Curated News: Staff Picks

• share
• favorite_border

USC researchers have discovered the Achilles heel of hepatocellular carcinoma, a leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide.

• share
• favorite_border

The United States could slash greenhouse gas emissions from power production by up to 78 percent below 1990 levels within 15 years while meeting increased demand, according to a new study by NOAA and University of Colorado Boulder researchers.

• share
• favorite_border

WCS announced today that a team of scientists discovered a new species of chameleon in Tanzania.

• share
• favorite_border

Obesity is associated with epigenetic changes that dysregulate memory-associated genes, and a particular enzyme in brain neurons of the hippocampus appears to be a link between chronic obesity and cognitive decline.

• share
• favorite_border

A recent study by University of Utah Department of City & Metropolitan Planning professor Reid Ewing and his colleagues in Utah, Texas and Louisiana, tested the relationship between urban sprawl and upward mobility for metropolitan areas in the United States. The study examined potential pathways through which sprawl may have an effect on mobility and uses mathematical models to account for both direct and indirect effects of sprawl on upward mobility.

• share
• favorite_border

Gardeners often use sheets of plastic with strategically placed holes to allow their plants to grow but keep weeds from taking root. Scientists from UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute have found that the same basic approach is an effective way to place molecules in the specific patterns they need within tiny nanoelectronic devices.

• share
• favorite_border

A new analysis of ice-core climate data, archeological evidence and ancient pollen samples strongly suggests that agriculture by humans 7,000 years ago likely slowed a natural cooling process of the global climate, playing a role in the relatively warmer climate we experience today.

• share
• favorite_border

Record-setting temperatures over the past century and a half are extremely unlikely to have occurred without human-caused climate change, but the odds of that happening are not quite as low as previously reported, according to an international team of meteorologists.

• share
• favorite_border

Rice University develops conductive material to heat surfaces, simplify ice removal.

• share
• favorite_border

First Observational Evidence for Assembly Bias Could Impact Understanding of the Universe.

• share
• favorite_border

Contrary to current clinical belief, regular caffeine consumption does not lead to extra heartbeats, which, while common, can lead in rare cases to heart- or stroke-related morbidity and mortality, according to UC San Francisco researchers.

• share
• favorite_border

When scientists from McGill University learned that some fish were proliferating in water polluted by oil extraction in Southern Trinidad, they thought they had found a rare example of a species able to adapt to crude oil pollution. But when they tested them, these guppies were actually less adapted to pollution than similar fish from non-polluted areas.

• share
• favorite_border

A Florida State University researcher and his team have developed a comprehensive analysis of oil in the Gulf of Mexico and determined how much of it occurs naturally and how much came from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill. And more importantly, their data creates a map, showing where the active natural oil seeps are located.

• share
• favorite_border

Alzheimer’s disease is a degenerative brain disease that leads to cognitive decline, dementia and ultimately death, mostly in the elderly. It’s already a huge health burden, and it’s getting worse as the population ages. Alzheimer’s and Dementia, the journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, estimates that by 2050, one in 85 people around the globe—more than 100 million total—will be afflicted.

• share
• favorite_border

A new study suggests that current ‘hotspots’ of shark activity are at risk of overfishing, and that the introduction of catch quotas might be necessary to protect oceanic sharks.

• share
• favorite_border

Sugar’s sweetness and calorie content combine to give it lethal power to destroy diets, many scientists have assumed. However, new study by Yale University researchers says the brain responds to taste and calorie counts in fundamentally different ways. And only one of these responses explains why most New Years’ resolutions have already disappeared under a deluge of Boston Crème Pies.

• share
• favorite_border

Encapsulated pancreatic cells offer possible new diabetes treatment.

• share
• favorite_border

Warming waters fuel algae growth, worsen water quality.

• share
• favorite_border

YU study funded in part by U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

• share
• favorite_border

The international collaborators of the ALPHA-2 experiment have measured the charge of antihydrogen to be zero with the greatest precision yet, narrowing the possibilities of where a difference between hydrogen and its antimatter counterpart could be found.

• share
• favorite_border

Black holes sound too strange to be real. But they are actually pretty common in space. There are dozens known and probably millions more in the Milky Way and a billion times that lurking outside. The makings and dynamics of these monstrous warpings of spacetime have been confounding scientists for centuries.

• share
• favorite_border

Nearly 15 percent of patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer were younger than 50, the age at which screening recommendations begin.

• share
• favorite_border

Carnivorous plants such as the Venus flytrap depend on meals of insects to survive in nutrient-poor soil. They sense the arrival of juicy insects, lured by the plants' fruity scent, with the aid of sensitive trigger hairs on the inner surfaces of their traps. Now, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on January 21 have looked more closely at exactly how the plants decide when to keep their traps shut and begin producing their acidic, prey-decomposing cocktail of enzymes. The short answer is: they count.

• share
• favorite_border

A team of researchers has observed the brightest ultra metal-poor star ever discovered. The star is a rare relic from the Milky Way’s formative years. As such, it offers astronomers a precious opportunity to explore the origin of the first stars that sprung to life within our galaxy and the universe.

