The road that connects also divides. This dichotomy – half-century-old roads connecting portions of Bahamian islands while fragmenting the tidal waters below – leads to rapid and interesting changes in the fish living in those fragmented sections, according to a new study from North Carolina State University. NC State Ph.D. student Justa Heinen-Kay and assistant professor of biological sciences R. Brian Langerhans show, in a paper published in the journal Evolutionary Applications, that the male genitalia of three different species of Bahamian mosquitofish ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – What began as research into a method to strengthen metals has led to the discovery of a new technique that uses a pulsing laser to create synthetic nanodiamond films and patterns from graphite, with potential applications from biosensors to computer chips. "The biggest advantage is that you can selectively deposit nanodiamond on rigid surfaces without the high temperatures and pressures normally needed to produce synthetic diamond," said Gary Cheng, an associate professor of industrial engineering at Purdue University. "We do this at room temperature ...

URBANA, Ill. – A new online tool developed by researchers at the University of Illinois will further aid studies into postnatal brain growth in human infants based on the similarities seen in the development of the piglet brain, said Rod Johnson, a U of I professor of animal sciences. Through a cooperative effort between researchers in animal sciences, bioengineering, and U of I's Beckman Institute, Johnson and colleagues Ryan Dilger and Brad Sutton have developed a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) based brain atlas for the four-week old piglet that offers a three-dimensional ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. – In the past decade, online gambling has exploded and several states, including New York, have approved measures to legalize various types of gambling. So, it's only natural that the number of people with gambling problems has also increased, right? Wrong, say researchers at the University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions (RIA). "We compared results from two nationwide telephone surveys, conducted a decade apart. We found no significant increase in the rates of problem gambling in the U.S., despite a nationwide increase in gambling opportunities," ...

When in doubt, an expert always knows better. Except in the case of mutual-fund managers. There may be some room for doubt in their case a new study by Andriy Bodnaruk, an assistant finance professor at the University of Notre Dame, and colleague Andrei Simonov from Michigan State University, suggests. Bodnaruk and Simonov studied 84 mutual-fund managers in Sweden to determine how well they manage their own finances. "We asked the question whether financial experts make better investment decisions than ordinary investors," Bodnaruk said. "We identified a group of investors ...

Prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAH, a component of air pollution, raises the odds of behavior problems associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, at age 9, according to researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health at the Mailman School of Public Health. Results are published online in the journal PLOS ONE. The researchers followed 233 nonsmoking pregnant women and their children in New York City from pregnancy into childhood, and found that children born to mothers exposed to high levels of PAH ...

Human-set fires by a small Polynesian population in New Zealand ~750 years ago may have caused fire-vulnerable forests to shift to shrub land over decades, rather than over centuries, as previously thought, according to a study published November 5, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by David McWethy from Montana State University and colleagues. Human impacts on forest composition and structure have been documented worldwide; however, the rate at which ancient human activities led to permanent deforestation is poorly understood. In South Island, New Zealand, the ...

AMHERST, Mass. – Results of a new study by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst strongly suggest that there will be notable increases in grass pollen production and allergen exposure up to 202 percent in the next 100 years, leading to a significant, worldwide impact on human health due to predicted rises in carbon dioxide (CO2) and ozone (O3) due to climate change. While CO2 stimulates reproduction and growth in plants, ozone has a negative impact on plant growth, the authors point out. In this study in Timothy grass, researchers led by environmental ...

A NOAA-led research team has discovered a new species of deep-sea coral and a nursery area for catsharks and skates in the underwater canyons located close to the Gulf of Farallones and Cordell Bank national marine sanctuaries off the Sonoma coast. In the first intensive exploration of California's offshore areas north of Bodega Head, a consortium of federal and state marine scientists used small submersibles and other innovative technologies to investigate, film and photograph marine life that has adapted to survive in offshore waters reaching 1,000 feet deep. The ...

A fundamental step-change involving an increase in funding and political commitment is urgently needed to ensure that protected areas deliver their full conservation, social and economic potential, according to an article published today in Nature by experts from Wildlife Conservation Society, the University of Queensland, and the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA). The paper, The performance and potential of protected areas, comes ahead of the IUCN World Parks Congress 2014 – a once-in-a-decade global forum on protected areas opening next week in ...

Sometimes, words just complicate things. What if our brains could communicate directly with each other, bypassing the need for language? University of Washington researchers have successfully replicated a direct brain-to-brain connection between pairs of people as part of a scientific study following the team's initial demonstration a year ago. In the newly published study, which involved six people, researchers were able to transmit the signals from one person's brain over the Internet and use these signals to control the hand motions of another person within a split ...

DALLAS – November 5, 2014 – UT Southwestern Medical Center physician-researchers found that 1-in-5 parents of overweight Latino children is not directly told that the child is overweight. Furthermore, sometimes no discussion of weight occurred when a language barrier existed – a finding that signifies the challenges of reversing the rapidly rising rates of obesity in minority children. The study is published in the November edition of the journal Pediatrics. In recent years, obesity has become a prevalent health concern for children of all races in the ...

ROSEMONT, Ill.—Osteoporosis, a common condition causing progressive bone loss and increased fracture risk, is primarily thought of as a disease affecting older women. And yet, up to one in four men over age 50 will break a bone due to osteoporosis. A study in the November 5 issue of the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery (JBJS) found that men were three times less likely than women to undergo bone mass density (BMD) testing following a broken wrist (distal radius fracture) and seven times less likely to begin treatment for osteoporosis. With an aging U.S. population, ...

