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Science17 Dec 2010

Lost images of 'human exhibits' in Britain discovered

A University of Leicester researcher has discovered two photographic images, presumed lost, of native Americans brought to Britain by Roger Casement a century ago. Dr Lesley Wylie, Lecturer in Latin American Studies in the School of Modern Languages, University of Leicester, made the discovery during her research for a book on the Putumayo, a border region in the Amazon. Her book forms part of the AHRC-funded research project, American Tropics: Towards A Literary Geography, based at the University of Essex. The photographs were found among a photographic collection ...

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Science17 Dec 2010

Alcoholics beware -- genetic variation linked to liver cirrhosis in Caucasians

A new study by German researchers found that a variation in the PNPLA3 (adiponutrin) gene was associated with cirrhosis of the liver and elevated transaminase (liver enzyme) levels in alcoholic Caucasians. The risk of cirrhosis in alcoholics in the genetic high risk group might be as high as 25% to 50%. Full findings are published in the January 2011 issue of Hepatology, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. Alcoholic liver disease (ALD)—ranging from alcoholic fatty liver to alcohol induced liver fibrosis and cirrhosis—accounts for more ...

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Science17 Dec 2010

Goji berries have the same nutrients as fruits and vegetables and a placebo effect

While the consumption of Goji berries has risen dramatically over the last months, their properties have not been scientifically proven yet by any relevant clinical intervention study with humans. Most of Goji berries' components are contained in the recommended fruit and vegetable intake in balanced diets. The only difference is the "significant placebo effect" on people consuming them. Also, the species Lycium Barbarum –to which Goji berries exported from China belongs– originally comes from the Mediterranean and belongs to the Solanaceae family, the same family to which ...

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Medicine17 Dec 2010

No change in health gap between England's richest and poorest

Significant health inequalities still exist between the country's richest and poorest according to the latest findings from the biggest annual survey of health in England, The Health Survey for England. The survey, conducted by the National Centre for Social Research and UCL and funded by The NHS Information Centre, shows that people in the lowest income households continue to experience much worse outcomes across key health measures than people in the highest income households. Men and women in the lowest income bracket are three times more likely than those in the highest ...

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Medicine17 Dec 2010

Blocking the critical structure that lets cancer cells move -- their feet

DURHAM, N.C. -- Scientists now know that some cancer cells spread, or metastasize, throughout the body the old-fashioned way -- by using their feet. But researchers at Duke Cancer Institute have discovered a way to short-circuit their travels by preventing the development of these feet, called invadopodia. This discovery is even more important because preventing the development of these "feet" also eliminates the action of proteins present in the feet that burn through intact tissue and let cancer cells enter new cells. The results could yield a treatment to prevent the ...

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Environment17 Dec 2010

Report: Policies to spur renewable energy can lower energy costs

The South could pay less for its electricity in 20 years than is currently projected if strong public policies are enacted to spur renewable energy production and use, according to a report released today by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Duke University. The 190-page report, "Renewable Energy in the South," builds on a short policy brief released last summer and provides an in-depth assessment of the scope of renewable energy resources in the South and their economic impacts on electricity rates and utility bills in the region. Skeptics of renewable ...

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Science17 Dec 2010

Kids got the blues? Maybe they don't have enough friends

Montreal, December 16, 2010 – Friendless kids can become social outcasts who risk spiraling into depression by adolescence, according to new research from Concordia University, Florida Atlantic University and the University of Vermont. Yet for most shy and withdrawn children, the study reports in the journal Development and Psychopathology, friends can be a form of protection against sadness. "The long-term effects of being a withdrawn child are enduringly negative," says lead author William M. Bukowski, a psychology professor and director of the Concordia Centre for ...

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Science17 Dec 2010

Evidence suggests e-cigs safer than cigarettes, researcher claims

In a new report that bucks the concerns raised by the Food and Drug Administration, a Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) (sph.bu.edu) researcher concludes that electronic cigarettes are much safer than real cigarettes and show promise in the fight against tobacco-related diseases and death. The review, which will be published online ahead of print this month in the Journal of Public Health Policy, is the first to comprehensively examine scientific evidence about the safety and effectiveness of electronic cigarettes, also known as e-cigarettes, said Michael ...

