Insecure Web browsers and the growing number of complex applets and browser plug-in applications are allowing malicious software to spread faster than ever on the Internet. Some websites are installing malicious code, such as spyware, on computers without the user's knowledge or consent. These so-called "drive-by downloads" signal a shift away from using spam and malicious e-mail attachments to infect computers. Approximately 560,000 websites -- and 5.5 million Web pages on those sites -- were infected with malware during the fourth quarter of 2009. A new tool that ...

It's an experience shared by everyone: You run into someone you know, but his or her name escapes you. Now, Temple psychologist Ingrid Olson has found a way to improve the recall of proper names. Olson dedicates her research to understanding human memory. In a recent study, she found that electric stimulation of the right anterior temporal lobe of the brain improved the recall of proper names in young adults by 11 percent. Her study appears this month in the journal Neuropsychologia. "We know a lot about how to make people's memory worse, but we don't know very ...

Fish byproducts may be a new source of fish feed, thanks to research by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)-funded scientists in Hawaii. Research scientist Dong-Fang Deng and her colleagues with the Oceanic Institute in Waimanalo, Hawaii, are collaborating with USDA food technologist Peter Bechtel to develop the new fish feeds. Bechtel is with the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Subarctic Agricultural Research Unit in Kodiak, Alaska. ARS is the USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency. The scientists are taking fish parts that would normally ...

In order to track down pathogens and render them harmless, the immune system must be able to recognize myriad different foreign substances and react to them. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and the Centre for Biological Signalling Studies BIOSS at the University of Freiburg have discovered how the immune system's B-cells can be activated by numerous substances from our environment. The receptor molecules on the surface of the B-cells are only activated when the receptor subunits separate following the binding of foreign substances. These findings ...

A $5 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to upgrade and expand a set of radio frequency antennas at Owens Valley Solar Array (OVSA) http://www.ovsa.njit.edu/ has been awarded to NJIT. The new facility is expected to help scientists better understand the nature of solar flares which greatly interest government, industry and the military. "Space weather incidents such as coronal mass ejections and solar flares can cause problems with cell phone reception, GPS systems, power grids and other technologies," said NJIT Distinguished Professor Dale Gary, a world-renowned ...

Chevy Chase, MD— A new consensus statement published in the September, 2010, issue of The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM) finds that the increasing recognition that beta-cell failure occurs much earlier and severely than commonly believed suggests that regular glycemia screening, early identification of patients at metabolic risk and prompt and aggressive intervention deserves greater emphasis. The consensus statement is based on the findings of a working group of basic researchers, clinical endocrinologists and primary care ...

BETHESDA, Md., Oct. 6, 2010 – Massachusetts General Hospital researchers say they have determined how iron contributes to the production of brain-destroying plaques found in Alzheimer's patients. The team, whose study results appear in this week's Journal of Biological Chemistry, report that there is a very close link between elevated levels of iron in the brain and the enhanced production of the amyloid precursor protein, which in Alzheimer's disease breaks down into a peptide that makes up the destructive plaques. Dr. Jack T. Rogers, the head of the hospital's neurochemistry ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — With bits of DNA extracted from century-old museum specimens, researchers have found a place for the extinct passenger pigeon in the family tree of pigeons and doves, identifying for the first time this unique bird's closest living avian relatives. The new analysis, which appears this month in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, reveals that the passenger pigeon was most closely related to other North and South American pigeons, and not to the mourning dove, as was once suspected. Naturalists have long lamented that one of North America's most ...

Despite progress in decoding the genome, scientists estimate that fully 95 percent of our DNA represents dark, unknown territory. In the October 1 issue of the journal Cell researchers at The Wistar Institute shed new light on the genetic unknown with the discovery of the ability of long non-coding RNA (ncRNA) to promote gene expression. The researchers believe these long ncRNA molecules may represent so-called gene enhancer elements—short regions of DNA that can increase gene transcription. While scientists have known about gene enhancers for decades, there has been no ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The trauma from hard combat can devastate veterans until old age, even as it influences others to be wiser, gentler and more accepting in their twilight years, a new University of Florida study finds. The findings are ominous with the exposure of today's men and women to heavy combat in the ongoing Iraq and Afghanistan wars on terror at a rate that probably exceeds the length of time for U.S. veterans during World War II, said UF sociologist Monika Ardelt. "The study shows that we really need to take care of our veterans when they arrive home, because ...

CHICAGO, IL (Oct. 6, 2010) – A new women’s health, whole soy germ-based nutritional supplement containing Natural S-equol reduced the frequency of moderate to severe hot flashes and reduced muscle and joint pain in the first study of its kind among postmenopausal U.S. women, according to peer-reviewed data presented as a poster presentation at the North American Menopause Society (NAMS) Annual Meeting. Also, the first study to report Natural S-equol contributions to bone health and a study of Natural S-equol safety were presented at NAMS. “These data from U.S. women ...

Four clinical studies that add to the evidence about the use of a new nutritional supplement containing the whole soy germ-based ingredient Natural S-equol to improve health were presented at the North American Menopause Society (NAMS) Annual Meeting. These studies include a poster about a first-of-its-kind study in U.S. women that documents the effectiveness of Natural S-equol in reducing the frequency of moderate to severe hot flashes and reducing muscle and joint pain. A second poster reported the first clinical study about Natural S-equol contributions to bone health. ...

