Curated News: Staff Picks

• share
• favorite_border

Student and faculty researchers at Florida State University have found that mindfully washing dishes calms the mind and decreases stress.

• share
• favorite_border

The number of college graduates willing to start new businesses -- the largest producer of private sector jobs over the past 25 years -- could depend heavily on the entrepreneurial focus and structure of the universities from which they graduate

• share
• favorite_border

For National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Dr. Jean Simpson, a breast pathologist, offers information to help patients become more informed about their options and treatment process.

• share
• favorite_border

For years social scientists have grappled with the question of why men receive far more media coverage than women, and now a new study reveals the answer.

• share
• favorite_border

Mirroring a major problem in society at large, women are significantly shortchanged when it comes to media coverage, with men being mentioned in the news a whopping five times more than women.

• share
• favorite_border

Stroke is very rare in children, but colds, flu and other minor infections may temporarily increase stroke risk in children, according to a study published in the September 30, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study also found routine childhood vaccines may decrease the risk of stroke.

• share
• favorite_border

New analysis shows that the scientific literature paints an overly rosy picture of the efficacy of psychotherapy for depression comparable to the bias previously found in reports of treatments with antidepressant drugs.

• share
• favorite_border

Solar energy pricing is at an all-time low, according to a new report released by Berkeley Lab. Driven by lower installed costs, improved project performance, and a race to build projects ahead of a reduction in a key federal incentive, utility-scale solar project developers have been negotiating power sales agreements with utilities at prices averaging just 5¢/kWh.

• share
• favorite_border

A team of Virginia Tech researchers has refined a mathematical model that simulates the impact of genetic mutations on cell division -- a step that could provide insight into errors that produce and sustain harmful cells, such as those found in tumors.

• share
• favorite_border

When it comes to treating depression, how well a person responds to a fake medicine may determine how well they’ll respond to a real one, a new study shows. Those who can muster their brain’s own chemical forces against depression have a head start in overcoming symptoms with help from medication.

• share
• favorite_border

A sensitive new toxicity test developed at the university of Utah detected impaired reproduction in mice caused by genetic mutations that had seemed harmless when studied by developmental techniques.

• share
• favorite_border

A new UW study that tested 65 wines from America's top four wine-producing states -- California, Washington, New York and Oregon -- found all but one have arsenic levels that exceed U.S. drinking water standards. But health risks from that naturally-occurring toxic element depend on how many other high-arsenic foods and beverages, such as apple juice, rice, or cereal bars, an individual person eats.

• share
• favorite_border

Packing some pinto bean seeds would increase his chances of survival.

• share
• favorite_border

When Facebook users see favorable comments on the social media site about a political candidate, those opinions positively influence their own views of the politician, while unfavorable comments have a negative effect, according to a new paper by University of Delaware researchers.

• share
• favorite_border

Can owls and loggers get along? A recent study conducted in Primorye in the southern Russian Far East suggests it’s not only possible, but essential for endangered Blakiston’s fish owls to survive there. The study was conducted by the WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society), the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the University of Minnesota.

• share
• favorite_border

A 20-million-year-old flea preserved in amber harbors the likely ancestor of bacteria that caused one of the world’s deadliest plagues.

• share
• favorite_border

On Monday, archeologists confirmed that they've found evidence of two hidden chambers behind the western and northern walls of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Could this discovery lead to the burial chamber of Queen Nefertiti?

• share
• favorite_border

A study led by U geography professor Kathryn Grace found that a pregnant woman's exposure to reduced precipitation and an increased number of hot days result in lower birth weight. A first of its kind, the study is the first time researchers utilized fine-resolution precipitation and temperature data alongside birth data to analyze how weather impacts birth weight. The study examined 70,000 births across two decades in 19 African countries.

• share
• favorite_border

Study finds the “discount-frequently” pricing strategy allows retailers to charge high prices when demand is high and is flexible unlike an “every day low price” strategy or “static pricing.”

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists at Duke Medicine are using transparent fish to watch in real time as Cryptococcal meningitis takes over the brain. The resulting images are worthy of a sci-fi movie teaser, but could be valuable in disrupting the real, crippling brain infection that kills more than 600,000 people worldwide each year.

