Tel Aviv -- You know when you're watching a pirated film downloaded from the Internet -- there's no mistaking the fuzzy footage, or the guy in the front row getting up for popcorn. Despite the poor quality, pirated video is a serious problem around the world. Criminal copyright infringement occurs on a massive scale over the Internet, costing the film industry -- and the U.S. economy -- billions of dollars annually. Now Dr. Alex Bronstein of Tel Aviv University's Department of Electrical Engineering has a new way to stop video pirates. With his twin brother Michael and ...

The Whitworth Meteorological Observatory is a fully-automated, state of the art meteorological facility, replacing the original observatory set up and located in Whitworth Park in August 1892. The new site, funded by the legacy of Sir Joseph Whitworth, will fulfil his wish to maintain the original observatory as a source of data for scientific, education and popular interest following the demise of the original in 1958. Data from the new observatory will be used in support of scientific research projects focusing on urban climatology. They will also be used to support ...

(Boston) – Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have demonstrated that certain T cells require input from monocytes in order to maintain their pro-inflammatory response in people with type 2 diabetes (T2D). The study also showed, for the first time, how a loss in homeostasis in this group of T cells most likely promotes chronic inflammation associated with T2D. Barbara Nikolajczyk, PhD, an associate professor of microbiology and medicine at BUSM, is the senior author of the study, which is currently featured in an online edition of the Journal ...

In the minds of many, Miscanthus x giganteus is the forerunner in the race of viable feedstock options for lignocellulosic bioenergy production. But researchers believe "putting all their eggs in one basket" could be a big mistake. Scientists at the University of Illinois recently reported the first natural occurrence in several decades of Miscanthus hybrid plants in Japan. "If M. x giganteus is the only variety available, there are certainly risks involved such as diseases or pests causing widespread establishment problems or yield losses," said Ryan Stewart, assistant ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study suggests that the presence of tumor cells in the circulating blood of patients with squamous cell cancer of the head and neck may predict disease recurrence and reduced survival. An increased number of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) also correlates with a worse outcome. Those are the early findings from an ongoing, prospective study of the prognostic importance of CTCs by a team of researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center-Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. The study is ...

Philadelphia, PA, December 21, 2010 – The relationship between smoking and cancer is well established. In a study published in the January 2011 issue of Pain, researchers report evidence to suggest that cancer patients who continue to smoke despite their diagnosis experience greater pain than nonsmokers. They found that for a wide range of cancer types and for cancers in stages I to IV, smoking was associated with increased pain severity and the extent to which pain interfered with a patient's daily routine. "To elucidate important relations between pain and smoking among ...

VIDEO: Western Ph.D. student Jessica Metcalfe discusses the reasons why woolly mammoths roaming the Yukon Territories thousands of years ago waited so long to eat plants and how she and her... Click here for more information. New research from The University of Western Ontario leads investigators to believe that woolly mammoths living north of the Arctic Circle during the Pleistocene Epoch (approx. 150,000 to 40,000 years ago) began weaning infants up to three years later than ...

Salt Lake City, Dec.21, 2010—The vast majority of parents who tested positive for a genetic mutation that increases the risk of melanoma (the most serious form of skin cancer) support genetic testing of their children or grandchildren. Results of the two-year study at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah (U of U) appear in the December issue of the journal Genetics in Medicine. The data could lead to the establishment of formal, evidence-based guidelines for genetic testing of people younger than 18 years. The study, led by Sancy A. Leachman, M.D., ...

Research on reducing risks, improving medical treatment and improving lifestyle behaviors to fight the battle against heart disease and stroke are among the key scientific findings that make up this year's top cardiovascular and stroke research recognized by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. The association has been compiling an annual list of the top 10 major advances in heart disease and stroke research since 1996. This year, for the first time, two separate lists have been compiled that highlight the top ten research advances in each respective ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---New observations by University of Michigan astronomers add weight to the theory that the most massive stars in the universe could form essentially anywhere, including in near isolation; they don't need a large stellar cluster nursery. This is the most detailed observational study to date of massive stars that appear (from the ground) to be alone. The scientists used the Hubble Space Telescope to zoom in on eight of these giants, which range from 20 to 150 times as massive as the Sun. The stars they looked at are in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf ...

New Rochelle, NY, December 21, 2010—A festschrift honoring Daniel H. Lowenstein, a pioneering legal scholar, Professor at UCLA School of Law, and Founding Co-Editor of Election Law Journal, who devoted his career to advancing election law and campaign finance reform, highlights the current issue of Election Law Journal, a peer-reviewed publication of Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The issue is available free online. "Dan quite literally founded the field of election law," says UCLA School of Law professor and colleague of Lowenstein's, Adam Winkler in his introduction. Winkler ...

New Rochelle, NY, December 21, 2010—Pregnancy among women veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan appears to increase their risk for mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to a study published in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The paper is available free online. The stress associated with military service in a war zone may later contribute to an increased risk of mental health problems if a woman veteran becomes pregnant. Because the hormonal ...

