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Benefit of exercise in patients with hypertension has been insufficiently investigated

2010-10-27
There are many good reasons to ensure sufficient exercise in everyday life. However, advising patients with increased blood pressure (hypertension) to exercise regularly is often regarded as a specific medical measure aiming to reduce the increased risk of late complications. But whether more exercise actually helps to avoid illnesses related to hypertension or at least delay their onset has been insufficiently investigated. In order to provide better advice to patients with hypertension, informative clinical studies are therefore needed. This is the result of a report ...

New software brings facial-recognition technology to mobile phones

2010-10-27
Scientists at The University of Manchester have developed software for mobile phones that can track your facial features in real-time. Eventually it will be able to tell who the user is, where they are looking and even how they are feeling. The method is believed to be unrivalled for speed and accuracy and could lead to facial recognition replacing passwords and PIN numbers to log into internet sites from a mobile phone. "Existing mobile face trackers give only an approximate position and scale of the face," said Dr Phil Tresadern, lead researcher on the project. "Our ...

A new player in the innate immunity game?

2010-10-27
Scientists have demonstrated for the first time that a certain class of RNA (known as long non-protein-coding RNA [lncRNA]) are involved in the host response to viral infection. These findings, published today in the online journal mBio®, could greatly change the way scientists look at the body's response to viral infection. "To our knowledge, our study is the first to use comprehensive deep-sequencing technology to clearly demonstrate that lncRNAs are involved in the host response to viral infection and innate immunity," says Michael Katze of the University of Washington, ...

New American Chemical Society podcast: 'Green exercise' for good mental health

New American Chemical Society podcast:  Green exercise for good mental health
2010-10-27
WASHINGTON, Oct. 26, 2010 — Just five minutes of outdoor activity — such as exercising in a park, working in a backyard garden or walking on a nature trail — is good for the brain, with tangible benefits for mental health, according to the latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS) award-winning podcast series, "Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions." The new Global Challenges podcast and website describe scientific research indicating that physical activity in natural areas, known as 'green' exercise, can lead to improvements in mental health. The research ...

NASA's Kepler Mission changing how astronomers study distant stars

2010-10-27
AMES, Iowa – The quantity and quality of data coming back from NASA's Kepler Mission is changing how astronomers study stars, said Iowa State University's Steve Kawaler. "It's really amazing," said Kawaler, an Iowa State professor of physics and astronomy. "It's as amazing as I feared. I didn't appreciate how hard it is to digest all the information efficiently." The Kepler spacecraft, he said, "is a discovery machine." Kepler launched March 6, 2009, from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The spacecraft is orbiting the sun carrying a photometer, or light ...

Women's choices, not abilities, keep them out of math-intensive fields

2010-10-27
The question of why women are so underrepresented in math-intensive fields is a controversial one. In 2005, Lawrence Summers, then president of Harvard University, set off a storm of controversy when he suggested it could be due partly to innate differences in ability; others have suggested discrimination or socialization is more to blame. Two psychological scientists have reviewed all of the evidence and concluded that the main factor is women's choices—both freely made, such as that they'd rather study biology than math, and constrained, such as the fact that the difficult ...

Adolescents in private schools employ more efficient strategies to cope with problems

2010-10-27
Adolescents enrolled in private schools employ more efficient strategies to cope with their problems than students in public schools. Further, they also use emotion-oriented coping, as drawn from a study carried out at the University of Granada, recently published in the prestigious journal Psicotema. This study revealed that students in private schools present a better problem-oriented coping. This means that, when facing a problem, they use more frequently strategies aimed at solving the problem. Some examples of such strategies are concentrating deeply when solving ...

Restaurant customers willing to pay more for local food

Restaurant customers willing to pay more for local food
2010-10-27
Not only are restaurant patrons willing to pay more for meals prepared with produce and meat from local providers, the proportion of customers preferring local meals actually increases when the price increases, according to a team of international researchers. A recent study of how customers perceive and value local food shows that restaurant patrons prefer meals made with local ingredients when they are priced slightly higher than meals made with non-local ingredients, said Amit Sharma, assistant professor, School of Hospitality Management, Penn State. The research will ...

