Feature Channels: All Journal News

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June is national Great Outdoors Month, and that may have religious implications as people spend more time outside — in particular if they live in or visit an area with beautiful weather and scenery. U.S. counties with more pleasant weather and such attractions as mountains and waterfronts also have lower rates of affiliation with religious organizations, according to a Baylor University study.

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Scientists working in the Gulf of Mexico have found that contaminants from the massive 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill lingered in the subsurface water for months after oil on the surface had been swept up or dispersed. In a new study, they also detailed how remnants of the oil, black carbon from burning oil slicks and contaminants from drilling mud combined with microscopic algae and other marine debris to descend in a "dirty blizzard" to the seafloor.

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Mediodorsal thalamus allows us to incorporate new information in decision-making.

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A naturally occurring vitamin, nicotinamide riboside (NR), can lower blood sugar levels, reduce fatty liver, and prevent peripheral nerve damage in mouse models of diabetes, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Iowa and the Iowa City VA Health Care System.

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While Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is not the sunniest place in the world, solar energy is viable in the region. With new technologies, some people might be inclined to leave the electrical grid. A team from Michigan Technological University looked into the economic viability of grid defection in the Upper Peninsula.

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The power grid is aging, overburdened and seeing more faults than ever, according to many. Any of those breaks could easily lead to prolonged power outages or even equipment damage. Binghamton University researchers have proved that the Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) algorithm may be the best tool to help authorities remotely detect and locate power grid faults.

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Many patients undergoing hip or knee replacement are still taking prescription opioid pain medications up to six months after surgery, reports a study in PAIN®, the official publication of the International Association for the Study of Pain® (IASP). The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

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New fundamental research by University of Texas at Dallas physicists may accelerate the drive toward more advanced electronics and more powerful computers. The scientists are investigating materials called topological insulators, whose surface electrical properties are essentially the opposite of the properties inside.

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Low-income, rural mothers say participating in outdoor activities as a family is a primary need for their physical and emotional well-being. But a new paper co-authored by Iowa State University's Kimberly Greder finds many don't have access to usable outdoor space.

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Wolters Kluwer, a leading global provider of information and point of care solutions for the healthcare industry, in partnership with the International Forum for the Study of Itch (IFSI), is pleased to announce a new peer-reviewed, open access journal, Itch. The journal publishes original scientific papers that contribute to our understanding of the basic mechanisms and clinical aspects of itch (pruritus).

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Women who want to quit smoking may have better success by carefully timing their quit date with optimal days within their menstrual cycle, according to a new study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The results, published online this month in Biology of Sex Differences, were also presented at the annual meeting of the Organization for the Study of Sex Differences (OSSD), held at Penn.

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The key to needed improvements in the quest for better batteries and fuels cells likely lies in the nanoscale, a realm so tiny that the movement of a few atoms or molecules can shift the landscape. A team of American and Chinese researchers has built a new window into this world to help scientists better understand how batteries really work. They describe their nanoscale probe in the Journal of Applied Physics.

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While the evidence behind this age-related weakening of the circadian rhythm has been established in medical literature, the mechanisms behind it, and the connectivity structure of the neurons, have remained elusive. To better understand these neuronal and hormonal mechanisms and help develop potential treatments, researchers have conducted experimental analyses of the SCN’s connections, with the goal of determining its degree of heterogeneity. They discuss their work in this week’s CHAOS.

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Researchers have developed an apparatus to meet the growing need for measuring ice as it changes in response to external forces, a process ice scientists call “deformational behaviors.’’ These forces occur on Earth in glacial ice as it flows due to gravity, and in space as icy satellite bodies respond to tidal forces from their parent bodies. Their report on their device -- called a cryogenic deformation apparatus -- appears in Review of Scientific Instruments.

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Researchers suggest that the number of child and youth concussions may be vastly underestimated in the U.S. A single-center study in a large pediatric network found that four out of five children diagnosed with concussion were seen at primary care practices, not in an emergency department (ED). However, most national counts of pediatric concussion rely solely on ED visits or school athletics data.

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A transatlantic team of researchers explain the creation of a simulation model that can help scientists mathematically correct for any errors related to a sphere's roughness this week in Applied Physics Letters, from AIP Publishing.

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Wolters Kluwer, a leading global provider of information and point of care solutions for the healthcare industry, is pleased to announce that it was selected by the IJS Publishing Group to publish its open access journal, the International Journal of Surgery Oncology (IJS Oncology).

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A protein designed by researchers at Georgia State University can effectively target a cell surface receptor linked to a number of diseases, showing potential as a therapeutic treatment for an array of illnesses, including cancer, according to the research team.

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A team of researchers at Argonne National Laboratory is using nanomaterials to get closer to one of the holy grails of building efficiency technologies: single pane windows with efficiency as good or better than multi-pane low emissions (Low-E) windows. The team recently received a $3.1 million award from DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to develop a technology that could help achieve that goal.

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While it's possible to study explosives, sans explosives, new techniques involving high-speed, high-fidelity imaging with optical filtering and signal processing techniques have recently made setting off explosives and capturing the data in real-time a reasonable alternative to developing a new simulation. Researchers report their findings this week in the journal Review of Scientific Instruments.