A bike-like centrifuge that creates artificial gravity may help astronauts combat muscle atrophy in space. Through a study at the University of California, Irvine, the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) is exploring the concept of a Space Cycle for inflight resistance-training exercise.
“Even with onboard exercise, astronauts face the risk of losing muscle mass and function because their muscles are not bearing enough weight, or load,” said Dr. Vincent J. Caioz
The long-term effects of teasing or harassment by their peers on pre-adolescent children – specifically, depression and anxiety – are related, in part, to the level of victimization at the end of fourth grade, as well as to how much that harassment increased or decreased between fourth and sixth grade, according to a study published in the September/October issue of the journal Child Development.
The study, by researchers from North Dakota State University and Arizona State
Although preadolescents and adolescents might think their parents hold no sway over them, a study published in the September/October issue of the journal Child Development finds just the opposite – early parenting style makes a big difference in how a child turns out.
Researchers from Arizona State University in Tempe evaluated 186 adolescents three times over a six-year period, once every two years from the time the children were about 9 to about age 13. They used parent and
Nature or nurture? It’s the eternal question for so many human interactions and personality traits. Now, it appears, nature may play a larger role than nurture when it comes to family relationships between adolescents and their parents.
Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin and George Washington University in Washington, D.C., used data on 674 families, each with a same-sex adolescent pair, to evaluate the factors that made up the relationships and individual p
Using strands of genetic material, Purdue University scientists have constructed tiny delivery vehicles that can carry anticancer therapeutic agents directly to infected cells, offering a potential wealth of new treatments for chronic diseases.
The vehicles look nothing like delivery trucks, though that is their function once inside the body. Instead, these so-called nanoparticles, which are assembled from three short pieces of ribonucleic acid, resemble miniature triangles. The micr
Inactivity leads to significant increases in visceral fat, and a moderate exercise regimen can keep this potentially dangerous form of fat at bay, according to the results of the first randomized clinical trial evaluating the effects of exercise amount and intensity in sedentary overweight men and women.
Additionally, the Duke University Medical Center researchers found that increasing amounts of exercise can reduce visceral fat. In terms of overall weight gain, the patients who
A large body of research finds that physically abused children have a very high risk of developing emotional and behavioral problems later in life. Now a study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison finds that these children have a tendency to focus and respond to even subtle signs of anger from others, one explanation for their distraction in classroom and social situations.
The researchers had previously shown that physically abused children tended to become especiall
How you interact with your children when they’re just starting kindergarten helps determine their behavior by the time they finish fourth grade, according to a study published in the September/October 2005 issue of the journal Child Development. The study, from researchers at Wichita State University in Kansas, found that early parent-child relationships, including warmth, good communication and parental tracking of child behavior, serve as important building blocks for later monitoring (k
Take a young child at high risk of doing poorly in the elementary school years, put him or her in a classroom with a great teacher, and that child will do just as well as children who have no such risks. This finding, published in the September/October issue of the journal Child Development, provides important evidence that the quality of everyday experiences in schools can greatly reduce children’s academic and social problems, even closing gaps between children of varying demographic, experi
Louisiana Tech has reached further in its help to Katrina victims, this time through technology.
Dr. Box Leangsuksun, an associate professor of computer science, along with five computer science graduate students, has created a new Web site aimed at locating people displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
His hope is that the site will help streamline the search process. Other sites are available that perform similar tasks, he said, but they contain so much information that users c
Measurements improve prospects for international redefinition of the kilogram
A leading experimental method for defining the kilogram in terms of properties of nature is now more accurate than ever, scientists at the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) reported today. The advance may move the scientific community closer to redefining the kilogram, the only one of the seven basic units of the international measurement system still defin
In findings with implications for pandemic influenza, a new study reports for the first time that a less-virulent strain of avian influenza virus can spread from poultry to humans. The research appears in the October 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online.
Crossing the species barrier is an important step in the development of a flu virus with pandemic potential. Previous studies have focused on the ability of highly pathogenic strains, such as H5N1
Testing for exercise capacity and heart rate recovery improves on traditional risk-factor scoring
Performing cardiac stress tests that measure exercise capacity and heart rate recovery can improve dramatically on existing techniques that predict who is most likely to suffer a heart attack or die from coronary heart disease (CHD), the leading cause of death in the United States, a team of cardiologists at Johns Hopkins reports.
In the Sept. 13 edition of the journal C
Crablike ’whale lice’ show how endangered cetaceans evolved
University of Utah biologists studied the genetics of “whale lice” – small crustaceans that are parasites on endangered “right whales” – and showed the giant whales split into three species 5 million to 6 million years ago, and that all three species probably were equally abundant before whaling reduced their numbers.
The five-year study, published in the October 2005 issue of the journal Molecular Ecology,
An Internet-based examination system enables stroke patients to be treated as rapidly in rural communities as they are in bigger hospitals with stroke teams, researchers have found.
A study of 194 stroke patients in eight rural Georgia hospitals seen via the REACH system by stroke team members at an academic medical center showed most patients got clot-dissolving tPA in less than two hours, says Dr. David Hess, chair of the Medical College of Georgia Department of Neurology and
After the anthrax attacks in the United States in 2001 the threat of a larger and more deadly bioterrorism attack — perhaps from smallpox, plague or tularemia — became very real. But the ability to detect such biological agents and rapidly contain an attack is still being developed.
In a significant finding, researchers at Northwestern University’s Center for Quantum Devices have demonstrated solar-blind avalanche photodiodes (APDs) that hold promise for universal bio
Feedback
