Researchers have discovered a new pollination system that involves food-thieving flies as pollinators. These flies feed on insect secretions, available when a spider, a praying mantis, or other predatory arthropods feed on insects. The plant mimics compounds released from freshly killed insects to deceive flies that are in search of food. This pollination strategy applies to Aristolochia rotunda--an herbaceous Mediterranean plant--but likely evolved in other plants as well. "The finding was unexpected as Aristolochia species were believed to mimic egg-laying sites of ...

Despite numerous studies, publications, and commentaries on human female sexual arousal and orgasm, there is still so much to study and understand about women's sexual pleasure. A new review deals critically with many aspects of the genital anatomy of the human female in relation to inducing sexual arousal and its relevance to both procreation and recreation. A number of questions remain, including why there are so many sites for arousal, why multiple orgasms occur, and how sexual stimulation affects the brain. "The review is an attempt to show the weaknesses in some ...

A new study indicates that women with mobility disabilities often experience problems during pregnancy related to their functional impairments. The study included 8 women with spinal cord injuries, 4 with cerebral palsy, and 10 with other conditions. Impairment-related complications during pregnancy included falls, urinary tract and bladder problems, wheelchair fit and stability problems, significant shortness of breath, increased spasticity, bowel management difficulties, and skin integrity problems. "Relatively little information is available about the pregnancy ...

Researchers recently completed one of the most extensive investigations to date of prenatal hormones in first-time expectant couples. Women showed large prenatal increases in salivary testosterone, cortisol, estradiol, and progesterone, while men showed significant prenatal declines in testosterone and estradiol, but no detectable changes in cortisol or progesterone. While the results in women were expected, the results seen in men suggest that impending fatherhood might cause men's hormone levels to change. Additional studies are warranted to understand whether partners' ...

Detroit - The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act may have provided health care insurance to an estimated 20 million Americans who lacked coverage, but it has not eased the demand on the nation's emergency departments. In fact, since the law's passage, reliance upon the nation's emergency rooms for non-emergency care has increased. That's the finding of a study published online in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine by a second-year medical student at the Wayne State University School of Medicine and his colleagues. In "Access to care issues and the role ...

A review of more than a decade's worth of research on osteonecrosis of the jaw--when the bone in the jaw is exposed and begins to starve from a lack of blood--points to an increased risk for patients taking certain drugs for osteoporosis, anticancer drugs or glucocorticoids, those undergoing dental surgery, and people with poor oral hygiene, chronic inflammation, diabetes, or ill-fitting dentures. A number of prevention strategies may help protect at-risk individuals, and treatments that are available or under study include the use of antibiotics, surgery, teriparatide, ...

Research by City College of New York psychology Professor Irvin Schonfeld in the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership suggests a strong connection between burnout and depression. In a study of more than 5,500 school teachers to estimate the prevalence of depressive disorders in workers with burnout, 90% of the subjects identified as burned out met diagnostic criteria for depression. The study also examined the overlap of burnout with the atypical subtype of depression. Features of atypical depression were observed in 63% of the burned-out participants ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A new study led by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC - James) describes a novel marker that might help doctors choose the least toxic, most effective treatment for many older patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). AML occurs mainly in older patients and has a three-year survival rate of 5 to 15 percent. The researchers investigated patterns of molecules called long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), a class of RNA molecules more than 200 ...

Washington, D.C.-- Recent advances in our understanding of the quantities, movements, forms and origin of carbon in Earth are summarized in a just-published report. The research represents face-paced progress on the depths of the biosphere, Earth, what erupts from volcanoes and leaks from sea floors, what descends back into Earth's great depths, and the nature of carbon-bearing materials within planets. The Carnegie Institution for Science is the institutional home of the DCO Secretariat. Carnegie's Robert Hazen and Russell Hemley are the executive and co-executive directors ...

A University of Otago, New Zealand, PhD student analysing dental calculus (hardened plaque) from ancient teeth is helping resolve the question of what plant foods Easter Islanders relied on before European contact. Known to its Polynesian inhabitants as Rapa Nui, Easter Island is thought to have been colonized around the 13th Century and is famed for its mysterious large stone statues or moai. Otago Anatomy PhD student Monica Tromp and Idaho State University's Dr John Dudgeon have just published new research clearing up their previous puzzling finding that suggested ...

A new study offers strategies for rekindling marriage after a spouse returns home from combat with post-traumatic stress symptoms present in one or both of the spouses. For participants as individuals, it's important to allow negative emotions, to give each other time and space to do the work of rediscovery and accept a changed reality, and to recognize and address the individual needs of the other. As couples, strategies include going with the flow, opening your heart, becoming best friends, maintaining trust, and communicating effectively. As families, it's helpful ...

An exciting new special issue of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences shines the spotlight on the Danek Bonebed in Edmonton, Alberta and increases our knowledge of Edmonton's urban dinosaurs, especially the iconic hadrosaurid Edmontosaurus. Well-preserved, articulated dinosaur specimens often receive much attention from scientists and the public, but bonebeds provide a great deal of information that even the most spectacular articulated specimens cannot. Because of the amount of fossil material, the quality of preservation, ease of preparation, and volume of associated ...

"Most researchers have treated the order in which the information is shown as a nuisance that can bias the interpretation of data," said Ting Qian, lead author and a former graduate student in brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester. But as Qian's co-author and thesis advisor, Professor Richard Aslin explained, "We see it as a part of the natural statistics of the real world, and therefore a signal--or cue--that can be the basis of rational decisions." In a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Qian and Aslin ...

