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URBANA - For many people "rural" is synonymous with low incomes, limited economic opportunity, and poor schools. However, a recent study at the University of Illinois found that much of rural America is actually prosperous, particularly in the Midwest and Plains.

Note: High resolution digital files of maps and a photo are available for use with this article at http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/news/News_Photos/prosperity/

Waltham, MA—Joseph Balboni loves sports. An avid tennis player and golfer, as well as baseball fan, the 46-year-old insurance agent became increasingly frustrated over time as his eyesight dimmed due to keratoconus, a degenerative eye disorder. Unable to return the tennis ball or see the pitch at Red Sox games, he faced the prospect of a corneal transplant to restore his vision and eye comfort.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. ╤ A Smoky Mountain forest's woodland herb population has shown that climate may play a role in how forest understories recover from logging, according to Purdue University research.

Despite heavy logging in portions of the forest nearly 80 years ago, the distribution of trillium plants on the secondary forest floor was similar to that of undisturbed areas. Michael Jenkins, a Purdue assistant professor of forestry and natural resources, said that contrasts with a study by other researchers of an Oregon forest in which trillium didn't recover after logging.

Scientists may not be able to tell a good book by its cover, but they now can tell the condition of an old book by its smell. In a report in ACS' Analytical Chemistry, a semi-monthly journal, they describe development of a new test that can measure the degradation of old books and precious historical documents based on their smell. The nondestructive "sniff" test could help libraries and museums preserve a range of prized paper-based objects, some of which are degrading rapidly due to advancing age, the scientists say.

SALT LAKE CITY—How do fruit flies get high cholesterol and become obese? The same way as people do – by eating a diet that's too rich in fats.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Looks can be deceiving, but certain bird species have figured out that a voice can tell them most of what they need to know to find the right mate.

Andrew DeWoody, a Purdue University associate professor of forestry and natural resources, found that the higher the pitch of a male bird's song, the more genetic diversity that bird has, making him a better mate for breeding. His study was published Wednesday (Dec. 2) in the early online edition of PLoS Biology.

Durham, NC—December 2, 2009—Ninety-six percent of low-income mothers who participated in a recent study on gender-based distrust indicated a strong general feeling of distrust of the opposite sex. However, this general distrust towards men did not prevent them from entering into a marriage, live-in, or romantic relationship. Furthermore, the union was often later described by some of the women as "trusting," despite their prior assertions of distrust and insecurity. The results of the study are published in a recent issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.

BOSTON – Peripheral artery disease (PAD) affects 5 million individuals in the U.S. and is the leading cause of limb amputations. Doctors have long considered exercise to be the single best therapy for PAD, and now a new study helps explain why. Led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and published in this week's Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the findings demonstrate that a protein called PGC-1alpha plays a key role in the process.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Even when women at high-risk of breast cancer are well-informed about the risks and benefits of using the drug tamoxifen for prevention, only 6 percent said they were likely to take it.

Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center created a decision aid designed to inform women about the risks and benefits associated with tamoxifen, a drug that was first used to stop breast cancer from returning and has recently been shown to prevent breast cancer in the first place.

PHILADELPHIA – (December 1, 2009) – Wistar Institute researchers and collaborators from the University of Pennsylvania and New York University have identified immune system markers in the blood which indicate early-stage lung tumors in people at high risk for developing lung cancer. The findings, published online December 1 in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, could lead to a simple blood test to detect lung cancer in its earliest phases, when it can be most successfully treated.

New York, NY, December 2, 2009 – Commonly prescribed beta 2 adrenergic agonist drugs for the treatment of asthma in pregnant women as well as pre-term labor may increase the incidence of autism-spectrum disorders, psychiatric pathology, cognitive problems and poor school performance in their children, according to a new study published in the December 2009 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

A scientist from the University of Salamanca and another from Yale University have shown that the presence of predators affects the behaviour of Acanthodactylus beershebensis, a lizard species from the Negev Desert in the Near East. According to the study, these reptiles move less and catch less mobile and different prey if they are under pressure from predators.

Sally Hall, a PhD student at the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science (SOES) at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS) has formally described four new species of king crab, all from the deep sea.

Before one of your muscles can twitch, before the thought telling it to flex can race down your nerve, a tiny floodgate of sorts—called an ion channel—must open in the surface of each cell in these organs to let in the chemical signals that spur the cell to action. New research* at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has allowed scientists to observe ion channels within the surface membrane for the first time, potentially offering insights for future drug development.

Single-walled nanotubes—cylinders of carbon about a nanometer in diameter—have been highly touted for potential applications such as ultrastrong fibers, electrical wires in molecular devices, or hydrogen storage components for fuel cells. Thanks to a new development by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and five partners, you can add one more application to the list: detection and destruction of an aggressive form of breast cancer.