|  Sea level rise: New iceberg theory points to areas at risk of rapid disintegration  | In events that could exacerbate sea level rise over the coming decades, stretches of ice on the coasts of Antarctica and Greenland are at risk of rapidly cracking apart and falling into the ocean, according to new iceberg calving simulations. | Read More » How to survive without sex: Rotifer genome reveals its strategies  | How a group of animals can abandon sex, yet produce more than 460 species over evolutionary time, became a little less mysterious this week with the publication of the complete genome of a bdelloid rotifer (Adineta vaga). | Read More » Thin, flexible glass for energy storage  | A new use for glass could make future hybrid-electric and plug-in electric vehicles more affordable and reliable. | Read More » Microchips that mimic the brain  | Novel microchips imitate the brain's information processing in real time. Neuroinformatics researchers have demonstrated how complex cognitive abilities can be incorporated into electronic systems made with so-called neuromorphic chips: They show how to assemble and configure these electronic systems to function in a way similar to an actual brain. | Read More » Climate forecasts shown to warn of crop failures  | Climate data can help predict some crop failures several months before harvest, according to a new study from an international team. Scientists found that in about one-third of global cropland, temperature and soil moisture have strong relationships to the yield of wheat and rice at harvest. For those two key crops, a computer model could predict crop failures three months in advance for about 20 percent of global cropland, according to the study | Read More » Sports medicine physician advises parents to not let their kids play football  | A prominent sports medicine physician has some blunt advice for parents of high school athletes who want to play football this fall: Don't let them do it. | Read More » Two in one solution for low cost polymer LEDs and solar cells  | Scientists have just made a considerable improvement in device performance of polymer-based optoelectronic devices. The new plasmonic material, can be applied to both polymer light-emitting diodes and polymer solar cells, with world-record high performance, through a simple and cheap process. | Read More » NASA releases images of Earth by two interplanetary spacecraft  | Color and black-and-white images of Earth taken by two NASA interplanetary spacecraft on July 19 show our planet and its moon as bright beacons from millions of miles away in space. NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured the color images of Earth and the moon from its perch in the Saturn system nearly 900 million miles (1.5 billion kilometers) away. MESSENGER, the first probe to orbit Mercury, took a black-and-white image from a distance of 61 million miles (98 million kilometers) as part of a campaign to search for natural satellites of the planet. | Read More » Vaccinating boys plays key role in HPV prevention  | Improving vaccination rates against the human papillomavirus (HPV) in boys is key to protecting both men and women, says new research. HPV has been linked to anal, penile and certain types of throat cancers in men. Since the virus is also responsible for various cancers in women, vaccinating boys aged 11 to 21 will play a crucial role in reducing cancer rates across the sexes. | Read More » Scientists identify key brain circuits that control compulsive drinking in rats  | Scientists have identified circuitry in the brain that drives compulsive drinking in rats, and likely plays a similar role in humans. | Read More » Breastfed children are less likely to develop ADHD later in life, study suggests  | Scientists have completed a study that finds a clear link between rates of breastfeeding and the likelihood of developing Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, even when typical risk factors were taken into consideration. | Read More » New key to 'switching off' hypertension  | Researchers have designed new compounds that mimic those naturally used by the body to regulate blood pressure. The most promising of them may literally be the key to controlling hypertension, switching off the signaling pathways that lead to the deadly condition. | Read More » Evolution picks up hitchhikers  | In a twist on "survival of the fittest," researchers have discovered that evolution is driven not by a single beneficial mutation but rather by a group of mutations, including ones called "genetic hitchhikers" that are simply along for the ride. These hitchhikers are mutations that do not appear to have a role in contributing to an organism's fitness and therefore its evolution, yet may play an important role down the road. | Read More » First high-resolution national carbon map of Panama  | Researchers have for the first time mapped the above ground carbon density of an entire country in high fidelity. They integrated field data with satellite imagery and high-resolution airborne Light Detection and Ranging data to map the vegetation and to quantify carbon stocks throughout the Republic of Panama. | Read More » Scientists prove ticks harbor Heartland virus, a recently discovered disease in the United States  | Scientists have for the first time traced a novel virus that infected two men from northwestern Missouri in 2009 to populations of ticks in the region, providing confirmation that lone star ticks are carrying the recently discovered virus and humans in the area