In new research published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Northeastern University professor Randall Hughes and her team at the Marine Science Center in Nahant, Mass. are the first to show that sound plays at least as much of a role in mud crabs' reaction to fish behavior as other widely studied cues—and possibly more. Fish are not silent creatures. Just like the terrestrial world, there's a veritable symphony of sound echoing under the sea. Indeed, the black drum fish was the subject of many a phone call to the Miami police back in 2005, when their ...

Adults are widely exposed to e-cigarette marketing through the media, but those messages reach different demographic groups in different ways, according to a survey by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Institute for Health Research and Policy. The study is published as a special supplement in the July 2014 issue of Tobacco Control. Eighty-six percent of those surveyed were aware of e-cigarettes, and 47 percent had seen or heard about them on television, on the radio, in print media or online. The survey of 17,522 adults was conducted online last ...

Crucially, the discovery, published today in the journal Nature Communications, shows that women who are overweight have a faulty switch. The finding may explain why overweight women have a higher likelihood of irregular contractions and are more likely to require a caesarean section than other women. It's well known that strong rhythmic contractions of the uterus are needed to allow the baby's head to dilate the cervix. However little was known about what controls these contractions until now. The groundbreaking research from Monash University, the Royal Women's Hospital ...

Superman isn't the only one who can see through solid surfaces. In a development that could revolutionize the management of precious groundwater around the world, Stanford researchers have pioneered the use of satellites to accurately measure levels of water stored hundreds of feet below ground. Their findings were published recently in Water Resources Research. Groundwater provides 25 to 40 percent of all drinking water worldwide, and is the primary source of freshwater in many arid countries, according to the National Groundwater Association. About 60 percent of all ...

With visitor numbers surging, Antarctica's ice-free land needs better protection from human activities, leading environmental scientists say. The new study, published today in the journal PLoS Biology, found that all 55 areas designated for protection lie close to sites of human activity. Seven are at high risk for biological invasions, and five of the distinct ice-free eco regions have no protected areas. Antarctica has over 40,000 visitors a year, and more and more research facilities are being built in the continent's tiny ice-free area. Most of the Antarctic wildlife ...

Depression is almost twice as common, and poor quality of life almost five times as common, in people with bipolar disorder who have elevated or low levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the blood. Researchers at Umeå University, Sweden, report this in a study published in the journal PLOS ONE. "In bipolar depression the stress system is often activated, which means that the affected individuals have elevated cortisol levels in the blood. We have now been able to show that both over- and underactivity in the stress system, with corresponding elevated or reduced cortisol ...

Korean research team revealed conflicting climate change patterns between the middle latitude areas of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres in relation to glacial and interglacial cycles which have been puzzled for the past 60 years. Doctor Kyoung-nam Jo from the Quaternary Geology Department of the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources(KIGAM) revealed a clue for solving the riddle of past global climate change in his paper titled 'Mid-latitudinal interhemispheric hydrologic seesaw over the past 550,000 years' which was featured in the journal Nature. This ...

Researchers have identified the first genetic variations linked to race that begin to explain a higher risk of death among some African American and Caucasian patients taking the anti-clotting drug clopidogrel (Plavix) after a heart attack. These variants increased patients' risk of dying in the year following a first heart attack, but they appeared to do so for different reasons depending on race, according to a study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. In particular, the team found that two DNA variants common in African Americans were associated ...

For some birds, recognising their own eggs can be a matter of life or death. In a new study, scientists have shown that many birds affected by the parasitic Common Cuckoo - which lays its lethal offspring in other birds' nests - have evolved distinctive patterns on their eggs in order to distinguish them from those laid by a cuckoo cheat. The study reveals that these signature patterns provide a powerful defense against cuckoo trickery, helping host birds to reject cuckoo eggs before they hatch and destroy the host's own brood. To determine how a bird brain might ...

Sweaty hands can reduce the effectiveness of bacteria-fighting brass objects in hospitals and schools after just an hour of coming into contact with them, according to scientists at the University of Leicester. While copper found in everyday brass items such as door handles and water taps has an antimicrobial effect on bacteria and is widely used to prevent the spread of disease, Dr John Bond OBE from the University of Leicester's Department of Chemistry has discovered that peoples' sweat can, within an hour of contact with the brass, produce sufficient corrosion to ...

Researchers have found no evidence of a protective association between soy food and endometrial cancer risk, says a new study published (18 June) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Soy foods are an almost exclusive dietary source of isoflavones, a plant-derived estrogen. Some studies have highlighted their potential cancer protective properties, however, research looking at the link to endometrial cancer has been inconsistent. The study defined short IPI as time from the immediate preceding birth to subsequent birth of the index pregnancy ...

The nationwide shortage of cybersecurity professionals – particularly for positions within the federal government – creates risks for national and homeland security, according to a new study from the RAND Corporation. Demand for trained cybersecurity professionals who work to protect organizations from cybercrime is high nationwide, but the shortage is particularly severe in the federal government, which does not offer salaries as high as the private sector. "It's largely a supply-and-demand problem," said Martin Libicki, lead author of the study and senior management ...

