Although most dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, one dinosaur lineage survived and lives on today as a major evolutionary success story – the birds. But to what does this lineage owe its success? A study that has 'weighed' hundreds of dinosaurs now suggests that shrinking their bodies may have helped this group to continue exploiting new ecological niches throughout their evolution, and to become such a diverse and widespread group of animals today. An international team, led by scientists from Oxford University and the Royal Ontario Museum, estimated the body ...

A study that has 'weighed' hundreds of dinosaurs suggests that shrinking their bodies may have helped the group that became birds to continue exploiting new ecological niches throughout their evolution, and become hugely successful today. An international team, led by scientists at Oxford University and the Royal Ontario Museum, estimated the body mass of 426 dinosaur species based on the thickness of their leg bones. The team found that dinosaurs showed rapid rates of body size evolution shortly after their origins, around 220 million years ago. However, these soon slowed: ...

Orlando, Fla. — Researchers have found that, contrary to prvious clinical trial findings, monthly injections to counteract age-related macular degeneration (AMD) may not be necessary. The research is being presented at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) this week in Orlando, Fla. The investigators used a strategy called "treat and extend" to conduct the study, in which the frequency of office visits and injections were tailored to each patient's individual response to therapy. Following 185 patients over a three-and-a-half-year ...

The following highlights summarize research papers that have been recently published in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface (JGR-F), Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans (JGR-C), and Water Resources Research (WRR). In this release: 1. Polar hexagon-shaped jet stream could reveal Saturn's rotational period 2. Antarctica's Whillans Ice Plain ice flows are highly variable 3. Climate change, water rights, and agriculture: A case study in Idaho 4. Low impact development boosts groundwater recharge 5. Beaufort Gyre sea ...

Federal restrictions on including prisoners in medical research have negatively impacted research involving black men, who are disproportionately imprisoned, according to a study by Yale School of Medicine researchers. Because individuals who are already in ongoing studies must be dropped if they are incarcerated, this compromises the ability of researchers to examine racial disparities in health outcomes studies. Published in the May issue of the journal Health Affairs, the study found that during the past three decades, high rates of incarceration of black men may ...

URBANA, Ill. – Of all the starry-eyed just-married couples you know, which couples are likely to stay the happiest? A University of Illinois study says chances for bliss are highest when husband and wife both believe in divvying up the household labor equally. But that happiness won't last long if one partner is perceived as not carrying their fair share of the load. "Newlyweds need to thoughtfully plan how they can make their expectations about sharing chores work out in real life, especially if the new spouses strongly value gender equality in household labor. This ...

PULLMAN, Wash. - Drug abuse, acts of rampage – what's really the matter with kids today? While there are many places to lay blame – family, attitude, peers, school, community – a new study shows that those risks vary in intensity from kid to kid and can be identified. Scientists at Washington State University and Pennsylvania State University have found a way to spot the adolescents most susceptible to specific risk factors for delinquency. Breaking down a survey of over 30,000 teens, researchers were able to pinpoint five subgroups and the risks for delinquency that ...

PULLMAN, Wash.—It sounds like a phrase from Urban Dictionary, or the title of an animated gif, but a Washington State University researcher says "exploding head syndrome" is an authentic and largely overlooked phenomenon that warrants a deeper look. "It's a provocative and understudied phenomenon," said Brian Sharpless, a WSU assistant professor and director of the university psychology clinic, who recently reviewed the scientific literature on the disorder for the journal Sleep Medicine Reviews. "I've worked with some individuals who have it seven times a night, so it ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — New research from Mayo Clinic shows that implementing a uniform method to care for lower-risk cardiac surgical patients improves outcomes, reduces patients' time in the hospital and lowers overall per patient costs by 15 percent. The study is published in the May issue of Health Affairs. MULTIMEDIA ALERT: Video and audio are available for download on the Mayo Clinic News Network. "In the high-acuity, full-service hospital, individual clinical judgment remains key, and some medical care demands this," says David Cook, M.D., a Mayo Clinic anesthesiologist ...

CHICAGO --- Parents, forget the comfort food! It's time to send your college students care packages of fruit, veggies and exercise gear instead. A new study from Northwestern Medicine® and Northeastern Illinois University found that the majority of college students are engaging in unhealthy behaviors that could increase their risk of cancer later on. Racial minority students could be at an even greater risk, especially African Americans and Native Americans. A shocking 95 percent of college students fail to eat the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables (five or ...

NEW YORK, May 6, 2014 – Neuronetics, Inc. announced today a new analysis of data at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association that shows Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) administered with the NeuroStar TMS Therapy System resulted in greater symptom improvement than next-choice conventional antidepressant medication among patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) who failed to benefit from prior antidepressant medication. In a propensity-score matched analysis of data from two independent studies, patient-reported symptom outcomes measured by ...

Unlike medical records kept in paper charts, electronic health records (EHR) provide numerous access points to clinicians to review a patient's medical history. A new study has found access to electronic health records in acute care situations may influence the care given to that patient, and in some cases, failure to review the EHR could have adversely affected the medical management. The findings are reported in the May 2014 edition http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/33/5/800.abstract of Health Affairs. John L. Ulmer, M.D., professor of radiology and chief of ...