Women still work double shifts

Women still work double shifts
2010-10-27
The proportion of the workforce represented by women rose from 20.7% to 41.1% between 1978 and 2002. However, this trend has not resulted in a similar increase in the proportion of men who participate in household tasks. Some 55% of women who are part of a dual earning couple still perform all household tasks. Furthermore, 33% of men do not do anything at home. "Younger women still carry out a larger amount of unpaid work than men, although in less proportion than older women. The same occurs with education. The lower the level of education, the more likely women are ...

Emissions from consumption outstrip efficiency savings

2010-10-27
Emissions from consumption growth have exceeded carbon savings from efficiency improvements in the global supply chain of products consumed in the UK, according to new research by Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) at the University of York and the University of Durham. Carbon dioxide emissions from UK consumption grew by 217 Million tonnes(Mt) of carbon dioxide from increased spending between 1992 and 2004 while cuts from more efficient production only led to reductions of 148 Mt leaving a net growth of 69 Mt of carbon dioxide . In previous research, Stockholm ...

Water could hold answer to graphene nanoelectronics

Water could hold answer to graphene nanoelectronics
2010-10-27
Troy, N.Y. – Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute developed a new method for using water to tune the band gap of the nanomaterial graphene, opening the door to new graphene-based transistors and nanoelectronics. By exposing a graphene film to humidity, Rensselaer Professor Nikhil Koratkar and his research team were able to create a band gap in graphene – a critical prerequisite to creating graphene transistors. At the heart of modern electronics, transistors are devices that can be switched "on" or "off" to alter an electrical signal. Computer microprocessors ...

Follow-ups prove powerful tool for treating depression in primary care

2010-10-27
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — In the 15 minutes a primary care doctor typically has with a patient, she's expected to diagnose the current ailment, help manage ongoing health issues and provide preventive care. In this setting, confronting all but the most obvious and immediate mental health needs of patients is an ongoing challenge. A new study by researchers at the University of Michigan Health System, however, points to an encouraging strategy for improving and sustaining mental health results in chronically depressed patients by providing small amounts of flexible, targeted ...

Scientists meet in Ethiopia to broaden market opportunities for Africa's livestock farmers

2010-10-27
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (27 October, 2010)—As agricultural leaders across the globe look for ways to increase investments in agriculture to boost world food production, experts in African livestock farming are meeting in Addis Ababa this week to deliberate on ways to get commercialized farm production, access to markets, innovations, gender issues and pro-poor policies right for Africa's millions of small-scale livestock farmers and herders. More than 70 percent of Africa's rural poor are livestock farmers. Each farm animal raised is a rare source of high-quality food, particularly ...

In a challenging infant heart defect, two-thirds may have high chance of survival

2010-10-27
When prenatal diagnosis detects the severe heart defect hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) in a fetus, a comprehensive prenatal evaluation is important to provide parents an accurate prognosis. In HLHS, one of the heart's pumping chambers is severely underdeveloped. However, say researchers, in two-thirds of cases, reconstructive surgery affords the infant an excellent chance of early survival. Researchers from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia report on five years of experience at that hospital, in a review of 240 fetuses diagnosed with HLHS from 2004 to 2009. ...

Study identifies key molecules in multiple myeloma

2010-10-27
COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research links three molecules to a critical tumor suppressor gene that is often turned off in multiple myeloma, a presently incurable cancer of the blood. The findings might offer a new strategy for treating this disease and other blood cancers, according to researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center-Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James) who led the study. The silenced molecules are called miR-192, miR-194 and miR-215. All of them are microRNAs, a large class of molecules ...

New entitlement program not a replacement for long-term care insurance

New entitlement program not a replacement for long-term care insurance
2010-10-27
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – An obscure provision in the health care reform bill has the potential to seriously alter the long-term care landscape for older Americans, but it may not be as beneficial to retirees as it will be for near-retirees and successive generations of workers, new research by a University of Illinois elder law expert warns. Richard L. Kaplan, an expert on federal taxes and retirement issues, says the new federal entitlement program, known as Community Living Assistance Services and Supports, or CLASS, shouldn't be viewed as a replacement for long-term care ...

