According to the International Whaling Commission, whale-watching tourism generates more than $2.5 billion a year. After the COVID-19 pandemic, this relatively safe outdoor activity is expected to rebound. Two new studies funded by a collaborative initiative between the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama and Arizona State University (ASU) show how science can contribute to whale watching practices that ensure the conservation and safety of whales and dolphins. "The Smithsonian's role is to provide scientific advice to policy makers as they pioneer management strategies to promote whale conservation," said STRI marine biologist, Hector Guzmán, whose previous work led the International Maritime Organization to establish ...

Conducting a discussion in a noisy place can be challenging when other conversations and background noises interfere with our ability to focus attention on our conversation partner. How the brain deals with the abundance of sounds in our environments, and prioritizes among them, has been a topic of debate among cognitive neuroscientists for many decades. Often referred to as the "Cocktail Party Problem", its central question focuses on whether we can absorb information from a few speakers in parallel, or whether we are limited to understanding speech from only one speaker at a time. One ...

Chemotherapy can induce a painful peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), a chronic condition and common adverse effect for cancer patients undergoing treatment. Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues elsewhere, have used a mouse model to demonstrate the pivotal role of cholesterol in CIPN, and proposed a novel therapeutic approach to reverse it. The findings are published in the May 10, 2021, online issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine. The study was a collaboration between the laboratories of senior study author Yury Miller, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, and Tony Yaksh, PhD, professor of anesthesiology and pharmacology, both at UC San Diego School of Medicine. ...

Evidence of recent volcanic activity on Mars shows that eruptions could have taken place in the past 50,000 years, according to new study by researchers at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and the Planetary Science Institute. Most volcanism on the Red Planet occurred between 3 and 4 billion years ago, with smaller eruptions in isolated locations continuing perhaps as recently as 3 million years ago. But, until now, there was no evidence to indicate Mars could still be volcanically active. Using data from satellites orbiting Mars, researchers discovered a previously unknown volcanic ...

All three species of manatee now present on Earth share a common ancestor from which they split some 6.5 million years ago, when a huge lake in Amazonia, then linked to the Caribbean, was cut off from the sea. The African manatee Trichechus senegalensis is not as genetically close to the West Indian manatee T. manatus as was thought, and adaptation to this complex environment by the Amazonian manatee T. inunguis has left at least one mark in its genetic code.  These are key findings of a study supported by FAPESP and published in Scientific Reports, with hitherto unknown details of the evolutionary history of these aquatic mammals. The authors are an international group of scientists led by researchers at the University of Campinas ...

The American College of Chest Physicians® (CHEST) recently released new clinical guidelines on the Diagnosis and Evaluation of Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis (HP). The guidelines contain 14 evidence-based recommendations to improve individual diagnostic decision-making and to decrease diagnostic practice variability. Occurring at any age, HP is an immunologically mediated form of lung disease resulting from inhalational exposure to a large variety of environmental and/or occupational inciting antigens (typically fungal, bacterial, avian). Over the years, the categorization of HP based on clinical features and disease duration coupled with traditional diagnostic criteria has been unhelpful, even when accurate, when separated from a probabilistic diagnostic ...

Clavelina oblonga, an invasive marine fouling species, not only reduces diversity in communities it invades, it also interferes in their recovery following natural disasters - a process known as "succession." Succession refers to how an ecosystem recovers after a disturbance or natural disaster - does the system come back more or less the same as it was in terms of species composition, or is it different? "The classic example of succession is a forest that experiences a wildfire," says Kayla Christianson, former NC State graduate student and first author of a paper describing the research. "As the community recovers from the fire, it proceeds through a predictable pattern of community development - starting with grasses and ending with trees and a mature forest. This ...

Since it debuted in 2011, the Get SET Early program, which provides pediatricians and parents with a relatively simple process to screen for indicators of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children as young as age 1, has steadily grown in use and validation. Early screening and identification of ASD has been linked to more effective treatment. A new study, published in the April 26, 2021 issue of the END ...

PHILADELPHIA-- Human brain organoids are remarkable platforms for modeling features of human brain development and diseases. Building on methods to generate organoids to model different brain regions such as the cortex and the midbrain, researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have generated the first organoids of the arcuate nucleus (ARC), an essential structure in the hypothalamus that sends signals of hunger and feeling full. This part of the hypothalamus exhibits a tremendous amount of cell diversity, and is far more complex than previously modeled parts of the brain. In a paper ...

Scientists have made major advances in understanding and developing treatments for many cancers by identifying genetic mutations that drive the disease. Now a team led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian and the New York Genome Center (NYGC) has developed a machine learning technique for detecting other modifications to DNA that have a similar effect. The study, published May 10 in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, focuses on a type of chemical modification to DNA, called methylation, that typically silences nearby genes. The new technique can analyze the thousands of DNA methylation changes detected in tumor cells and infer which ones are likely ...

HOUSTON - Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have developed a first-of-its-kind spatial atlas of early-stage lung cancer and surrounding normal lung tissue at single-cell resolution, providing a valuable resource for studying tumor development and identifying new therapeutic targets. The study was published today in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. The findings reveal a heterogeneous lung cancer ecosystem, with extensive interactions between cancer cells and the surrounding microenvironment that regulate early cancer development. ...

New research on the growth rates of coral reefs shows there is still a window of opportunity to save the world's coral reefs--but time is running out. The international study was initiated at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE), which is headquartered at James Cook University (JCU). Co-author Professor Morgan Pratchett from Coral CoE at JCU said the results show that unless carbon dioxide emissions are drastically reduced the growth of coral reefs will be stunted. "The threat posed by climate change to coral reefs is already very apparent based on recurrent episodes of mass coral bleaching," Prof Pratchett said. "But changing environmental conditions will have other far-reaching consequences." Co-author Professor Ryan Lowe, from Coral CoE at The University ...

