A population of humpback whales that resides in the Arabian Sea may have been isolated for ~70,000 years, according to a study published December 3, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Cristina Pomilla, Ana Rita Amaral, Howard Rosenbaum, and Tim Collins of the Wildlife Conservation Society, the American Museum of Natural History, and their colleagues. The small, non-migratory population of Arabian Sea humpback whales is currently classified as "Endangered" on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Scientists have limited data on the difficult-to-study population, ...

Aspects of the culture of research in UK higher education institutions (HEIs) can encourage poor research practices and hinder the production of high quality science, according to scientists who took part in a project exploring the ethical consequences of the culture of research led by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. The findings of the project, which included a survey of almost 1000 scientists and others, suggest that scientists are motivated in their work to find out more about the world and benefit society, and that they believe collaboration, multidisciplinarity, ...

Birds learn new foraging techniques by observing others in their social network, 'copycat' behaviour that can sustain foraging 'traditions' that last years, according to a study of how innovations spread and persist in wild great tits (Parus major). The study involved experiments with eight local populations of great tits in Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire (UK). In five of the populations two male birds were trained to slide a puzzle box door either to the left or to the right. In three control groups two males were captured but not trained. The birds were then released back ...

Whether stubbing a toe or stroking a cat, the sensation of touch starts out as a mechanical force that is then transformed into an electrical signal conveying pain or other sensations. Tiny channels in neurons act as translators by helping to formulate that signal to the brain. However, scientists know little about the fine details of how these channels work. New work at Rockefeller University has revealed that one such channel in humans responds to mechanical force using a never-before-seen mechanism. Researchers led by Roderick MacKinnon, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Professor ...

A team of biomedical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis, led by Lihong Wang, PhD, the Gene K. Beare Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, has developed the world's fastest receive-only 2-D camera, a device that can capture events up to 100 billion frames per second. That's orders of magnitude faster than any current receive-only ultrafast imaging techniques, which are limited by on-chip storage and electronic readout speed to operations of about 10 million frames per second. Using the Washington University technique, called compressed ultrafast ...

VIDEO: NIH-funded scientists developed a promising new drug that may lead to spinal cord injury treatments. Click here for more information. Injections of a new drug may partially relieve paralyzing spinal cord injuries, based on indications from a study in rats, which was partly funded by the National Institutes of Health The results demonstrate how fundamental laboratory research may lead to new therapies. "We're very excited at the possibility that millions of people ...

Case Western Reserve scientists have developed a new chemical compound that shows extraordinary promise in restoring function lost to spinal cord injury. The compound, which the researchers dubbed intracellular sigma peptide (ISP), allowed paralyzed muscles to activate in more than 80 percent of the animals tested. The remarkable study, partly funded by the National Institutes of Health, appears in the December 3 edition of the journal Nature. Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Professor of Neurosciences Jerry Silver, PhD, the senior author, led an international ...

Pilots are trained to guard against vertigo: a sudden loss of the sense of vertical direction that renders them unable to tell "up" from "down" and sometimes even leads to crashes. Coming up out of a subway station can produce similar confusion: For a few moments, you are unsure which way to go, until regaining your sense of direction. In both cases, the disorientation is thought to be caused by a temporary malfunction of a brain circuit that operates as a three-dimensional (3D) compass. Weizmann Institute scientists have now for the first time demonstrated the existence ...

Extensive areas of the world's deltas -- which accommodate major cities such as Shanghai, Dhaka and Bangkok -- will be drowned in the next century by rising sea levels, according to a Comment piece in this week's Nature. In the article, Dr. Liviu Giosan, a geologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and colleagues call for maintenance efforts to be started now to avert the loss of vast expanses of coastline, and the consequent losses of ecological services, economic and social crises, and large-scale migrations. Problems start upstream: deltas are built ...

HOUSTON - (Dec. 3, 2014) - A novel mechanism - similar to how normal tissue stem cells respond to wounding - might explain why bladder cancer stem cells actively contribute to chemo-resistance after multiple cycles of chemotherapy drug treatment. Targeting this "wound response" of cancer stem cells can potentially provide a novel approach for therapeutic invention, said researchers from the National Cancer Institute-designated Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine. The results of their study appear online in the journal Nature today. "Treatment ...

LA JOLLA, CA--December 3, 2014--A team led by biologists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has solved a long-standing mystery in neuroscience by identifying the "mechanoreceptor" protein that mediates the sense of touch in mammals. Mice that lack the Piezo2 ion-channel protein in their skin cells and nerve endings lose nearly all their sensitivity to ordinary light touch, but retain a mostly normal sensitivity to painful mechanical stimuli. "We can say with certainty that Piezo2 is the principal touch sensor in mammals," said Ardem Patapoutian, professor at TSRI ...

Researchers from the African Genome Variation Project (AGVP) have published the first attempt to comprehensively characterise genetic diversity across Sub-Saharan Africa. The study of the world's most genetically diverse region will provide an invaluable resource for medical researchers and provides insights into population movements over thousands of years of African history. These findings appear in the journal Nature. "Although many studies have focused on studying genetic risk factors for disease in European populations, this is an understudied area in Africa," says ...

ROSEMONT, Ill.--Compression fractures in the spine due to osteoporosis, a common condition causing progressive bone loss and increased fracture risk, are especially common in older women. A new study appearing in the December 3rd issue of the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery (JBJS) found that patients who wore a brace as treatment for a spinal compression fracture had comparable outcomes in terms of pain, function and healing when compared to patients who did not wear a brace. Nearly 700,000 men and women suffer from a spinal compression fracture each year. These fractures, ...

