Futurity.org » Vanderbilt University

Tiny droplets ‘flow’ like quark-gluon plasma

David Salisbury-VU — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:47:44 +0000

VANDERBILT (US) — Physicists may have created the smallest drops of liquid ever made in the lab—only the size of three to five protons.

To provide a sense of scale, that is about one-100,000th the size of a hydrogen atom or one-100,000,000th the size of a virus.

That possibility has been raised by the results of a recent experiment conducted by Vanderbilt University physicist Julia Velkovska and her colleagues at the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most powerful particle collider located at the European Laboratory for Nuclear and Particle Physics (CERN) in Switzerland.

Big data sets create ‘tree of life’ confusion

David Salisbury-VU — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:18:11 +0000

VANDERBILT (US) — The genomics revolution has given experts mountains of DNA data to reconstruct the evolution of all living beings, but the vast information has led to contradictory conclusions.

“It has become common for top-notch studies to report genealogies that strongly contradict each other in where certain organisms sprung from, such as the place of sponges on the animal tree or of snails on the tree of mollusks,” says Antonis Rokas, associate professor of biological sciences, at Vanderbilt University.

In a study published online by the journal Nature, Rokas and graduate student Leonidas Salichos analyze the reasons for these differences and propose a suite of novel techniques that can resolve the contradictions and provide greater accuracy in deciphering the deep branches of life’s tree.

Kindergarten math lessons are ‘old news’

Bonnie Ertelt-Vanderbilt — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:26:30 +0000

VANDERBILT (US) — Kindergarten teachers say they spend most of their math instructional time teaching lessons students have already mastered, like shapes and basic counting.

The findings reveal a misalignment between what the students are being taught and what they already know.

Salt adds to stomach bug’s cancer risk

Leigh MacMillan-Vanderbilt — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:02:22 +0000

VANDERBILT (US) — Combining a high-salt diet with a type of H. pylori infection can increase the risk of gastric cancer, according to new research with gerbils.

Infection with the stomach-dwelling bacterium Helicobacter pylori, particularly strains expressing the oncoprotein CagA , is a strong risk factor for gastric cancer.

Timothy Cover, professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University, and colleagues previously showed that high salt, which is also associated with gastric cancer risk, increased H. pylori expression of CagA in vitro.

Kids with autism spot motion faster

Susan Hagen-Rochester — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:12:05 +0000

U. ROCHESTER / YALE / VANDERBILT (US) — Children with autism see simple movement twice as quickly as other children their age, a new study shows.

Researchers say this hypersensitivity to motion may provide clues to a fundamental cause of the developmental disorder.

Android phone pinpoints sniper’s location

David Salisbury-VU — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:06:41 +0000

VANDERBILT (US) — A new system can turn an ordinary Android smartphone into a shooter location device.

For the last decade, the US Department of Defense has spent millions of dollars to develop sophisticated sniper location systems that are installed in military vehicles and require dedicated sensor arrays. Most of these take advantage of the fact that all but the lowest powered firearms produce unique sonic signatures when they are fired.

Social change shows up in preteen brain

Jim Barlow-Oregon — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:46:56 +0000

U. OREGON (US) — New research reveals which brain regions are active as kids on the brink of adolescence consider their identity and social status.

In a study of 27 neurologically typical children who underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at ages 10 and 13, activity in the brain’s ventromedial prefrontal cortex increased dramatically when the subjects responded to questions about how they view themselves.

Moms with elite education opting out of careers

Amy Wolf-Vanderbilt — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 20:08:37 +0000

VANDERBILT (US) — Female graduates from top-ranked universities who become mothers are working less despite the promise of higher wages, new research finds.

The battle for work-life balance among female white-collar employees, especially those with children, is something women have struggled with for decades. Though past studies have found little evidence that women are opting out of the workforce in general, first-of-its-kind research shows that female graduates of elite universities are working much fewer hours than those from less selective institutions.

“Even though elite graduates are more likely to earn advanced degrees, marry at later ages and have higher expected earnings, they are still opting out of full-time work at much higher rates than other graduates, especially if they have children,” says Joni Hersch, professor of law and economics and of management at Vanderbilt University.

Gene tied to double Alzheimer’s risk in African Americans

Michelle Falling-Columbia — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:57:20 +0000

COLUMBIA (US) — African Americans with a specific gene variant have almost double the risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer’s disease compared with African Americans who lack the variant.

The ABCA7 gene is involved in the production of cholesterol and lipids, which suggests that lipid metabolism may be a more important pathway in Alzheimer’s disease in African Americans than in whites.

Better robotics to treat bladder cancer

David Salisbury-VU — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:11:18 +0000

VANDERBILT (US) — A new telerobot could improve bladder cancer treatment by giving surgeons a better view and sub-millimeter precision movement.

Although bladder cancer is the sixth most common form of cancer in the US and the most expensive to treat, the basic method that doctors use to treat it hasn’t changed much in more than 70 years.