Widely hailed as 'green' sources of renewable energy, hydroelectric dams have been built worldwide at an unprecedented scale. But research from the University of East Anglia reveals that these major infrastructure projects are far from environmentally friendly. A study published today in PLOS ONE reveals the drastic effects of the major Amazonian Balbina Dam on tropical rainforest biodiversity. The research reveals a loss of mammals, birds and tortoises from the vast majority of islands formed by the creation of the vast Balbina Lake, one of the world's largest hydroelectric ...

Vitamin B12 supplements offer no benefits for neurological or cognitive function in older people with moderate vitamin B12 deficiency, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Around one sixth of people in the UK aged over 75 have vitamin B12 deficiency, which when severe can lead to significant problems in the nervous system including muscle weakness, problems with walking, tiredness, and pins and needles, as well as depression and problems with memory and other important everyday cognitive functions. Vitamin B12 is found in everyday ...

New collaborative research between NOAA, University of Alaska and an Alaskan shellfish hatchery shows that ocean acidification may make it difficult for Alaskan coastal waters to support shellfish hatcheries by 2040 unless costly mitigation efforts are installed to modify seawater used in the hatcheries. "Our research shows there could be significant effects from ocean acidification on Alaska's emerging shellfish hatchery industry in a matter of two and half decades," said Jeremy Mathis, Ph.D., an oceanographer at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and a ...

Mandatory targets to reduce salt in processed food would help tackle inequalities in coronary heart disease that lead to excess deaths in deprived areas of England, according to research by the University of Liverpool. Consuming high amounts of salt causes high blood pressure which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. Current average UK salt intakes are around eight grams per adult per day, whilst the UK government recommends less than six grams per day. Individuals living in more deprived areas of England often consume larger amounts of salt, and this contributes ...

Researchers at the Hanover Centre for Optical Technologies (HOT), University of Hanover, Germany, have developed a self-contained fiber optic sensor for smartphones with the potential for use in a wide variety of biomolecular tests, including those for detecting pregnancy or monitoring diabetes. The readings of the sensor can run through an application on a smartphone which provide real-time results. When properly provisioned, the smartphone-user has the ability to monitor multiple types of body fluids, including: blood, urine, saliva, sweat or breath. In case of medical ...

BOSTON - Hospitals have made significant strides to reduce or eliminate physical harm to patients since the landmark 1999 Institute of Medicine Report "To Err is Human." In a new paper published in BMJ, patient care leaders at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) say hospitals must now devote similar attention to eliminating emotional harms that damage a patient's dignity and can be caused by a failure to demonstrate adequate respect for the patient as a person. "Emotional harms can erode trust, leave patients feeling violated and damage patient-provider relationships," ...

LAWRENCE -- A new study that is the first to use Social Security Administration's personal income tax data tracking the same individuals over 20 years to measure individual lifetime earnings has confirmed significant long-term economic benefits of college education. ChangHwan Kim, a University of Kansas researcher, said the research team was also able to account for shortcomings in previous studies by including factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, place of birth and high school performance that would influence a person's lifetime earnings and the probability of college ...

A study by City College of New York physicists Flaviano Morone and Hernán A. Makse suggests that "smaller is smarter" when it comes to influential superspreaders of information in social networks. This is a major shift from the widely held view that "bigger is better," and could have important consequences for a broad range of social, natural and living networked systems. "The problem of identifying the minimal set of influential nodes in complex networks for maximizing viral marketing in social media, optimizing immunization campaigns and protecting networks under ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. - Opioid painkiller addiction and accidental overdoses have become far too common across the United States. To try to identify who is most at risk, Mayo Clinic researchers studied how many patients prescribed an opioid painkiller for the first time progressed to long-term prescriptions. The answer: 1 in 4. People with histories of tobacco use and substance abuse were likeliest to use opioid painkillers long-term. The findings are published in the July issue of the medical journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. While the study identified past or present nicotine ...

Premature babies are at an increased risk for developing autism spectrum disorder. But a small study indicates that preemies who avoid eye contact in early infancy are less likely to demonstrate symptoms of autism at age 2 than preemies who maintain eye contact during early interactions, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "Children with autism typically have challenges with social interaction and may avoid eye contact, but it turned out that children in this study who had characteristics of autism at age 2 were more likely ...

ROSEMONT, Ill.--Participation in sports by women and girls has increased from 310,000 individuals in 1971 to 3.37 million in 2010. At the same time, sports-related injuries among female athletes have skyrocketed. According to a new study in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (JAAOS), women with symptoms known as the "female athlete triad" are at greater risk of bone stress injuries and fractures. "The female athlete triad is a spectrum of symptoms that include low energy availability, menstrual cycle abnormalities, and low bone mineral density. ...

There may be far fewer galaxies further out in the universe then might be expected, according to a new study led by Michigan State University. Over the years, the Hubble Space Telescope has allowed astronomers to look deep into the universe. The long view stirred theories of untold thousands of distant, faint galaxies. The new research, appearing in the current issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters, however, offers a theory that reduces the estimated number of the most distant galaxies by 10 to 100 times. "Our work suggests that there are far fewer faint galaxies ...

