Science and engineering are advancing rapidly in part due to ever more powerful computer simulations, yet the most advanced supercomputers require programming skills that all too few U.S. researchers possess. At the same time, affordable computers and committed national programs outside the U.S. are eroding American competitiveness in number of simulation-driven fields, according to findings in the International Assessment of Research and Development in Simulation-Based Engineering and Science, released on Apr. 22, 2009, by the World Technology Evaluation Center (WTEC).

Like other WTEC studies, this study was led by a team of leading researchers from a range of simulation science and engineering disciplines and involved site visits to research facilities around the world.

Women live longer than men but it may not be a great life.   In a study that included 5,888 people over 65, women suffered up to two and a half times more disabilities than men of the same age and the higher rates of obesity and arthritis among these women explained up to 48 percent of the gender gap in disability – above all other common chronic health conditions. 

Obesity and arthritis that take root during early and middle age significantly contribute to women's decreased quality of life during their senior years, according to researchers at Duke University Medical Center.

Narcolepsy affects about one in 2,000 people and is characterized by daytime drowsiness, irregular sleep at night and cataplexy — a sudden loss of muscle tone and strength. Stanford University School of Medicine scientist Emmanuel Mignot, MD, PhD, and others showed in the late 1990s that the disease stems from a lack of hypocretin, a hormone that promotes wakefulness; they later showed that narcoleptics are missing brain cells that produce this hormone.

 Now Mignot and collaborators say that a specific immune cell is involved in the disorder — adding evidence that narcolepsy may be an autoimmune disease.

MicroRNAs are single-stranded snippets that, not long ago, were given short shrift as genetic junk. Now that studies have shown they regulate genes involved in normal functioning as well as diseases such as cancer, everyone wants to know: What regulates microRNAs?

Scientists at Johns Hopkins were surprised to find an elegantly simple answer: touch.

In a new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers discovered that cell-to-cell contact revs up the manufacture of these small but mighty molecules.

Following the positive outcomes of shorter studies done on Multiple Sclerosis (MS) drug Betaseron(R), continued testing also yields compelling results.

Analysis from a 16 year follow up study examining long term effects of Betaseron(R) on MS patients showed that early and continued treatment with Betaseron were more likely to avoid negative clinical outcomes than MS patients on alternative treatment options.