People who work around the clock could actually be setting themselves back, according to Virginia Tech biologists. Researchers found that a protein responsible for regulating the body's sleep cycle, or circadian rhythm, also protects the body from developing sporadic forms of cancers. "The protein, known as human period 2, has impaired function in the cell when environmental factors, including sleep cycle disruption, are altered," said Carla Finkielstein, an associate professor of biological sciences in the College of Science, Fralin Life Science Institute affiliate, ...

The more time you spend getting to and from work, the less likely you are to be satisfied with life, says a new Waterloo study. Published in World Leisure Journal, the research reveals exactly why commuting is such a contentment killer--and surprisingly, traffic isn't the only reason to blame. "We found that the longer it takes someone to get to work, the lower their satisfaction with life in general," says Margo Hilbrecht, a professor in Applied Health Sciences and the associate director of research for the Canadian Index of Wellbeing. While commuting has long been ...

Is your inbox burning you out? Then take heart - research from the University of British Columbia suggests that easing up on email checking can help reduce psychological stress. Some of the study's 124 adults -- including students, financial analysts medical professionals and others -- were instructed to limit checking email to three times daily for a week. Others were told to check email as often as they could (which turned out to be about the same number of times that they normally checked their email prior to the study). These instructions were then reversed for ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Geckos, found in places with warm climates, have fascinated people for hundreds of years. Scientists have been especially intrigued by these lizards, and have studied a variety of features such as the adhesive toe pads on the underside of gecko feet with which geckos attach to surfaces with remarkable strength. One unanswered question that has captivated researchers is: Is the strength of this adhesion determined by the gecko or is it somehow intrinsic to the adhesive system? In other words, is this adhesion a result of the entire animal initiating ...

An efficient method to harvest low-grade waste heat as electricity may be possible using reversible ammonia batteries, according to Penn State engineers. "The use of waste heat for power production would allow additional electricity generation without any added consumption of fossil fuels," said Bruce E. Logan, Evan Pugh Professor and Kappe Professor of Environmental Engineering. "Thermally regenerative batteries are a carbon-neutral way to store and convert waste heat into electricity with potentially lower cost than solid-state devices." Low-grade waste heat is an ...

New Rochelle, NY, December 3, 2014--Hereditary angioedema (HAE), a rare genetic disease that causes recurrent swelling under the skin and of the mucosal lining of the gastrointestinal tract and upper airway, usually first appears before 20 years of age. A comprehensive review of the therapies currently available to treat HAE in adults shows that some of these treatments are also safe and effective for use in older children and adolescents. Current and potential future therapies are discussed in a Review article in a special issue of Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, and Pulmonology, ...

Typhoon Hagupit continues to intensify as it continued moving through Micronesia on Dec. 3 triggering warnings. NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead and captured an image of the strengthening storm while the Rapidscat instrument aboard the International Space Station provided information about the storm's winds. The International Space Station-RapidScat instrument monitors ocean winds to provide essential measurements used in weather predictions, including hurricanes. "RapidScat measures wind speed and direction over the ocean surface and captured an image of Hagupit ...

This news release is available in French. Quebec City, December 3, 2014--Researchers at Université Laval's Faculty of Science and Engineering and Centre for Optics, Photonics and Lasers have developed smart textiles able to monitor and transmit wearers' biomedical information via wireless or cellular networks. This technological breakthrough, described in a recent article in the scientific journal Sensors, clears a path for a host of new developments for people suffering from chronic diseases, elderly people living alone, and even firemen and police officers. A ...

Researchers at North Carolina State University have for the first time mapped human disease-causing pathogens, dividing the world into a number of regions where similar diseases occur. The findings show that the world can be separated into seven regions for vectored human diseases - diseases that are spread by pests, like mosquito-borne malaria - and five regions for non-vectored diseases, like cholera. Interestingly, not all of the regions are contiguous. The British Isles and many of its former colonies, such as the United States and Australia, have similar diseases ...

Good news on the panda front: Turns out they're not quite as delicate - and picky - as thought. Up until now, information gleaned from 30 years worth of scientific literature suggested that pandas were inflexible about habitat. Those conclusions morphed into conventional wisdom and thus have guided policy in China. But a Michigan State University (MSU) research associate has led a deep dive into aggregate data and emerged with evidence that the endangered animal is more resilient and flexible than previously believed. Vanessa Hull is a postdoctoral research associate ...

Irvine, Calif., Dec. 3, 2014 - High fecal counts frequently detected at so-called "baby beaches" may not be diaper-related. UC Irvine researchers found that during summer months, small drainpipes emptying into enclosed ocean bays have a disproportionate impact on calmer waters. The findings were published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. Researchers have long known that creeks and tributaries foul coastal waters with major winter storm runoff. But dry seasons like the one that just concluded can spell potential peril, too. Runoff from watering ...

When it comes to getting out of a tricky situation, we humans have an evolutionary edge over other primates. Take, as a dramatic example, the Apollo 13 voyage in which engineers, against all odds, improvised a chemical filter on a lunar module to prevent carbon dioxide buildup from killing the crew. UC Berkeley scientists have found mounting brain evidence that helps explain how humans have excelled at "relational reasoning," a cognitive skill in which we discern patterns and relationships to make sense of seemingly unrelated information, such as solving problems in unfamiliar ...