Consumers can be skeptical about new superfoods as they enter the market but still consume them for a bit of "extra insurance" for their health, according to new research from the University of Adelaide.
Climate change could make much of the Arctic unsuitable for millions of migratory birds that travel north to breed each year, according to a new international study published today in Global Change Biology.
A scientist from the University of Exeter has helped to identify a male-killing microbe in a tropical butterfly called the African Queen, which leads to the death of all sons when a mother is infected.
TAMPA, Fla. (July 20, 2016) - University of South Florida researchers investigating the aftermath of a September, 2014 sewer line break in St. Petersburg, Florida, have found dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the untreated wastewater that gushed into neighborhoods and into Boca Ciega Bay at a rate of 250 to 500 gallons per minute.
A new species of megaraptorid dinosaur discovered in Sierra Barrosa in northwest Patagonia may help discern the evolutionary origins of the megaraptorid group, according to a study published July 20, 2016, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Philip Currie from the University of Alberta and Rodolfo Coria from the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas in Argentina.
Routine scientific procedures using millions of animals are still being authorised when there is a tried and tested alternative, according to a group of scientists investigating the production of antibodies.
The cerebral cortex resembles a vast switchboard. Countless lines carrying information about the environment, for example from the sensory organs, converge in the cerebral cortex. In order to direct the flow of data into meaningful pathways, the individual pyramidal cells of the cerebral cortex act like miniature switchboard operators. Each cell receives information from several thousand lines. If the signals make sense, the line is opened, and the information is relayed onward. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried have now shown for the first time that contact points between specific neuron types are clustered in groups on the target neuron. It is probable that signals are coordinated with each other in this way to make them more "convincing".
Forests take up 25 - 30 percent of human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide -- a strong greenhouse gas -- and are therefore considered to play a crucial role in mitigating the speed and magnitude of climate change. However, a new study that combines future climate model projections, historic tree-ring records across the entire continent of North America, and how the growth rates of trees may respond to a higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has shown that the mitigation effect of forests will likely be much smaller in the future than previously suggested.
A new wonder compound developed by University of Bath scientists in collaboration with King's College London offers unprecedented protection against the harmful effects of UVA radiation in sunlight, which include photo-ageing, cell damage and cancer.
A detailed new map by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis lays out the landscape of the human cerebral cortex. The map will accelerate progress in the study of brain diseases, as well as help to elucidate what makes us unique as a species.
Astronomers have used Hubble to conduct the first search for atmospheres around temperate, Earth-sized planets beyond our solar system, uncovering clues that increase the chances of habitability on two exoplanets. They discovered that the exoplanets TRAPPIST-1b and TRAPPIST-1c, approximately 40 light-years away, are unlikely to have puffy, hydrogen-dominated atmospheres usually found on gaseous worlds.
A group of South American ants has farmed fungi since shortly after the dinosaurs died out, according to an international research team including Smithsonian scientists. The genes of the ant farmers and their fungal crops reveal a surprisingly ancient history of mutual adaptations. This evolutionary give-and-take has led to some species--the leafcutter ants--developing industrial-scale farming that surpasses human agriculture in its efficiency.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first focused ultrasound device to treat essential tremor, the most common movement disorder, in patients who do not respond to medication. The scalpel-free approach has been pioneered by Jeff Elias, MD, at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, who led an international clinical trial that demonstrated the safety and effectiveness of the device.
Dublin, Ireland, Tuesday July 19, 2016 - An international consensus demands human impacts on the environment "sustain", "maintain", "conserve", "protect", "safeguard", and "secure" it, keeping it within "safe ecological limits". But, a new Trinity College Dublin-led study that assembled an international team of environmental scientists shows that policy makers have little idea what these terms mean or how to connect them to a wealth of ecological data and ideas.
Toronto - As tedious as waiting in a government services line-up can be, that's what most people do, despite having the option of getting their business done online.
Why do we feel good about giving to charity when there is no direct benefit to ourselves, and feel bad about cheating the system? Mathematicians may have found an answer to the longstanding puzzle as to why we have evolved to cooperate.
