The household income of its residents is the most important factor in whether a community has high or low rates of avoidable hospital visits -- conditions that could be better managed in a doctor's office or other health care settings if treated at an early stage, according to a report.
Long before humans figured out how to create colors, nature had already perfected the process -- think stunning, bright butterfly wings of many different hues, for example. Now scientists are tapping into those secrets to develop a more environmentally friendly way to make colored plastics. Their method uses structure -- or the shapes and architectures of materials -- rather than dyes, to produce colors.
Printing whole new organs for transplants sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, but the real-life budding technology could one day make actual kidneys, livers, hearts and other organs for patients who desperately need them. Scientists are reporting new understanding about the dynamics of 3-D bioprinting that takes them a step closer to realizing their goal of making working tissues and organs on-demand.
Scientists are searching through a massive collection of 20-million-year-old amber found in the Dominican Republic more than 50 years ago, and the effort is yielding fresh insights into ancient tropical insects and the world they inhabited. Perhaps the most striking discovery thus far is that of a pygmy locust, a tiny grasshopper the size of a rose thorn that lived 18- to 20-million years ago and fed on moss, algae and fungi.
Comics taking to the stage should take note: how much of a hit they are with their audiences won’t be down to just their jokes. The link between humor and emotion plays a large part in how well an audience connects with a comedian, and vice versa, according to new research.
Breasts are the strongest symbol of female sexuality and are abundant in the media, on magazines, in adverts and in film. Celebrity breasts are depicted as objects of sexual desire and as a model for everyday women to aspire to. Broadcast images of breastfeeding however are scarce and elicit controversy and even revulsion.
Mercury's interior is different from the Earth's interior in a way that explains Mercury's bizarre magnetic field, planetary physicists report. Measurements from NASA's Messenger spacecraft have revealed that Mercury's magnetic field is approximately three times stronger at its northern hemisphere than its southern one.
The world's oceans are vast and deep, yet rapidly advancing technology and the quest for extracting resources from previously unreachable depths is beginning to put the deep seas on the cusp of peril, an international team of scientists has warned.
Many growth factors that influence the fate of embryonic stem cells must bind to sugars attached to specific receptors on the surface of the cell to work. Because the sugars are difficult to manipulate, biochemists created synthetic stand ins that helped to identify substructures recognized by a growth factor involved in neural development.
Researchers show how they've used advanced computational data science tools to demonstrate that despite global warming, we may still experience severe cold snaps due to increasing variability in temperature extremes.
Spintronics is a new field of electronics, using electron spin rather than motion. This technology requires insulating components that can control this quantum property. Scientists have shown experimentally that a novel material shows all the required properties.
Scientists have synthesized a catalyst that improves their system for converting waste carbon dioxide into syngas, a precursor of gasoline and other energy-rich products, bringing the process closer to commercial viability.
Today scientists unveiled the first high-resolution map of the carbon stocks stored on land throughout the entire country of Peru. The new and improved methodology used to make the map marks a sea change for future market-based carbon economies. The new carbon map also reveals Peru's extremely high ecological diversity and it provides the critical input to studies of deforestation and forest degradation for conservation, land use, and enforcement purposes.
Between three and six percent of schoolchildren suffer from an arithmetic-related learning disability. Researchers now show that these children are also more likely to exhibit deficits in reading and spelling than had been previously suspected.
Archaeologists have found an ancient fragment of ivory belonging to a 40,000 year old animal figurine. Both pieces were found in the Vogelherd Cave in southwestern Germany, which has yielded a number of remarkable works of art dating to the Ice Age. The mammoth ivory figurine depicting a lion was discovered during excavations in 1931. The new fragment makes up one side of the figurine’s head.
An academic led a lab-based research, involving 433 viewers of ages from 4 to 82 years, in which participants were asked to watch Toy Story in either 2-D or 3-D (S3D) and report on their viewing experience. The objective of the study was to investigate visual discomfort in relation to 3-D display technologies, as well as to determine the impact of people’s preconceptions on their experience of 3D TV. It’s no secret that the format hasn’t taken off in the way many had anticipated.
The analysis of the roughly 3,000 pieces is still in its infant stage. But it is already evident that the results will be of major significance. The Baltic amber comes from the Baltic Sea region, which is almost 10,000 kilometers from Fushun. Sites rich in finds are, e.g., the coastal regions of Mecklenburg, Poland and Belarus. The pieces from the Baltic region are slightly younger than the ones from Fushun–according to estimates, about 40 to 50 million years.
A survey of beds within a large teaching hospital in Ireland has shown than many of them did not comply with dimensional standards put in place to minimize the risk of entrapment. The report therefore emphasizes the need for careful selection of patients for whom bedrails are to be used, as well as the need for monitoring and maintenance of hospital bed systems.
Parenting skills of adults with ADHD improve when their ADHD is treated with medication, according to researchers. At least 25 percent of clinic-referred children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder have a parent with ADHD. At least 25 percent of clinic-referred children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder have a parent with ADHD.
People who have the most common genetic mutation linked to obesity respond differently to pictures of appetizing foods than overweight or obese people who do not have the genetic mutation, according to a new study. More than one-third of adults are obese. Obesity typically results from a combination of eating too much, getting too little physical activity and genetics.
