a series of shocks with a defibrillator, the man was without a pulse for 96 minutes. But this particular instance of cardiac arrest (http://www.mayoclinic.org/heart-attack/), reported first in Mayo Clinic Proceedings (http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com) online, turned out to be highly unusual: "The patient made a complete recovery following prolonged pulselessness," ...

Scientists at Johns Hopkins have shown in laboratory experiments in mice that blocking the action of a signaling protein deep inside the heart's muscle cells blunts the most serious ill effects of high blood pressure on the heart. These include heart muscle enlargement, scar tissue formation and loss of blood vessel growth. Specifically, the Johns Hopkins team found that their intervention halted transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) secretion at a precise location called cell receptor type 2 in cardiac muscle cells. Blocking its action in this cell type forestalled ...

A data memory can hardly be any smaller: researchers working with Gerhard Rempe at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching have stored quantum information in a single atom. The researchers wrote the quantum state of single photons, i.e. particles of light, into a rubidium atom and read it out again after a certain storage time. This technique can be used in principle to design powerful quantum computers and to network them with each other across large distances. Quantum computers will one day be able to cope with computational tasks in no time where current ...

Networking, advertising, and marketing shouldn't have to cost an arm and a leg. In fact, with Magnets.com it's completely free. As a leading producer of custom, high quality promotional refrigerator magnets, starting today until June 15, 2011 all orders for business card magnets will be shipped with 100 free paper business cards. Best yet, there are no minimums to qualify, fine print, or strings attached. Custom designed for free and produced using the highest quality papers and printing, this value-add is sure to save the company's 50,000+ worldwide customers upwards ...

A new study finds important differences in math curricula across U.S. states and school districts. The findings, published in the May issue of the American Journal of Education, suggest that many students across the country are placed at a disadvantage by less demanding curricula. Researchers from Michigan State University and the University of Oklahoma used data from the 1999 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), which included 13 school districts and nine states in the U.S., as well as nearly 40 other nations. "Overall, U.S. students are ...

Manhood is a "precarious" status—difficult to earn and easy to lose. And when it's threatened, men see aggression as a good way to hold onto it. These are the conclusions of a new article by University of South Florida psychologists Jennifer K. Bosson and Joseph A. Vandello. The paper is published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "Gender is social," says, Bosson. "Men know this. They are powerfully concerned about how they appear in other people's eyes." And the more concerned they are, the more they ...

A study of how University of Washington graduate students integrated an Amazon Kindle DX into their course reading provides the first long-term investigation of e-readers in higher education. While some of the study's findings were expected – students want improved support for taking notes, checking references and viewing figures – the authors also found that allowing people to switch between reading styles, and providing the reader with physical cues, are two challenges that e-readers will need to address in cracking the college market. The UW last year was one of seven ...