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Science17 Dec 2010

Films for façades

Films instead of walls. This is an idea that fascinates architects all over the world. The Eden Project in Southern England, the National Aquatics Center built for swimming events at the Olympics in Beijing and the Allianz Arena in Munich are only three examples of what you can make from plastic sheets. Ethylene tetraflourethylene (ETFE), a transparent membrane, is especially popular because it enables buildings that shine in all colors as in Munich and Peking. But, we are not just talking about colors. You can use this new foil for an intelligent improvement of existing ...

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Medicine17 Dec 2010

Scientists identify the largest network of protein interactions related to Alzheimer's disease

Through a complex analysis of protein interactions, researchers from IRB Barcelona and the Joint Programme IRB-BSC have discovered new molecular mechanisms that may be involved in the development of Alzheimer's disease. The study, a collaboration between bioinformaticians and cell biologists, was led by IRB Barcelona group leader and ICREA researcher Patrick Aloy and appears today in the Genome Research, a reference journal in the field of genomics. Alzheimer's disease is an age-related neurodegenerative disease. Despite the considerable efforts made in recent years to ...

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Science17 Dec 2010

It's a pain to take care of pain

INDIANAPOLIS –While many studies have looked at the treatment of chronic pain from the patient's perspective, there has been little research on those who provide care for chronic pain. In a study in the November 2010 issue of the journal Pain Medicine, researchers from the Regenstrief Institute, the Indiana University School of Medicine, the IU School of Liberal Arts and the Roudebush VA Medical Center report that chronic pain takes a toll on primary care providers as well as their patients. They conclude that providers' needs should not be ignored if pain care is to ...

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Medicine17 Dec 2010

Information technology needs fundamental shift to continue rapid advances in computing and help drive US competitiveness

WASHINGTON — The rapid advances in information technology that drive many sectors of the U.S. economy could stall unless the nation aggressively pursues fundamental research and development of parallel computing -- hardware and software that enable multiple computing activities to process simultaneously, says a new report by the National Research Council. Better options for managing power consumption in computers will also be essential for continued improvements in IT performance. For many decades, advances in single-processor, sequential computer microprocessors have ...

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Energy17 Dec 2010

URI geologist develops improved seismic model for monitoring nuclear explosions in Middle East

KINGSTON, R.I. – December 16, 2010 – Geologists from the University of Rhode Island and Princeton University, in collaboration with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, have taken an important step toward helping the United States government monitor nuclear explosions by improving a 3-dimensional model originally developed at Harvard University. The improvements make the model more accurate at detecting the location, source and depth of seismic activity. The results of their research were presented today at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. The ...

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Science17 Dec 2010

Flu on the western front

The World Health Organization set a target for the influenza vaccination rate for 2006 of more than 50% of the elderly population and an increase to more than 75% by 2010. These rates have thus far not been achieved in the old German states. In the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2010; 107[48]: 845󈞞) the working group around Annicka M. Reuss presents rates from flu seasons past. Germany's Standing Vaccination Committee (STIKO) recommends annual vaccinations against seasonal influenza. The risk groups for the infection, which ...

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Medicine17 Dec 2010

New study suggests almonds may help reduce risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease

Modesto, CA (Dec. 16, 2010) – With nearly 16 million Americans living today with prediabetes, a condition that is the precursor to type 2 diabetes, and half of all Americans expected to have either prediabetes or type 2 diabetes by the year 2020, nutritional approaches to maintaining healthy blood sugar levels are essential.1,2 The findings of a scientific study examining the health promotion and disease prevention benefits of almond consumption were published in the June, 2010 Journal of the American College of Nutrition. The study, one of the first of its kind to quantify ...

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Medicine17 Dec 2010

Decades after childhood radiation, thyroid cancer a concern

When children are exposed to head and neck radiation, whether due to cancer treatment or multiple diagnostic CT scans, the result is an increased risk of thyroid cancer for the next 58 years or longer, according to University of Rochester Medical Center research. The study is believed to be the longest of any group of children exposed to medical irradiation and followed for thyroid cancer incidence. It was published in the December 2010 edition of the journal, Radiation Research. The data also might provide some insight about why the rates of thyroid cancer continue ...

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Energy17 Dec 2010

Wind turbines may benefit crops

AMES, Iowa – Wind turbines in Midwestern farm fields may be doing more than churning out electricity. The giant turbine blades that generate renewable energy might also help corn and soybean crops stay cooler and dryer, help them fend off fungal infestations and improve their ability to extract growth-enhancing carbon dioxide [CO2] from the air and soil. Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, a scientific society, in San Francisco today, a researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory and his co-researcher from the University ...

