Body

This news release is available in French.

Montreal, January 21, 2014 — The love hormone, the monogamy hormone, the cuddle hormone, the trust-me drug: oxytocin has many nicknames. That's because this naturally occurring human hormone has recently been shown to help people with autism and schizophrenia overcome social deficits.

Ewing's Sarcoma is an aggressive pediatric cancer, most commonly caused by the improper fusion of the gene EWS with the gene FLI1. Though the cause has long been known, therapeutic targeting of this fusion has to date proven very difficult.

Although a voluntary shopping cart safety standard was implemented in the United States in 2004, the overall number and rate of injuries to children associated with shopping carts have not decreased. In fact, the number and rate of concussions/closed head injuries have continued to climb, according to a new study.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Woodland salamanders are small, lungless amphibians that live in moist, forest habitats throughout the U.S. and the world. Salamanders often serve as vital links in forest food chains; their population size and recovery from major disturbances can help predict the health of forest ecosystems. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have determined that salamander population size reflects forest habitat quality and can predict how ecosystems recover from forest logging activity.

A UT Arlington engineering professor has proven that the effect of mass is important, can be measured and has a significant impact on any calculations and measurements at the sub-micrometer scale.

A small, secretive creature with unlikely qualifications for defying gravity may hold the answer to an entirely new way of getting off the ground.

Salamanders—or at least several species of the Plethodontidae family—can do something humans would like to know a lot more about.

"This particular jump is unique in the world," said graduate researcher Anthony Hessel. "That's why I think a lot of people are finding this very interesting."

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Jan. 21, 2014 – Tag plays at home plate have the highest injury rate in professional baseball, occurring 4.3 times more often than other base-running plays, according to researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.

(Boston) – A new study led by Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) demonstrates that the abnormal metabolism linked to obesity could be regulated in part by the interaction of two metabolic regulators, called the NAD-dependent deacetylase SIRT1 and fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21). Using experimental models, the researchers found that a lack of SIRT1 protein in the liver led to lower levels of a liver secreted protein FGF21, which resulted in an increased likelihood of developing fatty liver disease and obesity.

A series of papers recently published by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History suggests that polar bears in the warming Arctic are turning to alternate food sources. As Arctic sea ice melts earlier and freezes later each year, polar bears have a limited amount of time to hunt their historically preferred prey—ringed seal pups—and must spend more time on land.

Obese children exposed to high levels of air pollutants were nearly three times as likely to have asthma, compared with non-obese children and lower levels of pollution exposure, report researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC).

Rates of childhood obesity and asthma have both increased dramatically in the past 30 years. The percentage of American children who are obese has increased from 7% in 1980 to 20% in 2008. Childhood asthma is up from 4% in 1980 to 10% in 2009. Rates are higher among urban minority populations.

A contest for the best technique of intracellular particle tracking (simultaneous tracking of the motions of hundreds and thousands of intracellular organelles, virions and even individual molecules), that is an important issue in cellular biology and has applications in search for appropriate medicines against certain diseases (including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases), has found no undeniable winner. Techniques proposed by all the participants, including the Lomonosov Moscow State University professor Yannis Kalaidzidis, find their own ways for solving the problem.

Commentary accompanying anti-smoking public service announcements (PSAs) in online forums like YouTube has an impact on the PSA's overall effectiveness. Both negative and positive comments accompanying PSAs degrade the persuasiveness of the videos.

According to researchers from the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, viewer commentary on PSAs have become an integral part of a PSA's overall message.

New Rochelle, January 21, 2014 – Too much information can be overwhelming, but when it comes to certain types of data that are used to build predictive models to guide decision making there is no such thing as too much data, according to an article in Big Data, the highly innovative, peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available on the Big Data website.

(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) -- Researchers from The Miriam Hospital and the University of Rochester have found a definitive link between violence among intimate partners and an increased risk of HIV infection. The study is online in the journal Women & Health.

At rest, we breathe approx. 12-15 times per minute, and for each inhalation we change approx. one litre of air. Depending on the activity level, this makes up a daily quantity in the order of twenty cubic metres of air that - with its content of pollution in the form of particles and different gases - can make us ill depending on how polluted the air is.