Ascribe Higher Education News Service articles from August 2008

Ascribe Higher Education News Service archives from August 2008

Penn Researchers Find a New Role for a 'Foxy Old Gene'; Protein Protects Liver Against Accumulation of Excess Bile; Implications for Treating Liver Diseases.
August 1, 2008... Byline: University of Pennsylvania Health System PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 1 (AScribe Newswire) -- Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered that a protein called FOXA2 controls genes that maintain the proper...

Ties to the Dead and Support for the President.
August 1, 2008... Byline: University of California, Davis DAVIS, Calif., Aug. 1 (AScribe Newswire) -- Those who know someone who died in the Iraq War or 9/11 terrorist attacks are less likely to approve of President Bush's performance in office than those...

Study: Verbal Aggression May Affect Children's Behavior.
August 4, 2008... Byline: Purdue University WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Aug. 4 (AScribe Newswire) -- The methods mothers use to control their children during playtime and other daily activities could have a negative impact on their child's self-esteem and...

Little Teeth Suggest Big Jump in Primate Timeline.(Chronology)
August 4, 2008... Byline: Duke University DURHAM, N.C., Aug. 4 (AScribe Newswire) -- Tiny fossilized teeth excavated from an Indian open-pit coal mine could be the oldest Asian remains ever found of anthropoids, the primate lineage of today's monkeys, apes...

Oil and Gas Drilling on Public Lands Highest in Decades, But Prices Soar and Foreign Dependency Remains High.
August 4, 2008... Byline: Environmental Working Group WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 (AScribe Newswire) -- The Bush administration has allowed more oil and gas drilling on Western public lands than any administration in at least 25 years, yet prices for gasoline and...

Now That's Cool: Clark School Engineers Out to Thaw the Mysteries of Ice.
August 5, 2008... Byline: University of Maryland, College Park COLLEGE PARK, Md., Aug. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- "Ye canna change the laws of physics!" Scotty warned Captain Kirk on Star Trek. But engineers and physicists at the University of Maryland may...

Remedial Instruction Rewires Dyslexic Brains, Provides Lasting Results, Carnegie Mellon Study Shows; Researchers Say Findings Could Usher in New Era of Neuro-Education.(Report)
August 5, 2008... Byline: Carnegie Mellon University PITTSBURGH, Aug. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- A new Carnegie Mellon University brain imaging study of dyslexic students and other poor readers shows that the brain can permanently rewire itself and overcome...

UC Santa Barbara Researchers Make Milestone Discovery in Quantum Mechanics.
August 5, 2008... Byline: University of California, Santa Barbara SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Aug. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have recently reached what they are calling a milestone in experimental quantum mechanics. In a paper...

HIV Expert Says One Step Down, Two More to Go in Quest to Cure AIDS.
August 6, 2008... Byline: Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions BALTIMORE, Aug. 6 (AScribe Newswire) -- A Johns Hopkins expert in HIV and how the AIDS virus hides in the body says antiretroviral drugs have stopped HIV from replicating, the first of three key...

LSU Health Sciences Center's Dr. Eric Lazartigues Awarded $1.2 Million Grant.
August 6, 2008... Byline: LSU Health Sciences Center NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 6 (AScribe Newswire) -- Dr. Eric Lazartigues, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Medicine, has been awarded a $1.2 million Research...

Robotics Research: Enhancing the Lives of People With Disabilities; NSF Sponsored Project Improves Quality and Flexibility of Rehabilitation Robotics.
August 7, 2008... Byline: Rochester Institute of Technology ROCHESTER, N.Y., Aug. 7 (AScribe Newswire) -- Robots may be the solution for people with disabilities who are struggling to regain the use of their limbs, thanks to a research team that includes...

Daley and Colleagues Create 20 Disease-Specific Stem Cell Lines; Lines to Be Part of New HSCI iPS Collection Available to Researchers.
August 7, 2008... Byline: Children's Hospital Boston BOSTON, Aug. 7 (AScribe Newswire) -- Harvard Stem Cell Institute researcher George Q. Daley, MD, PhD, also associate director of the Stem Cell Program at Children's Hospital Boston, and HSCI colleagues...

