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.
A University of Minnesota cancer surgeon and researcher has found a dramatic increase in the number of women diagnosed with the earliest stage of breast cancer choosing to have both breasts surgically removed.
The rate of contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM) surgery among U.S. women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) increased by 188 percent between 1998 and 2005, according to Todd Tuttle, M.D., lead researcher on this study.
Tuttle is associate professor of oncologic surgery with the University of Minnesota Medical School and a researcher with the University's Masonic Cancer Center. The National Cancer Institute sponsored this research study and the findings are published in the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Comparing different ways of solving math problems is a great way to help middle schoolers learn new math concepts, researchers from Vanderbilt and Harvard universities have found.
"We found that comparing different ways to solve a problem helped middle-school students become more flexible problem solvers and better understand the concepts behind the methods," Bethany Rittle-Johnson, assistant professor of psychology and human development at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College and co-author of the new research, said.
New research from Vanderbilt University has found students benefit more from being taught the concepts behind math problems rather than the exact procedures to solve the problems. The findings offer teachers new insights on how best to shape math instruction to have the greatest impact on student learning.
The research by Bethany Rittle-Johnson, assistant professor of psychology and human development at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College and Percival Mathews, a Peabody doctoral candidate, is in press at the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.
Earth's ozone layer should eventually recover from the unintended destruction brought on by the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and similar ozone-depleting chemicals in the 20th century. But new research by NASA scientists suggests the ozone layer of the future is unlikely to look much like the past because greenhouse gases are changing the dynamics of the atmosphere.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – A team led by an Indiana University astronomer has found a sample of massive galaxies with properties that suggest that they may have formed relatively recently. This would run counter to the widely-held belief that massive, luminous galaxies (like our own Milky Way Galaxy) began their formation and evolution shortly after the Big Bang, some 13 billion years ago. Further research into the nature of these objects could open new windows into the study of the origin and early evolution of galaxies.
When cells undergo potentially catastrophic damage, for example as a result of exposure to ionizing radiation, they must make a decision: either to fix the damage or program themselves for death, a process called apoptosis.
It's a stark decision that is as mysterious as it is remarkable, involving what might be described metaphorically as a network of internal alarms that detect damage to DNA packed tightly in the cell nucleus. In intricate ways, cells orchestrate a response to signals from such resident sensors when they are triggered by exposure to radiation or other toxic processes, which if unchecked can cause genes to mutate and cancerous tumors to begin forming.
About 80 percent of adults suffer from some form of periodontal, or gum disease, which can result in not just tooth loss, but has also been linked to heart disease, diabetes, blood infection, low birth-weight babies, cancer and most recently, obesity.
Screening for the disease is often costly, time-consuming and sometimes painful for the patient. But researchers at Temple University have found that a simple color-changing oral strip can help detect gum disease in a patient more quickly and easily than traditional screening methods.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Researchers at MIT have found a novel method for etching extremely narrow lines on a microchip, using a material that can be switched from transparent to opaque, and vice versa, just by exposing it to certain wavelengths of light.
Such materials are not new, but the researchers found a novel way of harnessing that property to create a mask with exceptionally fine lines of transparency. This mask can then be used to create a correspondingly fine line on the underlying material.
New research from Trinity College Dublin published in this month's Annals of Surgery points to a potentially significant advance in the treatment of patients undergoing major cancer surgery. The study was carried out by the oesophageal research group at Trinity College Dublin and St James's Hospital. A randomised controlled trial showed omega-3 fatty acids given as part of an oral nutritional supplement resulted in the preservation of muscle mass in patients undergoing surgery for oesopahageal cancer, a procedure normally associated with significant weight loss and quality of life issues.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Nursing homes serving primarily Hispanic residents provided poorer quality care compared to facilities whose patients were mostly white, according to Brown University research. Details were published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association.
Researchers reached their conclusions after looking at the rate of bed sores at nursing homes with high concentrations of Hispanic patients, compared to others with low concentrations. Hispanics at nursing homes with a high rate of Hispanic residents were more likely to have bed sores, compared to Hispanics living in nursing homes with fewer Hispanic residents.
Psychiatrists and critical care specialists at Johns Hopkins have begun to tease out what there is about a stay in an intensive care unit (ICU) that leads so many patients to report depression after they go home.
In a study reported online April 10 in Critical Care Medicine, the Hopkins researchers say several factors predicted symptoms of depression six months after hospitalization among very sick ICU patients, including a high level of organ failure and being given relatively high doses of a benzodiazepine sedative.
Kansas gravel roads have varying speed limits, but a study by Kansas State University researchers shows that instead of abiding by those limits, people are more likely to use their own judgment to gauge how fast they should drive on the roads.
K-State researchers Sunanda Dissanayake, associate professor of civil engineering, and Litao Liu, graduate student in civil engineering, have studied the actual speeds on Kansas gravel roads and the various factors involved.
"We found that people are driving at speeds based on their perceptions and existing conditions – regardless of the speed limit," said Dissanayake, who also is a faculty member with K-State's University Transportation Center.
