WASHINGTON, DC— The 1934 drought was by far the most intense and far-reaching drought of the last 1,000 years in North America, and was caused in part by an atmospheric phenomenon that may have also led to the current drought in California, according to a new study. New research finds that the extent of the 1934 drought was approximately seven times larger than droughts of comparable intensity that struck North America between 1000 A.D. and 2005, and nearly 30 percent worse than the next most severe drought that struck the continent in 1580. "We noticed that ...

One of the planet's leading questions is how to produce enough food to feed the world in an increasingly variable climate. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations predicts that food production must rise 70% over the next 40 years to feed a growing global population, and plants are one major component of the necessary rise in food production. Plants—grains, cereals, fruits, vegetables, and more—feed humans directly and indirectly by supporting livestock. Current research must tap into our knowledge of how plants work to develop more efficient ...

From AGU's blogs: Health check reveals how glacier is declining due to warming climate http://blogs.agu.org/geospace/2014/10/13/health-check-reveals-glacier-declining-due-warming-climate/ Researchers from the British Geological Survey have taken the very first comprehensive health check of a rapidly melting glacier. Their latest study reveals that their icy patient, the Falljökull glacier in southeast Iceland, has been dramatically declining as it tries to adjust to recent changes in the climate. The new findings on Falljökull show unhealthy changes in the ...

URBANA, Ill. – For about a decade, Chinese consumers weren't getting what they paid for when they purchased Wuchang, a special brand of gourmet rice that has a peculiar scent. The quality was being diluted when less expensive rice was aromatized, added to the packages of the high-quality rice, and sold at the premium price. Researchers at the University of Illinois studied how the tampering scandal affected the public's perception of risk and their subsequent behavior. Because public anxiety over the fake rice issue was more pronounced in urban districts, the researchers ...

A Mount Sinai-led research team has discovered a new kind of stem cell that can become either a liver cell or a cell that lines liver blood vessels, according to a study published today in the journal Stem Cell Reports. The existence of such a cell type contradicts current theory on how organs arise from cell layers in the embryo, and may hold clues to origins of, and future treatment for, liver cancer. Thanks to stem cells, humans develop from a single cell into a complex being made up of more than 200 cell types. The original, single human stem cell, the fertilized embryo, ...

Montreal, October 14, 2014 – High doses of fish oil supplements, rich in omega-3 fatty acids, do not reduce atrial fibrillation, a common type of irregular heartbeat in which the heart can beat as fast as 150 beats a minute. The results of the AFFORD trial led by the Montreal Heart Institute were published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology on October 7th. For the trial, 337 patients with atrial fibrillation not receiving conventional antiarrhythmic therapy were randomly assigned to 4 grams of fish oil a day or to placebo for up to 16 months. 64.1 ...

Can you ditch the strips and dump the dentist for whiter teeth? From "The Dr. Oz Show" to YouTube videos, experts say you can reclaim those pearly whites simply by mixing fruit, such as strawberries, with some baking soda, and applying the all-natural concoction to your teeth. It's cheap, easy, and oh-so-organic. But does it work? Unfortunately not, says an University of Iowa dental researcher, who compared a homemade strawberry-baking soda recipe with other remedies, such as over-the-counter products, professional whitening, and prescribed whitening products. The ...

Almost exactly three years ago, the United Nations called on governments and industry to ensure that the world's population would have access to broadband Internet by 2015. Broadband, a relatively fast and always-on Internet connection service, is one of the most economically significant and fastest growing sectors of the Internet. "Over the past few years, a growing importance has been placed on broadband, and national plans have emerged to ensure coverage," said Fabian Bustamante, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Northwestern University's ...

Alexandria, Va. — Hawaii's Kilauea volcano is famously effusive: Low-viscosity lava has been oozing out of the main caldera and two active rift zones along the southern shore of the Big Island since 1983. But scientists suspect that Kilauea's eruptions haven't always been so mild. In the past 2,500 years, at least two cycles of explosive eruptions lasting several centuries each have rocked the island. The switch from effusive to explosive is likely to occur again, scientists say, but probably not anytime soon. Read more about what ash deposits left by previous eruptions ...

Responding to the large number of people with serious mental illnesses in the criminal justice system will require more than mental health services, according to a new report. In many ways, the criminal justice system is the largest provider of mental health services in the country. Estimates vary, but previous research has found that about 14 percent of persons in the criminal justice system have a serious mental illness, and that number is as high as 31 percent for female inmates. Researchers are defining serious mental illnesses to include such things as schizophrenia, ...

WORCESTER, MA – A team of scientists led by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) and the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine (UMMSM) have identified what is likely a key genetic pathway underlying bipolar (manic depressive) disorder, a breakthrough that could lead to better drugs for treating bipolar affective disorder, as well as depression and other related mood disorders. The new findings, published online this week in Nature Molecular Psychiatry, show that a rare genetic dwarfism called Ellis van-Creveld (EvC) syndrome ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – As more and more high schools around the country drop home economics classes due to budget cuts or changes in educational priorities, many high school students are left without basic skills, such as preparing meals and sewing. Now, researchers have found that a significant gap exists in the amount of "common" clothes repair skills possessed by members of the baby boomer generation and millennials. Pamela Norum, a professor in the Department of Textile and Apparel Management in the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences, found that many more of ...

