CORVALLIS, Ore. - Researchers have discovered why many animal species can spend their whole lives outdoors with no apparent concern about high levels of solar exposure: they make their own sunscreen. The findings, published today in the journal eLife by scientists from Oregon State University, found that many fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds can naturally produce a compound called gadusol, which among other biologic activities provides protection from the ultraviolet, or sun-burning component of sunlight. The researchers also believe that this ability may have ...

Using a smart tablet and a red beam of light, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have created a system that allows people to control a fleet of robots with the swipe of a finger. A person taps the tablet to control where the beam of light appears on a floor. The swarm robots then roll toward the illumination, constantly communicating with each other and deciding how to evenly cover the lit area. When the person swipes the tablet to drag the light across the floor, the robots follow. If the operator puts two fingers in different locations on the tablet, the machines ...

Diet exerts a major impact on health and ageing. The nervous system plays an important role in this process but, thus far, how food signals are interpreted by the nervous system has been a mystery. This is an important question because the perception of food by the nervous system impacts not just ageing, but also other processes associated with health and disease, including metabolism, reproduction, and development. A new study published in eLife by researchers from the MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology (MRC CDN) at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience ...

To measure distances in the Universe, astronomers use Cepheids, a family of variable stars whose luminosity varies with time. Their role as distance calibrators has brought them attention from researchers for more than a century. While it was thought that nearly everything was known about the prototype of Cepheids, named Delta Cephei, a team of researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), the Johns Hopkins University, and the European Space Agency (ESA), have now discovered that this star is not alone, but that it has a hidden companion. A revelation published in The ...

MADISON, Wis. -- Expansion of cattle pastures has led to the destruction of huge swaths of rain forest in Brazil, home to the world's largest herd of commercial beef cattle. But a new study led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Holly Gibbs shows that market-driven "zero deforestation agreements" have dramatically influenced the behavior of ranchers and the slaughterhouses to which they sell. Publishing today [May 12, 2015] in the journal Conservation Letters, the research team - including other UW-Madison scientists, the National Wildlife Federation, and IMAZON ...

Scientists from Oregon State University have discovered that fish can produce their own sunscreen. They have copied the method used by fish for potential use in humans. In the study published in the journal eLife, scientists found that zebrafish are able to produce a chemical called gadusol that protects against UV radiation. They successfully reproduced the method that zebrafish use by expressing the relevant genes in yeast. The findings open the door to large-scale production of gadusol for sunscreen and as an antioxidant in pharmaceuticals. "The fact that the compound ...

Extremely high levels of cardiovascular risk factors have been found in people with established psychosis, with central obesity evident in over 80 per cent of participants, in a study by researchers from the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM) and King's College London. In the largest study of its kind in the UK, drawing on a sample of more than 400 outpatients with psychosis, it was discovered that nearly half of the sample were obese (48 per cent), with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more. Additionally, nearly ...

Around 55 million years ago, an abrupt global warming event triggered a highly corrosive deep-water current to flow through the North Atlantic Ocean. The origin of this corrosive water has puzzled scientists for a decade. Now, researchers have discovered this current and how it formed. The findings, published today in Nature Geoscience, also have profound implications for the sensitivity of our current climate to carbon dioxide emissions. The researchers explored the acidification of the ocean that occurred during a period known as the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum ...

A low platelet count can occur as the result of a variety of medical conditions and as a medication side effect. Platelet transfusion is often required for individuals with a critically low platelet level. Currently, the primary source of platelets is volunteer donors. Unfortunately, donated platelets have an extremely short shelf life and can be in limited supply. A new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation reports on a method to generate progenitor cells from murine embryonic stems that are able to produce a large number of functional platelets. Mitchell Weiss ...

Bacterial meningitis is a life-threating infection of the central nervous system. Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is the leading cause of meningitis in newborn babies and can cause severe complications in those that survive the infection. GBS must cross the blood-brain-barrier (BBB) to cause disease but it is not clear how these organisms breach this barrier. A new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation identifies a pathway that is induced by GBS and disrupts junctions between cells. Kelly Doran and colleagues at San Diego State University determined that GBS induces ...

PROSSER, Wash. - Washington wine grape vineyards experimenting with sustainable pest management systems are seeing an unexpected benefit: an increase in butterflies. Over the years, loss in natural habitat has seen the decline in numbers of around 50 species of butterflies in eastern Washington. But in a recent Washington State University study published in the June issue of the Journal of Insect Conservation, researchers found that vineyards that create nearby natural habitats have three times the number of butterfly species and four times more butterflies than conventional ...

In what marks a significant step forward for artificial intelligence, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have demonstrated the functionality of a simple artificial neural circuit. For the first time, a circuit of about 100 artificial synapses was proved to perform a simple version of a typical human task: image classification. "It's a small, but important step," said Dmitri Strukov, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. With time and further progress, the circuitry may eventually be expanded and scaled to approach something like the human brain's, which has ...

