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COLLEGE STATION, TX - Across many regions of the United States, water restrictions have created challenges for professionals who work to maintain playing surfaces on recreational turf facilities such as golf courses and athletic fields. As municipalities impose stricter irrigation restrictions -- particularly during winter months -- turfgrass professionals are looking to alternatives to overseeding practices, such as the use of colorants, to produce healthy, safe athletic turf.

Striving to address societal challenges in sectors including Health, Energy and the Environment, the European Union is developing the European Open Science Cloud, a complete socio-technical environment, including robust e-infrastructures capable of providing data and computational solutions where publicly funded research data are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable (FAIR).

AMHERST, Mass. - A new study of population trends among 46 ecologically diverse bird species in North America conducted by avian ecologist Joel Ralston and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst overturns a long-held assumption that the climate conditions occupied by a species do not change over time.

MISSION VIEJO, Calif. - July 20, 2016 - While there were close to 8 million babies born over the past two years in America, many parents are uncertain and seeking guidance on the optimal first foods to serve this population. In fact, according to a recently published review paper, which includes more than 100 studies comprised of emerging and conclusive research, common foods that caregivers often reach for first tend to be too sweet to choose as a complementary or transitional food for infants and toddlers.

More than half of US physicians included in a national survey have withheld certain medical interventions with small benefits from their patients because of the cost-implications these hold. These include deciding whether to prescribe certain drugs, ordering a scan to be performed or repeating a laboratory test. According to study leader Robert Sheeler of the Mayo Clinic in the US, such rationing behavior is more prevalent among physicians in solo practice, and less so among doctors with liberal leanings.

Chestnut Hill, Mass. (7/20/2016) - Ask any mom or dad and they will tell you: parenting is hard work. For those parents and caregivers who struggle with the nature or the demands of child rearing, sometimes help is hard to find.

A broad range of interventions and support programs have been assembled by researchers, social workers, government agencies and community-based organizations. Whether a parent in need receives the appropriate and effective program sometimes comes down to the luck of the draw, according to experts.

Jonas Salk created a vaccine against polio that has been used since 1955; Albert Sabin created another version that has been on the market since 1961. Together, these two vaccines have nearly eliminated polio from the face of the earth.

Emphasis on nearly. Outbreaks have persisted in developing nations in Asia, Africa and the Americas, in part due to limitations of these vaccines. Most recently, in 2013, Israel reported a "silent" outbreak of polio, in which no one got sick but the virus was found in the environment and in vaccinated individuals.

The Lomonosov Moscow State University researchers in collaboration with their German colleagues have succeeded in proving that silicon nanoparticles can be applied to diagnose and cure cancer. For the first time the ability of particles to penetrate into the diseased cells effectively and dissolve completely after delivering the drug was shown. The details of the research are presented in the article published in the latest issue of Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine.

July 20, 2016 - Programs to reduce the high risk of HIV infection among transgender people are urgently needed -- but efforts are hindered by a lack of accurate information on HIV prevalence, HIV incidence, and specific risk factors facing this key population. A special supplement to JAIDS: Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes presents essential information to meet the challenges of HIV prevention in the transgender population.

The collaboration between the research groups of professors Pau Ballester and José R. Galan-Mascaros at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ), Dr. Jonas Björk at Linköping University and the group of Dr. David Ecija at Institute IMDEA Nanoscience has allowed the development of a new chemical reaction for the synthesis of low-dimensional polymers that can be rationalised as phthalocyanine derivatives. The results obtained have been published in Nature Communications.

Across many cancer types, obese patients fare worse than leaner patients. Now a University of Colorado Cancer Center study published in the journal Cell Stem Cell offers a compelling hypothesis why: researchers found that leukemia stem cells "hide" in fatty tissue, even transforming this tissue in ways that support their survival when challenged with chemotherapy. It is as if leukemia stem cells not only use fatty tissue as a robbers' cave to hide from therapy, but actively adapt this cave to their liking.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Researchers at the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine have found a promising new way to monitor and treat recurrence of ovarian cancer -- a hard-to-detect disease that claims many lives. New research from George Vasmatzis, Ph.D., of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic, finds liquid biopsies from blood tests and DNA sequencing can detect a return of ovarian cancer long before a tumor reappears. That could lead to earlier intervention and more effective, individualized treatment. Dr.

Getting more for less is an attractive concept. But it isn't that easy when it comes to producing more food on less land with fewer resources.

R. Howard Skinner has been researching this idea of more for less in agriculture. Skinner is a physiological plant ecologist and member of the USDA-ARS-Pasture Systems and Watershed Management Research Unit. He's been looking into how to increase the amount of forage (grasses and plants that animals eat) pastures can grow. If a piece of land can produce more forage, it can feed more cows. More cows mean more beef and milk.

LA JOLLA, CA - July 20, 2016 - In a new study, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have identified drug candidates that can boost a cell's ability to catch the "typos" in protein production that can cause a deadly disease called amyloidosis.

"This study reveals a new approach to intervene in human disease," said Luke Wiseman, assistant professor at TSRI and co-senior author of the new research with Jeffery Kelly, Lita Annenberg Hazen Professor of Chemistry at TSRI.

The research was published today in the journal eLife.

MADISON, Wis. -- Although most of the terrestrial world is covered in trees, there are precious few vertebrates that make the canopy their home and subsist solely on a diet of leaves.

Tree sloths are among the most emblematic tree-dwelling mammals. However, they are best known for their pokey demeanor rather than the fact that they spend the majority of their lives in trees munching leaves. But the slow motion lifestyle of tree sloths, according to a new study, is the direct result of the animal's adaption to its arboreal niche.