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have developed and tested a vaccine that triggered the growth of immune cell nodules within pancreatic tumors, essentially reprogramming these intractable cancers and potentially making them vulnerable to immune-based therapies. In their study described in the June 18 issue of Cancer Immunology Research, the Johns Hopkins team tested the vaccine in 39 people with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDAC), the most common form of pancreatic cancer. The disease becomes resistant to standard chemotherapies and is particularly ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (June 18, 2014)—Calcium and vitamin D are commonly recommended for older women, but the usual supplements may send calcium excretion and blood levels too high for some women, shows a new study published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society. This randomized, placebo-controlled trial included 163 older (ages 57 to 90) white women whose vitamin D levels were too low. The women took calcium citrate tablets to meet their recommended intake of 1,200 mg/day, and they took various doses of vitamin D, ranging from 400 to ...

A moral story that praises a character's honesty is more effective at getting young children to tell the truth than a story that emphasizes the negative repercussions of lying, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The findings suggest that stories such as "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" and "Pinocchio" may not be effective cautionary tales when it comes to inspiring honest behavior in children. Stories have long been employed to instill moral and cultural values in young children, but there is little ...

Dublin, June 18th 2014 – Light-fingered chimpanzees are changing the way subsistence farmers make a living in Africa by causing them to grow different crops and spend more time guarding their goods. This is according to work performed by researchers from Trinity College Dublin's School of Geography, who say that communities near the edge of tropical forests are experiencing a lack of 'dietary diversity' and an increased exposure to disease-carrying insects as a result. Through crop raiding, a form of human-wildlife conflict, hundreds of thousands of marginalised farmers ...

An accompanying editorial says this study largely confirms what is already known - that the benefits of breast screening "are modest at best" – and calls for women to be given balanced information including the screening harms of overdiagnosis, psychological stress, and high healthcare costs. Randomised trials from the 1970s and 80s suggested that mammography screening prevents deaths from breast cancer. But the methods used by some of these studies have been criticised, and this has raised doubts about the validity of the findings. Advances in technology and treatment ...

The main source of vitamin D is its production in skin thanks to the sun. Women are more prone to low vitamin D than men - and due to differing weather conditions, concentrations vary in populations across the world. Vitamin D deficiency is especially common among the elderly who often have less sun exposure, but it is unclear what effect the production of vitamin D has on death. So researchers investigated the association of vitamin D with deaths from all-causes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. They paid particular attention to differences between countries, sexes ...

England remains the only UK country still charging patients for their prescriptions – currently £8.05 (€10; $13.5) per prescribed item. Although prescription charges have been rising, the latest data show that the number of pharmaceutical items prescribed in England reached its highest level yet - over one billion in 2012 - equivalent to nearly 19 per person in that year and an increase of 62% since 2002, writes Appleby. Yet only around 10% of prescribed items attract a charge due to a host of exemptions – for children, elderly people, those in receipt of welfare benefits ...

Patients with mental illness are two and a half times more likely to be victims of homicide than people in the general population, according to a national study examining the characteristics of homicide victims across England and Wales, published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal. Homicides committed by patients with mental illness have received much media attention, but patients' risk of being victims of homicide and their relationship to the perpetrators has rarely been examined. In this study, the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People ...

The number of deaths by suicide among mental health patients treated at home by crisis resolution home treatment teams (CRHT)*, has more than doubled in England in recent years, rising from an average of 80 in 2003-2004 to 163 in 2010-2011, according to new research published in The Lancet Psychiatry. In contrast, suicides on psychiatric wards fell by more than half, from 163 in 2003-2004 to 76 in 2010-2011. The research also reveals that despite an 18% fall in the suicide rate among people receiving community care by CRHT teams between 2003 and 2011, the overall suicide ...

The risks and benefits of red blood cell transfusions for patients with trauma and major bleeding might vary considerably based on a patient's predicted risk of death on arrival at a trauma centre, according to new research published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The study by Pablo Perel, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom, and colleagues, suggests that trauma patients who have the highest predicted risk of death on arrival at a trauma centre receive the greatest benefit from red blood cell transfusions but for those with the lowest predicted ...

Parkinson's disease, which affects millions worldwide, results from neuron loss. Transplantation of fetal tissue to restore this loss has shown promise, but ethical concerns over acquiring this tissue limit its use. In a June 17 study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Vania Broccoli and others at the San Raffaele Scientific Institute converted fibroblasts into neurons and engrafted them into the brains of rodents with parkinsonism. The cells improved motor function, but not as well as transplanted rat fetal tissues. The authors then used a technology that allows ...

People and mice with mutations in a specific signaling pathway, known as kisspeptin, suffer reproductive effects such as delayed puberty and infertility. Research of this pathway has focused on its role in reproduction, but a June 17 study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation looked at its effects on metabolism. Alexander Kauffman and colleagues at the University of California San Diego found that lack of the kisspeptin pathway in female mice promotes excess weight gain. Mice became overweight as the result of a reduced metabolism and decreased energy, but not as ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Twist and hold your neck to the left. Now down, and over to the right, until it hurts. Now imagine your neck – or arms or legs – randomly doing that on their own, without you controlling it. That's a taste of what children and adults with a neurological condition called dystonia live with every day – uncontrollable twisting and stiffening of neck and limb muscles. The mystery of why this happens, and what can prevent or treat it, has long puzzled doctors, who have struggled to help their suffering dystonia patients. Now, new re-search from a University ...