VIDEO: Caltech neuroeconomists have found that your ability to exercise self-control when deciding what to eat may depend upon just how quickly your brain factors healthfulness into a decision. Click here for more information. When you open the refrigerator for a late-night snack, are you more likely to grab a slice of chocolate cake or a bag of carrot sticks? Your ability to exercise self-control--i.e., to settle for the carrots--may depend upon just how quickly your brain factors ...

LANSING, Mich. December 15, 2014 - Cyclists who are preparing for race day may have a new sports drink to give them an edge in recovery: tart cherry juice. A new study published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism found that Montmorency tart cherry juice helped accelerate recovery, maintain muscle function and reduce certain markers of exercise-induced inflammation among a group of cyclists participating in a simulated road race. The research team, led by Glyn Howatson and Phillip G. Bell at Northumbria University in the U.K., conducted this double-blind, ...

Each day, thunderstorms around the world produce about a thousand quick bursts of gamma rays, some of the highest-energy light naturally found on Earth. By merging records of events seen by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope with data from ground-based radar and lightning detectors, scientists have completed the most detailed analysis to date of the types of thunderstorms involved. "Remarkably, we have found that any thunderstorm can produce gamma rays, even those that appear to be so weak a meteorologist wouldn't look twice at them," said Themis Chronis, who led ...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2014 -- It's something your mother told you time and time again at the dinner table: "Eat your carrots, they'll help you see better!" So was she right? This week, Reactions answers the question with the help of chemist Chad Jones, Ph.D., host of the award-winning Collapsed Wave Function podcast. Check out the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3DNScZYvYY. Subscribe to the series at Reactions YouTube, and follow us on Twitter @ACSreactions to be the first to see our latest videos. INFORMATION:The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit ...

Online content creation has become easier than ever and is quickly reaching parity with content consumption. From writing a blog or social media post to letting an app turn your photos into a video montage, anyone with an Internet connection can publish these creations with the click of a button. But in the age of Web publishing, it has become increasingly confusing for content creators to figure out how to protect their original works or to use other content legally -- such as for remixes or parodies -- on major websites for user-generated content, including YouTube ...

New York (15 December 2014)--A study published today is the first detailed assessment of whether the 8-year Iraq War had an effect on childbearing. The study found that before the war, from 1997 to 2003, adolescent fertility in Iraq was stable at just below 70 births per 1,000 girls aged 15-19. However, soon after the beginning of the war, adolescent fertility rose by more than 30 percent, reaching over 95 births per 1,000 girls in 2010. The study is included in the December 2014 issue of Population and Development Review, a peer-reviewed journal published by the Population ...

Tropical Cyclone Bakung ran into adverse conditions in the Southern Indian Ocean that weakened it to a remnant low pressure system when NASA's Aqua satellite spotted it on Dec. 15. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard Aqua captured a visible picture of Bakung's elongated remnants on Dec. 5 at 08:05 UTC (3:05 a.m. EST). The storm appeared to be stretched out from west to east in the visible image. The last advisory on the tropical cyclone came on Dec. 13 when the storm was still a tropical storm with maximum sustained ...

WASHINGTON (Dec. 15, 2014)--Over prescription of antibiotics is a major factor driving one of the biggest public health concerns today: antibiotic resistance. In a first-of-its-kind study, research led by the George Washington University suggests that public health educational materials may not address the misconceptions that shape why patients expect antibiotics, driving doctors to prescribe them more. The research appeared in October in the journal Medical Decision Making. Researchers from George Washington, Cornell and Johns Hopkins universities surveyed 113 patients ...

Researchers in Spain have discovered that if lead atoms are intercalated on a graphene sheet, a powerful magnetic field is generated by the interaction of the electrons' spin with their orbital movement. This property could have implications in spintronics, an emerging technology promoted by the European Union to create advanced computational systems. Graphene is considered the material of the future due to its extraordinary optical and electronic mechanical properties, especially because it conducts electrons very quickly. However, it does not have magnetic properties, ...

To the casual observer, the colonies of social insects like bees and ants appear to be harmonious societies where individuals work together for the common good. But appearances can be deceiving. In fact, individuals within nests compete over crucial determinants of fitness such as reproductive dominance and production of male eggs. The intensity of competition often depends on the level of kinship between colony members. This is because selfish individuals lose indirect fitness when their behavior harms close relatives. A new study by Eva Schultner and colleagues from ...

Just in time for Christmas, Simon Fraser University computing science professor Richard Zhang reveals how to print a 3D Christmas tree efficiently and with zero material waste, using the world's first algorithm for automatically decomposing a 3D object into what are called pyramidal parts. A pyramidal part has a flat base with the remainder of the shape forming upwards over the base with no overhangs, much like a pyramid. A pyramidal shape is optimal for 3D printing because it incurs no material waste and saves print time. The algorithm promises to become a big deal in ...

DALLAS - Dec. 15, 2014 - UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have identified a possible therapy to treat neurofibromatosis type 1 or NF1, a childhood neurological disease characterized by learning deficits and autism that is caused by inherited mutations in the gene encoding a protein called neurofibromin. Researchers initially determined that loss of neurofibromin in mice affects the development of the part of the brain called the cerebellum, which is responsible for balance, speech, memory, and learning. The research team, led by Dr. Luis F. Parada, Chairman ...