Understanding how and why we evolved such large brains is one of the most puzzling issues in the study of human evolution. It is widely accepted that brain size increase is partly linked to changes in diet over the last 3 million years, and increases in meat consumption and the development of cooking have received particular attention from the scientific community. In a new study published in The Quarterly Review of Biology, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/682587, Dr. Karen Hardy and her team bring together archaeological, anthropological, genetic, physiological and ...

Researchers at the Babraham Institute and University of Massachusetts Medical School in the United States have developed a new model to study motor neuron degeneration and have used this to identify three genes involved in the neurodegeneration process. These findings could have relevance for understanding the progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other forms of motor neuron disease (MND). ALS is the most common form of adult-onset motor neuron disease and kills over 1,200 people a year in the UK. The researchers developed a new model to study neurodegeneration ...

Greenhouse gasses (GHG) emission savings due to final renewable energy consumption in electricity, cooling/heating and transport sectors rose at a compound annual growth rate of 8.8% from 2009 to 2012, confirming the renewables' great potential in climate change mitigation, according to a new JRC report. Nearly two thirds of the total savings came thanks to renewable energy development in Germany, Sweden, France, Italy and Spain. The report assesses data on the use of renewable energy, submitted by EU Member States every two years, as required by EU legislation on renewable ...

TORONTO -- Despite the growing use of online support groups such as those on Facebook to help curb substance abuse, attending traditional face-to-face meetings may continue to be more effective for people trying to maintain sobriety, according to research presented at the American Psychological Association's 123rd Annual Convention. "One of the most hotly debated media issues today is whether our rapidly increasing use of social networking might be supplanting face-to-face-interactions and, if so, what the social consequences might prove for us as a culture," said Donald ...

JAMA Oncology will publish two studies, a commentary and an author audio interview examining outcomes in women with breast cancer who had breast-conserving surgery and were treated with hypofractionated radiation therapy (shorter courses of radiation treatment administered in larger daily fraction sizes) compared with longer courses of conventionally fractionated radiation therapy. In the first article, Benjamin D. Smith, M.D., of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston1, and coauthors conducted a randomized clinical trial of 287 women to assess the ...

In an analysis that included a representative sample of the South Korean population, a lower blood manganese level and higher blood mercury level were associated with greater odds of a glaucoma diagnosis, according to a study published online by JAMA Ophthalmology. Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide and a growing public health concern because of an aging global population. Abnormal body levels of essential elements and exposure to toxic trace metals have been postulated to contribute to the pathogenesis of diseases affecting many organ ...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6, 2015 -- Optical illusions are deceptive and mind-boggling. What's going on inside our heads when we see things that appear to be moving but aren't, and when we view other, similar visual tricks? In this collaboration between the American Chemical Society and Inside Science TV, we explain how optical illusions work, so you can understand the science behind the trickery. Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYIr40D7wNw. Inside Science TV is a production of the American Institute of Physics. See more videos in the series on the ISTV YouTube ...

Enhancement of the Petawatt laser "LFEX" [1] up to 2,000 trillion watts for one trillionth of one second. High power output implemented by a 4-beam amplifier technology and the world's highest performance dielectric multilayer diffraction grating of large diameter [2]. Big step forward for creating such new fundamental technologies as cancer therapy for medical applications and non-destructive inspection of bridges and buildings, to contribute to our future life of longevity, safety, and security, and for the realization of fast ignition as an energy resource. The ...

The results of their research have recently been published in the high-profile journal eLife*. The ability of most cardiac muscle cells to reproduce disappears in humans and all other mammals shortly after birth. What remains unclear, however, is how this happens and whether it is possible to restore this ability and therefore to regenerate the heart. FAU researchers Dr. David Zebrowski and Prof. Dr. Felix B. Engel from the Department of Nephropathology at Universitätsklinikum Erlangen's Institute of Pathology and their colleagues have now found a possible explanation ...

Carrying itself around with a dark brown mask on its face and a broad shapeless white mark on its chest and belly, a frog had been jumping across the Peruvian cloud forests of the Andes unrecognised by the scientific world. Now, this visibly distinguishable species has been picked up by Dr. Catenazzi of Southern Illinois University and his team from its likely only locality, a cloud forest near Cusco in Peru, at 2350 m elevation by Drs. Catenazzi, Uscapi and May. Their research is published in the open-access journal ZooKeys. The new fleshbelly frog species, called N. ...

Researchers from the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS) at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, have been looking into how tsunami-type waves can originate from massive storm systems, independent of earthquakes or landslides. According to Volker Roeber and Jeremy D. Bricker, massive storm systems can be the cause of devastating tsunami-type waves. It happened during Typhoon Haiyan, which struck the Philippines in November 2013. Typhoon Haiyan was one of the strongest typhoons ever recorded, causing more than 6,000 casualties. A development ...

People who recognise they are overweight or obese are more likely to put on weight than those who are unaware that they may be heavier than doctors would advise, according to research by the University of Liverpool. In a study, published in the International Journal of Obesity, researchers looked at the lives of 14,000 adults in the US and the UK through data captured in three studies: the US National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, the UK National Child Development Study and Midlife in the United States. They analysed data from time periods after ...

