When past temperatures were similar to or slightly higher than the present global average, sea levels rose at least 20 feet, suggesting a similar outcome could be in store if current climate trends continue. Findings published in the journal Science showed that the seas rose in response to melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, said lead author Andrea Dutton, a University of Florida geochemist. "This evidence leads us to conclude that the polar ice sheets are out of equilibrium with the present climate," she said. Dutton and an international team of scientists ...

Philadelphia, PA, July 9, 2015 - Researchers at Virginia Tech have developed a new scoring method for assessing beverage intake, the Healthy Beverage Index (HBI). In a report published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics they describe how this tool can be used to more accurately evaluate dietary consumption of all types of fluids. They found that higher HBI scores were associated with more favorable lipid profiles, decreased risk of hypertension; and, among men, better C-reactive protein (CRP) levels. Water consumption is associated with numerous ...

Natural environments are known to promote physical, mental, and spiritual healing. People can attain health benefits by spending time outside, often in remote places to "get away from it all." Now research conducted by a University of Minnesota graduate student with a team in Vancouver, B.C., shows that green and "blue" spaces (environments with running or still water) are especially beneficial for healthy aging in seniors. Published in the journal Health and Place, the study -Therapeutic landscapes and wellbeing in later life: Impacts of blue and green spaces for older ...

Two of NASA's heliophysics missions can now claim planetary science on their list of scientific findings. A group of scientists used the Venus transit - a very rare event where a planet passes between Earth and the sun, appearing to us as a dark dot steadily making its way across the sun's bright face - to make measurements of how the Venusian atmosphere absorbs different kinds of light. This, in turn, gives scientists clues to exactly what elements are layered above Venus's surface. Gathering such information not only teaches us more about this planet so close to our own, ...

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Supertyphoon Nangka on July 9 and provided a visible and an infrared view of the large storm. At 0700 UTC (3 a.m. EDT) on July 9 a typhoon warning was in effect for Agrihan, Pagan and Alamagan in the northern Marianas. A tropical storm warning is in effect for Saipan and Tinian. Nangka passed over Alamagan. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite gathered infrared temperature data on Nangka on July 9 at 03:23 UTC (July 8 at 11:23 a.m. EDT). At the same time, the MODIS instrument took a visible ...

Studying the gastric cancers of 15 Southeast Asian patients, researchers at The Jackson Laboratory, the Genome Institute of Singapore and other institutions identified five recurrent fusion genes, one of which appears to lead to cellular changes involved in acute gastritis and cancer. Worldwide, close to a million cases of gastric cancers are diagnosed each year, and some of the world's highest incidence rates are in Asia (particularly in Korea, Japan and China). The researchers, led by JAX Professor Yijun Ruan, Ph.D., and Axel M. Hillmer, Ph.D., of GIS, published ...

LOS ANGELES (July 9, 2015) - After generating new brain tumor models, Cedars-Sinai scientists in the Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute identified the role of a family of genes underlying tumor growth in a wide spectrum of high grade brain tumors. "With these new genetic findings, our group of researchers plan to develop targeted therapeutics that we hope will one day be used treat patients with high grade brain tumors and increase their survival," said Joshua Breunig, PhD, a research scientist in the Brain Program at the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors ...

Tropical Storm Ela was born in the western-most part of the Eastern Pacific Ocean but has become the Central Pacific's first named storm. NASA's Aqua satellite took a look at the storm that's already battling wind shear to survive. After developing as a depression on July 8, Tropical Depression 4E crossed over the 140 degree West longitude line that separates the Eastern Pacific from the Central Pacific Ocean region. The depression strengthened into a tropical storm early on July 9, taking a name from the Eastern Pacific tropical cyclone list and being renamed Ela. When ...

Traumatic spinal cord injuries are increasing with the population, and incidence is higher in older individuals, according to a Vanderbilt study that was published in the June 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study, which analyzed data from 63,109 patients with acute traumatic spinal cord injury from 1993 to 2012, will help target specific populations for preventive measures, said lead author Nitin B. Jain, M.D., M.S.P.H, associate professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. "We find that spinal cord injury as a result of falls is ...

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (7/9/2015) -- Draining tropical peatlands for oil palm plantations may result in nearly twice as much carbon loss as official estimates, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment and the Union of Concerned Scientists in the journal Environmental Research Letters. Peatlands -- waterlogged, organic soils -- have developed over thousands of years as carbon storage systems. In Southeast Asia, peat swamp forests cover about 250,000 square kilometers, a land area about the size of Michigan. In ...

Scientists at the University of East Anglia in collaboration with the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona have found a way to separate the medical benefits of cannabis from its unwanted side effects. The research comes from the team that discovered how the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, known as THC, reduces tumour growth in cancer patients. Their latest findings, published today in the journal PLOS Biology, reveal how the cognitive effects of THC are triggered by a pathway which is separate from some of its other effects. That pathway involves both a ...

Neutralizing antibodies (Nabs) are immune proteins that recognize, bind to, and trigger the elimination of virus before it can establish a chronic infection. How to elicit a potent Nab response capable of protecting against different HIV subtypes and against different modes of infection is critical to the development of an AIDS vaccine. Two studies published on July 9th in PLOS Pathogens provide results on Nabs that could help guide vaccine design. One shows what type of Nab "repertoire" can be generated following superinfection, and the second one examines the efficacy ...