Fingerprints Provide Clues to More Than Just Identity.
August 7, 2008... Byline: Purdue University WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Aug. 7 (AScribe Newswire) -- Fingerprints can reveal critical evidence, as well as an identity, with the use of a new technology developed at Purdue University that detects trace amounts of...

New Study Shows Reductions in Serious Alcohol-Related Consequences Among College Students.
August 11, 2008... Byline: University of Virginia CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Aug. 11 (AScribe Newswire) -- A new six-year study conducted at the University of Virginia has found that exposing college students to information that corrected misperceptions about...

Flexible Nanoantenna Arrays Capture Abundant Solar Energy.
August 11, 2008... Byline: Idaho National Laboratory JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Aug. 11 (AScribe Newswire) -- Researchers have devised an inexpensive way to produce plastic sheets containing billions of nanoantennas that collect heat energy generated by the sun and...

Study: Active Patients With Shoulder Arthritis Improve Their Ability to Participate in Sports After Shoulder Replacement Surgery; Majority of Patients Improved in Their Ability to Play Their Sport; Findings Important to Active Baby Boomer Generation.
August 11, 2008... Byline: University of Colorado Denver AURORA, Colo., Aug. 11 (AScribe Newswire) -- In recent years, there has been a surge in the number of active, older adults. This is due in part to the aging Baby Boomer Generation - those born between...

Low Vitamin D Levels Pose Large Threat to Health; Overall 26 Percent Increased Risk of Death.
August 11, 2008... Byline: Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions BALTIMORE, Aug. 11 (AScribe Newswire) -- Researchers at Johns Hopkins are reporting what is believed to be the most conclusive evidence to date that inadequate levels of vitamin D, obtained from...

Rare Case in Baltimore Couple Explains Why Some Infected With HIV Remain Symptom Free for Years Without Antiretroviral Drugs; Finding Renews Promise of Vaccine Against AIDS; Disproves Theory of Defective Virus.
August 12, 2008... Byline: Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions BALTIMORE, Aug. 12 (AScribe Newswire) -- AIDS experts at Johns Hopkins say they have compelling evidence that some people with HIV who for years and even decades show extremely low levels of the...

New Research Reveals Why Chili Peppers Are Hot.
August 12, 2008... Byline: University of Florida GAINESVILLE, Fla., Aug. 12 (AScribe Newswire) -- Despite the popularity of spicy cuisine among Homo sapiens, the hotness in chili peppers has always been something of an evolutionary mystery. A plant...

Strange Molecule in the Sky Cleans Acid Rain, Scientists Discover.
August 12, 2008... Byline: Purdue University ~EventDate:Aug 12 2008 WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Aug. 12 (AScribe Newswire) -- Researchers have discovered an unusual molecule that is essential to the atmosphere's ability to break down pollutants, especially the...

'Voluntourism' Draws Convention-Goers Wanting to Lend a Helping Hand.
August 13, 2008... Byline: University of Florida GAINESVILLE, Fla., Aug. 13 (AScribe Newswire) -- Many convention-goers are volunteering for public service rather than demanding prompt four-star service for themselves, a new University of Florida study...

Using Live Fish, New Tool a Sentinel for Environmental Contamination.
August 13, 2008... Byline: Purdue University WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Aug. 13 (AScribe Newswire) -- Researchers have harnessed the sensitivity of days-old fish embryos to create a tool capable of detecting a range of harmful chemicals. By measuring rates of...

Study Links Rise in Mortgage Rates to Falling House Prices in Many U.S Cities.
August 13, 2008... Byline: Columbia Business School NEW YORK, Aug. 13 (AScribe Newswire) -- New research by Christopher J. Mayer, Paul Milstein Professor of Real Estate and Senior Vice Dean at Columbia Business School, shows that a rise in mortgage rates has...

Purdue Researcher Identifies Climate Change Hotspots.
August 13, 2008... Byline: Purdue University WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Aug. 13 (AScribe Newswire) -- A study using one of the most complete climate modeling systems in the world points to southern California, northern Mexico and western Texas as climate change...