Water supply contamination has become a global issue, affecting communities in both the United States and around the world. Exposure to environmental toxins - such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead and other heavy metals - early in life via contaminated water or other sources can have long-term health consequences as children grow. Investigators at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Harvard Program in Therapeutic Sciences at Harvard Medical School have assessed environmental exposure to multiple toxins in children living in a region of Mexico with a high incidence of chronic kidney disease, especially among young adults. Not only did the team detect high levels of the arsenic and chromium in urine samples from the children, they also were able to detect elevated levels of KIM-1, a biomarker that is being studied as an early sign of kidney injury. The team's findings are published this week in Environmental Research.
Scientists from King's College London have used a new genetic scoring technique to predict academic achievement from DNA alone. This is the strongest prediction from DNA of a behavioural measure to date.
New research from QUT shows preventable hospitalisation from diabetic foot disease is costing Australia hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
A project led by archaeologists from the British Museum and the University of Leicester has discovered remarkable evidence which shows how the first generations of Europeans to arrive in the Americas engaged with indigenous peoples and their spiritual beliefs deep inside the caves of a remote Caribbean island.
In western North America, mountain pine beetles infest and ravage thousands of acres of forest lands. Landsat satellites bear witness to the onslaught in a way that neither humans nor most other satellites can.
Abnormalities in brain regions involved in forming insight may help explain why some people with anorexia nervosa have trouble recognizing their dangerous, dysfunctional eating habits.
A study of nearly 22,000 fossils finds that ancient plankton communities began changing in important ways as much as 400,000 years before massive die-offs ensued during one of Earth’s great mass extinctions. This turmoil, in a time of ancient climate change, could hold lessons for the modern world.
Mapping damage to the brain’s white matter connections after stroke can predict long-term language deficits, improve the understanding of how language is processed in the brain and potentially inform a course of rehabilitative therapy that would be more effective.
Prescription medication costs are expected to rise at least 11 percent, and possibly up to 13 percent, in 2016, according to a new report on national trends and projections in prescription drug expenditures.
The confidence in our decision-making serves to both gauge errors and to revise our approach, New York University neuroscientists have found. Their study offers insights into the hierarchical nature of how we make choices over extended periods of time, ranging from medical diagnoses and treatment to the strategies we use to invest our money.
With a goal of treating worn, arthritic hips without extensive surgery to replace them, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have programmed stem cells to grow new cartilage on a 3-D template shaped like the ball of a hip joint. What’s more, using gene therapy, they have activated the new cartilage to release anti-inflammatory molecules to fend off a return of arthritis.
Hospital admissions for a short-term and avoidable complication of diabetes have risen by 39 per cent in the last ten years, a new analysis has concluded.
The decade-long search by researchers worldwide for a gene, which is critical in controlling the formation of blood and blood vessels in the embryo, shows how fascinating science can be. It is more than 20 years since Didier Stainier, director at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim, discovered a zebrafish mutant named cloche. This mutant lacks development of both blood vessels and blood cells, and was, until now, a unique phenomenon. Now, his research group has succeeded in finding the gene responsible for it. It had quasi hidden itself at the very end of chromosome 13 and was discovered using the latest molecular biological methods. The discovery of the gene is not only of scientific interest, but could also become important for regenerative medicine
Increasing oxygen delivery to muscles can help athletes perform better and give them the edge needed to win elite competitions. One of the best ways to increase oxygen supply is through blood manipulation, undergoing a blood transfusion that provides extra red blood cells and boosts oxygen levels. These blood transfusions, popularly known as "blood doping," are illegal for professional athletes. While some transfusions and stimulants are identifiable with current testing methods, autologous blood transfusion (ABT) is not. A new report in Transfusion Medicine Reviews looks at novel biomarkers to identify potential new testing protocols for ABT.
Every now and then in Earth's history, a pair of continents draws close enough to form one. There comes a time, however, when they must inevitably part ways.
Research by post-doctoral fellow Alexander Dececchi challenges long-held hypotheses about how flight first developed in birds. Furthermore, his findings raise the question of why certain species developed wings long before they could fly.
People with asthma who live near bigger or larger numbers of active unconventional natural gas wells operated by the fracking industry in Pennsylvania are 1.5 to four times likelier to have asthma attacks than those who live farther away, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research suggests.
Researchers have devised a new process to create lightweight, strong and super elastic 3-D printed metallic nanostructured materials with unprecedented scalability, opening the door for applications in aerospace, military and automotive industries.
Could immune system problems contribute to an inability to have normal social interactions? The answer appears to be yes, and that finding could have great implications for neurological conditions such as autism-spectrum disorders and schizophrenia.
Peregrine Falcons, in their normal habitat on isolated cliffs, mate for life. But some 25 pairs now nest on Chicago skyscrapers and bridges, and city living has them in much closer quarters than they used before humans dominated the landscape. A group of Field Museum and University of Illinois, Chicago scientists investigated whether typical breeding patterns hold true for these new city-dwellers and, in a paper published in PLOS ONE, confirmed that even in the big city, the birds that prey together, stay together.
LSU researchers Jeremy M. Brown and Eric N. Rittmeyer, in collaboration with colleagues at Florida State University, are shedding light on how often and where species hybridize through time, thanks to the rediscovery of 40-year-old tissue samples preserved at the LSU Museum of Natural Science, or LSUMNS. In a recent study published in Ecology and Evolution, they show that two species of chorus frogs now form hybrids across a much wider area of Louisiana and Mississippi than they did just 30-40 years earlier. A widening area of hybridization has important implications for the future of these species and suggests that recent alterations to their environment have affected their fitness or dispersal ability.
The discovery of a theropod dinosaur with Tyrannosaurus rex-like arms suggests that these unusual forelimbs may have evolved multiple times, according to a study published July 13, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Sebastián Apesteguía from the Universidad Maimónides, Argentina, and colleagues.
Researchers at the Allen Institute for Brain Science have published an in-depth analysis of a comprehensive molecular atlas of brain development in the non-human primate. This analysis uncovers features of the genetic code underlying brain development in our close evolutionary relative, while revealing distinct features of human brain development by comparison. The study is based on the NIH Blueprint Non-Human Primate (NHP) Atlas, a publicly available resource created by the Allen Institute and colleagues at the University of California, Davis and the California National Primate Research Center. This resource enables researchers to understand the underpinnings of both healthy brain development and many neuropsychiatric diseases. Analysis of the atlas is featured this week in the journal Nature.
A new regulatory solution to protect traders and investors is needed in the age of Dark Pools, a prevalent and different kind of exchange.
Japanese researchers centered at Nagoya University reveal a role for orexin neurons of the hypothalamus when mice respond to painful stimuli, and suggest a link between stimulus response and consciousness.
Scientists at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) have made an object disappear by using a composite material with nano-size particles that can enhance specific properties on the object's surface.
An international research team has calculated the costs and benefits of calcification for phytoplankton and the impact of climate change on their important role in the world’s oceans.
Researchers from the University of Birmingham and the University of Reading looked at the traits of over 17,000 children born in 1970, who were surveyed again aged 38.
Working parents and grandparents who FaceTime with their toddlers can take heart from a soon-to-be-published study from Lafayette College that sheds new light that on young children and how they engage in—and learn from—screen-time interactions.
The researchers' observations shed light on the effects of human population expansion on wildlife.
The atomic structure of an elusive cold virus linked to severe asthma and respiratory infections in children has been solved by a team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Purdue University. The findings provide the foundation for future antiviral drug and vaccine development against the virus, rhinovirus C.
The largest island in the Philippines may be home to the greatest concentration of mammal diversity in the world, according to a research team that has been exploring the island for the past 15 years.
Some people have perceived that the combination of religion and political conservatism exacerbates environmental concerns in the United States. But researchers from Rice University and Baruch College have found evidence that religious identification and belief in a god dampen the otherwise strong negative effect that political conservatism typically has on whether people make purchasing decisions with concern for the environment in mind.
A recent spate of unexpected mosquito-borne disease outbreaks – most recently the Zika virus, which has swept through parts of the Americas – have highlighted the need to better understand the development and spread of little-known diseases and for new strategies to control them, a new review by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers suggests.
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