RIVERSIDE, Calif. – A popular view among geophysicists is that large amounts of water are carried from the oceans to the deep mantle in "subduction zones," which are boundaries where the Earth's crustal plates converge, with one plate riding over the other. But now geophysicists led by the University of California, Riverside's Harry Green, a distinguished professor of geology and geophysics, present results that contradict this view. They compare seismic and experimental evidence to argue that subducting slabs do not carry water deeper than about 400 kilometers. "The ...

Much of medicine is based on what is considered the strongest possible evidence: The placebo-controlled trial. A paper published in the October 19 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine – entitled "What's In Placebos: Who Knows?" calls into question this foundation upon which much of medicine rests, by showing that there is no standard behind the standard – no standard for the placebo. The thinking behind relying on placebo-controlled trials is this: to be sure a treatment itself is effective, one needs to compare people whose only difference is whether or not they are ...

WHAT: Scientists supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have determined the complete genetic blueprints for 13 different strains of Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. The achievement should lead to a better understanding of how genetic variations among strains may result in different courses of illness in people with Lyme disease, the most common tickborne disease in North America. The wealth of new genetic data will also help scientists develop improved ways to diagnose, treat and prevent Lyme disease. The first genome of a strain ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) – Researchers at the UC Riverside Bourns College of Engineering have built and successfully tested an amplifier made from graphene that could lead to more efficient circuits in electronic chips, such as those used in Bluetooth headsets and toll collection devices in cars. Graphene, a single-atom thick carbon crystal, was first isolated in 2004 by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who won the Nobel Prize in physics this month for that work. Graphene has many extraordinary properties, including superior electrical and heat conductivity, ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY -- A team co-led by neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has shed light -- literally -- on circuitry underlying the olfactory system in mammals, giving us a new view of how that system may pull off some of its most amazing feats. It has long been known from behavioral experiments that rodents, for instance, can tell the difference between two quite similar odors in a single sniff. But in such instances, what precisely happens in the "wiring" leading from sensory neurons in the nose to specialized cells in the olfactory bulb ...

When the storm winds blow, wind turbines have to show what they can stand up to. The wind blows hard against mills with the force of tons as the tips of the blades plow through the air at more than 200 kilometers per hour. But natural forces not only tear at wind turbines; machine components made of plastic or airplane wings must with stand substantial loads as well. These days, we normally use sensors to measure whether these components are strained beyond capacity, and it requires a lot of effort to install them into the component parts or glue them onto their surface. ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Pediatric health care work force planning efforts are increasingly incorporating the roles of nurse practitioners and physician assistants, especially in plans to alleviate the perceived shortage of pediatric subspecialists. However, results from four new studies of pediatric nurse practitioners, family nurse practitioners, neonatal nurse practitioners, and pediatric physician assistants published online today in the journal Pediatrics do not seem to support that idea. The work was conducted by the University of Michigan's Child Health Evaluation and ...

PHILADELPHIA – Finding a drug that can cross the blood-brain barrier is the bane of drug development for Alzheimer's disease and other neurological disorders of the brain. A new Penn study, published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience, has found and tested in an animal model of Alzheimer's disease a class of drug that is able to enter the brain, where it stabilizes degenerating neurons and improves memory and learning. In the normal brain, the protein tau plays an important role in stabilizing structures called microtubules in nerve cells, which serve as tracks ...

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 18, 2010 -- Theoretical work done at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has provided a key to understanding an unexpected magnetism between two dissimilar materials. The results, published in Nature Communications, have special significance for the design of future electronic devices for computations and telecommunications, according to co-author Satoshi Okamoto of ORNL's Materials Science and Technology Division. The work was performed at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, synchrotron radiation facilities in France and Japan, ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Scientists at the University of Michigan Heath System and their collaborators have found four new DNA "hotspots" that may one day help guide new treatments for psoriasis, one of the most common autoimmune diseases in the country. Using cutting-edge methods to peer into the hidden genetic underpinnings of the disabling and disfiguring disease, the research, published in Nature Genetics, further maps the as-yet unknown territories of psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. The findings could lead to new drug targets and tailored treatments for the skin ...

Tampa, Fla. (October 18, 2010) –Two research teams from the Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine (Okayama, Japan) have reported breakthrough studies in liver cell transplantation. One team found that the technical breakthrough in creating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) from mouse somatic cells (nonsex cells) in vitro had "implications for overcoming immunological rejection." Whereas a second team using liver cell xenotransplantation - transplanting cells of one species into another (in this case transplanting pig liver cells into mice) - found that transplanted ...

MAYWOOD, Ill. -- Vitamin D deficiency is associated with a significant increase in lung transplant rejection, according to research conducted at Loyola University Health System (LUHS). These data were presented Monday at The American Society for Bone and Mineral Research 2010 annual meeting in Toronto, Ontario. "Vitamin D deficiency is prevalent among lung transplant recipients," said Pauline Camacho, MD, study investigator and director of the Loyola University Osteoporosis and Metabolic Bone Disease Center. "This study shed greater light on the serious impact that this ...

The next time you feel your willpower slipping as you pass that mouth-watering dessert case, tighten your muscles. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research says firming muscles can shore up self-control. Authors Iris W. Hung (National University of Singapore) and Aparna A. Labroo (University of Chicago) put study participants through a range of self-control dilemmas that involved accepting immediate pain for long-term gain. In one study, participants submerged their hands in an ice bucket to demonstrate pain resistance. In another, participants consumed a healthy ...

