(PhysOrg.com) -- Two new studies led by University of California, Berkeley, researchers find that immigrant Latina mothers, who typically live in poor neighborhoods, give birth to healthy babies, but their toddlers start to lag behind middle-class white children in basic language and cognitive skills by the age of 2 or 3.

(PhysOrg.com) -- While not the smallest lettering ever created, the tiny initials "LCLS" have been written with what may be the world's most potent pen. Etched into boron carbide, a super-hard substance used in accelerator shielding and body armor, the lettering has helped researchers at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory explore the capabilities of the world's first hard X-ray laser, the Linac...

Radiologists at Duke University Medical Center have developed a scale called the Duke Abdominal Assessment Scale (DAAS) to assist clinicians in determining the severity of disease and the need for surgery in infants with necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), according to a study in the November issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.

Scientists often have to make sacrifices for their work. Physicist Dominic Vella chopped his bathroom rug into strips, and L. Mahadevan's coauthor ran off with his bookshelf. With these sacrifices, these two teams were able to glean enough information to revolutionize the world's understanding about the physics of lumpy carpets.

(PhysOrg.com) -- For decades, the transistors inside radios, televisions and other everyday items have transmitted data by controlling the movement of the electron`s charge. Scientists now have discovered that transistors could use less energy, generate less heat and operate at higher speeds if they exploited another property of the electron: its spin.

LiveScience.com - Passing kidney stones is often described as the worst pain people have ever experienced. Even worse, about half of kidney stone sufferers will get another stone within the following five years. Worse still, it's often the initial treatment that leads to the subsequent stones.

Young sparrows learn to sing by listening in on other birds' conversation, a study by US researchers suggests.

Researchers have sequenced and analyzed the genomes of two important laboratory strains of E. coli bacteria, one used to study evolution and the other to produce proteins for basic research or practical applications. The findings will help guide future research and will also open a window to a deeper understanding of classical research that is the foundation of our understanding of basic molecular...

One diminutive dinosaur found in Colorado comes close to being the world's smallest, but not quite.

AP - Environmental activists are petitioning the federal government to put 83 coral species on the endangered species list.

(AP) -- AT&T Inc. is encouraging employees to join its lobbying campaign against proposed federal rules that would restrict the ways broadband companies can manage traffic on their networks.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Drugs based on engineered proteins represent a new frontier for pharmaceutical makers. Even after they discover a protein that may form the basis of the next wonder drug, however, they have to confront a long-standing problem: how to produce large quantities of the protein in a highly pure state. Now, a multi-institutional research team including a biochemist at the National...

Young animals treated with commonly-prescribed drugs develop behavioral abnormalities in adulthood say researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center. The drugs tested include those used to treat epilepsy, mood disorders and pain.

(PhysOrg.com) -- It has passed as fact among historians, journalists and politicians, and has been recounted everywhere from tourist guidebooks to the floor of the U.S. Congress: British forces used chemical weapons on Iraqis just after World War I.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Gender equity expert Virginia Valian discusses women's advancement in the STEM disciplines.

(PhysOrg.com) -- The scientists and engineers who introduced the world to tiny robots demonstrating soccer skills are creating the next level of friendly competition designed to advance microrobotics -- the field devoted to the construction and operations of useful robots whose dimensions are measured in micrometers.

Minneapolis metro-area cities are saving both dollars and trees by reducing their paper-shuffling. From utility billings to city council agenda packets, more city staffs are using the Internet and flash drives to share information and save expenses on printing documents.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Dr. Jeffery Volz, assistant professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology, and his team have received $567,000 to explore how adding carbon fibers could improve the blast and impact resistance of conventional reinforced concrete. The research is funded by the through a cooperative agreement with the Leonard Wood...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Investigating mysterious data in ultracold gases of rubidium atoms, scientists at the Joint Quantum Institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland and their collaborators have found that properly tuned radio-frequency waves can influence how much the atoms attract or repel one another, opening up new ways to control their...

Young men who voted for Republican John McCain or Libertarian candidate Robert Barr in the 2008 presidential election suffered an immediate drop in testosterone when the election results were announced, according to a study by researchers at Duke University and the University of Michigan.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Some people fight global warming by driving fuel-efficient cars. Others weatherproof their houses or plant trees. Princeton's René Carmona does math. As the United States and other countries around the world debate how to best reduce the production of greenhouse gases, Carmona hopes to bring the objectivity - and rationality - of mathematics to bear on the problem.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Medical clinics the world over could benefit from new software* created at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where a team of scientists has found a way to improve the efficiency of a pneumonia vaccine testing method developed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

(PhysOrg.com) -- The trail to a new multiferroic started with the theories of a U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory scientist and ended with a multidisciplinary collaboration that created a material with potential impact on next generation electronics.