Flowering plants, also known as angiosperms, add an allure to the world that is unlike anything else in nature, but more importantly, they sustain us. Most of the fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, nuts, and even herbs and spices that we consume are produced by flowering plants. They all belong to the green plant branch of the tree of life, and a novel DNA analysis software program named MarkerMiner facilitates identification of genes that can be used to elucidate the evolutionary relationships between them. University of Florida (UF) biologist Srikar Chamala, working ...

Over the past 35 years, California's high-wage workers have seen steady increases in their paychecks. But low-wage workers, 4.8 million strong and about one-third of the state's workforce, earned less in inflation-adjusted dollars in 2014 than they did in 1979, according to an analysis from the University of California, Berkeley. UC Berkeley researchers analyzing U.S. Census Bureau data at the campus's Center for Labor Research and Education found that low-wage workers, defined as those earning hourly wages of $13.63 or less, have seen steady declines in their inflation-adjusted ...

As the number of bills passed by Congress declines, fewer and fewer Congressional representatives are voting across party lines, leaving only a few key representatives as collaborative voters, according to researchers. "We can't say for sure that the decline in cooperation is the sole reason that there are fewer bills being introduced or passed by Congress, but we do know the two are statistically correlated, and both have been dropping steadily over the past 60 years," said Clio Andris, lead author and assistant professor of geography at Penn State. The researchers ...

China's government and other sources say that the country's carbon-dioxide emissions flattened out between 2013 and 2014. The leveling-off was a remarkable feat that could set the country on a course to beating its own goals for lowering emissions. But this optimistic outcome hinges on China overcoming some serious energy challenges, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society. Steven Gibb, a senior editor at C&EN, reports that a number of factors could help explain the emissions plateau. China ...

How and when does mom feed her embryo? We humans, like most mammals, experience pregnancy where a mother supplies nutrition directly to the embryo as it develops. But we're in the minority. Most members of the animal kingdom supply eggs with nutritious yolk before they are fertilized. With this yolk supply, fertilized eggs develop as embryos in the environment outside the mother's body. For over a century, the scientific understanding of matrotrophy ("mother-feeding") of an embryo developing inside a mom's body has come from vertebrate animals, especially mammals like ...

The latest Special Issue from ecancermedicalscience is dedicated to the memory of our late friend, Dr Mario Sideri. The Special Issue, "Prevention of gynaecological cancers: in memory of Mario Sideri," consists of nine articles centred around Dr Sideri's favoured research topic. Dr Sideri was one of the first doctors in the world to identify the connection between the human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer. He served as the Director of the Preventive Gynecology Unit at the European Institute of Oncology (IEO) in Milan from 1994 until his tragic death in June ...

When it comes to cracking nuts, wild bearded capuchin monkeys are more skilled than anyone had given them credit for, according to researchers who report new findings in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on April 30. The monkeys are known to use stone "hammers" to crack nuts. The new study shows that the monkeys are quite careful about the amount of force delivered to those nuts. They adjust the force applied with each strike based on the condition of the nutshell, making it less likely that they'll end up smashing the tasty kernel inside. "Wild bearded capuchin ...

Bats are masters of flight in the night sky, capable of steep nosedives and sharp turns that put our best aircraft to shame. Although the role of echolocation in bats' impressive midair maneuvering has been extensively studied, the contribution of touch has been largely overlooked. A study published April 30 in Cell Reports shows, for the first time, that a unique array of sensory receptors in the wing provides feedback to a bat during flight. The findings also suggest that neurons in the bat brain respond to incoming airflow and touch signals, triggering rapid adjustments ...

Neuroscientists have perfected a chemical-genetic remote control for brain circuitry and behavior. This evolving technology can now sequentially switch the same neurons - and the behaviors they mediate - on-and-off in mice, say researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health. Such bidirectional control is pivotal for decoding the brain workings of complex behaviors. The findings are the first to be published from the first wave of NIH grants awarded last fall under the BRAIN Initiative. "With its new push-pull control, this tool sharpens the cutting edge of ...

The feeling of being inside one's own body is not as self-evident as one might think. In a new study from Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, neuroscientists created an out-of-body illusion in participants placed inside a brain scanner. They then used the illusion to perceptually 'teleport' the participants to different locations in a room and show that the perceived location of the bodily self can be decoded from activity patterns in specific brain regions. The sense of owning one's body and being located somewhere in space is so fundamental that we usually take it for granted. ...

First study to show pattern of telomere changes at multiple time points as cancer develops Telomeres can look 15 years older in people developing cancer Pattern suggests when cancer hijacks the cell's aging process CHICAGO -- A distinct pattern in the changing length of blood telomeres, the protective end caps on our DNA strands, can predict cancer many years before actual diagnosis, according to a new study from Northwestern Medicine in collaboration with Harvard University. The pattern -- a rapid shortening followed by a stabilization three or four years before ...

Rochester, Minn. -- Over the last decade, numerous studies have shown that many Americans have low vitamin D levels and as a result, vitamin D supplement use has climbed in recent years. Vitamin D has been shown to boost bone health and it may play a role in preventing diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and other illnesses. In light of the increased use of vitamin D supplements, Mayo Clinic researchers set out to learn more about the health of those with high vitamin D levels. They found that toxic levels are actually rare. Their study appears in the May issue of ...

LA JOLLA--Stem cells, which have the potential to turn into any kind of cell, offer the tantalizing possibility of generating new tissues for organ replacements, stroke victims and patients of many other diseases. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute have uncovered details about stem cell growth that could help improve regenerative therapies. While it was known that two key cellular processes--called Wnt and Activin--were needed for stem cells to grow into specific mature cells, no one knew exactly how these pathways worked together. The details of how Wnt and Activin ...

