KNOXVILLE—More than one hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Darwin hypothesized that species could cross oceans and other vast distances on vegetation rafts, icebergs, or in the case of plant seeds, in the plumage of birds. Though many were skeptical of Darwin's "jump dispersal" idea, a new study suggests that Darwin might have been correct. A new computational method, published in the journal Systematic Biology, tested two competing theories about how species came to live where they do and found strong evidence for jump dispersal, especially for island species. The ...

WASHINGTON—Researchers plan and plot every considerable aspect of their work, but sometimes it's something unexpected and seemingly insignificant that leads to the real discovery. That was the case for Scott Powell, assistant professor of biology at the George Washington University. While conducting field research on turtle ants in the savannah region of Brazil, Dr. Powell noticed something peculiar: a species of ant infiltrating the region of a host ant, Crematogaster ampla. The C. ampla is known for its hyper-aggressiveness, but did not attack the invading species, ...

ORANGE, Calif. – Researchers in Chapman University's Food Science Program have just published a study on pet food mislabeling. The study focused on commercial pet foods marketed for dogs and cats to identify meat species present as well as any instances of mislabeling. Of the 52 products tested, 31 were labeled correctly, 20 were potentially mislabeled, and one contained a non-specific meat ingredient that could not be verified. "Although regulations exist for pet foods, increases in international trade and globalization of the food supply have amplified the potential ...

A comparison of prophylactic antibiotic regimens applied to an area in the mouth and throat and digestive tract were associated with low levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and no differences in patient survival and intensive care unit (ICU) length of stay, according to a study published in JAMA. The study is being posted early online to coincide with its presentation at the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine annual congress. Reductions in the incidence of ICU-acquired respiratory tract infections have been achieved by some antibiotic regimens, such as selective ...

Scientists have discovered a new form of non-genetic inheritance, showing for the first time that offspring can resemble a mother's previous sexual partner – in flies at least. This confronting idea, known as telegony, dates back to ancient Greek times, but was discredited in the early 20th Century with the advent of genetics. To test it out, UNSW Australia scientists Dr Angela Crean, Professor Russell Bonduriansky and Dr Anna Kopps manipulated the size of male flies and studied their offspring. They found that the size of the young was determined by the size of the ...

BOSTON (October 1, 2014) — Despite a policy focus on expanding access to care for adults with developmental disabilities, this vulnerable population continues to have significant dental disease. In this month's issue of The Journal of the American Dental Association, researchers from Tufts University School of Medicine and Tufts University School of Dental Medicine report on the first large-scale survey to investigate factors influencing at-home oral care provided by caregivers to adults with developmental disabilities. The study findings suggest that, in addition to addressing ...

New research suggests the adage that encourages people to keep their "eyes on the prize" may be on target when it comes to exercise. When walking, staying focused on a specific target ahead can make the distance to it appear shorter and help people walk there faster, psychology researchers have found. Their study, which compares this technique to walking while looking around the environment naturally, offers a new strategy to improve the quality of exercise. "People are less interested in exercise if physical activity seems daunting, which can happen when distances to ...

A new study from North Carolina State University sheds light on how some collegiate student-athletes deal with uncertainties ranging from excelling in both school and sports to their career prospects outside of athletics, and urges university athletic programs to adopt new efforts to support student-athletes. "We wanted to explore how student-athletes at top-tier universities cope with the dual challenges of meeting the expectations of their teams while simultaneously complying with their responsibilities as university students," says Dr. Lynsey Romo, an assistant professor ...

Having the possibility to measure magnetic properties of materials at atomic precision is one of the important goals of today's experimental physics. Such measurement technique would give engineers and physicists an ultimate handle over magnetic properties of nano-structures for future applications. In an article published in Physical Review Letters researchers propose a new method, utilizing properties of the quantum world – the phase of the electron beam – to detect magnetism with atom-by-atom precision. The electron microscope is a fascinating instrument. It uses a ...

Graphene quantum dots created at Rice University grab onto graphene platelets like barnacles attach themselves to the hull of a boat. But these dots enhance the properties of the mothership, making them better than platinum catalysts for certain reactions within fuel cells. The Rice lab of chemist James Tour created dots known as GQDs from coal last year and have now combined these nanoscale dots with microscopic sheets of graphene, the one-atom-thick form of carbon, to create a hybrid that could greatly cut the cost of generating energy with fuel cells. The research ...

Psychiatry researchers from the University of Adelaide have developed a model that could help to predict a patient's likelihood of a good outcome from treatment - from their very first psychotic episode. The model is based on a range of factors, including clinical symptoms, cognitive abilities, MRI scans of the brain's structure, and biomarkers in the patient's blood. Speaking in the lead up to World Mental Health Day (10 October), the University's Head of Psychiatry, Professor Bernhard Baune, says the model is a revolutionary idea for psychiatric care, and is aimed ...

Cyberbullying and hurtful 'fat jokes' are disturbingly prevalent in the social media environment, especially on Twitter, says Wen-ying Sylvia Chou of the National Institutes of Health in the US. Chou is lead author of a study in Springer's journal Translational Behavioral Medicine which analyzed well over a million social media posts and comments about weight matters. However, the researchers were also happy to find that the news was not all bad: many instances of support and advice were also observed, especially on blogs and forums. The study is one of the first to analyze ...

Emissions produced by human activity have caused annual monsoon rainfall to decline over the past 50 years, a study suggests. In the second half of the 20th century, the levels of rain recorded during the Northern Hemisphere's summer monsoon fell by as much as 10 per cent, researchers say. Changes to global rainfall patterns can have serious consequences for human health and agriculture. Scientists found that emissions of tiny air particles from man-made sources – known as anthropogenic aerosols – were the cause. High levels of aerosols in the atmosphere cause heat ...

