Curated News: Staff Picks

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A new study published in Nature Climate Change pinpoints the temperature increases caused by CO¬2 emissions in different regions around the world.

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Adults with long-term exposure to ozone (O3) face an increased risk of dying from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, according to the study “Long-Term Ozone Exposure and Mortality in a Large Prospective Study” published online ahead of print in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

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A Mayo Clinic study of people who received anesthesia for surgery after age 40 found no association between the anesthesia and development of mild cognitive impairment later in life.

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Researchers at the University of Hawai'i - Mānoa (UHM) developed an array of highly innovative experiments to allow scientists to safely test first-aid measures used for box jellyfish stings - from folk tales, like urine, to state-of-the-art technologies developed for the military.

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A songbirds’ vocal muscles work like those of human speakers and singers, finds a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

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UMD-led study indicates “biomass burning” may play larger role in climate change than previously realized.

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Prairie voles are calmer in a crowd.

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In one of the first tests of its kind, researchers use networks of camera traps to chart wildlife population changes, and find species faring well.

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A new paradigm for the development of photo-bioelectrochemical cells has been reported in the journal Nature Energy by researchers from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in Israel, and the University of Bochum, in Germany.

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What may seem like a failure in systems is actually an exceptional opportunity for scientists back on Earth to better understand how plants grow in microgravity.

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Latest research reveals why geckos are the largest animals able to scale smooth vertical walls - even larger climbers would require unmanageably large sticky footpads.

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Jackie Goordial, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University has spent the past four years looking for signs of active microbial life in permafrost soil taken from one of the coldest, oldest and driest places on Earth: in University Valley, located in the high elevation McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, where extremely cold and dry conditions have persisted for over 150,000 years. The reason that scientists are looking for life in this area is that it is thought to be the place on Earth that most closely resembles the permafrost found in the northern polar region of Mars at the Phoenix landing site.

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When a child comes home from preschool with a stomach bug that threatens to sideline the whole family for days, why do some members of the family get sick while others are unscathed? According to a Duke Health study published January 19 in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, a person’s resistance to certain germs, specifically E. coli bacteria, could come down to their very DNA.

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A new scientific journal article reports that carbon dioxide can emerge from the deep ocean in a surprising way — a new piece of the global carbon “puzzle” that researchers must solve to fully understand major issues like climate change.

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Working with mice, researchers have contributed significant new evidence to support the idea that high doses of cocaine kill brain cells by triggering overactive autophagy, a process in which cells literally digest their own insides. Their results, moreover, bring with them a possible antidote.

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On the 100th anniversary of the Endurance expedition to Antarctica led by Sir Ernest Shackleton, doctors writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine believe the inspirational explorer may have had the congenital defect commonly known as a 'hole in the heart'.

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A person's quality of life at the time of their death continues to influence his or her spouse's quality of life in the years following the person's passing, according to new research by UA psychologists.

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A group of researchers from Russia, Australia and the Netherlands have developed a technology that can reduce Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanning times by more than 50%, meaning hospitals can drastically increase the number of scans without changing equipment.

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Touch a hot stove, and your fingers will recoil in pain because your skin carries tiny temperature sensors that detect heat and send a message to your brain saying, "Ouch! That's hot! Let go!"

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Cancers evolve over time in patterns governed by the same natural laws that drive physical and chemical processes as diverse as the flow of rivers or the brightness of stars, a new study reports.

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Educational attainment by many European immigrants focus of assessment.

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A team of neurosurgeons and engineers has developed wireless brain sensors that monitor intracranial pressure and temperature and then are absorbed by the body, negating the need for surgery to remove the devices. Such implants, developed by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, potentially could be used to monitor patients with traumatic brain injuries.

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Around 720-640 million years ago, much of the Earth’s surface was covered in ice during a glaciation that lasted millions of years. Explosive underwater volcanoes were a major feature of this ‘Snowball Earth’, according to new research led by the University of Southampton.

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It takes just one-tenth of a second for our brains to begin to recognize emotions conveyed by vocalizations, according to researchers from McGill. It doesn’t matter whether the non-verbal sounds are growls of anger, the laughter of happiness or cries of sadness. More importantly, the researchers have also discovered that we pay more attention when an emotion (such as happiness, sadness or anger) is expressed through vocalizations than we do when the same emotion is expressed in speech.

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Researchers at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan have discovered how to reverse the abnormal axonal development characteristic of CFEOM3, a congenital disease that affects the muscles that control eye movements. Published in Nature Communications, the work shows how creating a specific mutation rescued abnormal axonal growth in the developing mouse brain.

