TEMPE, Ariz. – Half of the Earth's land mass is made up of rangelands, which include grasslands and savannas, yet they are being transformed at an alarming rate. Woody plants, such as trees and shrubs, are moving in and taking over, leading to a loss of critical habitat and causing a drastic change in the ability of ecosystems to produce food — specifically meat. Researchers with Arizona State University's School of Life Sciences led an investigation that quantified this loss in both the United States and Argentina. The study's results are published in today's online ...

DALLAS – August 18, 2014 – Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found a new way that internal body clocks are regulated by a type of molecule known as long non-coding RNA. The internal body clocks, called circadian clocks, regulate the daily "rhythms" of many bodily functions, from waking and sleeping to body temperature and hunger. They are largely "tuned" to a 24-hour cycle that is influenced by external cues such as light and temperature. "Although we know that long non-coding RNAs are abundant in many organisms, what they do in the body, and how they ...

MISSOULA – New research by University of Montana doctoral student Jared Oyler provides improved computer models for estimating temperature across mountainous landscapes. The work was published Aug. 12 in the International Journal of Climatology in an article titled "Creating a topoclimatic daily air temperature dataset for the conterminous United States using homogenized station data and remotely sensed land skin temperature." Collaborating with UM faculty co-authors Ashley Ballantyne, Kelsey Jencso, Michael Sweet and Steve Running, Oyler provided a new climate dataset ...

Security systems based on photo identification could be significantly improved by selecting staff who have an aptitude for this very difficult visual task, a study of Australian passport officers suggests. Previous research has shown that people find it challenging to match unfamiliar faces. "Despite this, photo-ID is still widely used in security settings. Whenever we cross a border, apply for a passport or access secure premises, our appearance is checked against a photograph," says UNSW psychologist Dr David White. To find out whether people who regularly carry out ...

Passport issuing officers are no better at identifying if someone is holding a fake passport photo than the average person, new research has revealed. A pioneering study of Australian passport office staff by a team of psychologists from Aberdeen, York and Sydney, revealed a 15% error rate in matching the person to the passport photo they were displaying. In real life this degree of inaccuracy would correspond to the admittance of several thousand travellers bearing fake passports. The findings are published today (Monday August 18) in the journal PLOS ONE. They ...

New research indicates older species of coral have more of what it takes to survive a warming and increasingly polluted climate, according to biologists from the University of Texas at Arlington and the University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez. The researchers examined 140 samples of 14 species of Caribbean corals for a study published by the open-access journal PLOS ONE on Aug. 18. Jorge H. Pinzón C., a postdoctoral researcher in the UT Arlington Department of Biology, is lead author on the study. Co-authors are Laura Mydlarz, UT Arlington associate professor of biology, ...

Since Tropical Storm Karina weakened from hurricane status, and since then, NASA satellite data has shown that the storm has been pretty consistent with strength and thunderstorm development. Hurricane Karina formed on August 13, 2014 off the Mexican coast. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite passed directly above the center of intensifying tropical storm Karina on August 14, 2014 at 1927 UTC (3:27 p.m. EDT). TRMM's Microwave Imager showed that storms near Karina's center were dropping rain at a rate of over 50mm (almost 2 inches) per hour. After ...

The "Great Recession" may have put a dent in many older adults' pocketbooks, but a new study by Baylor University found that more than 40 percent reported a decrease in "financial strain" between 2006 and 2010. Researcher Lindsay R. Wilkinson, an assistant professor of sociology in Baylor University's College of Arts & Sciences, drew on 5,205 respondents from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to examine the effect of financial strain on the mental health and use of mood-altering drugs by older adults. HRS, sponsored by the National Institute on Aging, is the largest ...

The Eastern Pacific has generated the twelfth tropical depression of the hurricane season, and satellite imagery showed that it dwarfs nearby Tropical Storm Karina. Tropical cyclones are usually a couple of hundred miles in diameter. The average size of a tropical cyclone is around 304 nautical miles (350 miles/600 km) in diameter. The National Hurricane Center noted on August 18 at 11 a.m. EDT that Tropical Depression 12-E was at least 800 nautical miles (920.6 miles/1,482 km) in diameter! By comparison, Tropical Storm Karina is a couple of hundred miles in diameter. ...

A parasitic fungus that must kill its ant hosts outside their nest to reproduce and transmit their infection, manipulates its victims to die in the vicinity of the colony, ensuring a constant supply of potential new hosts, according to researchers at Penn State and colleagues at Brazil's Federal University of Vicosa. Previous research shows that Ophiocordyceps camponoti-rufipedis, known as the "zombie ant fungus," controls the behavior of carpenter ant workers -- Camponotus rufipes -- to die with precision attached to leaves in the understory of tropical forests, ...

Both mother and fetus are at increased risk for complications of flu infection during pregnancy. And prenatal care providers say they're advising women to get the flu vaccine, in line with recommendations from various organizations. But many pregnant women don't understand the importance of this advice—and don't get the vaccine. Robert Arao, MPH, a biostatistician at Group Health Research Institute, did a statewide survey—the first of its kind—to assess what doctors think and do about flu vaccines for pregnant women. Mr. Arao was at the Oregon Health & Science University ...

A microfluidic device developed at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) may help study key steps in the process by which cancer cells break off from a primary tumor to invade other tissues and form metastases. In their report published in Nature Materials, the investigators describe an stands for epithelial-mesenchymal transition, a fundamental change in cellular characteristics that has been associated with the ability of tumor cells to migrate and invade other sites in the body. Therapies that target this process may be able to slow or halt tumor metastasis. "This ...