Self-Esteem in Chinese Adolescents.
August 14, 2008... Byline: University of California, Davis DAVIS, Calif., Aug. 14 (AScribe Newswire) -- In metropolitan China, high school students' self-esteem depends more on good relations with peers than parents, a new University of California, Davis...

Penn Study Finds Way to Prevent Protein Clumping Characteristic of Parkinson's Disease.
August 14, 2008... Byline: University of Pennsylvania Health System PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 14 (AScribe Newswire) -- Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have identified a protein from a most unlikely source -- baker's yeast -- that...

Algae: Biofuel of the Future?
August 15, 2008... Byline: University of Virginia CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Aug. 15 (AScribe Newswire) -- In the world of alternative fuels, there may be nothing greener than pond scum. Algae are tiny biological factories that use photosynthesis to transform...

Light Receptors in Eye Play Key Role in Setting Biological Clock, Study Shows.
August 15, 2008... Byline: University of Virginia CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Aug. 15 (AScribe Newswire) -- Biologists at the University of Virginia have discovered a switching mechanism in the eye that plays a key role in regulating the sleep/wake cycles in...

Carnegie Mellon Researchers Urge Industry to Broaden Carbon Footprint Calculations.
August 15, 2008... Byline: Carnegie Mellon University PITTSBURGH, Aug. 15 (AScribe Newswire) -- Carnegie Mellon University researchers are urging companies to embrace new methods for following the trail of dangerous carbon emissions that are responsible for...

Non-Compete Clauses Can Help Drive Growth When Timing Is Right, Says New Study From University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management.
August 18, 2008... Byline: Rotman School of Management TORONTO, Aug. 18 (AScribe Newswire) -- Contracts that limit employees from taking what they've learned at a company and profiting from it elsewhere may actually help industries in their infancy, says a...

Johns Hopkins Scientists Discover What Drives the Development of a Fatal Form of Malaria; The Culprit: One's Own Immune System.
August 18, 2008... Byline: Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions BALTIMORE, Aug. 18 (AScribe Newswire) -- Platelets - those tiny, unassuming cells that cause blood to clot and scabs to form when you cut yourself - play an important early role in promoting...

Switching It Up: How Memory Deals With a Change in Plans.
August 18, 2008... Byline: Johns Hopkins University BALTIMORE, Aug. 18 (AScribe Newswire) -- You're about to leave work at the end of the day when your cell phone rings: it's your spouse, asking that you pick up a gallon of milk on the way home. Before you...

Psychology News Tips From UC Davis: Children's False Denials; Suicide in Asian Americans; Biracial Asian Americans and Mental Health.
August 18, 2008... Byline: University of California, Davis DAVIS, Calif., Aug. 18 (AScribe Newswire) -- Following are psychology news tips from University of California, Davis. - - - - ADULTS EASILY FOOLED BY CHILDREN'S FALSE DENIALS Adults are...

Soils Limited in Storing Carbon and Mitigating Global Warming, Studies Find.
August 18, 2008... Byline: University of California, Davis DAVIS, Calif., Aug. 18 (AScribe Newswire) -- Soils, long known to be potential natural "sinks" or storehouses for carbon, are limited in just how much carbon they can stash away, according to two...

Household Health Largely Immune to National Economic Shocks, Study Finds.
August 18, 2008... Byline: Duke University DURHAM, N.C., Aug. 19 (AScribe Newswire) -- When a national financial crisis strikes, ordinary citizens are adept at mitigating its effects on their health and long-term well-being by adapting their household...

Chemist Travels World to Study Mysterious Properties of Neutrinos.
August 19, 2008... Byline: Brookhaven National Laboratory PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 19 (AScribe Newswire) -- In the quest to better understand one of nature's most "ghostly" elementary particles - the neutrino - scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE)...

Stanford Business School Research Examines: Do Samples Whet - or Dampen - Consumer Appetites?
August 19, 2008... Byline: Stanford Graduate School of Business STANFORD, Calif., Aug. 19 (AScribe Newswire) -- Every grocery store knows that a hungry shopper is likely to buy more. On the other side are product marketers who would love to stuff customers...