SALT LAKE CITY, July 9, 2015 - More than a quarter of the rain and snow that falls on continents reaches the oceans as runoff. Now a new study helps show where the rest goes: two-thirds of the remaining water is released by plants, more than a quarter lands on leaves and evaporates and what's left evaporates from soil and from lakes, rivers and streams. "The question is, when rain falls on the landscape, where does it go?" says University of Utah geochemist Gabe Bowen, senior author of the study published today in the journal Science. "The water on the continents sustains ...

Global warming is putting the squeeze on bumblebees. In the most comprehensive study ever conducted of the impacts of climate change on critical pollinators, scientists have discovered that global warming is rapidly shrinking the area where these bees are found in both North America and Europe. Researchers examined more than 420,000 historical and current records of many species of bumblebees--and confirm that bumblebees are in steep decline at a continental scale because of climate change. The new research is reported in the journal Science. ECONOMIC THREATS This ...

The discovery of a fiber-reinforced, concrete-like rock formed in the depths of a dormant supervolcano could help explain the unusual ground swelling that led to the evacuation of an Italian port city and inspire durable building materials in the future, Stanford scientists say. The "natural concrete" at the Campi Flegrei volcano is similar to Roman concrete, a legendary compound invented by the Romans and used to construct the Pantheon, the Coliseum, and ancient shipping ports throughout the Mediterranean. "This implies the existence of a natural process in the subsurface ...

Researchers from the University of Calgary and University of Ottawa have made an astonishing find when it comes to the habitat range of bumble bees, and the results are troubling. Findings to be published in the Journal Science, demonstrate that climate change is having a significant impact on bumblebee species in North America and Europe. Bumblebees are losing vital habitat in the southern regions of North America and Europe, which is cause for concern but another pressing issue is that bumblebee species generally haven't expanded north," explains Paul Galpern, Assistant ...

TORONTO, July 9, 2015 - Bumblebees are rapidly declining in both North America and Europe, and a new study points to climate change as the major factor. The study, a comprehensive analysis of how climate change impacts these critical pollinators, was published in Science today. The research shows that bumblebees are losing large amounts of the southern portion of their ranges, but unlike other species which are compensating by moving further north as the climate warms, bumblebees are not heading north. Their range areas are compressing with rapid warming and this is causing ...

This news release is available in Japanese. A suite of energy-saving traits, including underactive thyroid glands, allows giant panda bears to survive almost exclusively on bamboo, according to a new study. Yonggang Nie and colleagues report the first measurements of daily energy expenditure (DEE) in these bears, which do not have stomachs designed for such low-nutrient, high-cellulose plants. The researchers studied five captive pandas and three wild ones, discovering that the animal's DEE was just about 38% of the average for a terrestrial mammal with ...

This news release is available in Japanese. How does the Campi Flegrei caldera, or subsurface rock, near Naples, Italy, withstand more uplift than other calderas without erupting? A new study shows that the caprock underlying this particular caldera closely resembles ancient Roman concrete -- and that the rock's microstructures, characterized by intertwining fibrous minerals, lead to its exceptionally high strength. The findings help to explain how the caldera has been able to withstand tremendous deformation, such as the large uplift episode that began in 1982 and raised ...

This news release is available in Japanese. While the geographic ranges of many animals are expanding northward in response to climate change, those of North American and European bumblebee species are shrinking, a new study shows. These insects are failing to migrate northward, the study reveals, and in their southern territories, their ranges are compressing -- with range losses up to 300 kilometers in both North America and Europe. The findings reveal the vulnerability of these pollinators, which play key roles in agriculture, to a warming world, hinting that they ...

This news release is available in Japanese. Researchers have designed a more efficient jumping robot with three-dimensional (3D) printing techniques and a combination of hard and soft materials. Inspired by designs in nature, such as snakes or insect larvae, soft-bodied robots are safer, more adaptable, and more resilient than their traditionally rigid counterparts, but molding and powering them has proved challenging. Now, Nicholas Bartlett and colleagues report a technique for designing and manufacturing untethered, frog-like jumping machines with ...

Traditional industrial robots are rigid -- mostly metal -- and are fast, precise and powerful. Their speed and precision comes at the cost of complexity and can often pose a danger to humans who get too close. Soft robots are adaptable and resilient but slow, difficult to fabricate, and challenging to make autonomous because most motors, pumps, batteries, sensors, and microcontrollers are rigid. But what if you could combine the autonomy and speed of a rigid robot with the adaptability and resiliency of a soft robot -- and do it relatively cheap and fast? Harvard engineers ...

Monterey, CA - Thousands of feet below the ocean's surface lies a hidden world of undiscovered species and unique seabed habitats--as well as a vast untapped store of natural resources including valuable metals and rare-earth minerals. Technology and infrastructure development worldwide is dramatically increasing demand for these resources, which are key components in everything from cars and modern buildings to computers and smartphones. This demand has catalyzed interest in mining huge areas of the deep-sea floor. In a paper published this week in Science, researchers ...

Engineers at Harvard University and the University of California, San Diego, have created the first robot with a 3D-printed body that transitions from a rigid core to a soft exterior. The robot is capable of more than 30 untethered jumps and is powered by a mix of butane and oxygen. Researchers describe the robot's design, manufacturing and testing in the July 10 issue of Science magazine. "We believe that bringing together soft and rigid materials will help create a new generation of fast, agile robots that are more robust and adaptable than their predecessors and can ...

New York, 9 July - Investing up to 3.5% of a nation's GDP in science, technology and innovation - including basic science and education - is a key benchmark for advancing sustainable development effectively, leading experts say. In papers released July 9 in New York, international scientists advising UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon say closing the gap between developed and developing countries depends on first closing international science, technology and innovation (STI) investment gaps. According to the UN SG's 26-member Scientific Advisory Board: "While a target ...