• share
• favorite_border

Across the country, many employees are seated at desks for the majority of an eight-hour workday. As technology creates an increase in sedentary lifestyles, the impact of sitting on vascular health is a rising concern. Now, researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine have found that when a person sits for six straight hours, vascular function is impaired — but by walking for just 10 minutes after a prolonged period of sitting, vascular health can be restored.

• share
• favorite_border

Using nanometer-scale components, researchers have demonstrated the first optical rectenna, a device that combines the functions of an antenna and a rectifier diode to convert light directly into DC current.

• share
• favorite_border

A study of influenza infection in animals broadens understanding of the immune response to flu virus, showing that the process is more dynamic than usually described. The findings may offer key insights for developing better vaccines.

• share
• favorite_border

New research involving scientists from University of Southampton and the National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOCS) has identified a crucial process behind the reason why dissolved organic carbon (DOC) levels in the deep oceans are constant despite a continuous supply from the surface ocean.

• share
• favorite_border

Monkeys perceive visual illusions in the same way great apes and humans see them, according to researchers at Georgia State University.

• share
• favorite_border

A major study published in the New England Journal of Medicine is providing the best evidence to date that a 21-gene test done on the tumor can identify breast cancer patients who can safely avoid chemotherapy.

• share
• favorite_border

More than half of older adults with clinical depression don’t get better when treated with an antidepressant. But results from a multicenter clinical trial that included Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that adding a second drug — an antipsychotic medication — to the treatment regimen helps many of those patients.

• share
• favorite_border

Pope Francis made an unscheduled stop at Saint Joseph’s University today, greeting campus officials, student and religious leaders, and visiting the newly dedicated statue, “Synagoga and Ecclesia in Our Time.” The bronze work by noted Philadelphia artist Joshua Koffman was installed Sept. 25 at the plaza in front of the Chapel of St. Joseph-Michael J. Smith, S.J., Memorial, commemorating the 50th anniversary of 'Nostra Aetate,' the Vatican II document that transformed the relationship between the Catholic and Jewish faiths.

• share
• favorite_border

Antonio Trani, director of Virginia Tech’s Air Transportation Systems Laboratory and a professor of civil and environmental engineering, led a study that provided evidence for tactical recommendations on restricted cruise altitudes for aircraft crossing the North Atlantic oceanic airspace. The research is part of the Future Air Navigation System started in the 1990s that focused on communication between aircraft and air traffic control services.

• share
• favorite_border

Research into human fossils dating back to approximately two million years ago reveals that the hearing pattern resembles chimpanzees, but with some slight differences in the direction of humans. Rolf Quam, assistant professor of anthropology at Binghamton University, led an international research team in reconstructing an aspect of sensory perception in several fossil hominin individuals from the sites of Sterkfontein and Swartkrans in South Africa. The study relied on the use of CT scans and virtual computer reconstructions to study the internal anatomy of the ear. The results suggest that the early hominin species Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus, both of which lived around 2 million years ago, had hearing abilities similar to a chimpanzee, but with some slight differences in the direction of humans.

• share
• favorite_border

By using powerful photon beams generated by the Advanced Photon Source, a DOE User Facility, researchers have shown that they can now control the chemical environment and provide nanoscale structural detail while simultaneously imaging the mineral calcite as it is pushed to its extremes.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Vermont chemists have invented a nanoscale wrench that allows them to precisely control nanoscale shapes. Their use of “chirality-assisted synthesis” is a fundamentally new approach for controlling the shape of large molecules--one of the foundational needs for making complex synthetic materials, including new polymers and medicines.

• share
• favorite_border

Astronomers are comparing new images of the Veil Nebula, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in April 2015 with Hubble images taken in 1997, to study how the nebula has expanded since it was photographed over 18 years ago. The supernova that created the Veil Nebula would have been briefly visible to our very distant ancestors thousands of years ago as a bright "new star" in the northern sky. Learn even more about the Veil Nebula in a discussion with Hubble Heritage Team scientists during the live Hubble Hangout at 3pm EDT today (Thurs., Sept. 24) at http://hbbl.us/z7f .