Economic Downturns Can Mean Sudden Death for Underperforming CEOs, According to Stanford Business School Research.
August 19, 2008... Byline: Stanford Graduate School of Business STANFORD, Calif., Aug. 19 (AScribe Newswire) -- When a company does badly, no manager likes to be blamed for things that were really outside his control - like a general downturn in the economy....

LSU Health Sciences Center Neuroscience Research Reports New Safer Method to Protect Brain Cells From Diseases Like Alzheimer's.
August 20, 2008... Byline: LSU Health Sciences Center NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 20 (AScribe Newswire) -- New research led by Chu Chen, PhD, Associate Professor of Neuroscience at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, provides evidence that a fatty acid in the brain...

Addiction Treatment Proves Successful in Animal Weight Loss Study; Genetically Bred 'Fat Rats' Experience Dramatic Weight Loss, Reduced Food Intake After Being Given Vigabatrin.
August 20, 2008... Byline: Brookhaven National Laboratory UPTON, Aug. 20 (AScribe Newswire) -- Vigabatrin (GVG), a medication proposed as a potential treatment for drug addiction by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National...

New 'Nano-Positioners' May Have Atomic-Scale Precision.
August 20, 2008... Byline: Purdue University WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Aug. 20 (AScribe Newswire) -- Engineers have created a tiny motorized positioning device that has twice the dexterity of similar devices being developed for applications that include...

Healthy Honey Bees Is Goal of Multi-Institutional Research Team.
August 20, 2008... Byline: Purdue University WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Aug. 20 (AScribe Newswire) -- A combination of pathogens, pesticides and parasites may underlie such a massive disappearance of honeybees that agricultural production may be threatened, says...

Rapid Test for Pathogens Developed by Kansas State Researchers Could Be Used to Detect Diseases Used by Bioterrorists.
August 21, 2008... Byline: Kansas State University MANHATTAN, Kan., Aug. 21 (AScribe Newswire) -- Dangerous disease often spreads faster than it takes to diagnose it in the lab. To remedy that, researchers at Kansas State University have developed a test to...

Generations of Stars Pose for Family Portrait.
August 22, 2008... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Aug. 22 (AScribe Newswire) -- A new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope tells a tale of life and death amidst a rich family history. The striking infrared picture shows a colorful...

University of Colorado and Boulder Biotech Company Team Up to Study Pythons for Clues to Heart Disease.
August 25, 2008... Byline: University of Colorado, Boulder BOULDER, Colo., Aug. 25 (AScribe Newswire) -- The University of Colorado at Boulder is teaming up with a Boulder biotechnology company to use pythons, which dramatically increase their heart size for...

Troubled Children Hurt Peers' Test Scores, Behavior.
August 25, 2008... Byline: University of California, Davis DAVIS, Calif., Aug. 25 (AScribe Newswire) -- Troubled children hurt their classmates' math and reading scores and worsen their behavior, according to new research by economists at the University of...

High Cholesterol Levels Drop Naturally in Children on High-Fat Antiseizure Diet, Hopkins Study Shows.
August 26, 2008... Byline: Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions BALTIMORE, Aug. 26 (AScribe Newswire) -- Elevated cholesterol levels return to normal or near normal levels over time in four out of 10 children with uncontrollable epilepsy treated with the...

Florida Consumer Confidence Rises as Residents Adjust to Bad Economy.
August 26, 2008... Byline: University of Florida GAINESVILLE, Fla., Aug. 26 (AScribe Newswire) -- Consumer confidence among Floridians made huge gains in August, rising six points to 67 from its revised July index, suggesting a turning point as state...

Trouble Quitting? New Pitt-Carnegie Mellon Smoking Study May Reveal Why.
August 26, 2008... Byline: Carnegie Mellon University PITTSBURGH, Aug. 26 (AScribe Newswire) -- A new study from researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University sheds light on why smokers' intentions to quit "cold turkey" often...

