KINGSTON, R.I. – December 13, 2010 -- While there continues to be considerable debate among geologists about the availability of oxygen in the Earth's mantle, recent discoveries by a University of Rhode Island scientist are bringing resolution to the question. Analysis of erupted rock from Agrigan volcano in the western Pacific near Guam found it to be highly oxidized as a result of its exposure to oxygen when it formed in the Earth's mantle. When, over millions of years, seafloor rocks are transported back into the Earth's mantle at subduction zones – sites on the seafloor ...

DURHAM, N.H. – Living in an area where amenities of daily life – groceries, playgrounds, post offices, libraries and restaurants – are within walking distance promotes healthy lifestyles and has positive implications for the environment, research has established. Now, new research from the University of New Hampshire has linked walkable neighborhoods with an increase in social benefits as well. "We found that neighborhoods that are more walkable had higher levels of social capital such as trust among neighbors and participation in community events," says Shannon Rogers, ...

A novel project using cameras mounted on unmanned aircraft flying over the Arctic is serving double duty by assessing the characteristics of declining sea ice and using the same aerial photos to pinpoint seals that have hauled up on ice floes. The project is the first to use aircraft to monitor ice and seals in remote areas without putting pilots and observers at risk, said Elizabeth Weatherhead of the University of Colorado at Boulder, who is leading the study team. Weatherhead is a senior scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, ...

Genetically modified cells can be made to communicate with each other as if they were electronic circuits. Using yeast cells, a group of researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has taken a groundbreaking step towards being able to build complex systems in the future where the body's own cells help to keep us healthy. The study was presented recently in an article in the scientific journal Nature. "Even though engineered cells can't do the same job as a real computer, our study paves the way for building complex constructions from these cells," says Kentaro ...

TEMPE, Ariz. – Enormous uncertainty. These two words describe the condition of Phoenix's climate and water supply in the 21st century. Reservoirs have dipped to their lowest levels, continuous drought has plagued the state and forecasts for even warmer summers are predicted. Despite this uncertainty, professors at Arizona State University say there's no need to be fearful because positive impacts can be made. ASU professors Patricia Gober and Craig Kirkwood working in conjunction with Decision Center for a Desert City (DCDC), which specializes in decision making under ...

Irvine, Calif., Dec. 14, 2010 — UC Irvine researchers have identified a novel mechanism in the brain that boosts memory. In collaboration with scientists at Germany's University of Munster, the UCI team found that a small protein called neuropeptide S can strengthen and prolong memories of everything from negative events to simple objects. According to study leader Rainer Reinscheid, UCI associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences, the discovery could provide important clues about how the brain stores memories and also lead to new treatments for Alzheimer's disease, ...

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Karl Herrup thinks that the national research effort to understand Alzheimer’s disease has gone about as far as it can go with its current theories. And that’s not far enough. Alzheimer's disease is an incurable, degenerative, eventually fatal disease that attacks cognitive function. It affects more than 26 million people around the world and is the most common form of dementia among people over the age of 65. Over the last three decades, most Alzheimer’s research has been governed by the “amyloid cascade hypothesis.” The theory – which holds that ...

Seeing bad things happen to other people is scary. One way to respond to this is to blame the victim—to look for some reason why it happened to them. But there's another common response, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The researchers found that people who believe in justice in the world also believe that a tragedy gives the victim's life more meaning. "A lot of the time when people see someone else suffering, and helping them isn't an option, people will instead justify the fact that ...

Managers in the private and public sectors must consider work environment when rationalising production to obtain sustainable systems. A research study published in the journal Applied Ergonomics reveals that rationalisation measures often have a major negative impact on both the physical and psychosocial work environment. "However, the review also presents scientific evidence on how to reduce this problem," says one of the researchers, at the University of Gothenburg. "Considerable resources all over the world have been invested in dealing with work-related disorders. ...

Chestnut Hill, Mass. (Dec. 14, 2010) – With the holidays fast approaching and consumers in full shopping mode, new research shows that a seemingly innocent luxury item purchase can lead to an unintended, budget-busting spending spree. The problem starts with the purchase of a new item, particularly those among designer product lines, luxury branded items, or consumer goods of high-end design. Once home, these items – graced with what researchers call salient design elements, such as a unique pattern or interesting color scheme – can look out of place when compared to ...

DENVER (Dec. 14, 2010) – A decade after the 9/11 attacks, significant parts of America's most prominent downtowns remain largely sealed off as `security zones,' but a newly published study by University of Colorado Denver professor Jeremy Németh says this has led to blighted landscapes, limited public access and a need for a new approach to urban planning. "Our most open, public cities are becoming police states," said Németh, assistant professor of planning and design whose study was recently published in Environment and Planning A. "While a certain amount of security ...

For patients with glioma, the most common primary brain tumor, new findings may explain why current therapies fail to eradicate the cancer. A UCSF-led team of scientists has identified for the first time that progenitor rather than neural stem cells underly a type of glioma called oligodendroglioma. This distinction explains why oligodendroglioma is more responsive to therapy than other brain tumors such as glioblastoma multiforme. The finding is significant, the researchers say, because it gives cancer doctors and researchers new cellular pathways to target in developing ...

