Both whales and dolphins have pelvic (hip) bones, evolutionary remnants from when their ancestors walked on land more than 40 million years ago. Common wisdom has long held that those bones are simply vestigial, slowly withering away like tailbones on humans. New research from USC and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM) flies directly in the face of that assumption, finding that not only do those pelvic bones serve a purpose – but their size and possibly shape are influenced by the forces of sexual selection. "Everyone's always assumed that if you ...

Restoring oysters—and their ability to filter large volumes of water—is widely seen as a key way to improve the health of Chesapeake Bay. New research makes this calculus even more appealing, showing that the mussels that typically colonize the nooks and crannies of a restored oyster reef can more than double its overall filtration capacity. The study—by researchers at the University of Maryland, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science—appears as the cover story in the most recent issue of Restoration Ecology. "Many ...

Two new potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension, a deadly disease marked by high blood pressure in the lungs, have been identified by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Their findings are reported in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Early symptoms of pulmonary arterial hypertension include shortness of breath and exercise intolerance. As the disease progresses, patients may require oxygen supplementation and lung transplantation. Heart failure can develop and is a major cause of ...

Scientists at the University of Illinois, Chicago, have identified a compound that effectively inhibits an enzyme crucial to the viruses that cause Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The compound appears to have a different method of inhibition in each virus due to slight differences in each virus' enzyme which means finding other compounds that inhibit both may be difficult according to research presented at the 54th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) an infectious disease meeting ...

Using tracer viruses, researchers found that contamination of just a single doorknob or table top results in the spread of viruses throughout office buildings, hotels, and health care facilities. Within 2 to 4 hours, the virus could be detected on 40 to 60 percent of workers and visitors in the facilities and commonly touched objects, according to research presented at the 54th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC), an infectious disease meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. There is a simple solution, though, says Charles ...

Unlike electronic circuits, optical, or "photonic", circuits work with light rather than electricity, which makes them 10 to 100 times faster. They are also more energy-efficient because they show lower heat loss, better signal-to-noise ratios and are less susceptible to interference. Used especially for communications (e.g. fiber optics), optical circuits may use tiny optical cavities as 'switches' that can block or allow the flow of light, similarly to transistors in electronics. EPFL scientists have now fabricated and experimentally tested a silicon-based 'photonic crystal ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — It sounds like the setup for a joke: Two identical patients go to two different hospital emergency entrances, complaining of the same symptoms. But what happens next is no laughing matter, according to a new University of Michigan study published in the September issue of Health Affairs. While one patient may get treated and released from the emergency department, the other gets sent upstairs to a hospital bed – at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars. In fact, doctors at one hospital may be as much as six times as likely to admit an emergency ...

The best defense is a good offense, especially when it comes to the immune system. The troops that respond to an infection are split into two squadrons, and, until recently, it seemed that the two were independent, without much interaction. Now, in a paper published this week in Nature Immunology, a team of scientists from the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and the University of Alabama at Birmingham say that the immunology boot camp is more communication-intensive than initially thought — a discovery that could help efforts to produce more effective vaccines. "We ...

Demand for better care by women linked with the expansion of basic services, rather than political pressure, has helped to improve midwifery services in low to middle-income countries, according to international research involving the University of Southampton. An examination of maternal and newborn health systems for the Lancet Series on Midwifery found that after initial investment in maternal and newborn health infrastructure, a virtuous cycle developed in these countries – with increased demand for care leading to the deployment of more midwives, better services, ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. – A total facial rejuvenation that combines three procedures to address the multiple signs of an aging face and neck can be performed safely at one time, a new study shows. Total facial rejuvenation, which combines an extensive facelift to tighten skin and muscle; specialized, midface implants to restore fullness; and laser resurfacing to reduce skin's irregular texture and discoloration, can be safely performed at one time, reports Dr. Achih H. Chen, facial plastic surgeon. Chen, Director of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the Medical ...

It is the first time for over 60 years that a new Viking fortress is found in Denmark, says curator Nanna Holm of The Danish Castle Centre. Søren Sindbæk, professor of medieval archeology at Aarhus University, explains: "The Vikings have a reputation as a berserker and pirates. It comes as a surprise to many that they were also capable of building magnificent fortresses. The discovery of the new Viking fortress is a unique opportunity to gain new knowledge about Viking war and conflicts, and we get a new chance to examine the Vikings' most famous monuments. " The previously ...

A study of hospital administrative costs in eight nations published today in the September issue of Health Affairs finds that hospital bureaucracy consumed 25.3 percent of hospital budgets in the U.S. in 2011, far more than in other nations. Administrative costs were lowest (about 12 percent) in Scotland and Canada, whose single-payer systems fund hospitals through global, lump-sum budgets, much as a fire department is funded in the U.S. The study is the first analysis of administrative costs across multiple nations with widely varying health systems. It was carried ...

