Curated News: Staff Picks

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Researchers have recorded the first-ever image of two atoms bonding together to form a molecule.

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A new study by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that young children with sleep-disordered breathing are prone to developing behavioral difficulties such as hyperactivity and aggressiveness, as well as emotional symptoms and difficulty with peer relationships.

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Almost 80 percent of current farmland in the U.S. would have to be devoted to raising corn for ethanol production in order to meet current biofuel production targets with existing technology, a new study has found. An alternative, according to a study in ACS’ journal Environmental Science & Technology, would be to convert 60 percent of existing rangeland to biofuels.

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California’s three-strikes law has not reduced violent crime, but has contributed significantly to the state’s financial woes by substantially increasing the prison population, according to a UC Riverside researcher.

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A study led by Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, in collaboration with the University of East London UK, and Swansea University UK, is the first to show the effects of the drug ecstasy on fetal and infant development.

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Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital determined that mantra-based meditation can have a positive impact on emotional responses to stress, fatigue and anxiety in adults with memory impairment and memory loss. Their findings are published in the recent issue of the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

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A diet lacking in omega-3 fatty acids, nutrients commonly found in fish, may cause your brain to age faster and lose some of its memory and thinking abilities, according to a study published in the February 28, 2012, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Omega-3 fatty acids include the nutrients called docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA).

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After 35 years, a giant fossil penguin has finally been completely reconstructed, giving researchers new insights into prehistoric penguin diversity.

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As study after study shows the fundamental role vitamin D plays in disease and health, vitamin D deficiency — which often develops insidiously in childhood — should be on every parent’s and pediatrician’s radar, say physicians from the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.

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Researchers from UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, together with scientists from 12 other sites in the United States and Australia, report for the first time that a newly approved drug for patients with metastatic melanoma nearly doubles median survival times, a finding that will change the way this deadly form of skin cancer is treated.

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People with celiac disease are at risk for osteoporosis, according to physicians at Loyola University Health System (LUHS). A 2009 New England Journal of Medicine study supports this correlation. Researchers believe that people with celiac disease may develop osteoporosis because their body poorly absorbs calcium and vitamin D, which are necessary for bone health.

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The more afraid a person is of a spider, the bigger that individual perceives the spider to be, new research suggests.

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A new study led by nanotechnology and biotechnology experts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is providing important details on how proteins in our bodies interact with nanomaterials. In their new study, published in the Feb. 2 online edition of the journal Nano Letters, the researchers developed a new tool to determine the orientation of proteins on different nanostructures. The discovery is a key step in the effort to control the orientation, structure, and function of proteins in the body using nanomaterials.

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Increased Awareness Among Clinicians and Parents Could Lead to Earlier Diagnosis and Intervention for Minority Children with ASD

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A study led by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill suggests that autism does not appear suddenly in young children, but instead develops over time during infancy.

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A national University of Delaware survey reveals Fox News Channel viewers know less about the Occupy Wall Street protests than consumers of other media sources, hold particularly negative views about the protests and almost one third believe the group should not be allowed to protest in public.

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Online daters intent on fudging their personal information have a big advantage: most people are terrible at identifying a liar. But new research is turning the tables on deceivers using their own words.

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The giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way may be vaporizing and devouring asteroids, which could explain the frequent flares observed, according to astronomers using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

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The chances to reach extreme old age are much lower than previously thought, new research shows. Research just published by a team of demographers at the social science research organization NORC at the University of Chicago contradicts a long-held belief that the mortality rate of Americans flattens out above age 80.

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Music has been described as the “universal language,” even apparently the harsh sounds of heavy metal. This seems to be borne out by the pervasive popularity of the genre over the last four decades. A new book co-written and edited by Bowling Green State University popular culture associate professor Dr. Jeremy Wallach, “Metal Rules the Globe: Heavy Metal Music Around the World,” traces it from Easter Island to Nepal and China to Madagascar, Brazil and beyond.

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Last week a U.S. company announced initial Phase I/II clinical trial results for ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis).

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Stowers researchers discovered that a prion-like protein plays a key role in storing long-term memories.

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The economic pain of a flattening oil supply will trump the environment as a reason to curb the use of fossil fuels, say two scientists, one from the University of Washington and one from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, in the Jan. 26 issue of the journal Nature.

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Sending a text message leads people to lie more often than in other forms of communication, according to new research by David Xu, assistant professor in the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University.

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Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society and Okapi Wildlife Associates have conducted an exhaustive global study of human consumption of marine mammals using approximately 900 sources of information. The main finding: since 1990, people in at least 114 countries have consumed one or more of at least 87 marine mammal species.