Targeted radiation therapy minimizes GI side effects for prostate cancer patients, Penn study shows

2010-10-27
SAN DIEGO -- Prostate cancer patients who receive intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) are less apt to suffer serious gastrointestinal complications following their treatment than those who receive three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (CRT), according to new research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The study, which will be presented Nov. 1 at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) in San Diego, found that men who were treated with IMRT had fewer serious bowel complications, including painful rectal ...

School attendance, refusal skills combat smoking risk in youth

2010-10-27
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Asian-American youth are one of the fastest growing populations in the United States. Although Asian Americans begin smoking later in life, they are more likely to smoke regularly and at a higher rate than other ethnic or racial groups, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Now, a University of Missouri researcher is examining the unique differences in adolescent tobacco use among Asians and other groups to provide specific recommendations for prevention and treatment. "Given the large number of addicted teenagers, tobacco control ...

Tornado warnings are too often ignored

2010-10-27
EAST LANSING, Mich. — With big storms ripping across the Midwest, Bob Drost is hoping people are paying attention to the severe weather and tornado warnings. Unfortunately, Drost, a doctoral student at Michigan State University, knows that many times those warnings are ignored, according to his research. "Only 63 percent understood that a warning is the most urgent National Weather Service statement during severe weather," he said. Next week, Drost will present his research findings at the Geological Society of America's annual conference to fellow earth scientists ...

Study raises concern about ability of tests to predict fertility

2010-10-27
CHAPEL HILL – The method used to assess infertility in at-home tests might not be the best for identifying which women will have trouble getting pregnant, according to new research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. The study found that the cutoffs used by such infertility tests, which measure levels of a molecule called follicle stimulating hormone or FSH, label many women as infertile who actually go on to have children naturally. It also suggests that another hormone, called antimullerian hormone or AMH, could prove to be a much ...

Breakthrough in understanding life-threatening childhood liver disease

2010-10-27
Researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and The Children's Hospital have taken a big step toward understanding what causes one of the most serious liver diseases in infants. The disease is called biliary atresia, It blocks the bile ducts in young infants, through which bile, crucial for digestion, flows to the small intestine. The disease is rare – it strikes in about one in 10,000 births. But it's life-threatening. "It is fatal if not treated quickly," says Cara Mack, MD, who led the CU research. Surgical removal of the blocked main bile duct ...

Breaching the breech protocol

2010-10-27
Most babies are delivered head-first, but in about 4% of all deliveries babies are "born breech" ― with their buttocks or feet first. Doctors usually exercise caution and use caesarean sections (C-sections) as the delivery method of choice for such births, believing it safer for the baby. After a large-scale international study in 2000, C-sections became the near-universal choice for such births. But now researchers at Tel Aviv University are saying that, under certain circumstances, traditional vaginal delivery for breech babies is not only safe for baby, but even ...

6 new isotopes of the superheavy elements discovered

2010-10-27
Berkeley, CA—A team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has detected six isotopes, never seen before, of the superheavy elements 104 through 114. Starting with the creation of a new isotope of the yet-to-be-named element 114, the researchers observed successive emissions of alpha particles that yielded new isotopes of copernicium (element 112), darmstadtium (element 110), hassium (element 108), seaborgium (element 106), and rutherfordium (element 104). Rutherfordium ended the chain when it decayed by spontaneous fission. ...

Haptoglobin as an early serum biomarker of virus-induced type 1 diabetes in rats

2010-10-27
Type 1 diabetes (T1D), formerly known as juvenile diabetes, is a multifactorial disease of complex etiology characterized by the autoimmune destruction of pancreatic beta cells. In addition to genetic susceptibility, it is generally accepted that environmental factors play important roles in triggering disease, with virus infection having perhaps the strongest association. Multiple viral infections including cytomegalovirus, mumps, rubella, enteroviruses, and parvovirus have all been associated with human T1D. Indeed, the effects of diverse viruses in triggering T1D may ...

USDA scientists helping keep in-demand smoked salmon safe to eat

2010-10-27
Scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are helping ensure that the smoked salmon that's always a hit at festive gatherings also is always safe to eat, including among their achievements the development of a first-of-its-kind mathematical model that food processors and others can use to select the optimal combination of temperature and concentrations of salt and smoke compounds to reduce or eliminate microbial contamination of the product. The studies are led by food technologist Andy (Cheng-An) Hwang with the USDA Agricultural Research Service's (ARS) ...
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