More than a million people are treated for mild traumatic brain injuries in U.S. hospitals and emergency rooms each year. Yet few receive appropriate psychological and social follow-up care that can make the difference in whether or not they fully recover. A University of Washington researcher has found that a 20-minute conversation with a social worker has the potential to significantly reduce the functional decline of those diagnosed with a mild traumatic brain injury. The research is published in the April issue of Brain Injury. Megan Moore in the UW's School of ...

(Boston) – Have you ever said to yourself that you would only have a handful of potato chips from the bag then, minutes later, realized you ate the whole thing? A recent study shows that this type of impulsive behavior might not be easily controlled – and could be a risk factor in the development of food addiction and eating disorders as a result of cellular activities in the part of the brain involved with reward. The research, published online in Neuropsychopharmacology, was led by Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and conducted in collaboration with the University ...

A study in The Journal of Experimental Medicine shows that IκB kinase β (IKKβ) functions in smooth muscle cells to regulate vascular inflammatory responses and atherosclerosis development. Inflammatory responses are the driving force of atherosclerosis, a process that involves the hardening and thickening of artery walls due to excess fatty deposits. IKKβ is a central coordinator of inflammatory responses that has been implicated in vascular diseases, but its role in atherosclerosis has been unclear. Now, Changcheng Zhou and colleagues from the ...

Automation in the cockpit is traditionally believed to free pilots' attention from mundane flight tasks and allow them to focus on the big picture or prepare for any unexpected events during flight. However, a new study published in Human Factors indicates that pilots may have a hard time concentrating on the automated systems that now carry out many of the tasks once completed by humans. "The automated systems in today's cockpits assume many of the tasks formerly performed by human pilots and do it with impressive reliability," says Stephen Casner, coauthor of "Thoughts ...

Graphene, a one-atom-thick form of the carbon material graphite, has been hailed as a wonder material — strong, light, nearly transparent, and an excellent conductor of electricity and heat. But a number of practical challenges must be overcome before it can emerge as a replacement for silicon and other materials in microprocessors and next-generation energy devices. One particular challenge concerns the question of how graphene sheets can be used in real devices. "When you fabricate devices using graphene, you have to support the graphene on a substrate and doing ...

LOS ANGELES (EMBARGOED UNTIL NOON ET ON MAY 6, 2014) – Investigators at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute – whose previous research showed that cardiac stem cell therapy reduces scarring and regenerates healthy tissue after a heart attack in humans – have identified components of those stem cells responsible for the beneficial effects. In a series of laboratory and lab animal studies, Heart Institute researchers found that exosomes, tiny membrane-enclosed "bubbles" involved in cell-to-cell communication, convey messages that reduce cell death, promote growth of new heart ...

VIDEO: This is the CT image of the skull of the holotype of Eodelphis kabatensis. Click here for more information. Dolphins are the most diverse family of living marine mammals and include species such as the bottlenose dolphin and the killer whale. However, their early evolution and fossil record has been steeped in mystery due to lack of good specimens. A new paper published in latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology re-describes the oldest species of dolphin ...

In 2012, John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamakana were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering that adult cells can be reprogrammed into pluripotent ones (iPS); the cells obtained are capable of behaving in a similar way to embryonic stem cells, and hence have enormous potential for regenerative medicine. However, although there are many research groups around the world studying this process, it is still not completely understood, it is not totally efficient, and it is not safe enough to be used as the basis for a new cell therapy. Now, researchers at the Centre ...

This news release is available in French. Montreal, May 6, 2014 — A sexy wood elf with pointy ears. A hulking ogre with blue skin. An intimidating heroine with a buxom breastplate. When it comes to computer games, players can choose to be anyone or anything. But gamers don't always mask their true identities with online avatars. According to a new study by researchers at Concordia University, Colorado State University, Syracuse University, Hofstra University and the University of Toronto, a male gamer who chooses to play as a female character will still display ...

Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Ocean, with the land masses of the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia in between – that's how we know our earth. From a geologist's point of view, however, this is only a snapshot. Over the course of the earth's history, many different continents have formed and split again. In between oceans were created, new seafloor was formed and disappeared again: Plate tectonics is the generic term for these processes. The Red Sea, where currently the Arabian Peninsula separates from Africa, is one of the few places on earth where the splitting ...

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have discovered a protein molecule that seems to slow the progression of pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive lung disease that is often fatal three to five years after diagnosis. The finding is reported in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Nearly five million people worldwide are affected by pulmonary fibrosis, which causes the lungs to become covered in fibrous scar tissue and leads to shortness of breath that gets more severe as the disease progresses. Chronic inflammatory ...

Rice University scientists have designed a tunable virus that works like a safe deposit box. It takes two keys to open it and release its therapeutic cargo. The Rice lab of bioengineer Junghae Suh has developed an adeno-associated virus (AAV) that unlocks only in the presence of two selected proteases, enzymes that cut up other proteins for disposal. Because certain proteases are elevated at tumor sites, the viruses can be designed to target and destroy the cancer cells. The work appears online this week in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano. AAVs are ...

A system developed by investigators at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Engineering in Medicine (CEM) and the MGH Transplant Center has the potential to increase both the supply and the quality of donor organs for liver transplantation. In their report, which has been published online in the American Journal of Transplantation, the research team describes how use of a machine perfusion system delivering a supply of nutrients and oxygen though an organ's circulation at room temperature preserved and improved the metabolic function of donor livers in a ...