Santa Cruz, CA, USA and Oxford, UK, 2 December 2010: Research published this week in JACS shows continuous and controlled translocation of a single stranded DNA (ssDNA) polymer through a protein nanopore by a DNA polymerase enzyme. The paper by researchers at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) provides the foundation for a molecular motor, an essential component of Strand Sequencing using nanopores. Researchers at UCSC are collaborating with the UK-based company Oxford Nanopore Technologies, developers of a nanopore DNA sequencing technology. The new research ...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Financially rewarding farmers for using the best fertilizer management practices can simultaneously benefit water quality and help combat climate change, finds a new study by the University of Maryland's Center for Integrative Environmental Research (CIER). The researchers conclude that setting up a "trading market," where farmers earn financial incentives for investing in eco-friendly techniques, would result in a double environmental benefit – reducing fertilizer run-off destined for the Chesapeake Bay, while at the same time capturing carbon dioxide ...

Physicists at the Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Department of Physics at Northeastern University have made a comparison of a number of competing dark energy models. They have tested and compared nine popular dark energy models using the latest observational data. The study is reported in Issue 9 (Volume 53) of SCIENCE CHINA Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy because of its significant research value. Over the past decade, cosmologists around the world have accumulated conclusive evidence for the fact that the cosmic expansion is accelerating. ...

The School of Nuclear Engineering and Technology at the East China Institute of Technology cooperated with the China Institute of Atomic Energy to investigate the high spin states of 84Sr. The study is reported in Issue 53 (October, 2010) of the Chinese Science Bulletin because of its significant research value. Nuclei with Z ≈ 40 and N ≈ 45 lie in a transitional region between deformed nuclei and spherical nuclei. There are collective bands in some isotopes of nuclei of such elements as Sr, Zr and Mo, where the structures have single-particle features. 84Sr, ...

An evanescent wave arises at the interface of two media when light propagates from a more to a less-dense medium under total internal reflection. The wave is distributed over a superficial area because its amplitude decays exponentially with distance from the interface. The evanescent wave intensity at the interface can be larger than that of the incident beam. Evanescent waves have widespread current use in the imaging of chemical, bio-chemical and biological phenomenon. For example, an evanescent wave is responsible for fluorophore excitation in total internal reflection ...

Researchers from the College of Physical Sciences, GUCAS, have proposed to establish a new branch, unsteady aerothermodynamics, within the discipline of aerothermodynamics. The principal objectives of this new branch, to treat by theoretical means the study of physical phenomena relating to attached boundary layer flows, have been outlined in a preliminary investigation. A report based on a feasibility study has appeared in Vol. 54 No. 8 of Science China Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy. Aerothermodynamics, a cross-discipline based mainly on aerodynamics and thermodynamics, ...

Researchers from the Universidad Pablo de Olavide (UPO) and the Universidad de Sevilla (US) have found patterns of behaviour that occur before an earthquake on the Iberian peninsula. The team used clustering techniques to forecast medium-large seismic movements when certain circumstances coincide. "Using mathematical techniques, we have found patterns when medium-large earthquakes happen, that is, earthquakes greater than 4.4 on the Richter scale," Francisco Martínez Álvarez, co-author of the study and a senior lecturer at the UPO revealed to SINC. The research, which ...

Memory difficulties such as those seen in dementia may arise because the brain forms incomplete memories that are more easily confused, new research from the University of Cambridge has found. The findings are published today in the journal Science. Currently, memory problems are typically perceived to be the result of forgetting previously encountered items or events. The new research (using an animal model of amnesia), however, found that the ability of the brain to maintain complete, detailed memories is disrupted. The remaining, less detailed memories are relatively ...

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) play an important role as cosmological distance indicators and have been used successfully to determine cosmological parameters, which resulted in the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe. However, the exact nature of SN Ia progenitors is still not well understood. There is a popular theory that SNe Ia originate from runaway thermonuclear events in carbon–oxygen white dwarves (CO WD) in binary systems. The CO WD accretes material from its companion. When the CO WD increases its mass above the maximum stable mass, it will explode. Based ...

Impairments to health and physical performance are not primarily a result of aging but of unfavorable lifestyle habits and lack of exercise. This is the position taken by Dieter Leyk and his coauthors in the new issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2010; 107[46]: 809󈝼). Sporty elderly people have a life expectancy that is almost 4 years higher and are often faster than younger athletes. In their study, the sports scientists analyzed the stamina of more than 600 000 marathon and half marathon runners and asked participants about their ...

Scientists from The University of Manchester say a naturally occurring chemical found in soy could prove to be an effective new treatment for a fatal genetic disease that affects children. Dr Brian Bigger, from the University's MPS Stem Cell Research Laboratory, found that genistein – derived from soya beans and licensed in the US as an osteoporosis drug – had a dramatic effect on mice suffering from the human childhood disease Sanfilippo. "Sanfilippo is an untreatable mucopolysaccharide (MPS) disease affecting one in 89,000 children in the United Kingdom," said Dr ...

Philadelphia, PA, 2 December 2010 - Many brain imaging studies have reported that tobacco smoking is associated with large-scale and wide-spread structural brain abnormalities. The cerebral cortex is a specific area of the brain responsible for many important higher-order functions, including language, information processing, and memory. Reduced cortical thickness has been associated with normal aging, reduced intelligence, and impaired cognition. However, prior research had not described the impact of smoking upon cortical thickness. A new study, published in ...