Argonne, ILL—For the first time scientists have been able to watch nanoparticles grow from the earliest stages of their formation. Nanoparticles are the foundation of nanotechnology and their performance depends on their structure, composition, and size. Researchers will now be able to develop ways to control conditions under which they are grown. The breakthrough will affect a wide range of applications including solar-cell technology and chemical and biological sensors. The research is published in NANOLetters. As coauthor Wenge Yang of the Carnegie Institution's ...

A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that ads featuring beauty products actually lower female consumers' self-esteem. "One of the signature strengths of the advertising industry lies in its ability to transform seemingly mundane objects into highly desirable products," write authors Debra Trampe (University of Groningen, the Netherlands), Diederik A. Stapel (Tilburg University), and Frans W. Siero (University of Groningen). In an advertisement, a lipstick situated next to a stiletto heel represents glamour and a teddy bear in an ad for fabric softener ...

PHILADELPHIA - Taking a cue from the world of business-performance experts and baseball talent scouts, Penn Medicine translational medicine researchers are among the first to find a way to measure the productivity of collaborations in a young, emerging institute. They published their findings the most recent issue of Science Translational Medicine. While metrics exist to measure the contributions of individual scientists, judging the effectiveness of team science has been more challenging. Reasoning that team science produces papers and grants, first author postdoctoral ...

People are willing to pay more for products that elicit their envy—but that's only when they are motivated by a positive, benign form of envy, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Our studies showed that people who had been made envious of someone who owned an iPhone were willing to pay 80 Euros more on average," write authors Niels van de Ven, Marcel Zeelenberg, and Rik Pieters (Tilburg University). The researchers made some important discoveries about the motivations that result from different kinds of envy. "Note that two types of envy exist: ...

The findings, published Oct. 19 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, showed the peer partner program resulted in lower glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels after six months among men with uncontrolled diabetes. The research was based on a peer partnership program established by the Veterans Affairs Ann Arbor Health System and the University of Michigan Medical School. Each peer pair received initial brief training in peer communication skills and was expected to communicate by telephone at least once a week about their mutual efforts to improve diabetes control. Program ...

VIDEO: The lamprey's body is gray, and the areas where muscle is active are shown with black lines. Note that the active muscle moves backwards slightly faster than the fish... Click here for more information. Scientists at the University of Maryland and Tulane University have developed a computational model of a swimming fish that is the first to address the interaction of both internal and external forces on locomotion. The interdisciplinary research team simulated how ...

How do people decide how much to spend on purchases for themselves versus others? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research says it all depends on how powerful we feel at the moment of choice. "We ask whether the powerful and powerless differentially value the self versus others, and whether this, in turn, translates into observable differences in their spending behavior," write authors Derek D. Rucker, David Dubois, and Adam D. Galinsky (Kellogg School at Northwestern University). The authors conducted five experiments where they manipulated participants' states ...

If sleeping on a bed of ice or eating bacon-flavored ice cream doesn't sound too appealing, consider the tale you'll have to tell about it later. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, some people can't resist a chance to collect experiences. "Recent marketing trends suggest that many consumers are attracted to unusual and novel consumption experiences and choose vacations, leisure activities, and celebrations that are predicted to be less pleasurable and enjoyable," write authors Anat Keinan (Harvard Business School) and Ran Kivetz (Columbia Business ...

People are more likely to buy unhealthy foods when they pay using credit or debit cards, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Two factors contribute to this intriguing effect," write authors Manoj Thomas (Cornell University), Kalpesh Kaushik Desai (State University of New York, Binghamton), and Satheeshkumar Seenivasan (State University of New York, Buffalo). "First, there is a correlation between unhealthiness and impulsiveness of food items: Unhealthy food items also tend to elicit impulsive responses. Second, cash payments are psychologically ...

The structure of the university in the 21st century is changing rapidly after its evolution into a multiversity in the 20th century. But as universities are being restructured to best serve the society of tomorrow, are their curricula reflecting these changes and the development of new and possibly even unformulated new disciplines and areas of inquiry? "No," says a consortium of educators that range from Arizona State University to University of New Delhi, India, and Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin , Germany, who have launched a website (www.curriculumreform.org), hoping ...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 – Can skin cancer be treated with light? Scientists at the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine), believe so. They're exploring new ways to image cancerous lesions using LEDs that might advance a technique for treating cancer called photodynamic therapy (PDT) -- work that they will describe at the Optical Society's (OSA) 94th annual meeting, Frontiers in Optics (FiO) 2010 at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center in Rochester, N.Y., from Oct. 24-28. In PDT, photosensitizing chemicals that absorb light are injected into a tumor, which is ...

Stem cell therapies hold increasing promise as a cure for multiple diseases. But the massive potential of a healthy stem cell has a flip side, as faulty regulation of stem cells leads to a huge range of human diseases. Even before birth, mistakes made by the stem cells of the foetus are a major cause of congenital defects, and cancer is also caused by the body losing control of stem cell function. Guiding stem cells along the correct pathways and, where necessary, reversing their mistakes is the goal of everyone in this field. Now, Michael Levin (http://www.drmichaellevin.org/) ...