• share
• favorite_border

Why do babies smile when they interact with their parents? Could their smiles have a purpose? In the Sept. 23 issue of PLOS ONE, a team of computer scientists, roboticists and developmental psychologists confirm what most parents already suspect: when babies smile, they do so with a purpose—to make the person they interact with smile in return. To verify their findings, researchers programmed a toddler-like robot to behave like the babies they studied and had the robot interact with undergraduate students.

• share
• favorite_border

Neuroscientists have uncovered the brain malady responsible for tinnitus and for chronic pain — the uncomfortable, sometimes agonizing sensations that persist long after an initial injury.

• share
• favorite_border

As much as 47 percent of the edible U.S. seafood supply is lost each year, mainly from consumer waste, new research from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) suggests.

• share
• favorite_border

Think that you are special because you are creative? Well, you are not alone, and there may be some serious consequences especially if you believe that creativity is rare. A new study by Lynne Vincent, an assistant professor of management at Syracuse University’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management, and Maryam Kouchaki, an assistant professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, demonstrates that believing that you are a creative person can create feelings of entitlement when you think that creativity is rare and valuable. That feeling of entitlement can be costly for you and your organization as it can cause you to be dishonest.

• share
• favorite_border

Women react differently to negative images compared to men, which may be explained by subtle differences in brain function. This neurobiological explanation for women’s apparent greater sensitivity has been demonstrated by researchers.

• share
• favorite_border

Review of studies from 20 countries indicates that tobacco use is not addressed in substance abuse treatment programs, says UCSF professor

• share
• favorite_border

A new study from The Scripps Research Institute has shown that a specific molecule controls morphine receptor signaling in a small group of brain cells. The findings could lead to a new drug target for developing less-addictive pain medications.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers around the globe are on a quest for materials capable of capturing and storing greenhouse gases. This shared goal led researchers in Germany and India to team up to explore the feasibility of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNTs) to trap and store two greenhouse gases in particular: carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). They report their findings in this week’s The Journal of Chemical Physics.

• share
• favorite_border

A research team has discovered the northernmost dinosaur known to have ever lived.

• share
• favorite_border

Smokey Bear has spent decades reminding picnickers “only you can prevent forest fires” and has even been known to cry over the devastation they leave in their wake. University of Delaware researchers say the cartoon bear illustrates how mascots can most effectively protect the environment – by threatening disappointment.

• share
• favorite_border

An international team of scientists has discovered a new lineage of extinct plankton-feeding sharks, Pseudomegachasma, that lived in warm oceans during the age of the dinosaurs nearly 100 million years ago. The fossil sharks had tiny teeth very similar to a modern-day, plankton-eating megamouth shark.

• share
• favorite_border

Light, sound, and now, heat -- just as optical invisibility cloaks can bend and diffract light to shield an object from sight, and specially fabricated acoustic metamaterials can hide an object from sound waves, a recently developed thermal cloak can render an object thermally invisible by actively redirecting incident heat. The system, designed by scientists in Singapore and described in this week’s Applied Physics Letters, has the potential to fine-tune temperature distribution and heat flow in electronic and semiconductor systems.

• share
• favorite_border

For adults, memories tend to fade with time. But a new study has shown that there are circumstances under which the opposite is true for small children: they can remember a piece of information better days later than they can on the day they first learned it.

• share
• favorite_border

Cyberbullying? 1 in 5 parents say students who post online rumors about sex should be referred to police.

• share
• favorite_border

As high schools across the country continue to reduce physical education, recess, and athletic programs, a new study shows that regular exercise significantly reduces both suicidal thoughts and attempts among students who are bullied.

• share
• favorite_border

This monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucaria) is one of the stranger trees growing in the Smithsonian’s Enid A. Haupt Garden in Washington, D.C. Its triangular leaves, which cover the entire tree, both branches and trunk, are thick, tough, and scale-like, with sharp edges and tips. Each leaf can last 10 to 15 years.

• share
• favorite_border

Ultrasonic attenuation — an ultrasound’s gradual loss of energy as the sound waves circulate through tissue — could be an early indicator of whether a pregnant woman is at risk for delivering prematurely, according to a new study at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Nursing.