Study of Islands Reveals Surprising Extinction Results.
August 26, 2008... Byline: University of California, Santa Barbara SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Aug. 26 (AScribe Newswire) -- It's no secret that humans are having a huge impact on the life cycles of plants and animals. University of California, Santa Barbara's...

UC Berkeley Study Finds Boards of Directors Face Uncertain Futures When Companies Restate Earnings.
August 27, 2008... Byline: Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley BERKELEY, Calif., Aug. 27 (AScribe Newswire) -- Corporate board members associated with firms that restate earnings may lose their jobs for reasons that have nothing to do with the numbers....

Heart Attack Patients Who Stop Statin Risk Death, Say McGill Researchers; Study Finds Doubled Mortality Risk If Treatment Is Discontinued.
August 27, 2008... Byline: McGill University MONTREAL, Aug. 27 (AScribe Newswire) -- Patients discontinuing statin medication following an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) increase their risk of dying over the next year, say researchers at McGill University...

Collision of Galaxy Clusters Captured by Astronomers.
August 27, 2008... Byline: University of California, Santa Barbara SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Aug. 27 (AScribe Newswire) -- Two University of California, Santa Barbara astronomers are part of a team that has made a stunning discovery using the Hubble Space...

Scientists Reveal Effects of Quantum 'Traffic Jam' in High-Temperature Superconductors; Findings May Point to New Materials to Get the Current Flowing at Higher Temperatures.
August 27, 2008... Byline: Brookhaven National Laboratory UPTON, N.Y., Aug. 27 (AScribe Newswire) -- Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, in collaboration with colleagues at Cornell University, Tokyo University, the...

Experimental Therapy May Lead to Macular Degeneration, an International Team of Researchers Caution.
August 27, 2008... Byline: Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions BALTIMORE, Aug. 27 (AScribe Newswire) -- Having discovered a genetic trigger for age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of vision loss in people over 50, researchers report that an...

Corn Genetics May Lead to Next Generation of Plant-Based Biofuels.
August 27, 2008... Byline: Purdue University WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Aug. 27 (AScribe Newswire) -- Identifying the corn genes involved with plant cell wall generation and learning their function will help develop new, more productive sources of transportation...

Researchers Devise Means to Create Blood by Identifying Earliest Stem Cells.
August 28, 2008... Byline: Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions BALTIMORE, Aug. 28 (AScribe Newswire) -- Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered the earliest form of human blood stem cells and deciphered the mechanism by which these embryonic stem cells...

Treadmill Exercise Retrains Brain and Body of Stroke Victims; Research Shows Improvement Even Years Post-Stroke.
August 28, 2008... Byline: Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions BALTIMORE, Aug. 28 (AScribe Newswire) -- People who walk on a treadmill even years after stroke damage can significantly improve their health and mobility, changes that reflect actual "rewiring" of...

'Pristine' Amazonian Region Hosted Large, Urban Civilization, Study Finds.
August 28, 2008... Byline: University of Florida GAINESVILLE, Fla., Aug. 28 (AScribe Newswire) -- They aren't the lost cities early explorers sought fruitlessly to discover. But ancient settlements in the Amazon, now almost entirely obscured by tropical...

Sustainability Policies Are Rare, According to Survey of CFO and CPA Executives; AICPA-UNC Survey Finds That Most Companies Do Not Report on Sustainability.
August 29, 2008... Byline: UNC-Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Aug. 29 (AScribe Newswire) -- Very few companies have sustainability policies and most do not report on sustainability or corporate social responsibility, according...

Landmark Study Opens Door to New Cancer, Aging Treatments: Wistar Institute Researchers Decipher Telomerase Structure.
August 31, 2008... Byline: The Wistar Institute PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 31 (AScribe Newswire) -- Researchers at The Wistar Institute have deciphered the structure of the active region of telomerase, an enzyme that plays a major role in the development of nearly...

American Lung Association Study Finds No Evidence of Depression or Suicide Linked to Asthma and Allergy Drug Montelukast.
August 31, 2008... Byline: American Lung Association WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 (AScribe Newswire) -- There has been recent concern that suicide may be a complication of montelukast (Singulair) therapy. Montelukast is a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved...