Three National Science Foundation-supported researchers recently undertook the first non-Iraqi archaeological investigation of the Tigris-Euphrates delta in nearly 20 years. Archeologists Jennifer Pournelle and Carrie Hritz, with geologist Jennifer Smith, carried out the study late last year to look for links between wetland resources and the emergence of Mesopotamian cities.
Culture
Using a small block of aluminum with a tiny groove carved in it, a team of researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Polytechnic Institute of New York University is developing an improved "green chemistry" method for making biodegradable polymers. Their recently published work* is a prime example of the value of microfluidics, a technology more commonly associated with inkjet printers and medical diagnostics, to process modeling and development for industrial chemistry.
Washington, DC – University leaders and U.S. Senators gathered for a roundtable discussion today at the Capitol on the vital role university-based scientific research plays in fueling innovation and sparking economic growth.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists have found strains of bacteria that could one day be used as environmentally friendly treatments to keep caterpillars and other pests out of gardens and cultivated fields.
WASHINGTON — Researchers need to proactively engage lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in health studies and collect data on these populations to identify and better understand health conditions that affect them, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. The scarcity of research yields an incomplete picture of LGBT health status and needs, which is further fragmented by the tendency to treat sexual and gender minorities as a single homogeneous group, said the committee that wrote the report.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue University researchers have developed a set of propagation and production protocols that will help Indiana greenhouse growers bring a tropical plant into flower for spring sales.
Exposure to attractive, aggressive, female leads in films affects how men and women think about who women ought to be in the real world. Women in particular have high standards for other women, and expect them to be both stereotypically feminine and masculine i.e. beautiful and aggressive rather than beautiful and passive. That's according to new research by Laramie Taylor and Tiffany Setters, from the University of California, Davis in the US, published online in Springer's Sex Roles journal.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Internet security researchers at Indiana University and Microsoft Research have exploited software flaws in leading online stores that use third-party payment services PayPal, Amazon Payments and Google Checkout to receive products for free or at prices far below the advertised purchase price.
Dallas, TX (March 31, 2011) – Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have determined that electronic faucets are more likely to become contaminated with unacceptably high levels of bacteria, including Legionella spp., compared with traditional manually operated faucets. The study will be presented on Saturday at the annual meeting of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA).
The first non-Iraqi archaeological investigation of the Tigris-Euphrates delta in 20 years was a preliminary foray by three women who began to explore the links between wetland resources and the emergence and growth of cities last year.
"Foreign investigations in Iraq stopped in the 1990s," said Carrie Hritz, assistant professor of anthropology, Penn State. "Iraqis continued research, but because their work is unpublished, we are unsure of where they surveyed."
Popular books and media reports have perpetuated the belief that children and adolescents are overscheduled in their extracurricular activities, and that this can disrupt how families function and undermine young people's opportunities for success. Although there is little empirical research to support this idea, some studies suggest a threshold effect in which the benefits of involvement stabilize or drop slightly after a certain point.
PASADENA, Calif.—If you're sitting on a bench in New York City's Central Park in winter, you're probably freezing. After all, the average temperature in January is 32 degrees Fahrenheit. But if you were just across the pond in Porto, Portugal, which shares New York's latitude, you'd be much warmer—the average temperature is a balmy 48 degrees Fahrenheit.
New Haven, CT—March 30, 2011— Public interest in the issue of teenage childbearing has recently increased, largely due to increases in both the teen pregnancy rate and the teen birth rate. A new study from Economic Inquiry examines the negative educational and economic outcomes of teenage fatherhood, a topic far less researched than teenage motherhood.
ANAHEIM, March 29, 2011 — Scientists today reported discovery of the active ingredients in an herb used in traditional Chinese medicine for skin whitening, changing skin color to a lighter shade. The ingredients are poised for clinical trials as a safer, more effective alternative to skin whitening creams and lotions that millions of women and some men use in Asia and elsewhere, they said. The report was among more than 9,500 presentations this week at the 241st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
Two articles in this week's PLoS Medicine discuss the issues that need to be resolved to ensure that open access can provide for global information needs, and not just those of the developed world.
Leslie Chan, Barbara Kirsop, and Subbiah Arunachalam from the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development argue that access and distribution of public knowledge is currently governed by Northern standards, a situation that is increasingly inappropriate in what they call the "age of the networked Invisible College."