People have evolved to be smarter and taller than their predecessors, a study of populations around the world suggests. Those who are born to parents from diverse genetic backgrounds tend to be taller and have sharper thinking skills than others, the major international study has found. Researchers analysed health and genetic information from more than 100 studies carried out around the world. These included details on more than 350,000 people from urban and rural communities. The team found that greater genetic diversity is linked to increased height. It is also ...

The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft first began orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August 2014. Almost immediately, scientists began to wonder about several surprisingly deep, almost perfectly circular pits on the comet's surface. Now, a new study based on close-up imagery taken by Rosetta suggests that these pits are sinkholes, formed when ices beneath the comet's surface sublimate, or turn directly to gas. The study, which appears in the July 2, 2015 issue of the journal Nature, reveals that the surface of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is variable and ...

DALLAS - July 1, 2015 - UT Southwestern Medical Center scientists collaborating with University of Michigan researchers have found a previously unidentified mechanism that helps explain why stem cells undergo self-renewing divisions but their offspring do not. Adult stem cells provide a ready supply of new cells needed for tissue homeostasis throughout the life of an organism. Specialized environments called "niches" help to maintain stem cells in an undifferentiated and self-renewing state. Cells that comprise the niche produce signals and growth factors essential for ...

DURHAM, N.C. - A pair of brain-imaging studies suggest researchers may be able to predict how likely young adults are to develop problem drinking or engage in risky sexual behavior in response to stress. The new research is part of the ongoing Duke Neurogenetics Study (DNS), which began in 2010 to better understand how interactions between the brain, genome and environment shape risky behaviors that can predict mental illnesses including depression, anxiety, and addiction. "By knowing the biology that predicts risk, we hope to eventually change the biology -- or at ...

GeoSpace Beijing quadrupled in size in a decade, new study finds Researchers tracked the changing physical infrastructure in Beijing, China, and found that the city's physical area quadrupled between 2000 and 2009, according to a new study published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. Eos.org Seismic Hazard Assessment: Honing the Debate, Testing the Models Earthquake experts learn that "take a hike" isn't an insult, but a way to resolve hotly debated scientific issues. The scientists found common ground by trekking over it. New research papers Disappearance ...

For decades, researchers in the genetics field have theorized that the protein spools around which DNA is wound, histones, remain constant in the brain, never changing after development in the womb. Now, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have discovered that histones are steadily replaced in brain cells throughout life - a process which helps to switch genes on and off. This histone replacement, known as turnover, enables our genetic machinery to adapt to our environment by prompting gene expression, the conversion of genes into the proteins that ...

Washington, D.C., July 1, 2015--The vast majority of consumers recognize that multivitamins, calcium and/or vitamin D supplements can help fill nutrient gaps but should not be viewed as replacements for a healthy diet, according to a new survey conducted on behalf of the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN). Conclusions from the survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults were published in Nutrition Journal in a peer-reviewed article titled, "Consumer attitudes about the role of multivitamins and other dietary supplements: report of a survey," authored by CRN consultant Annette ...

Neurons in a brain region called the medial temporal lobe play a key role in our ability to quickly form memories about real-life events and experiences, according to a study published July 1st in Neuron. By recording from individual neurons in patients, the researchers reveal for the first time in humans the single-cell basis for the creation of episodic memories. "It was impressive to see how individual neurons signalled the learning of new contextual associations between people and places and that the changes in firing could occur just after one instance," says lead ...

The brain region that helps people tell whether an object is near or far may also guide how emotionally close they feel to others and how they rank them socially, according to a study conducted at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published today in the journal Neuron. The findings promise to yield new insights into the social deficits that accompany psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and depression. The study focused on evidence for the existence of a "social map" in the hippocampus, the part of the brain that remembers locations in physical space ...

If your eyes deceive you, blame your brain. Many optical illusions work because what we see clashes with what we expect to see. That 3D movie? Give credit to filmmakers who exploit binocular vision, or the way the brain merges the slightly different images from the two eyes to create depth. These are examples of the brain making sense of the information coming from the eyes in order to produce what we "see." The brain combines signals that reach your retina with the models your brain has learned to predict what to expect when you move through the world. Your brain solves ...

Neurons are a limited commodity; each of us goes through life with essentially the same set we had at birth. But these cells, whose electrical signals drive our thoughts, perceptions, and actions, are anything but static. They change and adapt in response to experience throughout our lifetimes, a process better known as learning. Research conducted at The Rockefeller University and collaborating institutions has uncovered a new mechanism that makes this plasticity possible. This discovery centers on a specific type of histone, proteins that support DNA and help control ...

WASHINGTON (July 1, 2015) -- Researchers at the George Washington University (GW), led by Michael S. Irwig, M.D., found that men referred for tertiary care for borderline testosterone levels had much higher rates of depression and depressive symptoms than those of the general population. "In an era where more and more men are being tested for "Low T" -- or lower levels of testosterone -- there is very little data about the men who have borderline low testosterone levels," said Irwig, associate professor of medicine and director of the Center for Andrology at the GW School ...

A University of Texas at Arlington materials science and engineering team has developed a new energy cell that can store large-scale solar energy even when it's dark. The innovation is an advancement over the most common solar energy systems that rely on using sunlight immediately as a power source. Those systems are hindered by not being able to use that solar energy at night or when cloudy conditions exist. The UT Arlington team developed an all-vanadium photo-electrochemical flow cell that allows for efficient and large-scale solar energy storage even at nighttime. ...