A new study looking at the evolutionary history of the human oral microbiome shows that Neanderthals and ancient humans adapted to eating starch-rich foods as far back as 100,000 years ago, which is much earlier than previously thought. The findings suggest such foods became important in the human diet well before the introduction of farming and even before the evolution of modern humans. And while these early humans probably didn't realize it, the benefits of bringing the foods into their diet likely helped pave the way for the expansion of the human brain because of the glucose in starch, which is the brain's main fuel source. "We think we're seeing evidence of a really ...

ORLANDO, May 10, 2021 -University of Central Florida researchers are building on their technology that could pave the way for hypersonic flight, such as travel from New York to Los Angeles in under 30 minutes. In their latest research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers discovered a way to stabilize the detonation needed for hypersonic propulsion by creating a special hypersonic reaction chamber for jet engines. "There is an intensifying international effort to develop robust propulsion systems for hypersonic and supersonic flight that would allow flight through our atmosphere at very high speeds and also allow efficient entry and exit from planetary atmospheres," ...

In a newly published paper, Virginia Tech geoscientists have found that shallow wastewater injection -- not deep wastewater injections -- can drive widespread deep earthquake activity in unconventional oil and gas production fields. Brine is a toxic wastewater byproduct of oil and gas production. Well drillers dispose of large quantities of brine by injecting it into subsurface formations, where its injection can cause earthquakes, according to Guang Zhai, a postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Geosciences, part of the Virginia Tech College of Science, and a ...

Breast cancer has recently overtaken lung cancer to become the most common cancer globally, END ...

Endometriosis, a disease found in up to 10 per cent of women, has been enigmatic since it was first described. A new theory developed by researchers at Simon Fraser University suggests a previously overlooked hormone -- testosterone -- has a critical role in its development. The research could have direct impacts on diagnosis and treatment of the disease, signaling hope for women with endometriosis worldwide. The disease is caused by endometrial tissue growing outside of the uterus, usually in the pelvic area, where it contributes to pain, inflammation, and infertility. But why some women get it, and others do not, has remained unclear. The new research is based on recent findings that women with endometriosis developed, as fetuses in their mother's womb, under conditions of relatively ...

Admit it: Daily commutes - those stops, the starts, all that stress - gets on your last nerve. Or is that just me? It might be, according to a new study from the University of Houston's Computational Physiology Lab. UH Professor Ioannis Pavlidis and his team of researchers took a look at why some drivers can stay cool behind the wheel while others keep getting more irked. "We call the phenomenon 'accelerousal.' Arousal being a psychology term that describes stress. Accelarousal is what we identify as stress provoked by acceleration events, even small ones," said Pavlidis, ...

The use of multimode optical fibers to boost the information capacity of the Internet is severely hampered by distortions that occur during the transmission of images because of a phenomenon called modal crosstalk. However, University of Rochester researchers at the Institute of Optics have devised a novel technique, described in a paper in Nature Communications, to "flip" the optical wavefront of an image for both polarizations simultaneously, so that it can be transmitted through a multimode fiber without distortion. Researchers at the University of South Florida and at the University of Southern California collaborated ...

Your local city park may be improving your health, according to a new paper led by Stanford University researchers. The research, published in END ...

After years of criticism for their lack of diversity, programs for high achievers may not be adequately serving their Black and low-income students, a new study shows. "The potential benefits aren't equally distributed," said lead author and University of Florida College of Education professor Christopher Redding, Ph.D., who evaluated data from gifted programs in elementary schools nationwide. "The conversation up to this point has been about access, with less emphasis on how students perform once in gifted programs." While academic achievement gains for students overall were modest -- going from ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Log on to any app store, and parents will find hundreds of options for children that claim to be educational. But new research suggests these apps might not be as beneficial to children as they seem. A new study analyzed some of the most downloaded educational apps for kids using a set of four criteria designed to evaluate whether an app provides a high-quality educational experience for children. The researchers found that most of the apps scored low, with free apps scoring even lower than their paid counterparts on some criteria. Jennifer Zosh, associate professor of human development ...

Recurrent, metastatic breast cancer resists treatment and is usually fatal. These tumors often have low numbers of immune cells in them, which renders immune therapies less effective for the disease. This preclinical study suggests that drugs called CDK4 and CDK6 inhibitors may make immune-cell therapies an effective option for treating recurrent ER-positive metastatic breast cancer. COLUMBUS, Ohio - A class of drugs that inhibits breast cancer progression when used with hormonal therapy might also boost the effectiveness of immune therapy in cases of recurrent, metastatic breast cancer, according to a new study led by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital ...

A new survey led by researchers from North Carolina State University found that the future of hunting in the United States might look different than it has in the past. In The Journal of Wildlife Management, researchers reported findings from a nationwide survey of college students' interest and participation in hunting. They found current, active hunters were more likely to be white, male and from rural areas, and to have family members who hunted. But they also found a group of potential hunters - with no hunting experience but an interest in trying it - who were more diverse in terms of gender, ...

Despite our remarkable advances in medicine and healthcare, the cure to cancer continues to elude us. On the bright side, we have made considerable progress in detecting several cancers in earlier stages, allowing doctors to provide treatments that increase long-term survival. The credit for this is due to "integrated diagnosis," an approach to patient care that combines molecular information and medical imaging data to diagnose the cancer type and, eventually, predict treatment outcomes. There are, however, several intricacies involved. The correlation of molecular patterns, such as gene expression and mutation, with image features (e.g., how a tumor appears in a CT scan), is ...