Messier 11 is an open cluster, sometimes referred to as a galactic cluster, located around 6000 light-years away in the constellation of Scutum (The Shield). It was first discovered by German astronomer Gottfried Kirch in 1681 at the Berlin Observatory, appearing as nothing more than a fuzzy blob through the telescope. It wasn't until 1733 that the blob was first resolved into separate stars by the Reverend William Derham in England, and Charles Messier added it to his famous catalogue in 1764. Messier was a comet hunter and the catalogue came into being as he was frustrated ...

DURHAM, N.C. – A new genetic finding from Duke Medicine suggests that some people who are prone to hostility, anxiety and depression might also be hard-wired to gain weight when exposed to chronic stress, leading to diabetes and heart disease. An estimated 13 percent of people, all of whom are Caucasian, might carry the genetic susceptibility, and knowing this could help them reduce heart disease with simple interventions such as a healthy diet, exercise and stress management. "Genetic susceptibility, psychosocial stress and metabolic factors act in combination to increase ...

Today in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, at the occasion of the Leishmaniasis East Africa Platform meeting, which has gathered some 150 African and international leishmaniasis experts, results of a pharmacovigilance – or large-scale treatment safety and efficacy monitoring – plan, carried out by MSF, DNDi, and national partners in Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, and Ethiopia, were presented to key decision makers in order to boost patient access to treatment of kala-azar with the combination of Sodium Stibogluconate and Paromomycin (SSG&PM) in the region. In this large cohort of patients, treated ...

TORONTO, Oct. 1, 2014 – Long-acting insulin is safer and more effective than intermediate-acting insulin for patients with Type 1 diabetes, according to new research published in the BMJ. Researchers looked at once-daily and twice-daily doses of both long- and intermediate-acting insulin, ranking their effectiveness, safety and cost-effectiveness. "In patients with Type 1 diabetes, we found that long-acting insulin is superior to intermediate-acting insulin when it came to controlling blood sugar, preventing weight gain and treating severe hypoglycemia," said Dr. ...

Thermal considerations are rapidly becoming one of the most serious design constraints in microelectronics, especially on submicron scale lengths. A study by researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has shown that standard thermal models will lead to the wrong answer in a three-dimensional heat-transfer problem if the dimensions of the heating element are on the order of one micron or smaller. "As materials shrink, the rules governing heat transfer change as well," explained David Cahill, a professor of materials science and engineering at Illinois. ...

Soil microbes that thrive in the deserts, rainforests, prairies and forests of the world can also be found living beneath New York City's Central Park, according to a surprising new study led by Colorado State University and the University of Colorado Boulder. The research team analyzed 596 soil samples collected from across Central Park's 843 acres and discovered a stunning diversity of below-ground life, most of which had never been documented before. Only 8.5 percent to 16.2 percent of the organisms discovered in the park soils, depending on their type, had been ...

WASHINGTON, DC, September 29, 2014 — Non-Americans in the U.S. federal court system are more likely to be sentenced to prison and for longer terms compared to U.S. citizens, according to a new study. "Much of the discussion in this area has centered around deportation, but increasing numbers of immigrants are being brought before criminal courts, and little is known about how they are treated once they are in the criminal justice system," said Michael T. Light, an assistant professor of sociology at Purdue University and the lead author of the study. "This is a major ...

Treating cancers with immunotherapy and radiotherapy at the same time could stop them from becoming resistant to treatment, according to a study published in Cancer Research* today (Wednesday). The researchers, based at The University of Manchester and funded by MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, and Cancer Research UK, found that combining the two treatments helped the immune system hunt down and destroy cancer cells that weren't killed by the initial radiotherapy in mice with breast, skin and bowel cancers. Radiotherapy ...

Australia needs to be proactive about potential disease outbreaks like Ebola and establish a national centre for disease control. In an Editorial in the October issue of Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, Allen Cheng from Monash University and Heath Kelly from the Australian National University question Australia's preparation for public health crises. "Australia would do well to heed the lessons learned in other countries and be proactive in co-ordinating a consistent and outward looking response," the authors said. "Australia needs a national disease ...

A drug which targets a key gene fault could halt an aggressive womb cancer and shrink tumours, according to research published in the British Journal of Cancer*. The scientists, from the Division of Gynaecologic Oncology at Yale School of Medicine funded by the National Institutes of Health, showed that the drug afatinib not only killed off uterine serous cancer cells after stopping their growth but also caused tumours to shrink. The drug, a type of personalised medicine, attacks faults in the HER2 gene which lie at the heart of the cancer cells. This stops the disease ...

People around the world are living longer, but social policies to support their wellbeing in later life are lagging behind in many countries. This is according a new report by HelpAge International, developed in partnership with the University of Southampton. More than a third of countries are falling significantly behind those at the top of the Global AgeWatch Index. It ranks 96 nations on the basis of the quality of life and social and economic wellbeing of older people (over 60s). The Index can also help governments to identify policies and institutional contexts that ...

Nearly one third of medical and nursing students in developing countries may have no intention of working in their own countries after graduation, while less than one fifth of them intend to work in rural areas where they are needed most, according to a new study. Health workforce shortages have been a major factor driving the current outbreak of Ebola in western Africa. The disease initially spread rapidly in rural parts of three of the world's poorest countries (Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia), where health workers are scarcest. The study, which was published in ...