SANTA CRUZ, CA-- Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have found that a species of lizard in the Mojave Desert lives in family groups and shows patterns of social behavior more commonly associated with mammals and birds. Their investigation of the formation and stability of family groups in desert night lizards (Xantusia vigilis) provides new insights into the evolution of cooperative behavior. The researchers reported the results of a five-year study of desert night lizards in a paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological ...

The GOES-13 satellite keeps a vigilant eye on the Atlantic Ocean and eastern U.S. and this morning at 5 a.m. EDT it saw System 97L organize into the seventeenth tropical depression of the Atlantic Ocean season. The only catch is that it is actually a subtropical depression, so it is currently known as Subtropical Depression 17 (TD17). A subtropical storm is one where central convection (rapidly rising air that forms thunderstorms) is fairly near the center and it has a warming core in the mid-levels of the troposphere. Subtropical cyclones differ from tropical cyclones ...

WASHINGTON, DC, October 6, 2010 — Despite the popular, state-sponsored ideology that denies the existence of prejudice based on racial or skin color differences in Mexico, a new study from The University of Texas at Austin provides evidence of profound social inequality by skin color. According to the study, individuals with darker skin tones have less education, have lower status jobs, are more likely to live in poverty, and are less likely to be affluent. Andrés Villarreal, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and the Population Research Center affiliate, ...

Barred for up to ten years from receiving research grants from the Swedish Research Council. There will be serious consequences for the few researchers who are guilty of plagiarism, falsification, or inventing results. "We need to be able to rely on research findings," says Pär Omling, Director General of the Swedish Research Council. The Swedish Research Council has made a decision about how it should deal with researchers who are found to have committed research fraud. Any researcher who has been vetted by a panel of experts within the Central Ethical Review Board ...

An immune reaction to dystrophin, the muscle protein that is defective in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, may pose a new challenge to strengthening muscles of patients with this disease, suggests a new study appearing in the October 7, 2010, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a hereditary and lethal neuromuscular disease characterized by progressive loss of muscle strength and integrity. Genetic information important for production of a functional dystrophin protein is deleted from the DMD gene of many patients. ...

(PHILADELPHIA) - Thousands of infants each year have exposure to opioids before they are born. Over half of these infants are born with withdrawal symptoms severe enough to require opioid replacement treatment in the nursery. Such treatment is associated with long hospital stays which interferes with maternal/infant bonding. Now, a team of researchers at Thomas Jefferson University has tested a semi-synthetic opioid they say has the potential to improve the treatment of these newborns, which could save hundreds of millions in healthcare costs annually if future tests continue ...

New Rochelle, NY, October 6, 2010 –Climbers of high peaks such as Mount Kilimanjaro are at high risk for Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS). Trekkers should not ignore AMS warning signs, which can progress to more serious medical outcomes. Mountain climbers can best minimize their risk for altitude sickness by becoming acclimatized to increased altitudes before an ascent, according to a study in the current issue of High Altitude Medicine & Biology, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The article is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/ham The ...

New Rochelle, NY, October 6, 2010—The introduction of a new, fully characterized viral vector for use as reference material to help standardize gene therapy protocols in research applications and human clinical trials is described in an article in Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The article, which is published online ahead of print, is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/hum The growing popularity in the gene therapy community of using recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) vectors as vehicles ...

LA JOLLA, CA – October 6, 2010 – For Immediate Release – Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have developed the first screening method that rapidly identifies individuals with active river blindness, a parasitic disease that afflicts an estimated 37 million people. The test could change the current strategy of mass treatment in areas where river blindness, also known as onchocerciasis, is suspected. The study was published online on October 5, 2010, by the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. "A sensitive and reproducible diagnostic test for this disease ...

AMES, Iowa -- The nation's poverty rate climbed to 14.3 percent -- the highest level since 1994 -- according to the Census Bureau's annual report on the economic well-being of U.S. households. That means one in seven Americans now live in poverty, and that may have an especially depressing effect on people living in bad neighborhoods, according to two Iowa State University researchers. Daniel Russell, an Iowa State professor of human development and family studies; and Carolyn Cutrona, professor and chair of psychology, presented "Stressful Effects of Where You Live: ...

A University of Delaware researcher is helping to design instruments for a robotic space probe that will go where no other has gone before: the sun. William Matthaeus, professor of physics and astronomy at UD, is involved in NASA's Solar Probe Plus project, which is slated to launch by 2018. The unmanned spacecraft, the size of a small car, will plunge directly into the sun's atmosphere to help uncover answers to perplexing mysteries about the fiery ball of plasma at the center of our solar system. "The experiments selected for Solar Probe Plus are specifically designed ...

AMES, Iowa -- Murder takes an obvious toll on society in terms of the loss of human life, but what does it actually cost each time there's a murder? It's about $17.25 million according a recent Iowa State University study. Matt DeLisi, an ISU associate professor of sociology and director of the criminal justice program, led a team of five Iowa State graduate students on the study of 654 convicted and incarcerated murderers. Expanding upon earlier monetization estimates, they calculated the costs of five crimes -- murder, rape, armed robbery, aggravated assault and burglary ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — The discovery of a hormone acting like molecular glue could hold a key to bolstering plant immune systems and understanding how plants cope with environmental stress. The study, which is featured in the Oct. 6 issue of Nature, reveals how the plant hormone jasmonate binds two proteins together – an emerging new concept in hormone biology and protein chemistry. The study also identifies the receptor's crystal structure to provide the first molecular view of how plants ward off attacks by insects and pathogens. In short, the work explains how a highly ...