News Articles

Researchers studying the relationship between commercial beer production methods and the resulting silicon content say that beer is a rich source of dietary silicon (a key ingredient for increasing bone mineral density) and may help prevent osteoporosis.  The study appears in the February issue of the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.

 Religion is a hotly debated topic both among scholars and the general public, and a new paper authored by researchers from the University of Helsinki and Harvard University is only likely to up the level controversy surrounding the subject. Published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, the study suggests that intuitive judgments of right and wrong seem to operate independently of explicit religious commitments.

According to survey results on correlates of HPV vaccine use, a parent's existing health habits or behaviors, like cigarette smoking, may influence the likelihood that they will have their daughters vaccinated against HPV. Researchers who conducted the survey say the link may be explained by the fact that parents who are former or current smokers have a heightened awareness of cancer and its related risks. Results of the survey are published in the February issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

Researchers analyzing recent data from the SPOT 5 and ASTER satellites say that previous studies have largely overestimated mass loss from Alaskan glaciers over the past 40 years. Writing in a recent issue of Nature Geoscience, the team suggests that mass loss in these glaciers contributed 0.12 mm/year to sea-level rise between 1962 and 2006, rather than 0.17 mm/year as previously estimated. The new estimate was obtained by comparing recent topographies, derived from Spot 5-HRS (SPIRIT project with maps from the 1950-60s, which enabled loss from three quarters of the Alaskan glaciers to be measured.

A new report in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention suggests that individuals who consume two or more sodas per week face an increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer by nearly twofold compared to individuals who do not consume soft drinks. Researchers followed 60,524 men and women in the Singapore Chinese Health Study for 14 years. During that time, there were 140 pancreatic cancer cases. Those who consumed two or more soft drinks per week (averaging five per week) had an 87 percent increased risk compared with individuals who did not. No association was seen between fruit juice consumption and pancreatic cancer.

A study of the phenomenon known as loss aversion in two patients with lesions to the amygdala, a region deep within the brain involved in emotions and decision-making, may help explain how we make decisions and what makes us dislike the thought of losing money. Loss aversion describes the avoidance of choices which can lead to losses, even when accompanied by equal or much larger gains . Examples in the everyday life include how we make a decision on whether to proceed with an operation: the more serious the potential complications from the operation – even if the risk is low compared to the chances of success – the less likely we would be to proceed.

Using graphene, Swedish and American researchers say they have succeeded in producing a new type of lighting component which they claim will be inexpensive to produce and can be fully recycled.

The invention was published in ACS Nano by scientists at Linköping University and Umeå University, in Sweden, and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

According to a study of how people evaluate and act on online health advice, information written by a doctor is considered more credible when it appears on a Web site than on a blog or a homepage. The findings, published in the Journal Communication Research, highlight the relative importance of different online sources to people who seek health information on the Internet."Most people look for health information online by keying disease symptoms into various search engines," said S. Shyam Sundar, distinguished professor of communications, Penn State. "But the results of that search could range from experts at the Mayo Clinic to somebody's personal blog."

In an article published this week in Science, Monash University biochemists say they have discovered the process by which bacteria developed into more complex cells and that this crucial evolutionary step happened much earlier than previously thought.The team found that the cellular machinery needed to create mitochondria was constructed from parts pre-existing in the bacterium. These parts did other jobs for the bacterium, and were cobbled together by evolution to do something new and more exciting.

Researchers have developed a novel method for reconstructing past ocean chemistry using calcium carbonate veins that precipitate from seawater-derived fluids in rocks beneath the seafloor. The new method will help scientists analyze past changes in climate, plate tectonics and evolution of life in the oceans. The research is detailed in a paper published online in Science."These processes affect ocean chemistry and have shaped our planet over millions of years," said Dr Rosalind Coggon, a professor Imperial College London.

Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that common but hard-to-see sugar switches play an important role in cell division. Because these previously unrecognized sugar switches are so abundant and potential targets of manipulation by drugs, the discovery of their role has implications for new treatments for a number of diseases, including cancer, the scientists say.

Conventional wisdom says that children who are especially sensitive to stress are more vulnerable to adversity and have more behavior and health problems than their peers. But a new study in the journal Child Development suggests that highly sensitive children are also more likely to do well when they're raised in supportive environments. The researchers looked at 338 kindergarteners, as well as their teachers and families, to determine how family adversity and biological reactivity contribute to healthy development.