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UPTON, NY — A team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Delaware and Yeshiva University, has developed a new catalyst that could make ethanol-powered fuel cells feasible. The highly efficient catalyst performs two crucial, and previously unreachable steps needed to oxidize ethanol and produce clean energy in fuel cell reactions. Their results are published online in the January 25, 2009 edition of Nature Materials.

UPTON, NY — Through work originally designed to remove contaminants from soil, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and their Belgium colleagues at Hasselt University have identified plant-associated microbes that can improve plant growth on marginal land. The findings, published in the February 1, 2009 issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology, may help scientists design strategies for sustainable biofuel production that do not use food crops or agricultural land.

Materialistic people tend to form strong connections to particular product brandswhen their level of anxiety about death is high, according to a new study in theJournal of Consumer Research.

Authors Aric Rindfleisch (University of Wisconsin-Madison and KoreaUniversity), James E. Burroughs (University of Virginia), and Nancy Wong(University of Wisconsin-Madison) examined levels of materialism and insecurityin consumers and discovered that the combination of "death anxiety" andmaterialism led to strong attachment to brands.

January 22, 2009 -- Researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health have released findings identifying factors that affected evacuation from the World Trade Center (WTC) Towers on September 11. A research methodology known as participatory action research (PAR) was used to identify individual, organizational, and structural (environmental) barriers to safe and rapid evacuation.

Don't cash out Grandma's savings bond. Gifts passed on from one generation of family members to the next are worth more than their monetary value, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. Those gifts carry the symbolic value attributed to them by the family's traditions, lore, and heritage.

It's not just stuff or money when it comes from a special relative or has a meaningful story behind it, writes author Tonya Williams Bradford (University of Notre Dame). Assets that have "symbolic value serve to nurture family ties from the past into the future."

Americans who use illegal diet pills from South America are taking amphetamines without knowing it and seriously risking both their health and their jobs. Physicians need to be made aware of the range of serious side effects of these drugs to allow them to identify and treat those patients presenting with unexplained symptoms. These findings1, by Dr Pieter Cohen from the Department of Internal Medicine at the Cambridge Health Alliance in the US and Harvard Medical School, have recently been published online in Springer's Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Like DNA, centrioles need to duplicate only once per cell cycle. Rogers et al. uncover a long-sought mechanism that limits centriole copying, showing that it depends on the timely demolition of a protein that spurs the organelles' replication.

The study will appear in the January 26, 2009 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology and online at www.jcb.org.

Men who are very sexually active in their twenties and thirties are more likely to develop prostate cancer, especially if they masturbate frequently, according to a study of more than 800 men published in the January issue of BJU International.

However the UK research team also found that frequent sexual activity in a man's forties appears to have little effect and even small levels of activity in a man's fifties could offer protection from the disease. Most of the differences were attributed to masturbation rather than sexual intercourse.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — The use of telemedicine can dramatically improve the quality of child sexual assault examinations in rural communities where rates of abuse and neglect are highest — sometimes more than double the statewide rate — a study published in the January issue of the medical journal Pediatrics has found.

Donning a face mask is an easy way to boost protection from severe respiratory illnesses such as influenza and SARS, new research from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has found, but convincing a reluctant public and health workers is proving a struggle.

In a world-first clinical trial of the efficacy of masks, researchers found adult mask wearers* in the home were four times more likely than non-wearers to be protected against respiratory viruses, including the common cold.

A new study identifies certain patient and tumor characteristics that may help indicate which breast cancer patients would be the most likely to benefit from preventive surgery to remove the unaffected breast. Published in the March 1, 2009 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study could help patients with breast cancer make more informed treatment choices.

(COLUMBUS, Ohio)—Although shoulder injuries accounted for just 8 percent of all injuries sustained by high school athletes, shoulder injuries were relatively common in predominately male sports such as baseball (18 percent of all injuries), wrestling (18 percent) and football (12 percent). Moreover, boys experienced higher shoulder injury rates than girls, particularly in soccer and baseball/softball.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Despite recent government efforts, the medical needs of about six million children in the United States are not being met, according to data from as recent as 2006. Even more troubling, researchers say, is the substantial growth in those numbers, from approximately 4.5 million children in 1998.

HOUSTON - A preventive procedure to remove the unaffected breast in breast cancer patients with disease in one breast may only be necessary in patients who have high-risk features as assessed by examining the patient's medical history and pathology of the breast cancer, according to researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

A study led by Dr Marcus Cooke at the University of Leicester and funded by World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) UK is looking at whether consuming caffeine during pregnancy might affect the unborn baby's risk of developing leukaemia in childhood.

Dr Cooke sees the study as a unique opportunity to determine the sources of chromosomal alterations during pregnancy, with the ultimate aim of reducing the risk of childhood leukaemias.