Body

There may be a reason teenagers eat more burgers and fries than fruits and vegetables: their parents.

In a new policy brief released today by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, researchers found that adolescents are more likely to eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day if their parents do. Contrarily, teens whose parents eat fast food or drink soda are more likely to do the same.

Need to store electricity more efficiently? Put it behind bars.

That's essentially the finding of a team of Rice University researchers who have created hybrid carbon nanotube metal oxide arrays as electrode material that may improve the performance of lithium-ion batteries.

With battery technology high on the list of priorities in a world demanding electric cars and gadgets that last longer between charges, such innovations are key to the future. Electrochemical capacitors and fuel cells would also benefit, the researchers said.

BERKELEY, CA – A new way to direct chemical modifications to specific sites on recombinant proteins – including the monoclonal antibodies so important in the pharmaceutical industry – has been developed by Carolyn Bertozzi and her colleagues at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley.

WASHINGTON, DC—Conversations between adolescents suffering from chronic illnesses and their families about end-of-life wishes well before a serious event occurs won't discourage hope for recovery or cause additional emotional or mental harm to young patients, according to new research from Children's National Medical Center and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital published in the journal Pediatrics.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — By pushing carbon nanotubes close to their breaking point, researchers at the University of Illinois have demonstrated a remarkable increase in the current-carrying capacity of the nanotubes, well beyond what was previously thought possible.

The researchers drove semiconducting carbon nanotubes into an avalanche process that carries more electrons down more paths, similar to the way a multilane highway carries more traffic than a one-lane road.

Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center have discovered a mechanism in liver metabolism that is responsible for pathologically elevated blood fat levels found in severe metabolic disorders. Mice suffering from metabolic syndrome or type 2 diabetes produce only small amounts of a molecule called LSR in the liver, as reported by researchers headed by Dr. Stephan Herzig in the journal "Diabetes". As a result, only small amounts of fat are transported from the blood into the liver and blood fat levels rise immensely.

The Department of Applied Physics, Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) in Xi'an, China-Research, has shown that the substantial undercooling of liquid state brings about novel microstructural transition for Al-Cu-Si ternary eutectic alloy. The study is reported in Issue 54 (January, 2009) of Chinese Science Bulletin because of its significant research value.

This research, coordinated by the doctors Jesús Prieto, Esther Larrea, Pablo Sarobe, Iranzu González and Rafael Aldabe, has been published in the Journal of Virology; a journal of the American Society of Microbiology.

An investigational vaginal gel intended to prevent HIV infection in women has demonstrated encouraging signs of success in a clinical trial conducted in Africa and the United States. Findings of the recently concluded study, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH, were presented today at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Montreal.

Each year, many people seek emergency treatment for unexplained chest pains. A thesis from the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, indicates several common factors among those affected, including stress at work, anxiety, depression and a sedentary lifestyle.

A Johns Hopkins study reveals that older black women who spend time with young children in the classroom are not only more active than similar women who don't volunteer, but seem to stay active.

Building on results of a 2006 Hopkins study showing that 15 hours of volunteer work a week at a grade school nearly doubled a sedentary older person's overall activity level, the new study demonstrates that the increased activity remains high for at least three years.

A new study finds women who develop breast cancer while pregnant or soon afterwards do not experience any differences in disease severity or likelihood of survival compared to other women with breast cancer. The study is published in the March 15, 2009 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.

Black women with cancers of the uterus are less likely to survive the disease than white women, and relatively little progress has been made over the past two decades to narrow this racial difference. That is the conclusion of a new study published in the March 15, 2009 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.

HOUSTON - Young women who develop breast cancer during their pregnancy, or who are diagnosed within one year of their pregnancy, have no difference in rates of local recurrence, distant metastases and overall survival compared to other young women with the disease, according to researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

A new study demonstrates that a chemical mediator in the blood that influences immune cell migration also plays a key role in maintaining the balance between the build-up and breakdown of bones in the body. This mediator, which acts on cells that degrade bone, may provide a new target for scientists developing therapies and preventions for bone-degenerating diseases such as osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis.