The naturally occurring bacteria on a frog’s skin could be the most important tool for helping the animal fight off a deadly skin disease, according to an experiment conducted by Virginia Tech researchers.
Astronomers studying images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and ESO's Very Large Telescope were surprised to uncover fast-moving, large-scale, wave-like features embedded in the vast disk of gas and dust surrounding the young, nearby star AU Microscopii. The features are unlike anything ever observed. These results will be published in the Oct. 8 issue of Nature. Learn even more about AU Mic by joining a live Hubble Hangout discussion with astronomers at 3:00 pm EDT on Thurs., Oct. 8 at http://hbbl.us/y6M.
In the tumultuous real estate market of the 2000s, some U.S. homebuyers found wealth while others took big hits. But no matter when they bought, most black first-time homeowners lost money, a Johns Hopkins University study found
A new study shows that iron-bearing rocks that formed at the ocean floor 3.2 billion years ago carry unmistakable evidence of oxygen. The only logical source for that oxygen is the earliest known example of photosynthesis by living organisms, say University of Wisconsin-Madison geoscientists.
The Government of Chile announced today at the Our Oceans Summit in Valparaiso its plan to design a network of Marine Protected Areas for the purpose of safeguarding Patagonia’s whales, dolphins, sea lions, sea birds and other coastal biodiversity, an initiative that would expand the country’s protected waters by 100,000 square kilometers (more than 38,000 square miles).
A research team led by Stony Brook University investigating human and chimpanzee locomotion have uncovered unexpected similarities in the way the two species use their upper body during two-legged walking.
A group of researchers in Japan is exploring the behavior of a certain type of SET (single-electron transistor) made from two quantum dots, which are bits of material so small they start to exhibit quantum properties. The group has produced a detailed analysis of the electrical characteristics of the so-called double-quantum-dot SETs, which could help researchers design better devices to manipulate single electrons. They report their findings in the Journal of Applied Physics.
The genetic and developmental innovations plants used to make the leap to land have been enduring secrets of nature. Now, an international team of researchers reveals that the aquatic algae from which terrestrial plant life first arose were genetically pre-adapted to form the symbiotic relationships with microorganisms that most land plants need to acquire nutrients from the soil.
Physicists have wondered in recent years if they could control how atoms interact using light. Now they know that they can, by demonstrating games of quantum billiards with unusual new rules.
Research from Indiana University has found that sexual activity triggers physiological changes in the body that increase a woman's chances of getting pregnant, even outside the window of ovulation.
Teenage girls who compulsively text are more likely than their male counterparts to do worse academically, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
A study evaluating the effects of bariatric surgery on obese women most at risk for cancer has found that the weight-loss surgery slashed participants’ weight by a third and eliminated precancerous uterine growths in those who had them. Other effects included improving patients’ physical quality of life, improving their insulin levels and ability to use glucose – which may reduce their risk for diabetes – and even altering the composition of their gut bacteria.
Student and faculty researchers at Florida State University have found that mindfully washing dishes calms the mind and decreases stress.
The number of college graduates willing to start new businesses -- the largest producer of private sector jobs over the past 25 years -- could depend heavily on the entrepreneurial focus and structure of the universities from which they graduate
For years social scientists have grappled with the question of why men receive far more media coverage than women, and now a new study reveals the answer.
Mirroring a major problem in society at large, women are significantly shortchanged when it comes to media coverage, with men being mentioned in the news a whopping five times more than women.
Stroke is very rare in children, but colds, flu and other minor infections may temporarily increase stroke risk in children, according to a study published in the September 30, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study also found routine childhood vaccines may decrease the risk of stroke.
New analysis shows that the scientific literature paints an overly rosy picture of the efficacy of psychotherapy for depression comparable to the bias previously found in reports of treatments with antidepressant drugs.
Solar energy pricing is at an all-time low, according to a new report released by Berkeley Lab. Driven by lower installed costs, improved project performance, and a race to build projects ahead of a reduction in a key federal incentive, utility-scale solar project developers have been negotiating power sales agreements with utilities at prices averaging just 5¢/kWh.
A team of Virginia Tech researchers has refined a mathematical model that simulates the impact of genetic mutations on cell division -- a step that could provide insight into errors that produce and sustain harmful cells, such as those found in tumors.
When it comes to treating depression, how well a person responds to a fake medicine may determine how well they’ll respond to a real one, a new study shows. Those who can muster their brain’s own chemical forces against depression have a head start in overcoming symptoms with help from medication.
A new UW study that tested 65 wines from America's top four wine-producing states -- California, Washington, New York and Oregon -- found all but one have arsenic levels that exceed U.S. drinking water standards. But health risks from that naturally-occurring toxic element depend on how many other high-arsenic foods and beverages, such as apple juice, rice, or cereal bars, an individual person eats.
Packing some pinto bean seeds would increase his chances of survival.
Can owls and loggers get along? A recent study conducted in Primorye in the southern Russian Far East suggests it’s not only possible, but essential for endangered Blakiston’s fish owls to survive there. The study was conducted by the WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society), the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the University of Minnesota.
On Monday, archeologists confirmed that they've found evidence of two hidden chambers behind the western and northern walls of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Could this discovery lead to the burial chamber of Queen Nefertiti?
A study led by U geography professor Kathryn Grace found that a pregnant woman's exposure to reduced precipitation and an increased number of hot days result in lower birth weight. A first of its kind, the study is the first time researchers utilized fine-resolution precipitation and temperature data alongside birth data to analyze how weather impacts birth weight. The study examined 70,000 births across two decades in 19 African countries.
Scientists at Duke Medicine are using transparent fish to watch in real time as Cryptococcal meningitis takes over the brain. The resulting images are worthy of a sci-fi movie teaser, but could be valuable in disrupting the real, crippling brain infection that kills more than 600,000 people worldwide each year.