MONTREAL, December 14, 2010 – The first few days after birth is an important time when babies learn to recognize the sound of their parents' voice and the parents in turn bond with their children. However, the separation between parents and newborns admitted to the intensive care unit can be very difficult and can disrupt the early development of this relationship. Jan Lariviere, a nurse in the neonatal clinic and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at The Montreal Children's Hospital (MCH) of the MUHC led an innovative research project that suggests reading to newborns ...

Madison, WI December 14, 2010 -- Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) have proven that measuring fluorescence could improve source water monitoring during a study of the McKenzie River in Oregon. The study was designed to assess the amount, type and source of dissolved organic carbon that exists in all sources of drinking water. Dissolved organic carbon can react with chlorine during water treatment and form halogenated compounds, commonly referred to as disinfection byproducts. Some of these byproducts are regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ...

Laboratory culture (in vitro) studies examining the activity of human umbilical cord blood cells (HUCB) on experimental models of central nervous system aging, injury and disease, have shown that HUCBs provide a 'trophic effect' (nutritional effect) that enhances survival and maturation of hippocampal neurons harvested from both young and old laboratory animals. "As we age, cognitive function tends to decline," said Alison E. Willing, PhD, a professor in the University of South Florida's (USF) Department of Neurosurgery and Brain repair and lead author for a study published ...

They say it's the little things that count, and that certainly holds true for the channels in transmembrane proteins, which are small enough to allow ions or molecules of a certain size to pass through, while keeping out larger objects. Artificial fluidic nanochannels that mimic the capabilities of transmembrane proteins are highly prized for a number of advanced technologies. However, it has been difficult to make individual artificial channels of this size – until now. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Brown University sociologists have developed a device to gather more reliable data about risky sexual behavior among Ethiopian teenagers and young adults than conventional face-to-face interviews can produce. Simple, portable, low-cost, and low-tech, the group's new nonverbal response card allows respondents to communicate nonverbally and confidentially during face-to-face interviews. Professors of sociology David Lindstrom and Dennis Hogan, and postdoctoral research associate Megan Klein Hattori published their findings in the December ...

Psychological scientists are faced with the arduous task of identifying distinctions between humans without stigmatizing groups of people based on these differences. In this special section of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, experts present reasons for why differences in gender, race, sexual orientation, and culture should not be framed as deficits within the field of psychology. Stigma From Psychological Science: Group Differences, Not Deficits—Introduction to Stigma Special Section (http://pps.sagepub.com/content/5/6/687.full) ...

Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. – Shooting steady pulses of electricity through slender electrodes into a brain area that controls complex behaviors has proven to be effective against several therapeutically stubborn neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. Now, a new study has found that this technique, called deep brain stimulation (DBS), targets the same class of neuronal cells that are known to respond to physical exercise and drugs such as Prozac. The study, led by Associate Professor Grigori Enikolopov, Ph.D., of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), is the cover ...

In the world-wide race to develop energy sources that are seen as "green" because they are renewable and less greenhouse gas-intensive, sometimes the most basic questions remain unanswered. In a paper released today by the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, authors Michal Moore, Senior Fellow, and Sarah M. Jordaan at Harvard University in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, look at the basic question of whether these energy sources are ethical. In addition to arguing that the greenhouse gas benefits of biofuel are overstated by many policymakers, ...

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have described for the first time a key inhibitory role for the IL-1 signaling pathway in the human innate immune system, providing novel insights into human inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and potential new treatments. The research, led by Jose M. Gonzalez-Navajas, PhD, and Eyal Raz, MD, a professor of medicine at UC San Diego, is published as a Brief Definitive Report in the December issue of The Journal of Experimental Medicine. The researchers report that signaling by the interleukin 1 receptor ...

A three-year study by Yale School of Medicine researchers has found that vaccinating pregnant women against influenza is over 90 percent effective in preventing their infants from being hospitalized with influenza in the first six months of life. Published in the December 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, the study builds on preliminary data the research team presented last year at the Infectious Disease Society of America in Philadelphia. Influenza is a major cause of serious respiratory disease in pregnant women and of hospitalization in infants. Although the ...

Two scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have provided the first details about the mysterious flashes of dazzling bioluminescent light produced by a little-known sea snail. Dimitri Deheyn and Nerida Wilson of Scripps Oceanography (Wilson is now at the Australian Museum in Sydney) studied a species of "clusterwink snail," a small marine snail typically found in tight clusters or groups at rocky shorelines. These snails were known to produce light, but the researchers discovered that rather than emitting a focused beam of light, the animal uses ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — As health professionals search for ways to combat the rise in obesity and promote healthy eating, new research reveals a mother's own eating habits – and whether she views her child as a 'picky eater' – has a huge impact on whether her child consumes enough fruits and vegetables. A study by professor Mildred Horodynski of Michigan State University's College of Nursing looked at nearly 400 low-income women (black and non-Hispanic white) with children ages 1-3 enrolled in Early Head Start programs. Results show toddlers were less likely to consume ...

Invisible to the naked eye, yet massive in structure around the Earth is the magnetosphere, the region of space around the planet that ebbs and flows in response to the million-mile-per-hour flow of charged particles continually blasting from the Sun. NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft, designed to image the invisible interactions occurring at the edge of the solar system, captured images of magnetospheric structures and a dynamic event occurring in the magnetosphere as the spacecraft observed from near lunar distance. The data provides the first ...