A baby’s understanding of language may begin with its own name, which a baby uses to break sentences into smaller parts so it can learn other words, according to new research by Texas A&M University psychologist Heather Bortfeld, who studies language development in infants and children.
Bortfeld’s research, which appears in the upcoming April issue of “Psychological Science,” shows that babies use familiar words such as their names as a sort of “anchor” into the speech s
A future in which laboratory-grown organs and stimulated growth of muscle, bones and nerves could play a major role in treating medical conditions was revealed at a recent Tissue Engineering Symposium at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
The symposium, sponsored by Wake Forest Baptist and the International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Orthopaedic Sports Medicine, was part of the society’s annual conference. Tissue engineering experts from Wake Forest Bapt
Measuring protein level provides accurate assessment for patients with shortness of breath
A new blood test that measures a particular marker of cardiac distress can markedly improve the ability to diagnose or exclude congestive heart failure in patients with shortness of breath who come to hospital emergency departments. The report from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) finds that measuring levels of a protein called NT-proBNP was significantly better at identify
Today sees the launch of BioModels, the world’s first database of annotated biological models. BioModels is the result of a collaboration led by the European Bioinformatics Institute (UK) and the SBML Team, an international group that develops open-source standards to describe biological systems. Other contributors include the Keck Graduate Institute (USA), the Systems Biology Institute (Japan) and Stellenbosch University (South Africa).
Even the simplest living organisms
A new method for dating destructive past earthquakes, based on evidence remaining in caves has been developed by scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Geological Survey of Israel.
Using this method, they discovered for the first time evidence of earthquakes that can be documented some distance from the Syrian-African rift that runs from Syria through Lebanon, Israel and Jordan and down into Africa. This rift caused great shifts in the topography of the region
Last great global warming period 3 million years ago
Researchers at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the University of California, Santa Cruz have discovered that Earth’s last great global warming period, 3 million years ago, may have been caused by levels of CO2 in the atmosphere similar to today’s.
Reporting this week in a leading Earth Science journal, Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems, the scientists describe how they tested two widely held ideas tha
Researchers from the College of Forestry at Oregon State University have developed a new group of adhesives that may revolutionize a large portion of the wood products industry, and have important environmental and economic benefits.
The discovery has already resulted in three pending patents and should lead to a wide range of new products. But it was originally based on the aroused curiosity of Kaichang Li, an OSU assistant professor, who was harvesting mussels one day from thei
Ephrins may influence learning
A Burnham Institute study has found that one of the cell’s largest families of signaling molecules, called ephrins, which are known to regulate the development of nerve cells, also controls nerve cells’ ability to engulf critical chemicals and proteins for learning and memory. These findings, the first to link these molecular semaphores to this important nerve cell function, appear in the May issue of Nature Cell Biology, published in adva
Microarrays provide a method of quantifying the expression and order of genes in a particular genome — acting as a surrogate measure of cell physiology, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears online today in the journal Nature Genetics.
“Microarray data are good phenotypes to determine the order of genes and are a good surrogate measure of cell status,” said Dr. Gad Shaulsky, associate professor of molecular and human genetics at BCM.
M
Common factor behind myocardial infarction, rheumatism and MS
A common gene variant has been identified as the risk factor behind a number of common diseases by research scientists at Karolinska Institutet and the Centre for Molecular Medicine (CMM), Stockholm, Sweden. Up to a quarter of the population could be affected.
Researchers in the fields of cardiovascular disease, rheumatism and MS have together shown that there is a common risk factor for these conditions. It is
Traditionally if scientists wanted to look at something small they would put a sample under a microscope but now researchers have managed to shrink the microscope itself to the size of a single human cell. An interdisciplinary research team, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council (BBSRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have developed optical biochips no larger than a single cell that could lead to faster development of new drugs and
Scientists develop a breed of sensors that can survive extremes of heat and pressure
Scientists have developed a new breed of sensors which can survive incredible levels of pressure and heat and that are helping researchers work out how to make buildings that could survive massive explosions. Professor Julian Jones, of Heriot-Watt University, will reveal the next generation of sensing devices at the Institute of Physics conference Physics 2005 in Warwick, heralding a new range of me
Scientists discover one of the constants of the universe might not be constant
Physical constants are one of the cornerstones of physics – sacred numbers which we know to be fixed – but what if some of these constants are changing? Speaking at the Institute of Physics conference Physics 2005, Dr Michael Murphy of Cambridge University will discuss the “fine structure constant” – one of the critical numbers in the universe which seems to be precisely tuned for life to exist – and s
Girls steer away from careers in math, science and engineering because they view science as a solitary rather than a social occupation, according to a University of Michigan psychologist.
“Raising girls who are confident in their ability to succeed in science and math is our first job,” said Jacquelynne Eccles, a senior research professor at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR) and the U-M Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
“But in order to increase the num
Nearly three out of every four adults over age 50 use some kind of alternative medicine, such as acupuncture and herbal medicine, according to a new study.
While previous research has been limited, this appears to be a higher rate than occurs within the general population, said Gong-Soog Hong, co-author of the study and professor of consumer sciences at Ohio State University.
This study found that 71 percent of older adults used some form of alternative medicine in 2000. A
An anti-poverty program in Milwaukee, Wisc., substantially increased marriage rates among single mothers who have never been married, according to research by New York University psychology professor Hiro Yoshikawa and Anna Gassman-Pines, a doctoral candidate in psychology. The findings, the result of an unprecedented five-year study of Milwaukee’s “New Hope Project,” will be presented on Sat., April 9, at the Society for Research in Child Development conference in Atlanta, Ga.
Most
Feedback
