Five minutes in a scanner can reveal how far a child's brain has come along the path from childhood to maturity and potentially shed light on a range of psychological and developmental disorders, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown. Researchers assert this week in Science that their study proves brain imaging data can offer more extensive help in tracking aberrant brain development. "Pediatricians regularly plot where their patients are in terms of height, weight and other measures, and then match these up to standardized curves ...

Stanford, CA— Scientists have warned that avoiding dangerous climate change this century will require steep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. New energy-efficient or carbon-free technologies can help, but what about the power plants, cars, trucks, and other fossil-fuel-burning devices already in operation? Unless forced into early retirement, they will emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for decades to come. Will their emissions push carbon dioxide levels beyond prescribed limits, regardless of what we build next? Is there already too much inertia in the system to curb ...

Laxenburg, Austria – 9th September 2010. Due to increasing life-spans and improved health many populations are 'aging' more slowly than conventional measures indicate. In a new study, to be published in Science, (10 September) scientists from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria, Stony Brook University, US, (SBU), and the Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) have developed new measures of aging that take changes in disability status and longevity into account. The results give policymakers faced with growing numbers of elderly ...

Current energy technologies are not enough to reduce carbon emissions to a level needed to lower the risks associated with climate change, New York University physicist Martin Hoffert concludes in an essay in the latest issue of the journal Science. Many scientists have determined that in order to avoid the risks brought about by climate change, steps must be taken to prevent the mean global temperature from rising by more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Current climate models indicate that achieving this goal will require limiting atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) ...

An innovative grouping of conservation scientists and practitioners have come together to advocate a fundamental shift in the way we view biodiversity. In their paper, which was published today in the journal Science, they argue that unless people recognise the link between their consumption choices and biodiversity loss, the diversity of life on Earth will continue to decline. Dr Mike Rands, Director of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative and lead author of the paper, said: "Despite increasing worldwide conservation efforts, biodiversity continues to decline. If ...

The lure of greater profits elsewhere in the world may divert bio-pharmaceutical firms in developing countries from the creation and distribution of affordable drugs, vaccines and diagnostics for illnesses of local concern, undermining the health prospects of millions of poor people, experts warn. And they call for a series of measures to bolster international support for continuing the success of firms finding homegrown solutions to immediate health concerns in developing countries. In a commentary published by the journal Nature Biotechnology, researchers Rahim Rezaie ...

University of California, Berkeley, researchers have taken genes from grass-eating fungi and stuffed them into yeast, creating strains that produce alcohol from tough plant material – cellulose – that normal yeast can't digest. The feat could be a boon for the biofuels industry, which is struggling to make cellulosic ethanol – ethanol from plant fiber, not just cornstarch or sugar – economically feasible. "By adding these genes to yeast, we have created strains that grow better on plant material than does wild yeast, which eats only glucose or sucrose," said Jamie Cate, ...

NAIROBI (9 September 2010)—Greenhouse gas emissions caused by livestock operations in tropical countries—a major contributor to climate change—could be cut significantly by changing diets and breeds and improving degraded lands, according to a new study published this week in the U.S. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And as an added bonus, scientists found the small changes in production practices could provide a big payoff by providing poor farmers with up to US$1.3 billion annually in payments for carbon offsets. "These technologically straightforward ...

Liquid water has interacted with the Martian surface throughout Mars' history, measurements by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander suggest. The findings, published in the Sept. 10 issue of the journal Science, also suggest that liquid water has primarily existed at temperatures near freezing, implying hydrothermal systems similar to Yellowstone's hot springs on Earth have been rare on Mars throughout its history. These surprising results come from measurements Phoenix made in 2008 of stable isotopes of carbon and oxygen in the carbon dioxide of the Martian atmosphere. Isotopes ...

URBANA – In the search for the perfect crop for biofuel production, Miscanthus has become the darling to many. But in an effort to not be charmed by its enormous potential for biomass production, researchers at the University of Illinois are taking a careful look at the pros and cons of its behavior in the field. A recent study analyzed water quantity and quality in plots of Miscanthus, switchgrass, corn, and soybeans and found that Miscanthus used substantially more water, but reduced the potential for nitrogen pollution to water bodies. "We found that Miscanthus ...

A robot deceives an enemy soldier by creating a false trail and hiding so that it will not be caught. While this sounds like a scene from one of the Terminator movies, it's actually the scenario of an experiment conducted by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology as part of what is believed to be the first detailed examination of robot deception. "We have developed algorithms that allow a robot to determine whether it should deceive a human or other intelligent machine and we have designed techniques that help the robot select the best deceptive strategy to ...

OTTAWA – September 9, 2010 --- New analysis of a landmark health survey by the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI) shows that 70% of Ontario adults are either overweight or obese, and have a strong prevalence of high blood pressure that could lead to heart attack or stroke. The research, led by Dr. Frans Leenen of the Heart Institute's Hypertension Unit, adds new information to a limited amount of Canadian data on obesity and high blood pressure. The analysis further strengthens the link between high blood pressure and above normal Body Mass Index (BMI), a formula ...