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft has provided scientists their first look at a storm of energetic solar particles at Mars and produced unprecedented ultraviolet images of the tenuous oxygen, hydrogen and carbon coronas surrounding the Red Planet, said University of Colorado Boulder Professor Bruce Jakosky, the mission's principal investigator. In addition, the new observations allowed scientists to make a comprehensive map of highly variable ozone in the Martian atmosphere underlying the coronas, he said. The spacecraft entered Mars' orbit Sept. 21 and is in the process of lowering ...

HEIDELBERG, 14 October 2014 – Researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered a link between a protective mechanism used by cells and the activation of muscle stem cells. Cells use autophagy to recycle cellular "building blocks" and generate energy during times of nutrient deprivation. The scientists report in The EMBO Journal that when this protective mechanism is operational it also seems to assist in the activation of stem cells. "Our study reveals that when stem cells emerge from a quiescent state there is a rapid and dramatic change in ...

Humans have a focus on the short term. We are more interested in a potential benefit if we can get it now. The ability to delay gratification has been studied in children with the "marshmallow test": a child can have one treat now, or two if he or she can wait a few minutes without gobbling the first treat. Psychologists and economists have shown that similar trends can be observed and measured in many spheres of life. They call the tendency for the perceived value of a delayed benefit to diminish "delay discounting." Now researchers at Marcus Autism Center are studying ...

Cyclone Hudhud made landfall in east-central India on Oct. 12 and caused a lot of damage and several fatalities as it moved inland and weakened to a remnant low pressure area. NASA saw those remnants on Oct. 14. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Indochina, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument provided picture proof that the remnants of Typhoon Hudhud were still over India, Nepal, and China. Aqua passed over the region on Oct. 14 at 08:05 UTC (4:05 a.m. EDT). Infrared satellite imagery and multispectral satellite imagery indicated ...

On 3 October 2014, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) hosted a meeting with representatives of Rare Cancers Europe (RCE) to discuss RCE's recent publication of a consensus paper on the methodology of clinical trials in rare cancers (1). Rare Cancers Europe (RCE) is a multi stakeholder initiative promoted by ESMO (representing healthcare professionals, patients and industry) dedicated to putting rare cancers on the European political agenda. In their consensus document, RCE argue that a higher degree of uncertainty should be accepted for regulatory as well as clinically ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Neurons are electrically charged cells, located in the nervous system, that interpret and transmit information using electrical and chemical signals. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have determined that individual neurons can react differently to electrical signals at the molecular level and in different ways—even among neurons of the same type. This variability may be important in discovering underlying problems associated with brain disorders and neural diseases such as epilepsy. "Genetic mutations found in neurological disorders ...

Under the rule of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, thousands of Romanian children were placed in overcrowded orphanages with bleak conditions and minimal human contact. Even after the 1989 revolution, the legacy of institutionalization continued. Only recently has research and public concern over early childhood environments caused changes in policies. University of Washington research on children who began life in these institutions shows that early childhood neglect is associated with changes in brain structure. A paper published this month in Biological Psychiatry shows ...

LEBANON, NH – The foundation of evidence-based research has eroded and the trend must be reversed so patients and clinicians can make wise shared decisions about their health, say Dartmouth researchers in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Drs. Glyn Elwyn and Elliott Fisher of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice are authors of the report in which they highlight five major problems set against a backdrop of "obvious corruption." There is a dearth of transparent research and a low quality of evidence synthesis. ...

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden are testing a treatment for type 2 diabetes which targets the disease mechanism itself - and not just the symptoms. For the first time, knowledge about the individual patient's genetic risk profile is being used. The treatment completely restores the capacity to secrete insulin, which is impaired by the risk gene. "The concept of treatment personalised to the individual's risk profile has great potential. Our results show that it is possible to block the effects of a common risk gene for type 2 diabetes", says Anders Rosengren, ...

Scientists from the University of York have released a report highlighting the gap between declining wild fish supplies and healthy eating advice recommending more seafood. While the health benefits of eating fish have become better appreciated in recent years, many wild fish stocks continue to be overfished. In a study published in Marine Pollution Bulletin, Dr Ruth Thurstan, now a Research Fellow at the University of Queensland, and Professor Callum Roberts, Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of York, used historical fisheries data and population ...

The results of their research have been published as the cover story of the renowned medical journal Cancer Cell. Fatty liver disease – alongside fatty liver due to massive alcohol consumption – is mainly caused by excessive consumption of fat and sugar combined with a lack of exercise or a sedentary life style. This is referred to as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). If NAFLD becomes chronic – e.g. through the constant uptake of high lipids and high sugar combined with lack of excercise a chronic inflammatory response is triggered in the liver ...

This news release is available in German. FRANKFURT Parkinson's Disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder. In Germany alone, almost half a million people are affected. The focus of the disease is the progressive degeneration of dopamine-producing nerve cells in a certain region of the midbrain, the substantia nigra. Misfolded proteins are the cause. Until recently, it was unclear why damage is confined to specific nerve cells. A team or researchers led by Frankfurt neurophysiologists has now defined how this selective disease process begins using ...

From an early age, the lungs of individuals with cystic fibrosis (CF) are colonised and infected by bacteria, a common example being S. aureus. These bacterial infections cause the lungs to become inflamed, infected, and can eventually lead to permanent lung damage. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute previously showed that an enzyme called Sphingomyelin phosphodiesterase C (SMaseC) produced by the S. aureus bacterium may harm the health of CF patients. Now, they have discovered an inhibitor for this pathogenic bacterial ...