The world is facing an extinction crisis as more and more forests are converted into farmland. But does it help when farms share the land with birds and other animals? The short answer is "no," according to new evidence based on the diversity of bird species reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on September 3. If the goal is to preserve more bird species, representing a greater span of evolutionary history, then it's better to farm more intensively in some areas while leaving more blocks of land entirely alone. In other words, land-sparing wins out over ...

High levels of saturated fat in the blood could make an individual more prone to inflammation and tissue damage, a new study suggests. Received wisdom on the health risks of eating saturated fat has been called into question recently. This new research supports the view that excessive consumption of saturated fat can be bad for us. Scientists from Imperial College London studied mice that have an unusually high level of saturated fat circulating in their blood. The research, published today (3 September 2015) in Cell Reports shows that the presence of saturated fats ...

Giving cancer patients aspirin at the same time as immunotherapy could dramatically boost the effectiveness of the treatment, according to new research published in the journal Cell today (Thursday). Francis Crick Institute researchers, funded by Cancer Research UK, have shown that skin, breast and bowel cancer cells often produce large amounts of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2). This molecule dampens down the immune system's normal response to attack faulty cells, which helps cancer to hide. It is a trick that allows the tumour to thrive and may explain why some immunotherapy ...

LAWRENCE - Men might want to ditch the pickup lines and polish their punchlines in their quest to attract women, new research at the University of Kansas suggests. Jeffrey Hall, associate professor of communication studies, found that when two strangers meet, the more times a man tries to be funny and the more a woman laughs at those attempts, the more likely it is for the woman to be interested in dating. However, an even better indicator of romantic connection is if the two are spotted laughing together. Those findings were among the discoveries Hall made in his search ...

Coral Gables, Fla. (September 1, 2015) - Cognitive flexibility is the ability to shift our thoughts and adapt our behavior to the changing environment. In other words, it's one's ability to disengage from a previous task and respond effectively to a new one. It's a faculty that most of us take for granted, yet an essential skill to navigate life. In a new paper published in the journal Trends in Neurosciences, University of Miami (UM) College of Arts & Sciences researchers clarify many of the concepts surrounding cognitive flexibility and propose a model of its underlying ...

Researchers involved in an international collaboration across six institutions, including the University of Copenhagen and the National Aquarium of Denmark (Den Blå Planet), have successfully identified the exact composition of sea snake venom, which makes the future development of synthetic antivenoms more realistic. Currently, sea snake anitvenom costs nearly USD 2000, yet these new findings could result in a future production of synthetic antivenoms for as little as USD 10-100. Venomous snakebites represent a major health concern in many tropical and subtropical ...

Sea level rise poses one of the biggest threats to human systems in a globally warming world, potentially causing trillions of dollars' worth of damages to flooded cities around the world. As surface temperatures rise, ice sheets are melting at record rates and sea levels are rising. But there may be some good news amid the worry. Sea levels may not rise as high as assumed. To predict sea level changes, scientists look to Earth's distant past, when climate conditions were similar to today, and investigate how the planet's ice sheets responded then to warmer temperatures ...

High blood sugar is a defining characteristic of Type 2 diabetes and the cause of many of the condition's complications, including kidney failure, heart disease, and blindness. Most diabetes medications aim to maintain normal blood sugar (glucose) levels and prevent high blood sugar by controlling insulin. A new University of Iowa study shows that another biological checkpoint, known as the Mitochondrial Pyruvate Carrier (MPC), is critical for controlling glucose production in the liver and could potentially be a new target for drugs to treat diabetes. The study, led ...

LAWRENCE -- Researchers at the University of Kansas working with an international team at the Large Hadron Collider have produced quark-gluon plasma -- a state of matter thought to have existed right at the birth of the universe -- with fewer particles than previously thought possible. The material was discovered by colliding protons with lead nuclei at high energy inside the supercollider's Compact Muon Solenoid detector. Physicists have dubbed the resulting plasma the "littlest liquid." "Before the CMS experimental results, it had been thought the medium created in ...

DARIEN, IL - A new study shows that high school students lose sleep on school nights following the change to daylight saving time that occurs in March. The loss of sleep during the school week was associated with a decline in vigilance and cognitive function, which raises safety concerns for teen drivers. Results show that the average objectively measured sleep duration on the weeknights after the spring time change declined to 7 hours, 19 minutes, which reflects a mean loss of 32 minutes per night compared with the school week prior to the implementation of daylight ...

MADISON, Wis. - Orchids, a fantastically complicated and diverse group of flowering plants, have long blended the exotic with the beautiful. Most species live on trees, often in remote, tropical mountains. Their flowers can be strange -- one even flowers underground, and many species deceive their pollinators into thinking they are good to eat. Some are florist's staples, like phalaenopsis, the hot-pink and white flower that is easy to grow and easier to sell. Beyond the "job" of looking beautiful, only the vanilla orchids have any commercial role. The estimated ...

Repeated exposure to anesthesia early in life causes alterations in emotional behavior that may persist long-term, according to a study from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in collaboration with the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, and published in the Online First edition of Anesthesiology, the official medical journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists®. Each year, approximately one million children under the age of four undergo surgery with general anesthesia, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Retrospective ...