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Retail pork products in the U.S. have a higher prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria (MRSA) than previously identified, according to new research by the University of Iowa College of Public Health and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

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According to a recent study by evolutionary psychologists at the University of Michigan and Albright College in Pennsylvania, the tendency to fall asleep first after sex is associated with greater partner desire for bonding and affection.

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Georgia Tech researchers have studied the movements of snakes to create more efficient search-and-rescue robots.

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New animal study confirms the dramatic effects of a natural formula against aggressive prostate cancer tumors.

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A recent study led by a Cornell University researcher finds that the psychological experience of power makes people feel taller than they are.

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Intestinal worm infections may not be all bad, according to a new study by William Gause and colleagues at UMDNJ- New Jersey Medical School. In research on mice, published in Nature Medicine, immune reaction to the presence of intestinal worms was found to promote wound healing in the lungs.

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It wasn’t a boyhood fascination with prehistoric life that influenced Kevin Boyce's interest in paleontology. It was instead the medieval literary world of Chaucer that he discovered in college.

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A new book, "Two Plus Two: Couples and Their Couple Friendships," presents findings based on more than 400 interviews in which couples share experiences over the lifespan that readers can emulate to improve their own marriages.

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Why do we like fatty foods so much? We can blame our taste buds. In the first study to identify a human receptor that can taste fat, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report that our tongues recognize and have an affinity for fat and that variations in a gene can make people more or less sensitive to the taste of fat in foods.

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NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has looked deep into the distant universe and detected the feeble glow of a star that exploded more than 9 billion years ago. The sighting is the first finding of an ambitious survey that will help astronomers place better constraints on the nature of dark energy: the mysterious repulsive force that is causing the universe to fly apart ever faster.

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A scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an anthropologist from the University at Albany teamed up to use ultra-modern chemical analysis technology at Rensselaer to analyze ancient Mayan pottery for proof of tobacco use in the ancient culture. Dmitri Zagorevski, director of the Proteomics Core in the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies (CBIS) at Rensselaer, and Jennifer Loughmiller-Newman, a doctoral candidate at the University at Albany, have discovered the first physical evidence of tobacco in a Mayan container. Their discovery represents new evidence on the ancient use of tobacco in the Mayan culture and a new method to understand the ancient roots of tobacco use in the Americas.

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A large and growing number of Americans are poor, or at risk of becoming poor, as a result of the Great Recession of 2007-09, and many will continue to struggle during the recovery, according to a white paper released today by Tavis Smiley and Indiana University.

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A large-scale national study suggests low to moderate use of marijuana is less harmful to users’ lungs than exposure to tobacco, even though the two substances contain many of the same components. This comprehensive study, led by UCSF and University of Alabama at Birmingham, collected data from more than 5,000 U.S. adults for more than 20 years.

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Large national study shows difference between lung function of cigarette and marijuana smokers; doctors warn against other known complications.

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A proposal to construct an artificial human testicle and research how human sperm are made from stem cells received a grant from the NIH.

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Could heading the ball in soccer lead to degenerative brain disease, like that seen in athletes in other sports? That's the question addressed by a review in the January issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

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Drinking red wine in moderation may reduce one of the risk factors for breast cancer, providing a natural weapon to combat a major cause of death among U.S. women, new research from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center shows.

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Low levels of vitamin D have been linked to depression, according to UT Southwestern Medical Center psychiatrists working with the Cooper Center Longitudinal Study. It is believed to be the largest such investigation ever undertaken.

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New research by Johns Hopkins scientists suggests that vitamin D, long known to be important for bone health and in recent years also for heart protection, may stop conferring cardiovascular benefits and could actually cause harm as levels in the blood rise above the low end of what is considered normal.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a gene that is required for proper development of the mouse inner ear. In humans, this gene, known as FGF20, is located in a portion of the genome that has been associated with inherited deafness in otherwise healthy families.

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Adolescent children of lesbian mothers report as good quality of life as those with heterosexual parents, reports a study in the January Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, the official journal of the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

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People with diets high in several vitamins or in omega 3 fatty acids are less likely to have the brain shrinkage associated with Alzheimer’s disease than people whose diets are not high in those nutrients, according to a new study published in the December 28, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Happiness has dropped over the last two years, University of Vermont research shows.

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The holidays are upon us and, for many Americans that means some degree of weight gain and the subsequent New Year’s resolution to diet. However, shedding the pounds may have some negative consequences on the overall health of older women if the weight loss is not maintained, according to a new study by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.

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Companies are shifting to digital platforms and media to interact and collaborate with customers and employees.