Lack of microinvaginations in the cell membrane, caveolae, can cause serious diseases such as lipodystrophy and muscular dystrophy. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now discovered a "main switch" that regulates the formation of these invaginations. Many cells in the body are equipped with small microinvaginations in the cell membrane called caveolae. They are important for the cell's ability to take up molecules and particles from the cell surface into the cell. If this doesn't work, the function of the cell is disturbed, resulting in diseases. Having too ...

New camera technology that reveals the world through the eyes of animals has been developed by University of Exeter researchers. The details are published today in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution. The software, which converts digital photos to animal vision, can be used to analyse colours and patterns and is particularly useful for the study of animal and plant signalling, camouflage and animal predation, but could also prove useful for anyone wanting to measure colours accurately and objectively. The software has already been used by the Sensory Ecology ...

Dasabuvir (trade name Exviera) and the fixed-dose drug combination ombitasvir/paritaprevir/ritonavir (trade name Viekirax) have been available since January 2015 for the treatment of adults with chronic hepatitis C infection. The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) had examined their added benefit in a dossier assessment completed in April 2015. In an addendum, the Institute now assessed study data subsequently submitted by the drug manufacturer in the commenting procedure. According to the findings, the results of an indirect comparison ...

Why some planets, like Saturn or Jupiter, have their rings, while others like, the Earth or Mars do not? It turned out that "the size does not matter" -- not only giants as Saturn possess the rings, but even tiny asteroids do: According to the recent discovery of the Spitzer Space Telescope, the remote asteroid Chariklo, which is only 260 km in diameter, also has rings. A natural answer may be the following: Occasionally, in a far past, some planets had much more material in their vicinity then the other ones. The material was in a form of dust. Dust particles merged ...

UC Davis study should help guide patients and their oncologists (SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Combing data collected on thousands of California ovarian cancer patients, UC Davis researchers have determined that almost one-third survived at least 10 years after diagnosis. The unprecedented findings upend the notion that women diagnosed with cancer of the ovary always face a poor chance of survival. In fact, while the study confirmed earlier findings on characteristics associated with ovarian cancer survival -- younger age, earlier stage and lower grade tumors at diagnosis ...

The dull black plastic of the device on Joshua Pearce's desk belies its usefulness. Pearce picks up the box, which has a switch on the side and a small opening on top. A handful of vials sit in a bag nearby, and each would fit snugly in the opening. The set-up seems generic, even bland, except that it could radically change how we deal with water quality issues. Pearce, who has a joint appointment as an associate professor of materials science and engineering as well as electrical and computer engineering, runs an open sustainability technology lab at Michigan Technological ...

COLLEGE STATION - Woody plant encroachment is one of the biggest challenges facing rangelands worldwide, but it consistently has been under-measured and poorly understood, said a Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientist in College Station. Dr. Matthew Berg, an AgriLife Research postdoctoral research associate in the Texas A&M department of ecosystem and science management, is trying to change both the understanding and measurement with his latest study, which was captured in the July issue of the Rangeland Ecology and Management publication, http://bit.ly/1JK8JhU. Berg ...

Accurately forecasting future electricity needs is tricky, with sudden weather changes and other variables impacting projections minute by minute. Errors can have grave repercussions, from blackouts to high market costs. Now, a new forecasting tool that delivers up to a 50-percent increase in accuracy and the potential to save millions in wasted energy costs has been developed by researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Performance of the tool, called the Power Model Integrator, was tested against five commonly used forecasting ...

Fundamental differences between how the brain forms during adolescence have been discovered in children with schizophrenia and their siblings, a new study shows. The study opens up new avenues for researchers to explore when developing treatment for the illness, which can be hugely debilitating for children. Researchers from the University of Melbourne and the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington DC used structural brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to map the brains of 109 children with childhood-onset schizophrenia (COS), from ages 12 to 24. They ...

The DZD-researchers at Helmholtz Zentrum München and German Diabetes Center Düsseldorf analyzed more than 1.800 blood samples of participants, who joined the German large-scale study KORA*. Using a comprehensive approach, the scientists investigated metabolic products (metabolites) as well as genetics of these participants. They found that the administration of Metformin** in patients suffering from Type 2 Diabetes led to a change in metabolite levels. According to the authors, this was associated with a significantly decreased level of LDL cholesterol***, which ...

First the scaffold is cracked, then defective parts are removed: Cells repair damaged DNA by a different mechanism than so far assumed, as chemists from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich have shown. Defects in DNA can cause serious harm to an organism, including cell death or the development of cancer. Efficient repair mechanisms are therefore of vital importance. LMU chemist Professor Christian Ochsenfeld, Chair of Theoretical Chemistry at LMU, and Dr. Keyarash Sadeghian from his group have explained for the first time in detail how a human DNA repair ...

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. (August 6, 2015) - There are times when emergency physicians can't be 100 percent sure a person is suffering from a severe allergic reaction, known as anaphylaxis, and may hesitate to use epinephrine. A new article says when in doubt - administer the epinephrine. An article in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific publication of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), highlights recommendations from a panel discussion among allergists and emergency physicians. The panel of experts examined barriers ...

Scientists at the University of Newcastle, UK, have used a combination of small molecules to turn cells isolated from human skin into Schwann cells - the specialised cells that support nerves and play a role in nerve repair. This new method generates large and pure populations of Schwann cells and hence is a promising step forward for the repair of peripheral nerve injuries. This research has just been published in the scientific journal Development at http://dev.biologists.org/ Currently, nerve repair strategies involve taking grafts from patients and using these to ...