A study that used stored blood samples from U.S. Air Force personnel who conducted aerial herbicide spray missions of Agent Orange during the Vietnam war found a more than 2-fold increased risk of the precursor to multiple myeloma known as monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS), according to an article published online by JAMA Oncology. While the cause of MGUS and multiple myeloma (plasma cell cancer) remains largely unclear, studies have reported an elevated risk of multiple myeloma among farmers and other agricultural workers and pesticides have ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The technology behind 3-D printing is growing more and more common, but the ability to create designs for it is not. Any but the simplest designs require expertise with computer-aided design (CAD) applications, and even for the experts, the design process is immensely time consuming. Researchers at MIT and the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel aim to change that, with a new system that automatically turns CAD files into visual models that users can modify in real time, simply by moving virtual sliders on a Web page. Once the design meets ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (September 3, 2015) - In the breast, cancer stem cells and normal stem cells can arise from different cell types but tap into distinct yet related stem cell programs, according to Whitehead Institute researchers. The differences between these stem cell programs may be significant enough to be exploited by future therapeutics. Deadly tumor-initiating cells seed metastases throughout the body and cause relapses in patients. Whether these tumor-initiating cells can also be referred to as stem cells, specifically, cancer stem cells, has been up for debate. ...

A brief series of classes to help first-time parents better support each other through the often stressful transition to parenthood has a positive effect on birth outcomes as well, according to health researchers. A decade ago Mark Feinberg, research professor at the Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center for the Promotion of Human Development, Penn State, developed Family Foundations, a series of classes for expectant parents. In two research trials, the program was shown to improve the way parents support each other -- to reduce parental stress, depression and anxiety; ...

AUSTIN, Texas -- Evidence from the tropical lowlands of Central America reveals how Maya activity more than 2,000 years ago not only contributed to the decline of their environment but continues to influence today's environmental conditions, according to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. Synthesizing old and new data, researchers were the first to show the full extent of the "Mayacene" as a microcosm of the early anthropocene -- a period when human activity began greatly affecting environmental conditions. "Most popular sources talk about the anthropocene ...

In some patients, aggressive cancers can become resistant to chemotherapy and radiation treatments. In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine researchers identified a pathway that causes the resistance and a new therapeutic drug that targets this pathway. "It was previously known that RAF (a family of proteins that regulate cellular signaling) governs resistance to therapies. We discovered an undescribed role for RAF and learned precisely how it occurs in a broad range of cancers," said lead author ...

PHILADELPHIA -- Acupuncture may be a viable treatment for women experiencing hot flashes as a result of estrogen-targeting therapies to treat breast cancer, according to a new study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Hot flashes are particularly severe and frequent in breast cancer survivors, but current FDA-approved remedies for these unpleasant episodes, such as hormone replacement therapies are off-limits to breast cancer survivors because they include estrogen. The results of the study are published this week in the ...

Montreal, September 3, 2015 -- Sleep matters for kids, especially when they are stressed. A new study led by researchers Jinshia Ly, Jennifer J. McGrath and Jean-Philippe Gouin from Concordia University's Centre for Clinical Research in Health and the PERFORM Centre shows that poor sleep might explain how stress impacts health in kids. A good night's sleep Getting a good night's sleep might buffer the impact of stress on kids' cortisol level, which is a hormone produced in the adrenal gland to regulate the body's cardiovascular, metabolic and immune systems. While short-term ...

Cool. Calm. And oh, so calculated. That's how a chimpanzee living in the Royal Burgers' Zoo in the Netherlands set out to swat an aerial drone that was filming her group. In an article in the journal Primates published by Springer, Jan van Hooff and Bas Lukkenaar explain it as yet another example of chimpanzees' make-do attitude to using whatever is on hand as tools. The incident happened earlier this year, on 10 April, when a Dutch television crew was filming at the zoo in Arnhem. The idea was to use a drone to film the chimpanzees in their compound from different close-up ...

Amsterdam, September 3, 2015 - 3D imaging of a mummified kestrel that died due to forced overeating provides evidence that the ancient Egyptians bred birds of prey as offerings for the gods, according to a new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. The digital CT imaging revealed that the kestrel was force-fed its last meal - a mouse - suggesting it was kept in captivity. This is the first evidence to point to mass breeding of raptors as offerings to gods. The researchers behind the study, from the American University in Cairo, Stellenbosch University ...

Amsterdam, September 3, 2015 - Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, has announced that its Reviewer Recognition platform has launched a new functionality which enables reviewers to list their entire review history, including their reviews for non-Elsevier journals, in one place online. It also allows them to share their Reviewer Page publically - increasing visibility and recognition of their work. Through the Reviewer Recognition platform, Elsevier reviewers already have access to a personal review ...

A 260-million-year-old fossil species found in South Africa's Karoo Basin continues to provide information into the murky origins of turtles whose evolution fascinates scientists. The fossil of an extinct reptile, named Eunotosaurus africanus, is the earliest known branch of the turtle tree of life. "Eunotosaurus is a critical link connecting modern turtles to their evolutionary past," says Dr Gaberiel Bever an Honorary Research Associate at Wits University's Evolutionary Studies Institute (ESI) and scientist at the New York Institute of Technology. Previous studies ...

UK fisheries survey logbooks from the 1930s to 1950s have been digitised for the first time, revealing how cod responded to changing temperatures in the last century. Scientists at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) and the University of Exeter found that at the time, the warm seas experienced around Norway benefitted the cod, similar to the conditions there today. Most cod eaten by the UK comes from northern seas including the Barents Sea around Norway, because the stocks there at the moment are at record highs. Cod stocks were also ...