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Soldiers and Families Can Suffer Negative Effects from Modern Communication Technologies, Says MU Researcher

By Guest PostMarch 24, 2013General, Politicsbehavioral problems, betty pfefferbaum, brian houston, email, emotional cues, emotional troubles, families, frequency, korean wars, michael brand, michelle sherman, modern communication technologies, negative effects, roles of warrior, soldiers, strain of warfare, suffer, text message, text messages, university of missouri, university of oklahoma, Vietnam

COLUMBIA, Mo. – As recently as the Vietnam and Korean wars, soldiers’ families commonly had to wait months to receive word from family members on the front lines. Now, cell phones and the internet allow deployed soldiers and their families to communicate instantly. However, along with the benefits of keeping in touch, using new communication technologies can have negative consequences for both soldiers and their families, according to a study by University of Missouri researcher Brian Houston. This research could lead to guidelines for how active military personnel and their families can best use modern communications.

“Deployed soldiers and their families should be aware that newer methods of communication, especially texting, can have unintended impacts,” said Houston, assistant professor of communication in the College of Arts and Science. “The brevity and other limitations of text messages often limit the emotional content of a message. The limited emotional cues in text messages or email increases the potential for misunderstandings and hurt feelings. For example, children may interpret a deployed parent’s brief, terse text message negatively, when the nature of the message may have been primarily the result of the medium or the situation.” (more…)

Surprising Control over Photoelectrons from a Topological Insulator

By Guest PostMarch 24, 2013Science3d topological insulators, alessandra lanzara, als, angle resolved, arpes, atoms, berkeley lab, chris jozwiak, data collection, dirac point, dung hai lee, electronic states, energy momentum diagrams, field of spintronics, flight analyzer, german, graphene, incident light, laser beam, magnetic surface, momentum space, p polarized, photoelectrons, photoemission spectroscopy, quantum computing, s polarization, s polarized, senkrecht, spin polarized, spin time, steve louie, strange crystalline materials, tis, topological insulator, university of california, zahid hussain

Berkeley Lab scientists discover how a photon beam can flip the spin polarization of electrons emitted from an exciting new material

Plain-looking but inherently strange crystalline materials called 3D topological insulators (TIs) are all the rage in materials science. Even at room temperature, a single chunk of TI is a good insulator in the bulk, yet behaves like a metal on its surface.

Researchers find TIs exciting partly because the electrons that flow swiftly across their surfaces are “spin polarized”: the electron’s spin is locked to its momentum, perpendicular to the direction of travel. These interesting electronic states promise many uses – some exotic, like observing never-before-seen fundamental particles, but many practical, including building more versatile and efficient high-tech gadgets, or, further into the future, platforms for quantum computing. (more…)

Sleep consolidates memories for competing tasks

By Guest PostMarch 24, 2013Nature, Scienceavian, brain, brain function, consolidate learning, daniel margoliash, development in birds, excellent model, formation, howard nusbaum, mammalian brains, sleep, stable memories, starlings, timothy brawn, university of chicago

Sleep plays an important role in the brain’s ability to consolidate learning when two new potentially competing tasks are learned in the same day, research at the University of Chicago demonstrates.

Other studies have shown that sleep consolidates learning for a new task. The new study, which measured starlings’ ability to recognize new songs, shows that learning a second task can undermine the performance of a previously learned task. But this study is the first to show that a good night’s sleep helps the brain retain both new memories. (more…)

Sex at zero gravity

By Guest PostMarch 24, 2013Sciencealzheimers, anja geitmann, cellular transport logistics, changes in gravity, cylindrical tool, earth, estec, european space agency, external environment, gravity modulates, human reproduction, hypergravity, hypergravity conditions, illnesses, intracellular highways, microgravity, Netherlands, noordwijk, organelles, plants, pollen tube, reproductive process, sex, sperm cells, university of montreal, youssef chebli, zero gravity

