One of astronomy's big questions is why galaxies forming as recently as 1 billion years after the Big Bang contain so much dust. The leading hypothesis is that supernovae, stars that explode at the end of their lives, contain large amounts of metal-enriched material that, in turn, harbors key ingredients of dust, like silicon, iron and carbon.
WASHINGTON – Romance does not have to fizzle out in long-term relationships and progress into a companionship/friendship-type love, a new study has found. Romantic love can last a lifetime and lead to happier, healthier relationships.
"Many believe that romantic love is the same as passionate love," said lead researcher Bianca P. Acevedo, PhD, then at Stony Brook University (currently at University of California, Santa Barbara). "It isn't. Romantic love has the intensity, engagement and sexual chemistry that passionate love has, minus the obsessive component. Passionate or obsessive love includes feelings of uncertainty and anxiety. This kind of love helps drive the shorter relationships but not the longer ones."
BOSTON ––– In a new study of terminally ill cancer patients, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute found that those who draw on religion to cope with their illness are more likely to receive intensive, life-prolonging medical care as death approaches –– treatment that often entails a lower quality of life in patients' final days.
Previous research has shown that more religious patients often prefer aggressive end-of-life (EOL) treatment. The new study –– to be published in the March 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association –– examined whether these patients actually receive such care. The study's findings suggest that physicians tend to comply with religious patients' wishes for more aggressive care.
Preliminary research in healthy men suggests that the narcolepsy drug modafinil, increasingly being used to enhance cognitive abilities, affects the activity of dopamine in the brain in a way that may create the potential for abuse and dependence, according to a study in the March 18 issue of JAMA.
DURHAM, N.C. -- Somewhere out there in the ocean, SpongeBob SquarePants has a teeny-tiny cousin and a humongous uncle.
That's just what one would expect from a new analysis of body sizes across all orders of animal life that was conducted by researchers at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), in Durham, N.C. and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Researchers Craig McClain and Alison Boyer created a giant database on body sizes across all orders of animal life and found that phyla -- families of animals grouped together by a similar body plan -- with the greatest diversity of species were also those with the largest range of body sizes.
St. Louis — With eight basic medical facts in hand, doctors can now estimate the risk of bleeding for a patient having a heart attack. Using clinical variables, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Duke University and collaborating institutions have created a new method to estimate bleeding risk and help lessen the chances that heart attack patients will experience this common complication.
EAST LANSING, Mich. — A Michigan State University researcher has developed a working vaccine for a strain of E. coli that kills 2 million to 3 million children each year in the developing world.
Enterotoxigenic E. coli, which is responsible for 60 percent to 70 percent of all E. coli diarrheal disease, also causes health problems for U.S. troops serving overseas and is responsible for what is commonly called traveler's diarrhea.
A. Mahdi Saeed, professor of epidemiology and infectious disease in MSU's colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Human Medicine, has applied for a patent for his discovery and has made contact with pharmaceutical companies for commercial production. Negotiations with several firms are ongoing.
Researchers subjected the reinforced concrete masonry structure with clay masonry veneer to a series of simulated earthquakes, starting with a 5.0 magnitude and ending with an 8.0. The jolts were based on ground motions measured during the 1994 Northridge, Calif. earthquake, which registered a 6.7 magnitude.
Researchers used this test to study the different types of shear reinforcement and different types of veneer connectors and how they react to earthquakes. Concrete masonry with clay masonry veneer is used for commercial construction throughout the United States.
MAYWOOD, Ill. -- Dr. Kathleen Ward noticed something odd when she examined the mammogram of a patient who had recently undergone breast cancer surgery.
The Loyola University Health System radiologist saw a suspicious pattern of white specks, much like grains of salt. The specks were calcium deposits similar to microcalcifications that sometimes are a sign of early breast cancer. But it was too early for the patient's breast cancer to have returned because it had been only a month since her lumpectomy.
Mark Nicas has given some of his best years to spittle. He builds models – the mathematical kind – of how someone else's slobber ends up on you. The size of the particles, whether they come out in a dry cough or a wet sneeze, their evaporation rate, air speed – these are all complications, reasons why people like Nicas can spend careers piling up academic papers, all the while building up a healthy respect for pathogens.
Nicas, whose day job is at the University of California-Berkeley is one of a team of scientists affiliated with the Center for Advancing Microbial Risk Assessment (CAMRA), funded jointly by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have uncovered new evidence suggesting factors other than genes could cause obesity, finding that genetically identical cells store widely differing amounts of fat depending on subtle variations in how cells process insulin.
Learning the precise mechanism responsible for fat storage in cells could lead to methods for controlling obesity.
"Insights from our study also will be important for understanding the precise roles of insulin in obesity or Type II diabetes, and to the design of effective intervention strategies," said Ji-Xin Cheng, an assistant professor in Purdue University's Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Chemistry.
When we look at a scene in front of us, we need to focus on the important items and be able to ignore distracting elements. Studies have suggested that inhibition of return (in which our attention is less likely to return to objects we've already viewed) helps make visual search more efficient – when searching a scene to find an object, we have a bias toward inspecting new regions of a scene, and we avoid looking for the object in already searched areas. Psychologists Michael D. Dodd from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Stefan Van der Stigchel of Utrecht University, and Andrew Hollingworth from the University of Iowa examined if inhibition of return is specific for visual search or if it applies more generally in visual behavior.
DURHAM, N.C. -- A Duke University professor and his graduate student have discovered a universal principle that unites the curious interplay of light and shadow on the surface of your morning coffee with the way gravity magnifies and distorts light from distant galaxies.
They think scientists will be able to use violations of this principle to map unseen clumps of dark matter in the universe.
Light rays naturally reflect off a curve like the inside surface of a coffee cup in a curving, ivy leaf pattern that comes to a point in the center and is brightest along its edge.
