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Social media may help women overcome computer anxiety
Early Surgery Controls Seizures, Improves Quality of Life
Functional Oxide Thin Films Create New Field Of Oxide Electronics
Reduction of organelle transport and initiation of axon degeneration appear to be due to different mechanisms in ALS models
The cutting edge: Exploring the efficiency of bladed tooth shape
Hiccups help babies release swallowed air
Exercise changes the DNA
Sperm can count
Stumped by a Problem? This Technique Unsticks You
Two for One: Simultaneous Size and Electrochemical Measurement of Nanomaterials
Gene Regulator in Brain’s Executive Hub Tracked Across Lifespan – NIH study
Influencing stem cell fate
A bird's song may teach us about human speech disorders
UCLA scientists pinpoint how vitamin D may help clear amyloid plaques found in Alzheimer's
Caltech researchers explain why the man in the moon faces Earth
Salt iodization works
The Blue Planet's new water budget
Astronomers help find distant galaxy cluster to shed light on early universe
New Brain Imaging and Computer Modeling To Predict Autistic Brain Activity and Behavior
Most weight loss supplements are not effective

Social media may help women overcome computer anxiety

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 06:13 AM PST

No matter how many hours a day young women spend tweeting and texting, downloading electronic media or communicating online with co-workers or friends, many of them believe they’re not as competent at using computer technology as the men around them. Since the Internet’s infancy, researchers have observed a distinct gender divide in attitudes toward and adoption of computer technology, with many women tending to feel intimidated by it, a phenomenon called computer anxiety.

Early Surgery Controls Seizures, Improves Quality of Life

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 06:08 AM PST

A new study out today in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that the vast majority of patients with previously uncontrolled temporal lobe epilepsy who underwent surgical intervention early in the course of their disease where not only seizure free, but experience a significantly higher quality of life compared to those who only manage their condition medically. The results demonstrate that, instead of being considered a last resort, early surgery could help epilepsy patients avoid decades of disability.

Functional Oxide Thin Films Create New Field Of Oxide Electronics

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 06:03 AM PST

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed the first functional oxide thin films that can be used efficiently in electronics, opening the door to an array of new high-power devices and smart sensors. This is the first time that researchers have been able to produce positively charged (p-type) conduction and negatively charged (n-type) conduction in a single oxide material, launching a new era in oxide electronics.

Reduction of organelle transport and initiation of axon degeneration appear to be due to different mechanisms in ALS models

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 05:54 AM PST

In science, refuting a hypothesis can be as significant as proving one, all the more so in research aimed at elucidating how diseases proceed with a view toward preventing, treating, or curing them. Such a discovery can save scientists from spending precious years of effort exploring a dead end. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Munich-based researchers challenge a widely accepted hypothesis about a causative step in neurodegenerative diseases.

The cutting edge: Exploring the efficiency of bladed tooth shape

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 05:47 AM PST

Using a combination of guillotine-based experiments and cutting-edge computer modelling, researchers at the University of Bristol have explored the most efficient ways for teeth to slice food.

Their results, published today in Journal of the Royal Society Interface, show just how precisely the shape of an animal’s teeth is optimized to suit the type of food it eats.

Hiccups help babies release swallowed air

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 05:37 AM PST

New research explains the mysterious hiccup reflex as a burping mechanism allowing young, feeding mammals to consume more milk.

The hiccup has long remained an enigma for clinicians and researchers, who have struggled to connect the physical mechanisms of a hiccup to a plausible evolutionary advantage.

Exercise changes the DNA

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 05:33 AM PST

The genetic heredity a person is born with isn't that impossible to change as one might think. In a new study in Cell Metabolism, researchers of Karolinska Institutet show that when healthy but inactive men and women are made to exercise it actually alters their DNA - in a matter of minutes.

Sperm can count

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 05:25 AM PST

The speed at which the calcium concentration in the cell changes controls the swimming behaviour of sperm. They can calculate the calcium dynamics and react accordingly. Sperm have only one aim: to find the egg. The egg supports the sperm in their quest by emitting attractants. Calcium ions determine the beating pattern of the sperm tail which enables the sperm to move.

Stumped by a Problem? This Technique Unsticks You

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 07:43 PM PST

Stuck solving a problem? Seek the obscure, says Tony McCaffrey, a psychology PhD from the University of Massachusetts. “There’s a classic obstacle to innovation called ‘functional fixedness,’ which is the tendency to fixate on the common use of an object or its parts.

