Scientists at The University of Nottingham and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge have pin-pointed the 72 molecular switches that control the three key stages in the life cycle of the malaria parasite and have discovered that over a third of these switches can be disrupted in some way. Their research which has been funded by Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council (MRC) is a significant breakthrough in the search for cheap and effective vaccines and drugs to stop the transmission of a disease which kills up to a million children a year. Until ...

Power plants that burn fossil fuels remain the main source of electricity generation across the globe. Modern power plants have scrubbers to remove sulfur compounds from their flue gases, which has helped reduce the problem of acid rain. Now, researchers in India have devised a way to convert the waste material produced by the scrubbing process into value-added products. They describe details in the International Journal of Environment and Pollution. Fossil fuels contain sulfur compounds that are released as sulfur dioxide during combustion. As such, flue gas desulfurisation ...

Researchers from the University of Valencia (UV) have identified the effects of the way parents bring up their children on social structure in Spain. Their conclusions show that punishment, deprivation and strict rules impact on a family's self esteem. "The objective was to analyse which style of parental socialisation is ideal in Spain by measuring the psychosocial adjustment of children", Fernando García, co-author of the study and a researcher at the UV, tells SINC. The study, which has been published in the latest issue of the journal Infancia y Aprendizaje, was ...

INDIANAPOLIS – A study published earlier this year in the peer reviewed online journal BMC Public Health has found that residing in a neighborhood with adverse living conditions such as low air quality, loud traffic or industrial noise, or poorly maintained streets, sidewalks and yards, makes mobility problems much more likely in late middle-aged African Americans with diabetes. "We followed a large group of African Americans for 3 years and found an extremely strong correlation between diabetes and adverse neighborhood conditions. The study participants were between ...

Jena (21 October 2010) Scientists from the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena (Germany) were successful in improving a fabrication process for Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) probe tips. Atomic Force Microscopy is able to scan surfaces so that even tiniest nano structures become visible. Knowledge about these structures is for instance important for the development of new materials and carrier systems for active substances. The size of the probe is highly important for the image quality as it limits the dimensions that can be visualized – the smaller the probe, the smaller ...

PITTSBURGH—An analysis of plant and petroleum-derived plastics by University of Pittsburgh researchers suggests that biopolymers are not necessarily better for the environment than their petroleum-based relatives, according to a report in Environmental Science & Technology. The Pitt team found that while biopolymers are the more eco-friendly material, traditional plastics can be less environmentally taxing to produce. Biopolymers trumped the other plastics for biodegradability, low toxicity, and use of renewable resources. Nonetheless, the farming and chemical processing ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Being the right size and existing in the limbo between a solid and a liquid state appear to be the secrets to improving the efficiency of chemical catalysts that can create better nanoparticles or more efficient energy sources. When matter is in this transitional state, a catalyst can achieve its utmost potential with the right combination of catalyst particle size and temperature, according to a pair of Duke University researchers. A catalyst is an agent or chemical that facilitates a chemical reaction. It is estimated that more than 90 percent of chemical ...

PITTSBURGH—Computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have devised an innovative and elegantly concise algorithm that can efficiently solve systems of linear equations that are critical to such important computer applications as image processing, logistics and scheduling problems, and recommendation systems. The theoretical breakthrough by Professor Gary Miller, Systems Scientist Ioannis Koutis and Ph.D. student Richard Peng, all of Carnegie Mellon's Computer Science Department, has enormous practical potential. Linear systems are widely used to model real-world ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Step aside copper and make way for a better carrier of information -- light. As good as the metal has been in zipping information from one circuit to another on silicon inside computers and other electronic devices, optical signals can carry much more, according to Duke University electrical engineers. So the engineers have designed and demonstrated microscopically small lasers integrated with thin film-light guides on silicon that could replace the copper in a host of electronic products. The structures on silicon not only contain tiny light-emitting ...

Growing up with lots of sisters makes a man less sexy. For rats, anyway. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that the sex ratio of a male rat's family when he's growing up influences both his own sexual behavior and how female rats respond to him. David Crews, a psychobiologist at the University of Texas at Austin, is interested in how early life affects behavior later. This is an area that has received a lot of attention recently, such as research showing that the position of a fetus in the uterus ...

A commentary published in the journal, Science Translational Medicine, examines the structures of translational research investment in the UK. The commentary has been written by researchers from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) at Guy's and St Thomas' and King's College London. The authors consider the results of substantial Government and charitable investment in translational research taking place within the NHS. The commentary follows the progress of the research and development funding streams available ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Does the environment encountered early in life have permanent and predictable long-term effects in adulthood? Such effects have been reported in numerous organisms, including humans. But now a biology graduate student at the University of California, Riverside reports that how individuals fare as adults is not simply a passive consequence of the limits that early conditions may impose on them. Studying how adult Trinidadian guppies (small freshwater fish) responded to their early food conditions, Sonya Auer found that the guppies had compensated ...

