With most people unable to get enough vitamin D from sunlight or foods, scientists are suggesting that a new vitamin D-fortified food — bread made with high-vitamin D yeast — could fill that gap. Their study, confirming that the approach works in laboratory tests, appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Connie Weaver and colleagues cite studies suggesting that up to 7 in 10 people in the United States may not get enough vitamin D, which enables the body to absorb calcium. Far from just contributing to healthy bones, however, vitamin D seems to have ...

University of British Columbia geophysicists are offering a new explanation for seismic tremors accompanying volcanic eruptions that could advance forecasting of explosive eruptions such as recent events at Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, Chaiten Volcano in Chile, and Mount St. Helens in Washington State. All explosive volcanic eruptions are preceded and accompanied by tremors that last from hours to weeks, and a remarkably consistent range of tremor frequencies has been observed by scientists before and during volcanic eruptions around the world. However, the underlying ...

Scientists who examined more than 10,000 chemical compounds during the last year in search of potential new drugs for a group of untreatable brain diseases, are reporting that one substance shows unusual promise. The early positive signs for so-called prion diseases come from research in laboratory mice and cell cultures, they say in a report in ACS' Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Adam Renslo and colleagues, who include Nobel Laureate Stanley B. Prusiner, explain that prion diseases include conditions like mad cow disease in animals and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in humans, ...

URBANA – Although declaring bankruptcy was once thought to be a desperate, when-all-else-fails solution, in this new millennium of economic uncertainty, it has become a common option for people who are in deep debt. The question is, can they learn from their mistakes, change their behavior, and recover? A recent study says, yes, with counseling and education. In 2005, Congress passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act to provide counseling and education to help people make an informed choice about bankruptcy, its alternatives, and the consequences. ...

Scientists are reporting development of an advanced lithium-ion battery that is ideal for powering the electric vehicles now making their way into dealer showrooms. The new battery can store large amounts of energy in a small space and has a high rate capacity, meaning it can provide current even in extreme temperatures. A report on this innovation appears in ACS' Journal of the American Chemical Society. Bruno Scrosati, Yang-Kook Sun, and colleagues point out that consumers have a great desire for electric vehicles, given the shortage and expense of petroleum. But a ...

Whether on a battlefield, in a factory or at a rock concert, noise-induced hearing loss is one of the most common hazards people face. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a low-dose, two-drug cocktail that reduces hearing loss in mice when given before they are exposed to loud noise. The drugs, already FDA-approved for other conditions, also treat hearing loss after noise exposure. While both drugs are known to protect hearing on their own, this is the first study to test the two in combination. "We found they have ...

AMES, Iowa – A research team led by Edward Yu of Iowa State University and the Ames Laboratory has identified and described two parts of the three-part system that pumps toxins from bacteria and allows them to resist antibiotics. The discoveries are published in the Feb. 24 issue of the journal Nature. The paper describes the co-crystal structure of two parts of the three-part efflux pump that recognizes and removes heavy metal toxins from bacteria. A research team led by Yu – an Iowa State associate professor of physics and astronomy, of chemistry, of biochemistry, ...

Mention solar energy, and most people think "squeaky clean, pollution-free." The reality of making solar panels with existing technology, however, is much different, involving use of potentially toxic substances and lots of energy. That could change, according to an article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine. In the article, C&EN Associate Editor Sarah Everts describes the beginning of a scientific effort to manufacture solar panels in a way that better fits the public perception. Current silicon-based solar panels, ...

The perception of negative stereotyping, particularly in the areas of financial services and automobile sales and service, can cause consumers to fear being duped and forgo their purchases, according to new research by University of Minnesota associate professor Kathleen D. Vohs. Vohs, the Land O'Lakes Professor for Excellence in Marketing at the university's Carlson School of Management, and co-authors Hakkyun Kim (Concordia University, Canada) and Kyoungmi Lee (Yonsei University, Korea) found that a potential buyer, aware of negative associations held about a group ...

In a finding that may potentially improve survival from war injuries and disasters, laboratory researchers report that refrigerated whole blood may have a shelf life well beyond the current standard of 24 to 48 hours. "We have found that whole blood retains its clotting properties at least 11 days under standard refrigeration," said the study leader, David Jobes, M.D., a cardiothoracic anesthesiologist in the Cardiac Center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "If this lab discovery can be confirmed in human subjects, it may lead to a change in clinical practice, ...

Boston, MA -- A U.S.-Chile collaboration is bringing surgical patients closer to having a long-acting local anesthetic. In a randomized, double-blind trial, patients given neosaxitoxin, a new local anesthetic derived from algae, had significantly less postoperative pain and recovered about two days sooner than those given the commonly used local anesthetic bupivacaine. Based on this finding, Children's Hospital Boston, a co-investigator on the study, has signed a collaboration agreement with biotech start-up company Proteus SA (Santiago, Chile) to move the new anesthetic ...

A study by Rimma Teper, Michael Inzlicht, and Elizabeth Page-Gould of the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) on human morality has just been published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association of Psychological Science. The study tested the difference between moral forecasting and moral action—and the reasons behind any mismatch. The findings look encouraging: people act more morally than they would have predicted. But lest we get sentimental about that result, lead author and psychology PhD candidate Teper offers this: "There has been other work ...

