Through an innovative use of cell phone records, researchers at UCLA, the University of Miami and Cal State, Fullerton, have found that women appear to avoid contact with their fathers during ovulation. "Women call their dads less frequently on these high-fertility days and they hang up with them sooner if their dads initiate a call," said Martie Haselton, a UCLA associate professor of communication in whose lab the research was conducted. Because they did not have access to the content of the calls, the researchers are not able to say for sure why ovulating women ...

DURHAM, N.C. – As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency weighs whether to define coal ash as hazardous waste, a Duke University study identifies new monitoring protocols and insights that can help investigators more accurately measure and predict the ecological impacts of coal ash contaminants. "The take-away lesson is we need to change how and where we look for coal ash contaminants," says Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment. "Risks to water quality and aquatic life don't end with surface water contamination, ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Long a staple of nature documentaries, the somewhat bizarre development of a grub-like pink marsupial embryo outside the mother's womb is curious in another way. Duke University researchers have found that the developmental program executed by the marsupial embryo runs in a different order than the program executed by virtually every other vertebrate animal. "The limbs are at a different place in the entire timeline," said Anna Keyte, a postdoctoral biology researcher at Duke who did this work as part of her doctoral dissertation. "They begin development ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Humans are known to play it safe in a situation when they aren't sure of the odds, or don't have confidence in their judgments. We don't like to choose the unknown. And new evidence from a Duke University study is showing that chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest living primate relatives, treat the problem the same way we do. In studies conducted at the Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Republic of Congo and Lola ya Bonobo Sanctuary in Democratic Republic of Congo, researchers found the apes prefer to play it safe when the odds are uncertain. Graduate ...

A national conversation continues about the best ways to improve both the quality of medical care and to contain costs. So far, developing quality measurements has focused on primary care or highly prevalent, chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes. But what about brain disorders? To date, the number of measures that apply to neurologic care has been limited. The American Academy of Neurology (AAN), an association of more than 22,500 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, reached out to a group of neurologists to develop such a set of measurements. Led ...

If fossil fuels burn completely, the end products are carbon dioxide and water. Today the carbon dioxide is a waste product, one that goes into the air — adding to global warming; or the oceans — acidifying them; or underground — with as yet unknown consequences. But it's not impossible, says Liviu M. Mirica, PhD, assistant professor of chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis, to drive things the other way, turning carbon dioxide into fuels such as methanol or hydrocarbons. Until now reversing combustion has been a loser's game, because making carbon dioxide ...

An overlooked cause of the economic recession in the U.S. is a decade long decline in the quality of the nation's energy supply, often measured as the amount of energy we get out for a given energy input, says energy expert Carey King of The University of Texas at Austin. Many economists have pointed to a bursting real estate bubble as the initial trigger for the current recession, which in turn caused global investments in U.S. real estate to turn sour and drag down the global economy. King suggests the real estate bubble burst because individuals were forced to pay ...

DALLAS, Nov. 29, 2010 — Women with a history of migraine headache with aura (transient neurological symptoms, mostly visual impairments) are at increased risk of stroke. However, according to new research reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association stroke events in women with migraine with aura are more likely to have mild or no disability compared to those without migraine. In a new analysis of the Women's Health Study involving 27,852 women over 13.5 years, researchers found those who have migraine with aura and who experience an ischemic stroke ...

TEMPE, Ariz. – Glass is something we all know about. It's what we sip our drinks from, what we look out of to see what the weather is like before going outside and it is the backbone to our high speed communications infrastructure (optical fibers). But what most people don't know is that "glass transitions," where changes in structure of a substance accompanying temperature change get "frozen in," can show up during cooling of most any material, liquids through metals. This produces "glassy states," of that material – exotic states that can be unfrozen and refrozen by ...

New Haven, Conn.—The risk of dying from a heat wave is highest when heat waves occur early in the summer and are hotter and longer than usual, according to a Yale study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP). During the first heat wave of a summer, the risk of mortality increases 5.04 percent, compared to 2.65 percent for heat waves that occur later in the summer. Michelle Bell, a co-author of the study and associate professor of environmental health at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, said that people may be less accustomed ...

In a new UCSF study of more than 2 million mammogram screenings performed on nearly 700,000 women in the United States, scientists for the first time show a direct link between reduced hormone therapy and declines in ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) as well as invasive breast cancer. The researchers saw such a striking decrease, they believe they also have uncovered indirect evidence that hormones promote breast tumor growth. The declines occurred in the age groups that most widely embraced then abandoned hormone therapy. For nearly a decade, postmenopausal women have ...

La Jolla, CA – November 29, 2010 - For Immediate Release – A team of scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have uncovered a previously unknown regulatory mechanism in the body's response to eliminate pathogens, such as bacteria and viruses. The findings challenge a long-held dogma in the field of immunology and have potential implications for far-ranging topics from how vaccines should be administered to the origin of autoimmunity. The results of the study, led by Scripps Research Professor Michael McHeyzer-Williams, were published in the December issue of the ...

Vitamin D and calcium have been the focus of much research since the Institute of Medicine set nutritional reference values for them in 1997. Known as Dietary Reference Intakes, the values for these and other nutrients serve as a guide for good nutrition and provide the scientific basis for the development of food guidelines in both the United States and Canada. Updated DRIs for these two nutrients are presented in a new IOM report, Dietary Reference Intakes for Calcium and Vitamin D, which will be released on Tuesday, Nov. 30. INFORMATION: Details: Embargoed copies ...