VIDEO: Martha Askins explains problem-solving skills training. Click here for more information. BOSTON - Mothers who have children diagnosed with cancer now have a better approach to address and cope with stresses associated with their child's disease. A new certified intervention has proven to be more effective long term compared to other psychological methods, as reported today at the 42nd Congress of the International Society of Pediatric Oncology. In a joint ...

CHICAGO (October 21, 2010) – Occupants in motor vehicles with airbags are much less likely to suffer kidney or renal damage in a crash than are occupants in vehicles without airbags, according to a new study in the September Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Little is known about how to prevent or reduce injury to solid organs from motor vehicle collisions. In fact, this study is the first to evaluate the protective effect of airbags on a specific organ system – in this case, the kidney and other renal, or upper urinary tract, organs. The researchers found ...

CHICAGO (October 21, 2010) – Telementoring may be an effective way for subspecialist surgeons to assist remotely located general surgeons in the care of patients in need of emergency subspecialty surgical procedures, according to new research findings published in the September issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. In the study, eight general surgery residents with no formal subspecialty training participated in three mock operations using animal cadavers intended to simulate live procedures. When telementored, the residents achieved higher overall ...

Two new studies have determined that everolimus-eluting stent (EES) implantation reduced the incidence of restenosis and repeat revascularization in patients with calcified culprit lesions, and had fewer clinical events. Results show the rate of major cardiac adverse events in EES-treated patients with calcified lesions were higher than in those for noncalcified lesions, but remained lower than the results of previously reported stent studies. Details of both studies are published in the November issue of Catheterization and Cardiovascular Intervention, a peer-reviewed ...

What do we mean by "common sense" when we talk about a disease? What affects the ideas and beliefs that patients have of their disease? Researchers at the University of Granada have developed a test for measuring and assessing chronic patients' cognitive representation of their disease. This advance will enable the development of clinical psychological treatments much more efficient than those currently employed. The cognitive representation of a disease is the ideas and beliefs that patients have in relation to their condition, at a given time. These ideas are based ...

New Rochelle, NY, October 21, 2010—Antigene therapy is a promising new treatment strategy that uses a DNA-based drug to pinpoint light energy to a target gene shutting down its activity. A review article published online ahead of print in Oligonucleotides, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com), details the possibilities and challenges for the clinical application of this novel photo-activated DNA modulating approach. The article is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/oli Netanel Kolevzon and Eylon Yavin, from The Hebrew ...

A study led by Dr Stuart Painter of the National Oceanography Centre helps explain the formation of huge phytoplankton blooms off the southeast coast of South America during the austral summer (December-January). The region supports the highly productive Patagonian Shelf marine ecosystem, which includes a globally important fishery. Coccolithophores are key members of the marine phytoplankton community. They are abundant in the sunlit upper layer of the world's oceans, often forming vast blooms that can be seen from space. "Coccolithophores are a complex group of plankton ...

People feel worse about a transgression that will take place in the future than an identical one that occurred in the past, according to new research from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Thinking about future events tends to stir up more emotions than events in the past, said Eugene Caruso, an assistant professor of behavioral science at Chicago Booth who conducted the research which appeared recently in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Whether an event has happened or will happen, can affect people's perceptions of fairness and ...

A child who grows up in the midst of political conflict, such as war or terrorism, can exhibit severe emotional scars. But certain qualities, which psychologists call "resilience factors," can help overcome this adversity. Prof. Michelle Slone of Tel Aviv University's Department of Psychology has now developed a program to help children develop these resilience factors and avoid the psychological disabilities that may arise from stress. Her method ― and her inspiring results ― were recently described in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and International ...

Disparities in breast cancer mortality continue to be unacceptably high in Chicago and significantly larger than the national average according to new data released today at a rally sponsored by the Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force. The Task Force also announced results of the first year of data collection by the Chicago Breast Cancer Quality Consortium, which found many hospitals in Chicago are not meeting accepted quality standards. The Sinai Urban Health Institute has been tracking mortality data since it first brought attention to the problem in 2006 ...

Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have been able to describe the 3D structure of a complete egg receptor that binds sperm at the beginning of fertilization. The results, published in the journal Cell, will lead to better understanding of infertility and may enable entirely new types of contraceptives. For centuries, the imagination of people has been grasped by the encounter of gametes – egg and sperm-, whose union gives rise to a new individual. At the beginning of conception, sperm binds to proteins in the extracellular coat of the ...

The majority of emergency department patients consider having their condition correctly diagnosed with computed tomography (CT) more important than any associated radiation risk. However, two-thirds of patients prefer their ordering physician discuss the risks and benefits of CT with them before ordering the imaging test, according to a study in the November issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology (www.ajronline.org). "Because patients drive their care to some degree, it is important for physicians to understand patients' knowledge and attitudes about radiation ...

(Boston) – A new research study conducted by Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) shows that patient navigation services significantly improve biennial mammography screening rates among inner city women. The results, published online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, indicate the importance of patient navigation in reducing health disparities in vulnerable patient populations. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, with 40,170 deaths in the United States in 2009. Lower mammography screening rates among minority and low ...