Every hour, an enormous quantity and variety of manmade chemicals, having reached the end of their useful lifespan, flood into wastewater treatment plants. These large-scale processing facilities, however, are designed only to remove nutrients, turbidity and oxygen-depleting human waste, and not the multitude of chemicals put to residential, institutional, commercial and industrial use. So what happens to these chemicals, some of which may be toxic to humans and the environment? Do they get destroyed during wastewater treatment or do they wind up in the environment with ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY-- Newly published research led by Professor Z. Josh Huang, Ph.D., of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) sheds important new light on how neurons in the developing brain make connections with one another. This activity, called synapse validation, is at the heart of the process by which neural circuits self-assemble, and is directly implicated in pathology that gives rise to devastating neurodevelopmental disorders including autism and schizophrenia. In the mammalian brain, even in its early stages of postnatal development, the cortex, the seat ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Moderately and morbidly obese persons face many health issues -- heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, stroke, gallbladder disease and others. Now, increased chances of dying while driving during a severe auto accident can be added to the list. In a severe motor vehicle crash, a moderately obese driver faces a 21 percent increased risk of death, while the morbidly obese face a 56 percent increased risk of not surviving, according to a study posted online ahead of print in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine. Dietrich Jehle, MD, professor of ...

VIDEO: Science team placing radio collars on polar bears. Click here for more information. PORTLAND, Ore. December 21, 2010. "When I first picked up the cub, she was biting my hand," explains wildlife biologist Bruce Marcot. He was trying to calm the squirming cub while its sedated mother slept nearby. In the snowy spring of 2009, Portland-based Marcot traveled with several colleagues onto the frozen Arctic Ocean north of Alaska to study and survey polar bear populations. ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 21, 2010 -- Scientists have made the surprising discovery that our ability to recognize and remember faces peaks at age 30 to 34, about a decade later than most of our other mental abilities. Researchers Laura T. Germine and Ken Nakayama of Harvard University and Bradley Duchaine of Dartmouth College will present their work in a forthcoming issue of the journal Cognition. While prior evidence had suggested that face recognition might be slow to mature, Germine says few scientists had suspected that it might continue building for so many years ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---The last-minute holiday dash is on: Men tend to rush in for their prized item, pay, and leave. Women study the fabrics, color, texture and price. The hunting and gathering ritual of yesteryear continues today in malls around the world. Understanding the shopping behavior of your partner can help relieve stress at the stores, according to a researcher at the University of Michigan. Daniel Kruger of the U-M School of Public Health says that gathering edible plants and fungi is traditionally done by women. In modern terms, think of filling a basket by ...

DURHAM, N.H. – In a study published December 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy Sciences (PNAS), a team of researchers including University of New Hampshire scientists Wilfred Wollheim, William McDowell, and Jody Potter details findings that show emissions of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide from global rivers and streams are three times previous estimates used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the leading international body for the assessment of climate change. Waterways receiving nitrogen from human activities such as agriculture and ...

December is a time for twinkling lights, and scientists at the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility are delivering. They've just produced a long-sought, rare color of laser light 100 times brighter than that generated anywhere else. The light was produced by Jefferson Lab's Free-Electron Laser facility. The laser delivered vacuum ultraviolet light in the form of 10 eV photons (a wavelength of 124 nanometers). This color of light is called vacuum ultraviolet because it is absorbed by molecules in the air, requiring its use in a vacuum. "We ...

A psychology professor has found that the way people perceive the Silhouette Illusion, a popular illusion that went viral and has received substantial online attention, has little to do with the viewers' personality, or whether they are left- or right-brained, despite the fact that the illusion is often used to test these attributes in popular e-quizzes. Niko Troje says that a reported preference for seeing the silhouette spinning clockwise rather than counter-clockwise is dependent upon the angle at which the viewer is seeing the image. "Our visual system, if it ...

Older men with high-risk prostate cancer frequently are offered fewer – and less effective – choices of treatment than younger men, potentially resulting in earlier deaths, according to a new UCSF study. The scientists found that men above age 75 with high-risk prostate cancer often are under-treated through hormone therapy or watchful waiting alone in lieu of more aggressive treatments such as surgery and radiation therapies. Instead, say the researchers, old age should not be viewed as a barrier to treatments that could lead to potential cures. "There is a disconnect ...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21, 2010 — The American Chemical Society (ACS) applauds Congress for reauthorizing the America COMPETES Act today. America COMPETES (Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education and Science), was originally enacted in 2007 and needed to be reauthorized this year in order to provide continued support for scientific research, technological development, science, technology, engineering and math education. "I want to extend our appreciation to Congress for passing COMPETES; it is the backbone of our nation's scientific ...

TORONTO, Ont., Dec. 21, 2010 – St. Michael's Hospital today became the first in Ontario to implant a small but powerful new defibrillator into a patient's chest. The defibrillator – about the size of a Zippo lighter – is the smallest available in terms of surface area and can deliver the highest level of energy, 40 joules. The narrow shape of the device allowed Dr. Iqwal Mangat to make a smaller incision in the patient's chest, which should mean a faster recovery and smaller scar. The "minimally invasive" procedure is performed on an outpatient basis, with most patients ...

Washington, DC – The Science Coalition issued the following statement today from President Deborah Altenburg after the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 5116, the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010: On behalf of The Science Coalition's 46 member universities, we thank the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate for reauthorizing this vital piece of legislation just days before its expiration and amid a busy lame duck session. The America COMPETES Act has tremendous implications for future job creation, economic growth and American competitiveness abroad. ...