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Social Science17 Dec 2010

Teacher effort is linked to difficult students' inherited traits

Challenging students take up more of their teachers' time—and the difference between a tougher student and an easier one appears to be genetic, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study looked at young twins in the U.K. and asked their teachers how much of a handful they are. "Policy-wise, there's a lot going on, blaming teachers for what's going on in the classrooms," says Renate Houts of Duke University, who cowrote the study with Avshalom Caspi and Terrie E. Moffitt of Duke, Robert ...

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Medicine17 Dec 2010

MRI scans reveal brain changes in people at genetic risk for Alzheimer's

AUDIO: People with a known risk for Alzheimer’s disease seem to develop abnormal brain function even before the appearance of amyloid plaques in the brain. A new study from Washington University... Click here for more information. People with a known, high risk for Alzheimer's disease develop abnormal brain function even before the appearance of telltale amyloid plaques that are characteristic of the disease, according to a new study. Researchers at Washington University ...

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Science17 Dec 2010

New report outlines restoration activities to speed seagrass recovery in the Florida Keys

Results of a five-year monitoring effort to repair seagrass damaged in a boat grounding incident suggest that restoration techniques such as replanting seagrass can speed recovery time. The finding is included in a new report released today by NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. The National Marine Sanctuaries Conservation Series report, "N-Control Seagrass Restoration Monitoring Report Monitoring Events 2003-2008," presents results of efforts to repair a nearly 1,000-square-foot (92.8-square-meter) swath of seagrass that was damaged on May 29, 2001, when a ...

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Science17 Dec 2010

Tiny 3-D images shed light on origin of Earth's core

To answer the big questions, it often helps to look at the smallest details. That is the approach Stanford mineral physicist Wendy Mao is taking to understanding a major event in Earth's inner history. Using a new technique to scrutinize how minute amounts of iron and silicate minerals interact at ultra-high pressures and temperatures, she is gaining insight into the biggest transformation Earth has ever undergone – the separation of its rocky mantle from its iron-rich core approximately 4.5 billion years ago. The technique, called high-pressure nanoscale X-ray computed ...

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Science17 Dec 2010

Extinctions, loss of habitat harm evolutionary diversity

A mathematically driven evolutionary snapshot of woody plants in four similar climates around the world has given scientists a fresh perspective on genetic diversity and threats posed by both extinctions and loss of habitat. The message from the study, appearing online ahead of publication in Ecology Letters, says lead author Hélène Morlon, is that evolutionary diversity -- the millions of years of evolutionary innovations contained in present-day species -- is more sensitive to extinctions or loss of habitat than long thought. And that, she adds, means conservation efforts ...

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Science17 Dec 2010

Emotional intelligence peaks as we enter our 60s, research suggests

Older people have a hard time keeping a lid on their feelings, especially when viewing heartbreaking or disgusting scenes in movies and reality shows, psychologists have found. But they're better than their younger counterparts at seeing the positive side of a stressful situation and empathizing with the less fortunate, according to research from the University of California, Berkeley. A team of researchers led by UC Berkeley psychologist Robert Levenson is tracking how our emotional strategies and responses change as we age. Their findings – published over the past ...

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Physics17 Dec 2010

First measurement of magnetic field in Earth's core

A University of California, Berkeley, geophysicist has made the first-ever measurement of the strength of the magnetic field inside Earth's core, 1,800 miles underground. The magnetic field strength is 25 Gauss, or 50 times stronger than the magnetic field at the surface that makes compass needles align north-south. Though this number is in the middle of the range geophysicists predict, it puts constraints on the identity of the heat sources in the core that keep the internal dynamo running to maintain this magnetic field. "This is the first really good number we've ...

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Medicine17 Dec 2010

PSA test better predicts cancer in men taking prostate-shrinking drug

The PSA screening test for prostate cancer is not perfect. It can indicate cancer when none is present and miss life-threatening tumors. But a new study suggests the test is more reliable in men taking dutasteride (Avodart®), a drug widely prescribed to shrink an enlarged prostate gland. Dutasteride lowers PSA levels by about half within six months. But the researchers found that even a slight rise in PSA levels among men taking the drug was a stronger indicator of prostate cancer, particularly aggressive tumors that require early diagnosis and treatment, than rising ...

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