Body

HOUSTON – (July 28, 2014) – Rice University researchers are using magnetic beads and DNA "springs" to create chains of varying flexibility that can be used as microscale models for polymer macromolecules.

The experiment is visual proof that "bead-spring" polymers, introduced as theory in the 1950s, can be made as stiff or as flexible as required and should be of interest to materials scientists who study the basic physics of polymers

MANHATTAN, Kansas — He calls himself the bug hunter, but the target of his work consists of viruses that can only be found and identified with special methods and instruments. Benjamin Hause, an assistant research professor at the Kansas State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at Kansas State University, recently published an article about one of his discoveries, porcine enterovirus G, which is an important find in the United States.

The guiding philosophy for educating children with disabilities has been to integrate them as much as possible into a normal classroom environment, with the hope that peers' skills will help bring them up to speed. A new study provides empirical evidence that peers really can have an impact on a child's language abilities, for better or worse.

While peers with strong language skills can help boost their classmates' abilities, being surrounded by peers with weak skills may hinder kids' language development.

Some 15% of adults suffer from fertility problems, many of these due to genetic factors. This is something of a paradox: We might expect such genes, which reduce an individual's ability to reproduce, to disappear from the population. Research at the Weizmann Institute of Science that recently appeared in Nature Communications may now have solved this riddle. Not only can it explain the high rates of male fertility problems, it may open new avenues in understanding the causes of genetic diseases and their treatment.

Researchers using statistical tools to map social connections in prairie dogs have uncovered relationships that escaped traditional observational techniques, shedding light on prairie dog communities that may help limit the spread of bubonic plague and guide future conservation efforts. The work was done by researchers from North Carolina State University and the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent).

WASHINGTON, July 28, 2014—A group of researchers in Taiwan has developed a new optical technology that may be able to detect an early complication of diabetes sooner, when it is more easily treated. If the device proves safe and effective in clinical trials, it may pave the way for the early detection and more effective treatment of this complication, called diabetic autonomic neuropathy, which is common among people with both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. The condition progressively affects the autonomic nerves controlling vital organs like the heart and gastrointestinal system.

Researchers from the University of Bradford, UK, have devised a simple blood test that can be used to diagnose whether people have cancer or not.

The test will enable doctors to rule out cancer in patients presenting with certain symptoms, saving time and preventing costly and unnecessary invasive procedures such as colonoscopies and biopsies being carried out. Alternatively, it could be a useful aid for investigating patients who are suspected of having a cancer that is currently hard to diagnose.

A new study of the European project SOPHIE has evaluated the relationship between the type of family policies and gender inequalities in health in Europe. The results show that countries with traditional family policies (central and southern Europe) and countries with contradictory policies (Eastern Europe), present higher inequalities in self-perceived health, i.e. women reported poorer health than men. Health inequalities are especially remarkable in Southern Europe countries, where women present a 27% higher risk of having poor health compared to men.

A new link has been identified between obesity in childhood and the lowering of the age of puberty.

The research which discovered the link, carried out at Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry, is published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Despite saving thousands of lives yearly, nearly half of organ transplant surgeons report a low sense of personal accomplishment and 40 percent feel emotionally exhausted, according to a new national study on transplant surgeon burnout.This image shows senior staff psychologist Michelle Jesse, Ph.D., Henry Ford Hospital.

(Photo Credit: Henry Ford Hospital)

Source: Henry Ford Health System

Using the body's natural virus killers to prevent and treat HIV infection has been problematic until now because of the strong inflammatory response these molecules can arouse as they get rid of the invaders. Now, collaborative research conducted by scientists at the Weizmann Institute and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have demonstrated how suppressing the activity of these molecules – interferons – around the time of infection could have long-term implications for the course of the disease. Their research appeared in Nature.

RENO – Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole in December of 1911. More than 100 years later, an international team of scientists led by Joe McConnell of Nevada's Desert Research Institute (DRI) have proven that air pollution from industrial activities arrived long before.

A new study has found that following a healthy lifestyle may lower childhood cancer survivors' risk of developing the metabolic syndrome. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings indicate that children with cancer and adults who had cancer when they were children should receive information about how their lifestyle may influence their long-term health.

A new in vitro study has revealed that nicotine and cotinine, a metabolite of nicotine, can potentially inhibit DNA damage caused by a certain carcinogen in smoke.

Dinosaurs might have survived the asteroid strike that wiped them out if it had taken place slightly earlier or later in history, scientists say.

A fresh study using up-to-date fossil records and improved analytical tools has helped palaeontologists to build a new narrative of the prehistoric creatures' demise, some 66 million years ago.

They found that in the few million years before a 10km-wide asteroid struck what is now Mexico, Earth was experiencing environmental upheaval. This included extensive volcanic activity, changing sea levels and varying temperatures.