Body

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, February 20, 2012—A team of researchers has found a way to ensure that your evening glass of wine will continue to be available, despite the potential attack of Xylella fastidiosa (Xf), a bacterium that causes Pierce's Disease and poses a significant threat to the California wine industry's valuable grapevines.

PASADENA, Calif. — Electronic health records and embedded tools can alert and direct pediatricians so they can better manage the weight of children and teenagers, according to a new Kaiser Permanente study published online in The Journal of Pediatrics.

Toronto – We might like to think we're not influenced by other people.

But a new study into group buying mechanisms -- like those used on popular internet websites such as Groupon and LivingSocial -- reveals that telling buyers who come later to the offer how many have already signed up increases the number of purchasers.

HUNTSVILLE, TX (Feb. 21, 2012)-- An assistant professor at Sam Houston State University, College of Criminal Justice is working to unlock the mysteries surrounding the role that genetics and environmental influences play on criminal and antisocial behavior.

New Rochelle, NY, February 21, 2012–Babies are not able to metabolize or excrete caffeine very well, so a breastfeeding mother's consumption of caffeine may lead to caffeine accumulation and symptoms such as wakefulness and irritability, according to an interview with expert Ruth Lawrence, MD, published in Journal of Caffeine Research, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The interview is available on the Journal of Caffeine Research website at www.liebertpub.com/jcr.

New Rochelle, NY, February 21, 2012—Faith-based advocacy has been cited as a valuable tool in combating childhood obesity, but evidence is needed to support this assertion and to define how the link between advocacy and policy can contribute to promoting permanent lifestyle changes. This article is part of a special issue of the journal Childhood Obesity celebrating the second anniversary of First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! initiative. The issue includes a special Foreword by Mrs.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012, Cleveland: With 1 in 5 overweight Americans suffering from chronic kidney disease, Cleveland Clinic researchers analyzed the nutritional and lifestyle habits of overweight adults, finding that their methods included diets and diet pills that may cause further kidney damage.

Vaccinating pregnant women against the influenza virus appears to have a significant positive effect on birth weight in babies, according to a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

Philadelphia, PA, February 21, 2012 – Using a noninvasive test on maternal blood that deploys a novel biochemical assay and a new algorithm for analysis, scientists can detect, with a high degree of accuracy, the risk that a fetus has the chromosomal abnormalities that cause Down syndrome and a genetic disorder known as Edwards syndrome. The new approach is more scalable than other recently developed genetic screening tests and has the potential to reduce unnecessary amniocentesis or CVS.

The levels of the environmental pollutant perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) that mothers had in their blood during pregnancy increased the risk of obesity in their daughters at 20 years of age. The findings come from a recent study of Danish women in which the Norwegian Institute of Public Health participated.

In recent decades, there has been a sharp increase in the number of overweight children and adults worldwide. It is suspected that diet and exercise alone cannot explain this large weight increase.

A new study published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review reveals that young people do not possess the knowledge or skills required to adhere to government guidelines for responsible alcohol consumption. This article is part of the March special themed issue of the journal on low risk drinking guidelines.

Led by Richard de Visser, PhD, of the University of Sussex, researchers examined young people's knowledge of, and use of, government guidelines for safe alcohol consumption.

Stanford, CA— Along with photosynthesis, the plant cell wall is one of the features that most set plants apart from animals. A structural molecule called cellulose is necessary for the manufacture of these walls. Cellulose is synthesized in a semi-crystalline state that is essential for its function in the cell wall function, but the mechanisms controlling its crystallinity are poorly understood. New research from a team including current and former Carnegie scientists David Ehrhardt (Carnegie), Ryan Gutierrez (Carnegie), Chris Somerville (U.C. Berkeley), Seth Debolt (U.

An increasing number of everyday devices such as car keys, smart phones and even medical implants need protection from hackers. The encryption method PRESENT is the smallest cipher for such cost and energy constrained applications. It is the result of a collaboration between the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany), Orange Labs France and the Technical University of Denmark. The cipher design is characterized by its hardware efficiency which makes it even applicable in health insurance cards or RFID-labels (substitute for bar codes).

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University researchers revealed how a mutation in a protein shuts down a protective function needed to prevent the death of neurons in Parkinson's disease, possibly opening the door to new drug strategies to treat the disorder.

Fred Regnier, the J.H. Law Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, and Jean-Christophe Rochet, an associate professor of medicinal chemistry and molecular pharmacology, led the team that discovered how the protein DJ-1, which plays a significant role in protecting neurons from damage, is shut down by a subtle mutation.

LA JOLLA, CA -- The ability to form closed systems of blood vessels is one of the hallmarks of vertebrate development. Without it, humans would be closer to invertebrates (think mollusks) in design, where blood simply washes through an open system to nourish internal organs. But vertebrates evolved closed circulation systems designed to more effectively carry blood to organs and tissues.