The evolution of freshwater shrimps species living in both sides of Central America, isolated by the closure of Isthmus of Panama (3 million years ago) were studied by molecular tools. Despite the small likelihood of species crossing the Isthmus from one side to the other through the channel exist, the genetic isolation of them were maintained over the time and the separation of Pacific and Atlantic sister species still unchanged. Sister species refer to pairs of species that are genetically and morphologically closely related, but reproductively isolated. The collection ...

A new paper, by Dr Stanley Blue, lecturer in Social Sciences at The University of Manchester, claims that there needs to be a shift in public health policy, with less focus on efforts to change individual behaviour and more attention on breaking social habits and practices that are blindly leading us into bad health. Theories of practice and public health: understanding (un)healthy practices is published in the journal, Critical Public Health, and written by Dr Stanley Blue, lecturer at the School of Social Sciences, Prof Elizabeth Shove, of Lancaster University, Prof ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (November 26, 2014)--Removing ovaries at hysterectomy does not increase a woman's risk of pelvic organ prolapse after menopause. In fact, removing ovaries lowers the risk of prolapse. This surprising finding from a Women's Health Initiative study was published online this week in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS). Whether to remove ovaries at hysterectomy for reasons other than cancer is a subject of hot debate. Removing them reduces the risk of breast cancer and dramatically reduces the risk of ovarian cancer. On the ...

For several years, it has been known that superfluid helium housed in reservoirs located next to each other acts collectively, even when the channels connecting the reservoirs are too narrow and too long to allow for substantial flow. A new theoretical model reveals that the phenomenon of mysterious communication "at a distance" between fluid reservoirs is much more common than previously thought. Liquids in containers that are at a distance from each other may behave collectively, even if the channels connecting the reservoirs are so narrow and long that they prevent ...

Enzymes are macromolecular biological catalysists that lead most of chemical reactions in living organisms. The main focus of enzymology lies on enzymes themselves, whereas the role of water motions in mediating the biological reaction is often left aside owing to the complex molecular behavior. The groups of Martina Havenith (Cluster of Excellence RESOLV - Ruhr explores Solvation) and Irit Sagi (Weizmann Institue of Science, Israel) revised the classical enzymatic steady state theory by including long-lasting protein-water coupled motions into models of functional catalysis. ...

A study reveals how little we know about the Amazonian diversity. Aiming to resolve a scientific debate about the validity of two species of freshwater shrimp described in the first half of the last century, researchers have found that not only this species is valid, but also discovered the existence of a third unknown species. The researchers concluded that these species evolved about 10 million years ago. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. The great biodiversity in Amazonia is an issue widely studied. However, the real number of species in this ...

This news release is available in Spanish. "Let's suppose that we need a system for monitoring vital signs in a home for the elderly; preferably a wireless system. Using the deployed standard, the sensors that will be communicating via Bluetooth are connected to each other. "The elderly individuals in the home are fitted with these sensors which are used to measure their body temperature, heart rate, etc. and to forward the data to the nursing department," pointed out Josu Etxaniz-Marañón. "Time is a critical factor in a network of this type, and ...

An international team of scientists which includes researchers from the U. of Granada has demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to establish in an objective way the level of fatigue in physicians after long shifts through their eye movement. This research reveals that the speed of saccadic movement (mostly voluntary rapid eye movements which we use to focus our gaze upon an object that attracts our attention) is an excellent index to measure objectively the level of fatigue in the medical profession. In an article published in Annals of Surgery (the most ...

An Andalusian team of researchers led by the University of Granada has demonstrated the efficacy of a new drug against cancerogenic stem cells, which cause the onset and development of cancer, of relapse after chemotherapy and metastasis. This drug, called Bozepinib, has proved to be effective in tests with mice. The results have been published in the prestigious journal Oncotarget. Cancerogenic stem cells appear in small quantities in tumours, and one of their important features is that they contribute to the formation of metastasis in different places within the original ...

For tens of thousands of years, modern humans have used the waterways to spread out across the surface of the planet. Major civilizations developed along massive rivers like the Nile in Egypt and the Yellow River in China, and massive water channels propelled the expansion of economies around the world. But in recent decades, according to a team of scientists at the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in the northwestern Chinese city of Lanzhou, the competition between economic growth and the ecosystem of ...

Chongqing, China--Dr. Tao Zhu and his team of researchers from Chongqing University, Southwest China, have discovered a new method to highly compress laser linewidth based on Rayleigh backscattering. Using their new method, Rayleigh backscattering can be collected in any waveguide structure and all wave bands to effectively compress a laser linewidth to merely hundreds of hertz, which could have a revolutionary impact on the field of laser technology. This makes it possible for portable laser devices to achieve an ultra-narrow linewidth at room temperature, which until ...

Spam spreads much faster and to more people when it is being propagated by hacked, or otherwise compromised, email accounts rather than legitimate accounts, according to research published in the International Journal of Security and Networks. The insight should help those modeling the dynamics of information diffusion as well as those hoping to track and trace spam with a view to slowing or blocking its propagation. Spam traditionally contained ads for fake or counterfeit products, but currently also contains disruptive rumors and information of a political nature. Ghita ...

