Seven articles dealing with the conservation of monarch butterflies were published on August 5 in Annals of the Entomological Society of America. Along with this collection, there is a new paper from American Entomologist on the conservation of Karner blue butterflies (Lycaeides melissa samuelis), an endangered species with a one-inch wingspan, which are the focus of a cutting-edge recovery program in Wisconsin that has become a model for other recovery plans for imperiled species. As AESA editor-in-chief Lawrence E. Hurd, Ph.D., said of the collection: "This group of ...

Chicago, August 5, 2015 - Patients undergoing surgery for lung cancer may wait too long to receive treatment, and too many patients skip vital diagnostic steps that are needed to help determine the best possible treatment, according to study published in the August 2015 issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. Key points: Patients who undergo surgery for lung cancer often wait too long to receive treatment, and too many patients skip vital diagnostic steps that are needed to help determine the best possible treatment; Only 1 in 10 patients had the recommended combination ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass--One big problem faced by electrodes in rechargeable batteries, as they go through repeated cycles of charging and discharging, is that they must expand and shrink during each cycle -- sometimes doubling in volume, and then shrinking back. This can lead to repeated shedding and reformation of its "skin" layer that consumes lithium irreversibly, degrading the battery's performance over time. Now a team of researchers at MIT and Tsinghua University in China has found a novel way around that problem: creating an electrode made of nanoparticles with a solid ...

Many patients with bipolar disorder, a debilitating mental condition that can take a person from the sluggishness of severe depression to super-human energy levels, are often misdiagnosed as having major depressive disorder, or MDD. But now as an alternative to reliance on patient interviews, scientists are closing in on an objective test that could help clinicians distinguish between the two -- and provide better treatment. Their method appears in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research. For many reasons, bipolar disorder is commonly mistaken for MDD. One reason is that the ...

People ignore daily alcohol guidelines as they are deemed irrelevant to occasional drinkers Findings show drinkers prefer Canadian and Australian guidelines Research may be used to inform new policies in the future The Government's current alcohol guidelines are unrealistic and largely ignored because they have little relevance to people's drinking habits, according to a new report by the University of Sheffield's Alcohol Research Group (SARG) in collaboration with the University of Stirling. The study, which is the first of its kind, explored how drinkers make ...

Scientists at the University of York have shed new light on how humans process colour - revealing that we see things differently in winter compared with summer. The researchers examined how our colour perception changes between seasons and in particular how we process the colour known as unique yellow. Humans identify four unique hues - blue, green, yellow and red - that do not appear to contain mixtures of other colours. Unique yellow is particularly interesting to scientists as it is stable across large populations - everyone agrees what unique yellow looks like despite ...

Study suggests planetary rings have a universal particle distribution Study solves 'amazing' mathematical inverse cubes law of particle size distribution In a breakthrough study, an international team of scientists, including Professor Nikolai Brilliantov from the University of Leicester, has solved an age-old scientific riddle by discovering that planetary rings, such as those orbiting Saturn, have a universally similar particle distribution. The study, which is published in the academic journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), also suggests ...

Large-scale anonymised datasets from mobile phones can give a better picture of society than ever before available. Mobile phone use helps us understand social networks, mobility and human behaviour. A review article recently published in EPJ Data Science highlights the main contributions in the field of mobile phone datasets analysis in the past 15 years. Vincent Blondel from the Université Catholique de Louvain, in Belgium, and colleagues conclude, among other things, that predictions that the world would shrink into a small village have not completely materialised ...

Counties in the United States with more beautiful weather and scenery have lower rates of membership and affiliation with religious organizations, according to a Baylor University study. "Beautiful weather, mountains and waterfronts can serve as conduits to the sacred, just like traditional religious congregations," said lead author Todd W. Ferguson, a doctoral candidate in sociology in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences. But the research is not necessarily a measure of whether enjoying the great outdoors tempts people away from going to a place of worship on a lovely ...

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY'S HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS--Stories about corrupt CEOs raiding the corporate piggy bank would appear to be the best argument for shareholder protection laws known as "anti-self-dealing laws." But there's another bonus. A new study finds in countries with strong legislation to prevent fraudulent corporate behavior, banking crises have a less severe impact on firms and the economy in general. The study, "How the stock market can play this critical role is the subject of "Spare Tire? Stock Markets, Banking Crises, and Economic Recoveries," ...

Researchers have identified a protein produced by white blood cells that puts the brakes on muscle repair after injury. By removing the protein CD163 from mice, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine could boost muscle repair and recovery of blood flow after ischemic injury (damage caused by restriction of blood flow). The findings point to a target for potential treatments aimed at enhancing muscle regeneration. Muscle breakdown occurs in response to injury or inactivity -- during immobilization in a cast, for example -- and in several diseases such as diabetes ...

This news release is available in Portuguese and Spanish. A recently published special issue of the Journal of Heredity focuses on case studies of real-world applications of conservation genetics in Latin America, from nabbing parrot smugglers to exposing fraudulent fish sales. The discipline of conservation genetics - the use of genetic techniques to further goals of conserving and restoring biodiversity - has been growing for at least four decades. But only relatively recently have genetic techniques been used not just to understand conservation problems, ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (August 5, 2015) -- Women may now have yet another reason to quit smoking given the results of a new study that is being reported online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS). The Swedish study involving 25,474 women is the first to quantify the combined effects of smoking and age at menopause on overall mortality in terms of survival time by investigating the role of smoking as a possible effect modifier. A harmful association between younger age at menopause and overall mortality has already been documented. In ...