• share
• favorite_border

Rice, Swansea scientists use household oven to help decontaminate carbon nanotubes.

• share
• favorite_border

Research recently published in the journal Plos One is part of a study to measure the psychological predictors of tolerance for tigers in the Bangladesh Sundarbans, where the large carnivores have a rocky and sometimes violent relationship with local communities.

• share
• favorite_border

In the world of American football, there is a stigma that players need to increase their overall body size to make an impact on the field. But, new research from a Grand Valley State University movement science professor and one of his students suggests that being bigger doesn't mean being better -- or healthier.

• share
• favorite_border

A diet rich in fiber may not only protect against diabetes and heart disease, it may reduce the risk of developing lung disease, according to new research published online, ahead of print in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

• share
• favorite_border

Life on other planets would probably go extinct soon after its origin, due to runaway heating or cooling on their fledgling planets.

• share
• favorite_border

Having the wrong coat color during shorter winters is deadly for snowshoe hares and could lead to a steep population decline by mid-century. However, wide variance in molting times could enable natural selection to work.

• share
• favorite_border

There is no evidence that water births, where a baby is intentionally born under water in a tub or pool, poses any increased harm to the child, Oregon State University researchers have found.

• share
• favorite_border

Christina Diaz and Jeremy E. Fiel found that socioeconomic disadvantage may reduce the effect young motherhood has on how successful a person is academically, and also what wages can be expected in the future.

• share
• favorite_border

A new species of bird has been discovered in northeastern India and adjacent parts of China by a team of scientists from Sweden, China, the U.S., India and Russia.

• share
• favorite_border

A lithium-ion battery that self heats if the temperature is below 32 degrees Fahrenheit has multiple applications, but may have the most impact on relieving winter "range anxiety" for electric vehicle owners, according to a team of researchers from Penn State and EC Power, State College.

• share
• favorite_border

Depression in both expectant mothers and fathers increases the risk of premature birth, finds a study published in BJOG: an International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG).

• share
• favorite_border

Caltech researchers have found evidence of a giant planet tracing a bizarre, highly elongated orbit in the outer solar system. The object, which the researchers have nicknamed Planet Nine, has a mass about 10 times that of Earth and orbits about 20 times farther from the sun on average than does Neptune (which orbits the sun at an average distance of 2.8 billion miles). In fact, it would take this new planet between 10,000 and 20,000 years to make just one full orbit around the sun.

• share
• favorite_border

By harnessing the most advanced data-mining tools, Jackson Laboratory Professor Carol Bult is leading the hunt for suspect genes that contribute to a common, deadly birth defect.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists have made a “vitamin mimic” – a molecule that looks and acts just like a natural vitamin to bacteria – that offers a new window into the inner workings of living microbes.

• share
• favorite_border

Resembling an opulent diamond tapestry, this Hubble image of Trumpler 14 located 8,000 light-years away in the Carina Nebula, shows a glittering star cluster that contains a collection of some of the brightest stars seen in our Milky Way galaxy.

• share
• favorite_border

College students whose parents lay on the guilt or try to manipulate them may translate feelings of stress into similar mean behavior with their own friends, a new study by a University of Vermont psychologist has found. The students’ physical response to stress, which the researchers measured in a laboratory test, influenced the way they carry out that hostility – either immediately and impulsively or in a cold, calculated way.

• share
• favorite_border

Juvenile theropod possibly oldest known Jurassic dinosaur from UK.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists push boundaries of antimatter research in quest for answers.

• share
• favorite_border

Learning a second language is easier for some adults than others, and innate differences in how the various parts of the brain "talk" to one another may help explain why, according to a study published January 20 in the Journal of Neuroscience.

• share
• favorite_border

Astronomers at Cal Tech have announced today that they have found new evidence of a giant icy planet in our solar system which is far beyond the orbit of Pluto. They are calling it "Planet Nine." Their study, published in the Astronomical Journal, describes the planet as about five to 10 times as massive as the Earth. Newswise puts out a call for experts to answer media questions regarding this possible ninth planet of our solar system.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Duke Health are fine-tuning a test that can determine whether a respiratory illness is caused by infection from a virus or bacteria so that antibiotics can be more precisely prescribed.

• share
• favorite_border

Pre-pregnancy obesity is strongly associated with infant mortality, and compliance with weight-gain guidelines during pregnancy has a limited impact on that mortality risk, a new study led by Boston University School of Public Health researchers shows.

• share
• favorite_border

Business scholar's analysis of mandatory retirement policies shows institutional knowledge, experience and age are all factors that shareholders should consider in corporate governance.

• share
• favorite_border

USGS identifies research and management actions

• share
• favorite_border

Deserts are often thought of as barren places that are left exposed to the extremes of heat and cold and where not much is afoot. But that view is being altered as new research keeps revealing the intricate ecological dynamics of deserts as they change responding to the elements.

• share
• favorite_border

An international team of researchers has identified a way to predict which reef fish can live across a greater range of depths, increasing their chances of surviving natural disasters such as cyclones and coral bleaching.