are likely at risk of infection. There is no treatment available for HRTV. Unlike other tick-borne diseases like Lyme, ehrlichiosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, HRTV is a virus and thus does not respond to antibiotics. | Read More » Plain packaging seems to make cigarettes less appealing and increase urgency to quit smoking  | Plain packaging for cigarettes seems to make tobacco less appealing and increase the urgency to quit smoking, suggest early findings. | Read More » Surgeon recommends off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting be abandoned  | Cardiothoracic surgeons have found that off-pump coronary artery bypass graft surgery has failed to show any significant improvement in short-term morbidity or mortality as compared to the traditional on-pump coronary artery bypass graft surgery. | Read More » A woman's work is never done?  | One of the greatest social changes across Europe in recent decades has been the increase of women in the labor market. However, changes in women's work patterns have not always been matched by changes in the division of household tasks between the sexes, reveals a new study. | Read More » Skipping breakfast may increase coronary heart disease risk  | A large 16-year study finds men who reported that they skipped breakfast had higher risk of heart attack or death from coronary heart disease. The timing of meals, whether it's missing a meal in the morning or eating a meal very late at night, may cause adverse metabolic effects that lead to coronary heart disease. Even after accounting for modest differences in diet, physical activity, smoking and other lifestyle factors, the association between skipping breakfast (or eating very late at night) and coronary heart disease persisted. | Read More » Weight is a factor in graduate school admissions  | Want to go to graduate school? Your weight could determine whether or not you receive an offer of admission. | Read More » Novel 'top-down' mechanism repatterns developing brain regions  | Dennis O'Leary was the first scientist to show that the basic functional architecture of the cortex, the largest part of the human brain, was genetically determined during development. But as it so often does in science, answering one question opened up many others. O'Leary wondered what if the layout of the cortex wasn't fixed? What would happen if it were changed? | Read More » Bees 'betray' their flowers when pollinator species decline  | Remove even one bumblebee species from an ecosystem and the impact is swift and clear: their floral "sweethearts" produce significantly fewer seeds. The results show how reduced competition among pollinators disrupts floral fidelity, or specialization, among the remaining bees in the system, leading to less successful plant reproduction. The alarming trend suggests that global declines in pollinators could have a bigger impact on flowering plants and food crops than was previously realized. | Read More » Chemical reaction could streamline manufacture of pharmaceuticals and other compounds  | Researchers have discovered a new chemical reaction that has the potential to lower the cost and streamline the manufacture of compounds ranging from agricultural chemicals to pharmaceutical drugs. The reaction resolves a long-standing challenge in organic chemistry in creating phenolic compounds from aromatic hydrocarbons quickly and cheaply. | Read More » Most flammable boreal forests in North America become more so  | A 2,000-square-kilometer zone in the Yukon Flats of interior Alaska -- one of the most flammable high-latitude regions of the world, according to scientists -- has seen a dramatic increase in both the frequency and severity of fires in recent decades. Wildfire activity in this area is higher than at any other time in the past 10,000 years, the researchers report. | Read More » Ability to learn new words based on efficient communication between brain areas that control movement and hearing  | For the first time scientists have identified how a pathway in the brain which is unique to humans allows us to learn new words. | Read More » 'Love hormone' is two-faced: Oxytocin strengthens bad memories and can increase fear and anxiety  | Oxytocin is known as the hormone that promotes feelings of love, bonding and well-being. It's even being tested as an anti-anxiety drug. But new research shows oxytocin also can cause emotional pain. Oxytocin appears to be the reason stressful social situations, perhaps being bullied at school or tormented by a boss, reverberate long past the event and can trigger fear and anxiety in the future. That's because the hormone actually strengthens social memory in the brain. | Read More » Could HYCCUPS boost phone battery life?  | A new system that goes by the name of "hybrid contextual cloud in ubiquitous platforms comprising of smart phones" or HYCCUPS for short, has been developed by computer scientists. The system boosts phone battery life by booting power-consuming computational tasks on to an on-the-fly ad-hoc cloud in which smart phones are both clients and computing resources. | Read More » Study lays groundwork for norovirus anti-viral treatments  | There's no vaccine to prevent norovirus, or drugs to treat the pesky virus that sickens millions each year and is known to complicate cruise ship vacations. But a first ever small animal model provides a new tool to develop anti-viral treatments. | Read More » A new method for clicking molecules together  | Scientists have developed a quick and simple method for connecting and assembling new molecules together, paving a new road for synthetic chemistry, material science, chemical biology, and even drug discovery. | Read More » Move like an octopus: Underwater propulsion from a 3-D printer  | Octopods, which are also known as octopuses or squid, generally move along the ocean floor with their eight arms, they flee by swimming head-first, in line with the principles of propulsion. When the mollusk does this, water is taken into its mantle, which is then closed by contracting sphincter muscles. The water is then squirted back out at a high pressure through a funnel. The resulting propulsion pushes the octopus forward in the opposite direction. By changing the position of the funnel, the octopus can precisely steer its direction of travel. For researchers this intelligent propulsion principle served as a role model for the development of an underwater propulsion system. | Read More » Magnets make droplets dance: Reversible switching between static and dynamic self-assembly  | Researchers have placed water droplets containing magnetic nanoparticles on strong water repellent surfaces and have made them align in various static and dynamic structures using periodically oscillating magnetic fields. This is the first time researchers have demonstrated reversible switching between static and dynamic self-assembly. | Read More » When cells are consumed by wanderlust  | Whether in fish embryos or human tumors, the same gene controls how cells migrate in cell tissue. In experiments on zebrafish, researchers have demonstrated that the same proteins that lead to the formation of metastases in humans also cause the cells to migrate during embryonic development. | Read More » Flex plan for physically demanding jobs: Flexibility tests are often as good as strength tests, and not as discriminatory  | Fitness tests that focus on sheer strength may not be the most accurate way to qualify applicants for physically demanding jobs and may also increase the likelihood of a gender discrimination lawsuit from female applicants. | Read More » Off-grid sterilization with 'solar steam'  | Nanotechnology researchers have unveiled a solar-powered sterilization system that could be a boon for more than 2.5 billion people who lack adequate sanitation. The "solar steam" sterilization system uses nanomaterials to convert as much as 80 percent of the energy in sunlight into germ-killing heat. | Read More » Rare immune cells promote food-induced allergic inflammation in the esophagus  | A rare immune cell and specific molecular reactions to allergenic foods team up – in a bad way – to cause a food allergy-associated disorder, which points to new ways to possibly treat inflammation associated with eosinophilic esophagitis. | Read More » Teen eating disorders increase suicide risk  | Is binge eating a tell-tale sign of suicidal thoughts? According to a new study of African American girls, those who experience depressive and anxious symptoms are often dissatisfied with their bodies and more likely to display binge eating behaviors. These behaviors put them at higher risk for turning their emotions inward, in other words, displaying internalizing symptoms such as suicide. | Read More » Climate threatens food security of Pacific islands  | Isolated in the middle of the ocean, Pacific islands rely closely on fishing for their economy and food security. But global warming could considerably reduce their accessible fish resources over the coming decades. | Read More » Bringing color to solar panels  | Covering a roof or a façade with standard solar cells to generate electricity will change a building's original appearance – and not always for the better. At present only dark solar panels are widely available on the market. | Read More » Health risks from arsenic in rice exposed  | High levels of arsenic in rice have been shown to be associated with elevated genetic damage in humans, a new study has found. | Read More » Going through the motions improves dance performance  | Dance marking -- loosely practicing a ballet routine by "going through the motions" -- may improve the quality of dance performance by reducing the mental strain needed to perfect the movements, according to new research. | Read More » Environmental toxins enter the brain tissue of polar bears  | Scientists from Denmark and Canada are worried by their new findings showing that several bioaccumulative perfluoroalkyl substancesare crossing the blood brain barrier of polar bears from Scoresby Sound, East Greenland. Meanwhile, the same group of scientists is beginning to see a decrease in concentrations of this group of contaminants in polar bears from the same region. | Read More » Non-toxic flame retardants  | Flame retardants are often extremely harmful to health. Despite this, they are found in many types of synthetic materials which would otherwise ignite quickly. Researchers have now succeeded in producing non-harmful flame retardants. | Read More » Devastating long-distance impact of earthquakes  | In 2006 the island of Java, Indonesia was struck by a devastating earthquake followed by the onset of a mud eruption to the east, flooding villages over several square kilometers and that continues to erupt today. Until now, researchers believed the earthquake was too far from the mud volcano to trigger the eruption. Geophysicists have now use computer-based simulations to show that such triggering is possible over long distances. | Read More » | |
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