University of Montreal researchers found that changes in gravity affect the reproductive process in plants. Gravity modulates traffic on the intracellular “highways” that ensure the growth and functionality of the male reproductive organ in plants, the pollen tube. “Just like during human reproduction, the sperm cells in plants are delivered to the egg by a cylindrical tool. Unlike the delivery tool in animals, the device used during plant sex consists of a single cell, and only two sperm cells are discharged during each delivery event,” explained Professor Anja Geitmann of the university’s Department of biology. “Our findings offer new insight into how life evolved on Earth and are significant with regards to human health, as a traffic jam on these highways that also exist in human cells can cause cancer and illnesses such as Alzheimer’s.” (more…)

Tooth pushes back modern monkeys’ first ancestor three million years

By Guest PostMarch 23, 2013Nature, Scienceancestor, andrew hill, anthropologists, baboons, basal african monkeys, central kenya, cercopithecid family, christopher c gilbert, city, clayton stephenson, family victoriapithecidae, great rift valley, hunter college, james b rossie, lineage, macaques, million years ago, modern african monkeys, monkey family tree, new york, old world monkey, sallye stephenson, schwartz family foundation, stony brook university, teeth, tugen hills, vervet monkeys, yale university

The ancestor of all modern African monkeys was alive 3 million years earlier than previously thought and coexisted with members of a now-extinct branch of the monkey family tree, according to new evidence from anthropologists.

“We pushed back the origin of modern monkeys by a huge chunk of time,” said anthropologist Andrew Hill of Yale University, the senior researcher on the project. “This means there are all sorts of things we can think about. You can start to look at animal interactions that might have taken place.” (more…)

Researchers Solve Riddle of What Has Been Holding Two Unlikely Materials Together

By Guest PostMarch 23, 2013Sciencebi2te3, bismuth telluride, bonds, electricity, electronics, gaas, gallium arsenide, heat into electricity, houston dycus, james lebeau, jonathan pierce, molecules, north Carolina, rama venkatasubramanian, rti international, state university, super x, thin films, van der waals, weak electrical forces

For years, researchers have developed thin films of bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) – which converts heat into electricity or electricity to cooling – on top of gallium arsenide (GaAs) to create cooling devices for electronics. But while they knew it could be done, it was not clear how – because the atomic structures of those unlikely pair of materials do not appear to be compatible. Now researchers from North Carolina State University and RTI International have solved the mystery, opening the door to new research in the field.

“We’ve used state-of-the-art technology to solve a mystery that has been around for years,” says Dr. James LeBeau, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the research. “And now that we know what is going on, we can pursue research to fine-tune the interface of these materials to develop more efficient mechanisms for converting electricity to cooling or heat into electricity. Ultimately, this could have applications in a wide range of electronic devices.” (more…)

Tenfold boost in ability to pinpoint proteins in cancer cells

By Guest PostMarch 23, 2013Healthantibodies, array of colors, biology, biomarkers, cancerous, cell behavior, cell function, characteristics, color coding cells, color fluorescence, cyclical testing, diagnosis, fluorescent balls, low ph fluid, molecular level, oncology, pathology, patterns, pavel zrazhevskiy, quantum dots, semiconductor material, single cell, Technology, tissue biopsies, treatment of cancer, university of washington, xiaohu gao

Better diagnosis and treatment of cancer could hinge on the ability to better understand a single cell at its molecular level. New research offers a more comprehensive way of analyzing one cell’s unique behavior, using an array of colors to show patterns that could indicate why a cell will or won’t become cancerous.

A University of Washington team has developed a new method for color-coding cells that allows them to illuminate 100 biomarkers, a ten-time increase from the current research standard, to help analyze individual cells from cultures or tissue biopsies. The work is published this week (March 19) in Nature Communications. (more…)

Man who received nation’s first ‘breathing lung’ transplant at UCLA thankful for gift of life

By Guest PostMarch 23, 2013Healthbreathing lung device, breathing lung transplant, donor lungs, lung transplant, organ preservation system

Grandfather, 57, looks forward to celebrating Easter with family and friends

Fernando Padilla could barely breathe or walk more than a few steps. An incurable disease, pulmonary fibrosis, was causing his lungs to turn to hardened scar tissue, and he was permanently tethered to an oxygen tank. His only hope was a double lung transplant.
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