Research from the University of Leeds and an international team of scientists has shown a recent increase in atmospheric hydrogen chloride (HCI), a substance linked to destruction of the ozone layer. It was anticipated that there would be a decline in HCI under the Montreal Protocol, the international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of ozone-depleting substances. Dr Emmanuel Mahieu from the University of Liège in Belgium, who led the research, explained: "It's important to say that the Montreal Protocol is still on track, ...

The first fossil of an amphibious ichthyosaur has been discovered in China by a team led by researchers at the University of California, Davis. The discovery is the first to link the dolphin-like ichthyosaur to its terrestrial ancestors, filling a gap in the fossil record. The fossil is described in a paper published in advance online Nov. 5 in the journal Nature. The fossil represents a missing stage in the evolution of ichthyosaurs, marine reptiles from the Age of Dinosaurs about 250 million years ago. Until now, there were no fossils marking their transition from land ...

Many fire scientists have tried to get Smokey the Bear to hang up his "prevention" motto in favor of tools like thinning and prescribed burns, which can manage the severity of wildfires while allowing them to play their natural role in certain ecosystems. But a new international research review led by the University of California, Berkeley, says the debate over fuel-reduction techniques is only a small part of a much larger fire problem that will make society increasingly vulnerable to catastrophic losses unless it changes its fundamental approach from fighting fire ...

BOSTON – Each year nearly two million Americans suffer osteoporosis-related fractures, and as the population ages that number is expected to increase dramatically, placing a major burden on the health care system. While osteoporosis prevention and treatment efforts have historically been focused on post-menopausal women, a new study from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) suggests that critical opportunities are being lost by not focusing more attention on bone loss and fracture risk in older men. "Given that the prevalence of fragility fractures among ...

When it comes to genitalia, nature enjoys variety. Snakes and lizards have two. Birds and people have one. And while the former group's paired structures are located somewhat at the level of the limbs, ours, and the birds', appear a bit further down. In fact, snake and lizard genitalia are derived from tissue that gives rise to hind legs, while mammalian genitalia are derived from the tail bud. But despite such noteworthy contrasts, these structures are functionally analogous and express similar genes. How do these equivalent structures arise from different starting ...

Scientists from the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of California, Los Angeles have shown that a promising technique for accelerating electrons on waves of plasma is efficient enough to power a new generation of shorter, more economical accelerators. This could greatly expand their use in areas such as medicine, national security, industry and high-energy physics research. This achievement is a milestone in demonstrating the practicality of plasma wakefield acceleration, a technique in which electrons gain energy by essentially ...

AMHERST, Mass. – The surprise discovery of the fossilized skull of a 66- to 70-million-year-old, groundhog-like creature on Madagascar has led to new analyses of the lifestyle of the largest known mammal of its time by a team of specialists including biologist Elizabeth Dumont at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, an expert in jaw structure and bite mechanics. The skull of this animal, named Vintana sertichi, was found in a geological formation deposited when a great variety of dinosaurs roamed the earth. With a skull that is almost five inches (125 mm) ...

A new study led by the University of California, Berkeley and involving the University of Colorado Boulder indicates the current response to wildfires around the world—aggressively fighting them—is not making society less vulnerable to such events. The study suggests the key is to treat fires like other natural hazards—including earthquakes, severe storms and flooding—by learning to coexist, adapt and identify vulnerabilities. The new study indicates government-sponsored firefighting and land management policies may actually encourage development ...

Australian researchers have shown why calcium-binding drugs commonly used to treat people with osteoporosis, or with late-stage cancers that have spread to bone, may also benefit patients with tumours outside the skeleton, including breast cancer. Several clinical trials – where women with breast cancer were given these drugs (bisphosphonates) alongside normal treatment for early-stage disease – showed that they can confer a 'survival advantage' and inhibit cancer spread in some women, although until now no-one has understood why. A new study by Professor ...

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have identified a class of low-cost, easily-processed semiconducting polymers which, despite their seemingly disorganised internal structure, can transport electrons as efficiently as expensive crystalline inorganic semiconductors. In this new polymer, about 70% of the electrons are free to travel, whereas in conventional polymers that number can be less than 50%. The materials approach intrinsic disorder-free limits, which would enable faster, more efficient flexible electronics and displays. The results are published today ...

CHICAGO (November 5, 2014) – When wildfire and people intersect, it is often in the wildland-urban interface, or WUI, a geography where homes, roads and trails intermix with fire-prone vegetation. In an article published Thursday in the journal Nature, U.S. Forest Service scientist Sarah McCaffrey and her colleagues advocate for an approach to wildfire management that reflects ecological science as well as research on the human dimensions of wildfire and fire management. "Learning to Coexist with Wildfire," a research review led by the University of California-Berkley, ...

PHILADELPHIA –A diagnosis of septic shock was once a near death sentence. At best, survivors suffered a substantially reduced quality of life. Penn Medicine researchers have now shown that while most patients now survive a hospital stay for septic shock, 23 percent will return to the hospital within 30 days, many with another life-threatening condition -- a rate substantially higher than the normal readmission rate at a large academic medical center. The findings are published in the new issue of Critical Care Medicine. "Half of patients diagnosed with sepsis ...