Schizophrenia is among the most severe forms of mental illness, yet some people with the disease are as happy as those in good physical and mental health according to a study led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. The study is published online this week in the journal Schizophrenia Research. "People tend to think that happiness in schizophrenia is an oxymoron," said senior author Dilip V. Jeste, MD, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosciences. "Without discounting the suffering this disease inflicts on people, ...

StopInfo for OneBusAway app makes buses more usable for blind riders It's a daily routine for many transit riders in the Seattle area: Pull out your smartphone, check the OneBusAway app, then decide whether you need to sprint to the bus stop or can afford that last sip of coffee. The application, developed at the University of Washington, uses real-time data to track when your bus is actually going to arrive. But for many blind and low-vision riders, knowing when the bus will arrive isn't always enough. Crucial information like where the stop is in relation to the ...

Researchers at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a new technique that can noninvasively image the pulse pressure and elasticity of the arteries of the brain, revealing correlations between arterial health and aging. Brain artery support, which makes up the cerebrovascular system, is crucial for healthy brain aging and preventing diseases like Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. The researchers, led by Monica Fabiani and Gabriele Gratton, psychology professors at the Beckman Institute, routinely record optical ...

MADISON, Wis. – As climate change alters habitats for birds and bees and everything in between, so too does the way humans decide to use land. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Aarhus University in Denmark have, for the first time, found a way to determine the potential combined impacts of both climate and land-use change on plants, animals and ecosystems across the country. The study, which looks at estimates of climate and land-use change speeds, is from Jack Williams, UW-Madison professor of geography; Volker Radeloff, UW-Madison associate professor ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY – Men and women differ in plenty of obvious ways, and scientists have long known that genetic differences buried deep within our DNA underlie these distinctions. In the past, most research has focused on understanding how the genes that encode proteins act as sex determinants. But Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientists have found that a subset of very small genes encoding short RNA molecules, called microRNAs (miRNAs), also play a key role in differentiating male and female tissues in the fruit fly. A miRNA is a short segment of RNA that ...

Compromise solutions must be found when it comes to roads built through sensitive tropical and subtropical areas, say experts writing in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on August 18. While developing nations need to deploy adequate transportation infrastructure to develop mineral and energy resources, the researchers write, governments too often put development ahead of wildlife without thinking about the long-term consequences. "Roads are increasingly being built and upgraded through protected areas, especially in the tropics and subtropics, where there are so ...

A new review article on resistant hypertension, which affects about 1 in 10 people with high blood pressure, is aimed at helping physicians assess and manage patients with the condition. The review, published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) includes information on emerging therapies for the condition. The authors note that high-quality evidence is lacking. "We found few randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and no systematic reviews to guide decision-making. Thus, we have made management recommendations based primarily on expert consensus unless otherwise ...

By finding a way to bind a slippery molecule naturally found in the fluid that surrounds healthy joints, Johns Hopkins researchers have engineered surfaces that have the potential to deliver long-lasting lubrication at specific spots throughout the body. The finding, described in the Aug. 3 online edition of Nature Materials, could eventually offer a new way to ease the pain of arthritic joints, keep artificial joints working smoothly or even make contact lenses more comfortable. According to the investigators, scientists have long known that a biochemical known as hyaluronic ...

Quasi-Legal Drug Fifteen Times Stronger Than Heroin Hides in Plain Sight WASHINGTON – Emergency physicians should expect "an upswing in what on the surface appear to be heroin overdoses," but are actually overdoses tied to acetyl fentanyl, an opiate that is mixed into street drugs marketed as heroin. The looming threat of another unregulated quasi-legal drug is detailed today online in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("The Potential Threat of Acetyl Fentanyl: Legal Issues, Contaminated Heroin, and Acetyl Fentanyl 'Disguised' as Other Opiates") bit.ly/1sPiqUw. "What's ...

A new national survey reveals that the political divide among red-versus-blue states does not support the hypothesis that knowledge about abortion and health is shaped by the state in which one lives. Research led by Danielle Bessett, a University of Cincinnati assistant professor of sociology, was presented at the 109th Meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco. Bessett says that regardless of political viewpoints, only 13 percent of the 569 people polled in the national survey demonstrated high knowledge of abortion, correctly answering four ...

DALLAS – August 18, 2014 – A study from UT Southwestern researchers found that recently introduced cholesterol guidelines would significantly reduce new cardiovascular events, when compared to treatment based on previous cholesterol guidelines. The research identified Dallas Heart Study participants in the 30 to 65 age range who would have newly qualified for statin use under the new cholesterol guidelines introduced in 2013 by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA). In this subset of patients, the study predicted that 3.6 ...

Once upon a time people planned their vacations by booking flights and hotel at local travel agencies. But with the Internet launching of hundreds of online flight vendors, travel agencies have virtually disappeared into the ether — and shorter flights have disappeared with them. In a study scheduled for publication in The Review of Economics and Statistics, Dr. Itai Ater of Tel Aviv University's Recanati Business School and Dr. Eugene Orlov of Compass Lexecon examine how the Internet has affected performance and product quality in the airline industry, especially flight ...

Researchers are reporting new discoveries about how militarization affects the general, civilian population, and the biggest positive impact is adequate sanitation and access to education. The research led by Steve Carlton-Ford, professor and head of the University of Cincinnati Sociology Department, was presented at the 109th meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco. Pooling data from UNICEF, the World Bank, the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO) the Integrated Network for Societal Conflict Research and the Quality of Government Institute, ...