People who are deemed social misfits or "losers" aren't effective leaders, even if they are crusading for a cause that would benefit a larger group, according to new research from Rice University, the University of Texas and Universitat de Valencia. The study's authors observed the contributions of 80 participants in a repeated public-goods game and found that players were more likely to mimic the actions of a leader they perceived as a high-status individual; they ignored leaders perceived as low-status and, when they had a chance, punished them for trying to lead. ...

Tel Aviv ― Could the bacteria that we carry in our bodies decide who we marry? According to a new study from Tel Aviv University, the answer lies in the gut of a small fruit fly. Prof. Eugene Rosenberg, Prof. Daniel Segel and doctoral student Gil Sharon of Tel Aviv University's Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology recently demonstrated that the symbiotic bacteria inside a fruit fly greatly influence its choice of mates. The research was done in cooperation with Prof. John Ringo of the University of Maine, and was recently published in the Proceedings ...

A widely-used arthritis drug reduces the incidence of non-melanoma skin cancers – the most common cancers in humans – according to a study published this week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib (brand name Celebrex), which is currently approved for the treatment of osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and acute pain in adults led to a 62 percent reduction in non-melanoma skin cancers, which includes basal cell carcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas. Celecoxib, a prescription-strength nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Quitting smoking is certainly healthy for the body, but doctors and scientists haven't been sure whether quitting makes people happier, especially since conventional wisdom says many smokers use cigarettes to ease anxiety and depression. In a new study, researchers tracked the symptoms of depression in people who were trying to quit and found that they were never happier than when they were being successful, for however long that was. Based on their results, the authors of the article published online Nov. 24 in the journal Nicotine ...

A prescribed set of hospital-wide patient-safety programs can lead to rapid improvements in the "culture of safety" even in a large, complex, academic medical center, according to a new study by safety experts at Johns Hopkins. "It doesn't take decades or tons of money to get from a culture that says 'mistakes are inevitable' to a belief that harm is entirely preventable," says Peter Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and leader of the study published online in the journal ...

Expectant parents who completed a brief relationship-strengthening class around the time their child was born showed lasting effects on each family member's well being and on the family's overall relationships, according to a recent Penn State study. The team, led by Mark Feinberg, senior research associate in Penn State's Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development, analyzed the effects of the Family Foundations program for three years after a child was born. The Family Foundations program, offered in several Pennsylvania locations as part of ...

Atopic dermatitis (also known as atopic eczema) is a chronic and extremely painful inflammation of the skin that frequently occurs in early childhood, generally already in infancy. Up to 20 percent of all children in industrialized countries are affected, making it one of the most common childhood skin diseases. The need to better understand this disease is all the greater considering the intense suffering it causes in small children. Atopic dermatitis is, however, an allergic condition and all allergic reactions result from complex interactions of genetic and environmental ...

Using a widely heralded Johns Hopkins checklist and other patient-safety tools, intensive care units across the state of Michigan reduced the rate of potentially lethal bloodstream infections to near zero. Now, led by the same Johns Hopkins patient-safety expert who spearheaded the Michigan program, researchers in Rhode Island have shown the Michigan results weren't just a fluke. The new study, published in the December issue of the journal Quality and Safety in Health Care, found that the rate of central-line associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) fell by 74 ...

Why does a child grow up to become a lawyer, a politician, a professional athlete, an environmentalist or a churchgoer? It's determined by our inherited genes, say some researchers. Still others say the driving force is our upbringing and the nurturing we get from our parents. But a new child-development theory bridges those two models, says psychologist George W. Holden at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Holden's theory holds that the way a child turns out can be determined in large part by the day-to-day decisions made by the parents who guide that child's ...

People with a university degree fear death less than those at a lower literacy level. In addition, fear of death is most common among women than men, which affects their children's perception of death. In fact, 76% of children that report fear of death is due to their mothers avoiding the topic. Additionally, more of these children fear early death and adopt unsuitable approaches when it comes to deal with death. These are some of the conclusions drawn from a research entitled Educación para la muerte: Estudio sobre la construcción del concepto de muerte en niños de entre ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Exposure to polluted air early in life led to an accumulation of abdominal fat and insulin resistance in mice even if they ate a normal diet, according to new research. Animals exposed to the fine-particulate air pollution had larger and more fat cells in their abdominal area and higher blood sugar levels than did animals eating the same diet but breathing clean air. Researchers exposed the mice to the polluted air for six hours a day, five days a week for 10 weeks beginning when the animals were 3 weeks old. This time frame roughly matches the toddler ...

A new study by researchers at the Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Calgary, is raising questions about the therapeutic use of botulinum toxin A. The study found that animals injected with Clostridium Botulinum type A neurotoxin complex (BOTOX, Allergan, Inc., Toronto, Ontario, Canada) experienced muscle weakness in muscles throughout the body, even though they were far removed from the injection site. The study also found that repeated injection induced muscle atrophy and loss of contractile tissue in the limb that was not injected with the Toxin. "We were surprised ...

A fascinating study published in the BMJ shows that although the French drink more than the Northern Irish each week, as they drink daily, rather than more on less occasions, the French suffered from considerably less coronary heart disease than the Northern Irish. Ruidavets and colleagues compared groups of middle aged men in France and Northern Ireland, who have very different drinking cultures and rates of heart disease.The authors found that men who "binge" drink (drink =50 g of alcohol once a week) had nearly twice the risk of myocardial infarction or death from coronary ...