TORONTO (May 11, 2015) -- Immigrants from the Caribbean and Bermuda, as well as refugees from East Africa and South Asia, have a 1.5 to 2 times higher risk of psychotic disorders compared to the general population of Ontario, Canada, according to a new study by researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The study also found that immigrants from Northern Europe, Southern Europe and East Asia had about half the risk of psychotic disorders compared to the general population. The study published ...

By combining 3D holographic lithography and 2D photolithography, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated a high-performance 3D microbattery suitable for large-scale on-chip integration with microelectronic devices. "This 3D microbattery has exceptional performance and scalability, and we think it will be of importance for many applications," explained Paul Braun, a professor of materials science and engineering at Illinois. "Micro-scale devices typically utilize power supplied off-chip because of difficulties in miniaturizing ...

U.S. Congress approval ratings are at record lows. Now a new study suggests that this may be partly due to a decline in the use of warm, agreeable language in the House. The study, co-authored by University of British Columbia business professor Karl Aquino, found that the use of prosocial words -- language such as cooperate or contribute -- by lawmakers predicts public approval of Congress six months later. "If members of Congress want to be viewed more positively by the public, it appears that the words they use matter," says Aquino, a marketing and behavioural science ...

Researchers report that as the world population increases and food demand has grown, globalization of trade has made the food supply more sensitive to environmental and market fluctuations. This leads to greater chances of food crises, particularly in nations where land and water resources are scarce and therefore food security strongly relies on imports. The study assesses the food supply available to more than 140 nations (with populations greater than 1 million) and demonstrates that food security is becoming increasingly susceptible to perturbations in demographic ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. - May 11, 2015) Childhood cancer survivors - especially those whose treatment included brain irradiation or chemotherapy with glucocorticoids - are 14 percent more likely to be obese than their healthy peers. The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital study appears today in the journal Cancer. Of the 1,996 childhood cancer survivors in this study, 36.2 percent had a body mass index (BMI) of 30 kilograms per meters squared or more, which qualifies as obese. That was 14 percent greater than the expected prevalence based on federal health survey data of a ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. - May 11, 2015) Researchers have identified three genes that play a pivotal role in the brain tumor choroid plexus carcinoma (CPC), a discovery that lays the groundwork for more effective treatment of this rare, often fatal cancer. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists led the study, which appears today in the journal Cancer Cell. The genes - TAF12, NFYC and RAD54L - are involved in DNA repair and regulation. Researchers showed that CPC often has at least one extra copy of each gene and demonstrated that the genes work cooperatively to launch ...

A new study finds that men with prostate cancer that has spread to nearby lymph nodes, who have a significant risk of dying from the disease, can benefit from the addition of radiation therapy to treatments that block the effects of testosterone. The findings imply that the almost half of patients with node-positive disease nationwide who this study found had not received combination therapy were not receiving the treatment that could best control their tumor and possibly save their lives. The report from investigators at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. - When it comes to winning evolutionary fitness races, the tortoise once again prevails over the hare. In the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of BEACON scientists centered at Michigan State University found that limiting migrations among populations of bacteria produced better adaptations. The cost, however, was that the bacteria evolved slower. Taking your time, however, isn't always a bad thing, said Joshua Nahum, MSU biocomputational research associate. "We name this the Tortoise-Hare pattern, as it is ...

Achieving sustainability requires a sophisticated understanding of continuously evolving resource, production, and consumption systems that make up society's relationship to nature. In a special new issue, Yale's Journal of Industrial Ecology illustrates how the field is increasingly turning to complexity science for tools and insights in its pursuit of reduced environmental impacts. In the special issue, "Advances in Complex Adaptive Systems and Industrial Ecology," a group of international researchers show how integration of complex adaptive system into the study of ...

May 11, 2015 -- (BRONX, NY) -- A survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults has found that misperceptions about miscarriage and its causes are widespread. Results of the survey, conducted by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Health System, show that feelings of guilt and shame are common after a miscarriage and that most people erroneously believe that miscarriages are rare. The findings were published online today in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. Nearly one million miscarriages occur in the U.S. each year. Miscarriages ...

May 11, 2015 -- Ongoing efforts by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to reduce the population impact of traumatic brain injury (TBI) are documented in the May/June issue of The Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, official journal of the Brain Injury Association of America. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer. "This special issue draws attention to the need for strategies to prevent TBI and to lessen the substantial physical, psychological, economic, and social effects among people who experience it," write co-editors Jeneita M. Bell, MD, MPH ...

As the nation observes the May 17 anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that ended racial segregation in public schools, a new study has found that desegregated schooling is tied to better performance for certain cognitive abilities in older African American Adults. This research is published in an article titled "Education Desegregation and Cognitive Change in African American Older Adults," appearing in the May 2015 issue of The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences. "Our findings suggest that there is a slight, but statistically ...

EVANSTON, Ill. -- Treatments used by traditional healers in Nigeria have inspired scientists at Northwestern University to synthesize four new chemical compounds that could one day lead to better therapies for people with psychiatric disorders. In a paper published online in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, the scientists detail how they created these natural compounds by completing the first total syntheses of two indole alkaloids -- alstonine and serpentine. These alkaloids, found in various plant species used by healers in Nigeria to treat people ...