Long-sightedness caused by age could be due to proteins in the lens of the eye that are converted from a fluid solution to a solid, glassy state. This has been shown in a study by researchers from institutions including Lund University. Around the age of 40-50, many people find their sight deteriorates and they need to use reading glasses. This age-related long-sightedness is thought to be due to a reduction in the elasticity of the lens in the eye. A new research study appears to have put its finger on the details of what happens in the eye when long-sightedness develops. "This ...

How do the genes in the cells inside the body's muscles respond when the muscles are put to work? And how are these genes affected when muscles are not used? What importance do activity and, on the other hand, lack of activity have for the organism's metabolism, and thus also for diseases such as diabetes and obesity? These questions form the basis for a new study from the Department of Public Health at Aarhus University and the Institute of Sports Medicine at Bispebjerg Hospital. For the first time, the study compares the reactions of all genes in the muscles to diverse ...

Boulder, Colorado, USA - The Laguna del Maule Volcanic Field, Chile, includes a record of unusually large and recent concentration of silicic eruptions. Since 2007, the crust there has been inflating at an astonishing rate of 25 centimeters per year. This unique opportunity to investigate the dynamics of a large rhyolitic system while magma migration, reservoir growth, and crustal deformation are actively under way is stimulating a new international collaboration. Explosive eruptions of large-volume rhyolitic magma systems are common in the geologic record and pose a ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Buck Rogers surely couldn't have seen this one coming, but at NASA's request, University of Florida researchers have figured out how to turn human waste -- yes, that kind -- into rocket fuel. Adolescent jokes aside, the process finally makes useful something that until now has been collected to burn up on re-entry. What's more, like so many other things developed for the space program, the process could well turn up on Earth, said Pratap Pullammanappallil, a UF associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering. "It could be used on ...

DESPITE a sequence of stellar performances by Britain's female athletes and team game players, coverage of women's sport in the Press still occupies a fraction of the space given to men, according to University of Huddersfield lecturer Deirdre O'Neill, who has analysed thousands of articles in newspapers that she describes as a "football-saturated boyzone". One side effect of this marginalisation of women's sport is that girls - with fewer role models to admire - are much less likely to take part themselves. They leave school half as active as young men, leading to potential ...

Bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego have discovered that mouse embryos are contemplating their cellular fates in the earliest stages after fertilization when the embryo has only two to four cells, a discovery that could upend the scientific consensus about when embryonic cells begin differentiating into cell types. Their research, which used single-cell RNA sequencing to look at every gene in the mouse genome, was published recently in the journal Genome Research. In addition, this group published a paper on analysis of "time-course"single-cell data ...

Latest research on the oldest surviving rock art of Southeast Asia shows that the region's first people, hunter-gatherers who arrived over 50,000 years ago, brought with them a rich art practice. Published this week in the archaeological journal Antiquity, the research shows that these earliest people skilfully produced paintings of animals in rock shelters from southwest China to Indonesia. Besides these countries, early sites were also recorded in Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia. Griffith University Chair in Rock Art Professor Paul Taçon led the research which ...

A Brigham and Women's Hospital-led team has identified a long sought-after partner for a key immune protein, called TIM-3, that helps explain its two-faced role in the immune system -- sometimes dampening it, other times stimulating it. This newly identified partner not only sheds light on the inner workings of the immune system in diseases such as HIV, autoimmunity, and cancer, but also provides a critical path toward the development of novel treatments that target TIM-3. The researcher's findings appeared last month in the journal Nature. "There has been a lot of confusion ...

Conservationists are always looking for ways to halt the pace of deforestation in tropical rainforests. One approach involves recultivating abandoned agricultural land. An international team* investigating this concept has just published its findings in Nature Communications. Working in the mountainous regions of Ecuador, the researchers found afforestation and intense pasturing to be particularly effective, clearly increasing the environmental and economic value of abandoned farmlands. Every year, 130,000 square kilometers of rainforest disappear from the face of the ...

This news release is available in German. A drunken sailor staggers onto a square with lots of streetlamps on it. Sometimes he will run into one of the lamps, change his direction and keep moving. Does the time he spends on this square depend on the number of streetlamps? The surprising answer is: no. No matter whether there is a streetlamp on every square meter or whether the distance between the lamps is large: on average, the drunken sailor will always spend the same amount of time on the square. Calculations at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) ...

Neither quantum computers nor quantum cryptography will become prevalent technologies without memory systems able to manipulate quantum information easily and effectively. The Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw has recently made inroads into popularizing quantum information technologies by creating an atomic memory with outstanding parameters and an extremely simple construction. Following years of tests in physics laboratories, the first quantum technologies are slowly emerging into wider applications. One example is quantum cryptography - an encryption ...

The ocean is undergoing global changes at a remarkable pace and we must change with it to attain our best possible future ocean, warns the head of The University of Western Australia's Oceans Institute. One of the global leaders in ocean science, Professor Carlos Duarte has shared his insights on the future of the world's oceans in a paper published in the international open-access journal Frontiers in Marine Science. In the paper Professor Duarte explains the grand challenge researchers face in addressing global change and the future state of the ocean. "The ocean ...

This news release is available in German. Just four months after the final data package from the GOCE satellite mission was delivered, researchers are laying out a rich harvest of scientific results, with the promise of more to come. A mission of the European Space Agency (ESA), the Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) provided the most accurate measurements yet of Earth's gravitational field. The GOCE Gravity Consortium, coordinated by the Technische Universität München (TUM), produced all of the mission's data products including ...