CHICAGO – People with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a sleep disorder associated with obesity, have more non-calcified or "bad" plaque in their coronary arteries, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). "Our study reveals that individuals with obstructive sleep apnea are prone to developing an aggressive form of atherosclerosis that puts them at risk for impaired blood flow and cardiovascular events," said U. Joseph Schoepf, M.D., professor of radiology and medicine and director of cardiovascular ...

CHICAGO – In a study being presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), researchers say they may have an explanation as to why African Americans, despite having lower amounts of coronary artery calcification, are at increased risk for heart attacks and other cardiovascular events compared with Caucasians. The answer, according to researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, S.C., may be increased levels of non-calcified plaque, which consists of buildups of soft deposits deep in the walls of ...

CHICAGO – Researchers in London say they have found an effective two-part treatment for microtears in the hamstring: injections of the patient's own blood and a steroid along with "dry-needling," in which repeated needle punctures cause controlled internal bleeding in the injured area. Results of the study were presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). "By injecting the patient's own blood where it is needed at the site of a damaged tendon, we help the patient heal themselves," said lead researcher Waseem A. Bashir, M.D., ...

CHICAGO – For years, it was believed that obese women were at lower risk for developing osteoporosis, and that excess body fat actually protected against bone loss. However, a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) found that having too much internal abdominal fat may, in fact, have a damaging effect on bone health. "We know that obesity is a major public health problem," said the study's lead author, Miriam A. Bredella, M.D., a radiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and assistant professor of radiology at ...

CHICAGO – Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers have captured pictures of the brain while patients experienced a pain stimulus with and without acupuncture to determine acupuncture's effect on how the brain processes pain. Results of the study, which the researchers say suggest the effectiveness of acupuncture, were presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). "Until now, the role of acupuncture in the perception and processing of pain has been controversial," said lead researcher Nina Theysohn, M.D., ...

A new report in the December Cell Metabolism identifies a protein without which diets high in saturated fat lead to a massive inflammatory response that can prove fatal. The studies in mice suggest that deficiencies in this protective pathway could promote inflammation in those who regularly consume high levels of saturated fat. "In mice without this protein that ate a lot of saturated fat, the lymph nodes blew up to extreme levels," said Sander Kersten of the Nutrigenomics Consortium and Wageningen University in the Netherlands. "I'd never seen anything like it before." Kersten ...

Our brains are packed with cholesterol, almost all of which has to be produced within the brain itself, where it is critical for normal brain functions. Now, a new study in the December Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication, reveals how that critical cholesterol synthesis in the brain is derailed in mice with diabetes. The findings offer a new explanation for the neurologic and cerebral complications that come with diabetes, including cognitive dysfunction, depression, and an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease, according to the researchers. "People with diabetes ...

HOUSTON - (Dec. 1, 2010) – SRC-1 (steroid receptor coactivator) orchestrates glucose production in the liver, regulating the activity of a cascade of enzymes that turns sugar production on and off in the liver, said Baylor College of Medicine (www.bcm.edu) and Duke University Medical Center (www.dukehealth.org) researchers in a report that appears in the current issue of Cell Metabolism (http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/). "As we achieve a better understanding of gluconeogenesis (production of glucose) in the liver, we can look for new ways to treat metabolic diseases ...

Washington, D.C. (November 30, 2010) -- Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is one of the best tools for gaining insight into the structure and dynamics of molecules because nuclei in atoms within molecules will behave differently in a variety of chemical environments. Nuclei can be thought of as tiny compasses that align when placed in the field of a strong magnet. Similar to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), conventional NMR uses short pulses of radio waves to drive nuclei away from equilibrium and a 'signal' emerges as nuclei slowly realign with the field. Results reported ...

Washington, D.C. (November 30, 2010) -- One of the holy grails of nanotechnology in medicine is to control individual structures and processes inside a cell. Nanoparticles are well suited for this purpose because of their small size; they can also be engineered for specific intracellular tasks. When nanoparticles are excited by radio-frequency (RF) electromagnetic fields, interesting effects may occur. For example, the cell nucleus could get damaged inducing cell death; DNA might melt; or protein aggregates might get dispersed. Some of these effects may be due to the ...

Washington, D.C. (November 30, 2010) -- Quantum information processing is arguably one of the most fascinating facets of modern quantum physics. A quantum computer operates with quantum bits (qubits) as units of information. Obeying the laws of quantum mechanics, such a computer would be capable of addressing several of the most difficult computational tasks unsolvable with present technology. In the past few decades, scientists learned to perform room-sized experiments to optically control and read out a small number of qubits. Now, researchers in Germany have successfully ...

Washington, D.C. (November 30, 2010) -- A broad review of current research on nuclear power economics has been published in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy. The report concludes that nuclear power will continue to be a viable power source but that the current fuel cycle is not sustainable. Due to uncertainty about waste management, any projection of future costs must be built on basic assumptions that are not grounded in real data. "The goal of this study was to determine what assumptions are key to reaching conclusions about the relative costs of technologies," ...