Climate change is expected to bring increased temperatures and longer droughts—conditions that will make forests more susceptible to fires. By 2090, the area burned by forest fires in the European Union could increase by 200% because of climate change, according to a new study published in the journal Regional Environmental Change. However, preventive fires could keep that increase to below 50%, the study shows. Improved firefighting response could provide additional protection against forest fires. The study was the first to examine adaptation to forest fire danger ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- Around the world, there is more salty groundwater than fresh, drinkable groundwater. For example, 60 percent of India is underlain by salty water — and much of that area is not served by an electric grid that could run conventional reverse-osmosis desalination plants. Now an analysis by MIT researchers shows that a different desalination technology called electrodialysis, powered by solar panels, could provide enough clean, palatable drinking water to supply the needs of a typical village. The study, by MIT graduate student Natasha Wright and Amos Winter, ...

The information encoded in our genes is translated into proteins, which ultimately mediate biological functions in an organism. Messenger RNA (mRNA) plays an important role, as it is the molecular template used for translation. Scientists from the Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen and the Technische Universität Muenchen, in collaboration with international colleagues, have now unraveled a molecular mechanism of mRNA recognition, which is essential for understanding differential gene regulation in male and female organisms. The results are published in the renowned scientific journal ...

Using an "electric prism", scientists have found a new way of separating water molecules that differ only in their nuclear spin states and, under normal conditions, do not part ways. Since water is such a fundamental molecule in the universe, the recent study may impact a multitude of research areas ranging from biology to astrophysics. The research team from the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) – a collaboration of DESY, the Max Planck Society and Universität Hamburg – reported its results in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition. At first ...

The drug simeprevir (trade name: Olysio) has been available since May 2014 for the treatment of adult patients with chronic hepatitis C infection. In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined whether this new drug offers an added benefit over the appropriate comparator therapy. The drug manufacturer dossier provided indications and hints of an added benefit of simeprevir when the patients infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) ...

With climate change threatening global food supplies, new research claims the rich flora of China could be crucial to underpin food security in the future. A team from the University of Birmingham and partners in China have identified 871 wild plant species native to China that have the potential to adapt and maintain 28 globally important crops, including rice, wheat, soybean, sorghum, banana, apple, citrus fruits, grape, stone fruits and millet. 42% of these wild plant species, known as crop wild relatives (CWR) occur nowhere else in the world. CWR are wild plant ...

Crops that thrive in changing climates could be developed more easily, thanks to fresh insights into plant growth. A new computer model that shows how plants grow under varying conditions could help scientists develop varieties likely to grow well in future. Scientists built the model to investigate how variations in light, day length, temperature and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere influence the biological pathways that control growth and flowering in plants. They found differences in the way some plant varieties distribute nutrients under varying conditions, ...

VIDEO: Using a neutron beam, chemists and engineers at The Ohio State University were able to track the flow of lithium atoms into and out of an electrode in real time... Click here for more information. COLUMBUS, Ohio—For the first time, researchers have been able to open a kind of window into the inner workings of a lithium-ion battery. Using a neutron beam, chemists and engineers at The Ohio State University were able to track the flow of lithium atoms into and out ...

Alzheimer's disease experts at NYU Langone Medical Center and elsewhere are reporting success in specifically harnessing a mouse's immune system to attack and remove the buildup of toxic proteins in the brain that are markers of the deadly neurodegenerative disease. Reporting on their experiments in the journal Acta Neuropathologica Communications online Sept. 3, the researchers say the work advances the development of more effective clinical treatments for Alzheimer's because their immune booster reduced both amyloid beta plaques and tau tangles. Previous immunomodulatory ...

Nearly half of older adults – 18 million people—have difficulty or get help with daily activities, according to a new study. Researchers from the University of Michigan and the Urban Institute analyzed data from a national sample of older adults drawn from Medicare enrollment files. In all, 8,245 people were included in the 2011 the National Health and Aging Trends Study. The analysis was published in the current (September 2014) issue of the Milbank Memorial Quarterly. "Although 51 percent reported having no difficulty in the previous month, 29 percent reported receiving ...

Wild species related to our crops which are crucial as potential future food resources have been identified by University of Birmingham scientists, however, a significant proportion are found in conflict zones in the Middle East, where their conservation is increasingly comprised. The scientists have identified 'hotspots' around the globe where crop wild relatives (CWR) – species closely related to our crops which are needed for future crop variety development – could be conserved in the wild in order to secure future global food resources. The hotspot where CWR ...

For the first time, wasps in the genus Spasskia (family: Braconidae) have been found in China, according to an article in the open-access Journal of Insect Science. In addition, a species in that genus which is totally new to science was also discovered. The new species, Spasskia brevicarinata, is very small — male and female adults are less than one centimeter long. It is similar to a previously described species called Spasskia indica, but the ridges on some of its body segments are different. In fact, the species epithet brevicarinata reflects a short ridge on its ...

PITTSBURGH, Sept. 8 – An unusual kind of immune cell in the tongue appears to play a pivotal role in the prevention of thrush, according to the researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine who discovered them. The findings, published online today in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, might shed light on why people infected with HIV or who have other immune system impairments are more susceptible to the oral yeast infection. Oral thrush is caused by an overgrowth of a normally present fungus called Candida albicans, which leads to painful white lesions ...