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Untreated Parkinson's Disease Patients No More Likely to Have Impulse Control Disorders
Black and Hispanic Patients Less Likely to Complete Substance Abuse Treatment than White Patients
DNA prefers to dive head first into nanopores
New Path to More Efficient Organic Solar Cells Uncovered
Exocomets may be as common as exoplanets
A temperature below absolute zero
Chromatin marks the spot in search for disease pathways
Dark matter made visible before the final cut

Untreated Parkinson's Disease Patients No More Likely to Have Impulse Control Disorders

Posted: 08 Jan 2013 06:57 AM PST

While approximately one in five Parkinson's disease patients experience impulse control disorder symptoms, the disease itself does not increase the risk of gambling, shopping, or other impulsivity symptoms, according to research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. A new study is the first to show in a large sample that people with untreated Parkinson's were no more likely to have an increased impulsivity than people without the disease.

Black and Hispanic Patients Less Likely to Complete Substance Abuse Treatment than White Patients

Posted: 08 Jan 2013 06:49 AM PST

Roughly half of all black and Hispanic patients who enter publicly funded alcohol treatment programs do not complete treatment, compared to 62 percent of white patients, according to a new study from a team of researchers including the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Comparable disparities were also identified for drug treatment program completion rates.

DNA prefers to dive head first into nanopores

Posted: 08 Jan 2013 06:40 AM PST

In the 1960s, Nobel laureate Pierre-Gilles de Gennes postulated that someday researchers could test his theories of polymer networks by observing single molecules. Researchers at Brown observed single molecules of DNA being drawn through nanopores by electrical current and figured out why they most often travel head first.

New Path to More Efficient Organic Solar Cells Uncovered

Posted: 07 Jan 2013 10:30 AM PST

Why are efficient and affordable solar cells so highly coveted? Volume. The amount of solar energy lighting up Earth’s land mass every year is nearly 3,000 times the total amount of annual human energy use. But to compete with energy from fossil fuels, photovoltaic devices must convert sunlight to electricity with a certain measure of efficiency.

Exocomets may be as common as exoplanets

Posted: 07 Jan 2013 10:23 AM PST

Comets trailing wispy tails across the night sky are a beautiful byproduct of our solar system’s formation, icy leftovers from 4.6 billion years ago when the planets coalesced from rocky rubble.

The discovery by astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Clarion University in Pennsylvania of six likely comets around distant stars suggests that comets – dubbed “exocomets” – are just as common in other stellar systems with planets.

A temperature below absolute zero

Posted: 07 Jan 2013 08:43 AM PST

What is normal to most people in winter has so far been impossible in physics: a minus temperature. On the Celsius scale minus temperatures are only surprising in summer. On the absolute temperature scale, which is used by physicists and is also called the Kelvin scale, it is not possible to go below zero – at least not in the sense of getting colder than zero kelvin. According to the physical meaning of temperature, the temperature of a gas is determined by the chaotic movement of its particles – the colder the gas, the slower the particles.

Chromatin marks the spot in search for disease pathways

Posted: 07 Jan 2013 08:31 AM PST

In September 2012, the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) Project Consortium, a multi-institution collaboration that included the Broad Institute, capped off nine years of research with a flurry of papers that characterized proteins, enzymes, and other functional elements of the human genome. These elements, which were once dismissed as “junk DNA” because they were not among the protein-coding genes, are now thought to fulfill key functions, often regulating how and when genes are activated.

Dark matter made visible before the final cut

Posted: 07 Jan 2013 08:24 AM PST

Research findings from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine are shining a light on an important regulatory role performed by the so-called dark matter, or “junk DNA,” within each of our genes.

The new study reveals snippets of information contained in dark matter that can alter the way a gene is assembled.