Two for One: Simultaneous Size and Electrochemical Measurement of Nanomaterials

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 07:43 PM PST

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have done a mash-up of two very different experimental techniques—neutron scattering and electrochemical measurements—to enable them to observe structural changes in nanoparticles as they undergo an important type of chemical reaction. Their recently published technique* allows them to directly match up particle size, shape and agglomeration with the “redox” chemical properties of the particles.

Gene Regulator in Brain’s Executive Hub Tracked Across Lifespan – NIH study

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 04:09 PM PST

For the first time, scientists have tracked the activity, across the lifespan, of an environmentally responsive regulatory mechanism that turns genes on and off in the brain’s executive hub. Among key findings of the study by National Institutes of Health scientists: genes implicated in schizophrenia and autism turn out to be members of a select club of genes in which regulatory activity peaks during an environmentally-sensitive critical period in development.

Influencing stem cell fate

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 04:02 PM PST

Northwestern University scientists have developed a powerful analytical method that they have used to direct stem cell differentiation. Out of millions of possibilities, they rapidly identified the chemical and physical structures that can cue stem cells to become osteocytes, cells found in mature bone.

Researchers can use the method, called nanocombinatorics, to build enormous libraries of physical structures varying in size from a few nanometers to many micrometers for addressing problems within and outside biology.

A bird's song may teach us about human speech disorders

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 11:55 AM PST

Can the song of a small bird provide valuable insights into human stuttering and speech-related disorders and conditions, including autism and stroke? New research by UCLA life scientists and colleagues provides reason for optimism.

UCLA scientists pinpoint how vitamin D may help clear amyloid plaques found in Alzheimer's

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 11:48 AM PST

A team of academic researchers has identified the intracellular mechanisms regulated by vitamin D3 that may help the body clear the brain of amyloid beta, the main component of plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease.

Published in the March 6 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, the early findings show that vitamin D3 may activate key genes and cellular signaling networks to help stimulate the immune system to clear the amyloid-beta protein.

Caltech researchers explain why the man in the moon faces Earth

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 11:39 AM PST

Many of us see a man in the moon—a human face smiling down at us from the lunar surface. The "face," of course, is just an illusion, shaped by the dark splotches of lunar maria (smooth plains formed from the lava of ancient volcanic eruptions).

Salt iodization works

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 11:30 AM PST

The world's population has never been so well supplied with iodine as today. Major progress in salt iodization is evident in a new global study in school children done by nutrition researchers at the ETH Zurich. But there is still room for improvement of the situation in Africa and South East Asia.

The Blue Planet's new water budget

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 11:22 AM PST

Investigating the history of water on Earth is critical to understanding the planet’s climate. One central question is whether Earth has always had the same amount of water on and surrounding it, the same so-called “water budget”. Has Earth gained or lost water from comets and meteorites? Has water been lost into space? New research into the Earth’s primordial oceans conducted by researchers at the Natural History Museum of Denmark at the University of Copenhagen and Stanford University revisits Earth’s historical water budget.

Astronomers help find distant galaxy cluster to shed light on early universe

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 11:17 AM PST

A decade ago, Houston businessman and philanthropist George P. Mitchell was so certain there were big discoveries to be made in physics and astronomy and that they should come out of Texas A&M University, he put money on it, endowing the George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy to bring the world's most eminent minds in physics and astronomy to Aggieland.

New Brain Imaging and Computer Modeling To Predict Autistic Brain Activity and Behavior

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 09:22 AM PST

New research from Carnegie Mellon University's Marcel Just provides an explanation for some of autism's mysteries — from social and communication disorders to restricted interests — and gives scientists clear targets for developing intervention and treatment therapies.

Autism has long been a scientific enigma, mainly due to its diverse and seemingly unrelated symptoms until now.

Most weight loss supplements are not effective

Posted: 06 Mar 2012 09:15 AM PST

An Oregon State University researcher has reviewed the body of evidence around weight loss supplements and has bad news for those trying to find a magic pill to lose weight and keep it off – it doesn’t exist.

Melinda Manore reviewed the evidence surrounding hundreds of weight loss supplements, a $2.4 billion industry in the United States, and said no research evidence exists that any single product results in significant weight loss – and many have detrimental health benefits.