A study of more than 1 million Asians found that those who were a normal weight were far less likely to die from any cause than individuals whose body-mass index (BMI) was too high or low. A similar association was seen between BMI and the risk of death from cancer, cardiovascular disease or other causes. The study, led by Wei Zheng, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., Ingram Professor of Cancer Research at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville, Tenn., Paolo Boffetta, M.D., M.P.H., professor, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, N.Y., and John D. Potter, M.D., Ph.D., member ...

A new study by Dr. Zoë Lindo, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Biology at McGill University, and Jonathan Whiteley, a doctoral student in the same department, shows that large, ancient trees may be very important in helping forests grow. These findings highlight the importance of maintaining the large old-growth trees in the coastal temperate rainforests that stretch from Southern Alaska to Northern California. Lindo's findings suggest that it is the interactions between old trees, mosses and cyanobacteria, which contribute to nutrient dynamics in a way that ...

A University of Alberta astronomer has glimpsed the inner working of a neutron star and found a unique world where the physics can be described as "weird." Craig Heinke's team found the neutron star's core contained a superfluid, a friction-less liquid that could seemingly defy the laws of gravity. "If you could put some of this superfluid in a jar it would flow up the walls of the container and over the edge," said Heinke. Heinke says the core of the neutron star also contains a superconductor, a perfect electrical conductor. "An electric current in a superconductor ...

In a major advance for schizophrenia research, an international team of scientists led by the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and involving Trinity College Dublin researchers has identified a gene mutation strongly linked to schizophrenia that may be an important new target for the development of drug therapies. The findings are just published in the online issue of the journal Nature. Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe and disabling brain disorder, with symptoms that include hallucinations, delusions and thought disorder. Schizophrenia is believed ...

Much of the Mississippi River's sediment load doesn't come from field runoff, according to work by scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Instead, the scientists with USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have confirmed that stream bank collapse and failure can be chief contributors to high sediment levels in the silty streams and rivers that flow into the Mississippi. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lists sediment as the most common pollutant of rivers, streams, lakes and reservoirs ...

### The team's findings were recently published in the Journal of Environmental Science & Technology. For an abstract of the article, please visit: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es103302t?prevSearch=%2528dankovich%2529%2BNOT%2B%255Batype%253A%2Bad%255D%2BNOT%2B%255Batype%253A%2Bacs-toc%255D&searchHistoryKey= For more information about Derek Gray's lab: http://www.mcgill.ca/pprc/members/gray/ Complete article available on request. END ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY -- A team of neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) and UC San Diego (UCSD) has collected evidence suggesting that a previously overlooked portion of the brain could be a prime locus of human depression. In two rat models of human depression, the scientists have demonstrated that neurons in a tiny area in the central brain called the lateral habenula (LHb) are hyperactive. Specifically, as the team reports today online ahead of print in the journal Nature, excitatory synaptic inputs onto ...

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered the first direct evidence for a superfluid, a bizarre, friction-free state of matter, at the core of a neutron star. Superfluids created in laboratories on Earth exhibit remarkable properties, such as the ability to climb upward and escape airtight containers. The finding has important implications for understanding nuclear interactions in matter at the highest known densities. Neutron stars contain the densest known matter that is directly observable. One teaspoon of neutron star material weighs six billion tons. The pressure ...

When people are feeling badly about themselves, they're more likely to show bias against people who are different. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, examines how that works. "This is one of the oldest accounts of why people stereotype and have prejudice: It makes us feel better about ourselves," says Jeffrey Sherman of the University of California, Davis, who wrote the study with Thomas Allen. "When we feel bad about ourselves, we can denigrate other people, and that makes us feel better about ourselves." Sherman ...

HOUSTON -- (Feb. 23, 2011) -- A lab at Rice University has stepped forward with an efficient method to disperse nanotubes in a way that preserves their unique properties -- and adds more. The new technique allows inorganic metal complexes with different functionalities to remain in close contact with single-walled carbon nanotubes while keeping them separated in a solution. That separation is critical to manufacturers who want to spin fiber from nanotubes, or mix them into composite materials for strength or to take advantage of their electrical properties. For starters, ...

An article by Stevens Institute of Technology researchers featured as the cover page of Applied Physics Letters Volume 98, Issue 7 represents a step forward in techniques for the arrangement of nanowires. Professors Dr. Chang-Hwan Choi and Dr. Eui-Hyeok (EH) Yang, and graduate students Wei Xu, Rajesh Leeladhar, and Yao-Tsan Tsai, focuses on nanowires, structures that are mere nanometers in diameter but have enormous potential in nanotechnology to create tiny circuits that would make possible nanoelectronics, nanophotonics, and nanobiotechnology. Such devices could forever ...

WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- An assessment of coastal change over the past 150 years has found 68 percent of beaches in the New England and Mid-Atlantic region are eroding, according to a U.S. Geological Survey report released today. Scientists studied more than 650 miles of the New England and Mid-Atlantic coasts and found the average rate of coastal change – taking into account beaches that are both eroding and prograding -- was negative 1.6 feet per year. Of those beaches eroding, the most extreme case exceeded 60 feet per year. The past 25 to 30 years saw a small reduction ...

In an effort to develop therapeutic remedies for multiple sclerosis, scientists debate two possible interventional approaches - but they're on opposite sides of the spectrum. Researchers at Wayne State University's School of Medicine, however, have reached a definitive conclusion as to which approach is correct, putting an end to a long-disputed issue. Harley Tse, Ph.D., associate professor of immunology and microbiology at WSU's School of Medicine and resident of West Bloomfield, Mich., whose study was published in the January 2011 edition of the Journal of Neuroimmunology, ...