Across the country, many employees are seated at desks for the majority of an eight-hour workday. As technology creates an increase in sedentary lifestyles, the impact of sitting on vascular health is a rising concern. Now, researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine have found that when a person sits for six straight hours, vascular function is impaired — but by walking for just 10 minutes after a prolonged period of sitting, vascular health can be restored.
New research involving scientists from University of Southampton and the National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOCS) has identified a crucial process behind the reason why dissolved organic carbon (DOC) levels in the deep oceans are constant despite a continuous supply from the surface ocean.
A study of influenza infection in animals broadens understanding of the immune response to flu virus, showing that the process is more dynamic than usually described. The findings may offer key insights for developing better vaccines.
Using nanometer-scale components, researchers have demonstrated the first optical rectenna, a device that combines the functions of an antenna and a rectifier diode to convert light directly into DC current.
More than half of older adults with clinical depression don’t get better when treated with an antidepressant. But results from a multicenter clinical trial that included Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that adding a second drug — an antipsychotic medication — to the treatment regimen helps many of those patients.
Research into human fossils dating back to approximately two million years ago reveals that the hearing pattern resembles chimpanzees, but with some slight differences in the direction of humans. Rolf Quam, assistant professor of anthropology at Binghamton University, led an international research team in reconstructing an aspect of sensory perception in several fossil hominin individuals from the sites of Sterkfontein and Swartkrans in South Africa. The study relied on the use of CT scans and virtual computer reconstructions to study the internal anatomy of the ear. The results suggest that the early hominin species Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus, both of which lived around 2 million years ago, had hearing abilities similar to a chimpanzee, but with some slight differences in the direction of humans.
By using powerful photon beams generated by the Advanced Photon Source, a DOE User Facility, researchers have shown that they can now control the chemical environment and provide nanoscale structural detail while simultaneously imaging the mineral calcite as it is pushed to its extremes.
University of Vermont chemists have invented a nanoscale wrench that allows them to precisely control nanoscale shapes. Their use of “chirality-assisted synthesis” is a fundamentally new approach for controlling the shape of large molecules--one of the foundational needs for making complex synthetic materials, including new polymers and medicines.
Astronomers are comparing new images of the Veil Nebula, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in April 2015 with Hubble images taken in 1997, to study how the nebula has expanded since it was photographed over 18 years ago. The supernova that created the Veil Nebula would have been briefly visible to our very distant ancestors thousands of years ago as a bright "new star" in the northern sky. Learn even more about the Veil Nebula in a discussion with Hubble Heritage Team scientists during the live Hubble Hangout at 3pm EDT today (Thurs., Sept. 24) at http://hbbl.us/z7f .
Why do babies smile when they interact with their parents? Could their smiles have a purpose? In the Sept. 23 issue of PLOS ONE, a team of computer scientists, roboticists and developmental psychologists confirm what most parents already suspect: when babies smile, they do so with a purpose—to make the person they interact with smile in return. To verify their findings, researchers programmed a toddler-like robot to behave like the babies they studied and had the robot interact with undergraduate students.
Neuroscientists have uncovered the brain malady responsible for tinnitus and for chronic pain — the uncomfortable, sometimes agonizing sensations that persist long after an initial injury.
As much as 47 percent of the edible U.S. seafood supply is lost each year, mainly from consumer waste, new research from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) suggests.
Women react differently to negative images compared to men, which may be explained by subtle differences in brain function. This neurobiological explanation for women’s apparent greater sensitivity has been demonstrated by researchers.
A new study from The Scripps Research Institute has shown that a specific molecule controls morphine receptor signaling in a small group of brain cells. The findings could lead to a new drug target for developing less-addictive pain medications.
Researchers around the globe are on a quest for materials capable of capturing and storing greenhouse gases. This shared goal led researchers in Germany and India to team up to explore the feasibility of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (VACNTs) to trap and store two greenhouse gases in particular: carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). They report their findings in this week’s The Journal of Chemical Physics.
A research team has discovered the northernmost dinosaur known to have ever lived.
Smokey Bear has spent decades reminding picnickers “only you can prevent forest fires” and has even been known to cry over the devastation they leave in their wake. University of Delaware researchers say the cartoon bear illustrates how mascots can most effectively protect the environment – by threatening disappointment.
An international team of scientists has discovered a new lineage of extinct plankton-feeding sharks, Pseudomegachasma, that lived in warm oceans during the age of the dinosaurs nearly 100 million years ago. The fossil sharks had tiny teeth very similar to a modern-day, plankton-eating megamouth shark.
Light, sound, and now, heat -- just as optical invisibility cloaks can bend and diffract light to shield an object from sight, and specially fabricated acoustic metamaterials can hide an object from sound waves, a recently developed thermal cloak can render an object thermally invisible by actively redirecting incident heat. The system, designed by scientists in Singapore and described in this week’s Applied Physics Letters, has the potential to fine-tune temperature distribution and heat flow in electronic and semiconductor systems.
Cyberbullying? 1 in 5 parents say students who post online rumors about sex should be referred to police.
This monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucaria) is one of the stranger trees growing in the Smithsonian’s Enid A. Haupt Garden in Washington, D.C. Its triangular leaves, which cover the entire tree, both branches and trunk, are thick, tough, and scale-like, with sharp edges and tips. Each leaf can last 10 to 15 years.
A University of Georgia study using a new method for calculating urban heat island intensities clarifies the conflict on whether urban density or sprawl amplify these effects more. It also provides a ranking of the top urban heat island cities among the 50 largest metropolitan statistical areas.
A pair of supermassive black holes appeared to be spiraling together toward a cataclysmic collision that could have big repercussions.
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