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Analyzing brain scans of 105 children ages 7 to 12, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have found that key structures in the brain are connected differently in poor children than in kids raised in more affluent settings. In particular, the brain's hippocampus -- a structure key to learning, memory and regulation of stress -- and the amygdala -- which is linked to stress and emotion -- connect to other areas of the brain differently in poor children than in those whose families had higher incomes.

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ALMA reveals secrets of most luminous known galaxy in universe.

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Coccolithophores—tiny calcifying plants that are part of the foundation of the marine food web—have been increasing in relative abundance in the North Atlantic over the last 45 years, as carbon input into ocean waters has increased. Their relative abundance has increased 10 times, or by an order of magnitude, during this sampling period.

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Between 1999 and 2013, there were 5,511 deaths by legal intervention or law enforcement in the U.S., and in 2013, an estimated 11.3 million arrests resulted in approximately 480 deaths from law enforcement.

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A new elegant orchid species that grows on rocks in deciduous forests of the Pacific slope of Oaxaca state, Mexico, has finally put an end to a long standing dispute among taxonomists. 'Sheltered' under the name of a close relative, the plant has been proved by a research team, led by Dr. Leopardi-Verde, to be different enough for a species of its own. Its distinct features, including shape, size and colors, are discussed and published in the open-access journal PhytoKeys.

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Possible missing link in black hole evolution.

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Individuals who participated in high challenge activities like quilting and photography showed enhanced brain activity, according to a new Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience report.

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The most luminous galaxy in the Universe – a so-called obscured quasar 12.4 billion light-years away – is so violently turbulent that it may eventually jettison its entire supply of star-forming gas, according to new observations with ALMA.

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Jobseekers should rethink adding “multitasking” to the list of skills on their resumes, said Anne Grinols, assistant dean for faculty development and college initiatives in Baylor University's’s Hankamer School of Business.

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Daily intake of fiber, saturated fat and sugar may impact sleep quality.

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Companies may strategically use corruption to gain a competitive advantage against rivals, according to a new study of formally registered Indian technology firms conducted by the University at Buffalo School of Management.

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Researchers show gene variant causes Hajdu-Cheney syndrome, may illuminate bone loss more generally.

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The destructive ability of bacteria to organize an infection or block pathways such as intestines, medical stents and wastewater pipes relies on communication with one another.

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Sedentary behavior is associated with poor cardiovascular health and diabetes in adults with severe obesity, independent of how much exercise they perform, a University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health-led study showed for the first time.

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Astronomers have spotted what may be the most powerful supernova ever seen—and discovered a mysterious object at its center.

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Learning to speed read seems like an obvious strategy for making quick work of all the emails, reports, and other pieces of text we encounter every day, but a new report shows that the claims put forth by many speed reading programs and tools are probably too good to be true.

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High levels of vitamin D are linked to improved fertility and reproductive success, a study of wild sheep has found.

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A North Dakota State University faculty member is among a group of international researchers studying why older parents produce offspring who tend to have shorter lives. Britt J. Heidinger, assistant professor of biological sciences at NDSU, Fargo, has joined colleagues in Scotland to address this question through the study of a long-lived seabird, the European shag. The results appear in "Parental age influences offspring telomere loss," published in Functional Ecology.

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A recently released study from WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) details a new method using “detection dogs,” genetic analysis, and scientific models to assess habitat suitability for bears in an area linking the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) to the northern U.S. Rockies.

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Electronic cigarettes are widely promoted and used to help smokers quit traditional cigarettes, but a new analysis from UC San Francisco found that adult smokers who use e-cigarettes are actually 28 percent less likely to stop smoking cigarettes.

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A new study by WCS and other groups offers a glimmer of hope for some amphibian populations decimated by the deadly chytrid fungus.

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Rice University scientists mix up a new type of flexible composite.

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Monkeys, like humans, will take the time and effort to punish others who get more than their fair share, according to a study conducted at Yale. In fact, they can act downright spiteful. Capuchin monkeys will yank on a rope to collapse a table that is holding a partner monkey’s food. While chimpanzees collapse their partner’s table only after direct personal affronts like theft, capuchins punish more often, even in cases where the other monkey merely had more food, according to a study published online in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

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Researchers are using a technology likened to "mini force fields" to independently control individual microrobots operating within groups, an advance aimed at using the tiny machines in areas including manufacturing and medicine.

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Chemists discover how a single enzyme maintains a cell’s pool of DNA building blocks.