AUSTIN, Texas—People are more likely to remember specific information such as faces or words if the pattern of activity in their brain is similar each time they study that information, according to new research from a University of Texas at Austin psychologist and his colleagues. The findings by Russell Poldrack, published online today in the journal Science, challenge psychologists' long-held belief that people retain information more effectively when they study it several times under different contexts and, thus, give their brains multiple cues to remember it. "This ...

It's no secret: the United States is in the thick of a "green trend." Increased awareness of and commitment to sustainability and improving the environment through reduced carbon emissions and energy use have led to more consumer demand for "green" products, including green construction. Even with the downturn in the housing market, a 2008 poll showed that 91 percent of registered voters nationwide would still pay more for a house if that meant a reduced impact on the environment. The same is true for the commercial building industry, as construction companies prioritize ...

Johns Hopkins researchers have determined why certain stem cells are able to stay stem cells. The report in the June 4 issue of Cell Stem Cell reveals that an enzyme that changes the way DNA is packaged in cells allows specific genes to be turned on and off, thereby preventing a stem cell from becoming another cell type. Each cell has to fit in 6 feet of highly organized and carefully packaged DNA. Some regions of the DNA are more tightly compacted than others and this structure is dynamic. There are specific enzymes that change how condensed the DNA is to help turn ...

As children in Western cultures grow, they learn to place numbers on a mental number line, with smaller numbers to the left and spaced further apart than the larger numbers on the right. Then the number line changes to become more linear, with small and large numbers the same distance apart. Children whose number line has made this change are better at remembering numbers, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Remembering numbers is an important skill—in life, which is full of social security ...

New Rochelle, NY, September 9, 2010—A subset of children with asthma suffers from severe, treatment-resistant disease associated with more illness and greater allergic hypersensitivity, according to the results of the National Heart, Blood, and Lung Institute's Severe Asthma Research Program (SARP), presented in a recently published article in Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, and Pulmonology, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The article is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/pai Asthma is the most common chronic lung ...

New Rochelle, NY, September 9, 2010—Patients who choose to spend their last days at home with specialized care and monitoring can safely be given opioids to control pain and other symptoms without reducing survival time, according to a study published in Journal of Palliative Medicine (JPM), a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.(www.liebertpub.com). The article is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/jpm The use of high-dose opioids to relieve symptoms such as pain and shortness of breath in hospital- or hospice-based end-of-life care is proven to ...

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September 2010 More than 7,000 psychiatrists, neurologists, psychologists and neuroscience researchers from all over the world met at the 23rd Congress of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) from 28 August to 1 September 2010 in Amsterdam. The ECNP Congress is the largest scientific meeting on mental health in Europe, and this year included 46 sessions presented by more than 150 distinguished speakers from 20 countries. In addition, three poster sessions with in total more than 750 poster presentations from scientists ...

A risk may be posed, for example, by luggage left in a public place which may contain explosives or other dangerous substances. Terror attacks based on this tactic have already claimed many civilian lives. Luggage surveillance is particularly important at airports, railway stations, trade fairs, and public spaces in nationally significant infrastructure. The aim of the SUBITO project, which is funded by the European Commission, is to improve image analysis technology in existing CCTV systems. With the help of an application developed as part of the project, cameras recognise ...

Montreal, September 9th, 2010 – An investigation published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine has found that male partners who express greater support, attention and sympathy to women's chronic vulvovaginal pain may trigger more pain, but also increase sexual satisfaction in female partners. Women who took part in the study, conducted by the University of Montreal and University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre, suffer from a condition called provoked vestibulodynia (PVD). A condition that affects 12 percent of premenopausal women, PVD can impair sexual functioning ...

Behind every coincidence lies a plan - in the world of classical physics, at least. In principle, every event, including the fall of dice or the outcome of a game of roulette, can be explained in mathematical terms. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Light in Erlangen have constructed a device that works on the principle of true randomness. With the help of quantum physics, their machine generates random numbers that cannot be predicted in advance. The researchers exploit the fact that measurements based on quantum physics can only produce a special ...

Fresh insight into how plants slow their growth in cold weather could help scientists develop crops suited to cooler environments. Researchers have shown for the first time that a gene – known as Spatula – limits the growth of plants in cool temperatures, possibly helping them adjust to cool conditions. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh, who took part in the study, believe that by manipulating the gene, they could produce the opposite effect – enabling development of crops that grow well in cold climates. Scientists studied the Spatula gene in a weed known ...

One third of the world's population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), which leads to tuberculosis (TB), a leading cause of death world-wide. A new discovery, led by a team of researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, offers hope for new approaches to the prevention and treatment of TB. The team's discovery of a novel mechanism that may contribute to immune recognition of MTB is published in the September issue of Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. Most individuals with TB recover from the initial infection and become asymptomatic, ...

Essays Title: The Prospects for Personalized Medicine Author: Shara Yurkiewicz Summary: Ten years after the release of a working draft of the human genome, major changes have made their way into medical practice, the marketplace, research, and policy. Title: Personalized Medicine's Ragged Edge Author: Leonard M. Fleck Summary: The phrase "personalized medicine" has a built-in positive spin. But little attention has been given to some challenging issues of justice it raises. Some people will clearly benefit a lot, some people will clearly not benefit at all, and ...