A new review highlights how an integrated pest management approach that utilizes a combination of chemical and nonchemical control options is the best strategy for getting rid of bed bug infestations; however, pest management professionals that are hired on a lowest bid basis are not likely to use such an approach. Efforts in multi-family settings are especially dependent on a collaborative community or building-wide effort involving residents, building staff, and pest control technicians. The review notes that to prevent reinfestation and reduce costs associated ...

Music is currently played in approximately 50% to 70% of surgical operations performed worldwide. In a new study of 20 operations conducted in the UK, repeated requests--for example, for a surgical instrument--were 5 times more likely to occur in surgeries with music than in those without. The findings suggest that music during surgery can lead to increased tensions due to frustration at ineffective communication. In addition, patient safety could potentially be affected due to miscommunication. "Our study shows that playing music in the operating theatre can run counter ...

SALT LAKE CITY - The BIG LoVE (Utah Better Identification of Germs-Longitudinal Viral Epidemiology) study, led by scientists at the University of Utah School of Medicine, finds that each bundle of joy puts the entire household at increased risk for infection with viruses that cause colds, flu, and other respiratory illnesses. People living in childless households were infected with viruses on average 3-4 weeks during the year. In households with one child, that number jumped to 18 weeks, and for those with six children, there was virus in the household for up to 45 weeks ...

The UK government's current alcohol guidelines are unrealistic and largely ignored because they have little relevance to people's drinking habits, according to a new report by the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group (SARG) in collaboration with the University of Stirling. The study, the first of its kind, explored how drinkers make sense of the current UK drinking guidelines which suggest men should not regularly exceed 3-4 units of alcohol per day, and women, 2-3 units daily. Leading researchers from the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies conducted focus groups ...

Researchers from the University of Surrey and Lund University (Sweden) investigated how frequent, long-distance travel is represented in mass and social media. They found that the images portrayed do not take into account the damaging side effects of frequent travel such as jet-lag, deep vein thrombosis, radiation exposure, stress, loneliness and distance from community and family networks. Instead, the study found that those with 'hypermobile' lifestyles were often seen as having a higher social status. By assessing how first-class flights, 'must-see' destinations and ...

Many mammals, including seals and rats, rely on their whiskers to sense their way through dark environments. Inspired by these animals, scientists working at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Illinois' Advanced Digital Sciences Centre in Singapore have developed a robotic 'whisker' tactile sensor array designed to produce tomographic images by measuring fluid flow. The results are published today (Wednesday 05 August) in the journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics. "When it is dark, whiskers play a key role for animals in exploring, hunting or even just ...

Cancer survival in England remains lower than countries with similar healthcare systems, according to a new Cancer Research UK funded study published in the British Journal of Cancer today. Cancer survival in England has steadily improved but the gap in survival remains. The research, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, compared survival for colon, breast, lung, ovarian, rectal and stomach cancers in England, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden between 1995 and 2009, and survival trends in England up to 2012*. It included more than 1.9 million ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Despite their beauty, flowers can pose a grave danger to bees by providing a platform of parasites to visiting bees, a team of researchers has determined. "Flowers are hotspots for parasite spread between and within pollinator populations," said Peter Graystock, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Entomology at the University of California, Riverside and a member of the research team. "Both the flower and bee species play a role in how likely parasite dispersal will occur." The study, published online in the Proceedings of the Royal Society ...

The price fluctuation of fine wines can now be predicted more accurately using a novel artificial intelligence approach developed by researchers at UCL. The method could be used to help fine wine investors make more informed decisions about their portfolios and encourage non-wine investors to start looking at wine in this manner and hence increase the net trade of wine. It is expected that similar techniques will be used in other 'alternative assets' such as classic cars. Co-author, Dr Tristan Fletcher, an academic at UCL and founder of quantitative wine asset management ...

This is an observational study so no definitive conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect, but the authors call for more research that may "lead to updated dietary recommendations and development of functional foods." Previous research has suggested that beneficial effects of spices and their bioactive ingredient, capsaicin, include anti-obesity, antioxidant, anti-inflammation and anticancer properties. So an international team led by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences examined the association between consumption of spicy foods as part of ...

In the beginning there were four "fundamental" elements besides Hydrogen- not Earth, Air, Fire, or Water, but rather Helium 3, Helium 4, Deuterium and Lithium-7, four "light" isotopes produced by primordial nucleosynthesis (during the Big Bang). The four elements remain, but the calculations simply do not add up. The "metal-poor" stars are celestial bodies composed of mainly primitive material. Based on the Standard Cosmological Model - the most accepted theory today to explain the universe - scientists have calculated how much Li7 should be in them, but the measurements ...

The permanence of memories has long thought to be mediated solely by the production of new proteins. However, new research from the University of Alberta has shown that the electrical activity of the brain may be a more primary factor in memory solidification. "It's not just protein synthesis, long the dominant biological model, but also 'offline' memory rehearsal in the brain that leads to memory solidification," says Clayton Dickson, psychology professor at the University of Alberta and one of the authors of the new study. "Although the protein synthesis idea is entrenched ...