Many human communities want answers about the current status and future of Arctic marine mammals, including scientists who dedicate their lives to study them and indigenous people whose traditional ways of subsistence are intertwined with the fate of species such as ice seals, narwhals, walruses and polar bears. But there are many unknowns about the current status of 11 species of marine mammals who depend on Arctic sea ice to live, feed and breed, and about how their fragile habitat will evolve in a warming world. A recently published multinational study attempted ...

AUSTIN, Minn. (4/30/15) - Taking aspirin reduces a person's risk of colorectal cancer, but the molecular mechanisms involved have remained unknown until a recent discovery by The Hormel Institute, University of Minnesota. Researchers led by The Hormel Institute's Executive Director Dr. Zigang Dong and Associate Director Dr. Ann M. Bode, who co-lead the Cellular & Molecular Biology section, discovered that aspirin might exert its chemopreventive activity against colorectal cancer, at least partially, by normalizing the expression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) ...

New York, NY (April 30, 2015) - The use of integrative medicine interventions leads to significant improvements in patient activation and patient-reported outcomes in the treatment of chronic pain, depression, and stress, according to a new report released by The Bravewell Collaborative. The findings are based on data collected by the Patients Receiving Integrative Medicine Interventions Effectiveness Registry (PRIMIER), the first-ever patient registry on integrative medicine. "We are encouraged by these early results, and we see tremendous potential for PRIMIER to provide ...

Philadelphia, April 30, 2015 -- The American College of Physicians (ACP) today released clinical advice aimed at reducing overuse of cervical cancer screening in average risk women without symptoms. "Cervical Cancer Screening in Average Risk Women" is published in Annals of Internal Medicine and lists two concurring organizations: the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Society for Clinical Pathology. "ACP's advice for cervical cancer screening is designed to maximize the benefits and minimize the harms of testing," said Dr. David Fleming, ...

1. American College of Physicians releases Best Practice Advice for the proper time, test, and interval for cervical cancer screening ACP's advice is supported by ACOG and endorsed by ASCP New clinical advice from the American College of Physicians (ACP) aims to reduce overuse of cervical cancer screening in average risk women without symptoms. "Cervical Cancer Screening in Average Risk Women" is published in Annals of Internal Medicine and lists two concurring organizations: the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Society for Clinical ...

HOUSTON - (April 30, 2015) - The percentage of Texans without health insurance dropped 31 percent since enrollment began in the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) Health Insurance Marketplace, according to a new report released today by the Episcopal Health Foundation and Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. The report found that from September 2013 to March 2015, the percentage of uninsured adult Texans ages 18-64 dropped from 25 to 17 percent. "This is a dramatic drop that's unprecedented in Texas," said Elena Marks, president and CEO of the Episcopal Health ...

Due to a lack of suitable studies, no conclusions can be drawn on the patient-relevant benefit or harm of screening for asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB) in pregnant women. The benefit of antibiotic treatment of ASB following screening is also an open issue, as the results of the over 40-year-old studies cannot be applied to the current healthcare situation. This is the result of the final report published by the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) on 23 April 2015, which was commissioned by the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA). Maternity guidelines ...

A team of scientists has shed light on the dynamics of the creation, collaboration and dissemination processes involved in classical music works and styles. Their study focuses on analysing networks of composers contemporary to CD publications, using modern data analysis and data modelling techniques. These findings have just been published in EPJ Data Science by Doheum Park from the Graduate School of Culture Technology at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon and colleagues. This work explores the nature of culture in novel ways, as part of a broader ...

This news release is available in French. Quebec City, April 30, 2015--Noroviruses, a group of viruses responsible for over 50% of global gastroenteritis cases, can spread by air up to several meters from an infected person according to a new study by Université Laval researchers. The discovery, details of which are presented in the latest issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, suggests that measures applied in hospitals during gastroenteritis outbreaks may be insufficient to effectively contain this kind of infection. The team led by Caroline Duchaine, professor ...

TAMPA, Fla. - DNA can be damaged by different environmental insults, such as ultraviolet light, ionizing radiation, oxidative stress or certain drugs. If the DNA is not repaired, cells may begin growing uncontrollably, leading to the development of cancer. Therefore, cells must maintain an intricate regulatory network to ensure that their DNA remains intact. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have discovered a novel mechanism that controls a cell's response to DNA damage. The protein SIRT1 plays an important role in controlling DNA damage. It can sense the presence of ...

Few doctors are prescribing a low-cost drug that has been proven effective in preventing the onset of diabetes, according to a UCLA study. The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Annals of Internal Medicine, found that only 3.7 percent of U.S. adults with pre-diabetes were prescribed metformin during a recent three-year period. Metformin and lifestyle changes both can prevent the onset of diabetes, but people often struggle to adopt healthier habits, according to Dr. Tannaz Moin, the study's lead author and an assistant professor of medicine in the division ...

The international Solar Wind Sherpas team, led by Dr. Shadia Habbal of the University of Hawaii at Manoa Institute for Astronomy, braved Arctic weather to successfully observe the total solar eclipse of March 20 from Longyearbyen on the island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago east of northern Greenland. Their preliminary results are being presented Thursday at the Triennial Earth-Sun Summit in Indianapolis, IN. It was no easy feat. Ever-changing weather predictions, subfreezing temperatures of -4 degrees F (-20 C) and the danger from polar bears were some of ...