Berlin, Germany (November, 2014) - The dodo is among the most famous extinct creatures, and a poster child for human-caused extinction events. Despite its notoriety, and the fact that the species was alive during recorded human history, little is actually known about how this animal lived, looked, and behaved. A new study of the only known complete skeleton from a single bird takes advantage of modern 3-D laser scanning technology to open a new window into the life of this famous extinct bird. The study was presented at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate ...

Berlin, Germany (November, 2014) - Many large charismatic mammals went extinct at the end of the Ice Age (approx 11,000 years ago), including the Steppe bison, Bison priscus. A recent find in Eastern Siberia has uncovered one of these bison, literally, frozen in time. The most complete frozen mummy of the Steppe bison yet known, dated to 9,300 years before present, was recently uncovered in the Yana-Indigirka Lowland and a necropsy was performed to learn about how this animal lived and died at the end of the Ice Age. The Yukagir bison mummy, as it is named, has a complete ...

There is no doubt that pregnant and breastfeeding women try to do everything they can to ensure a healthy outcome for their baby, including eating a healthy, well-balanced diet that provides the necessary nutrients for fetal growth and development. In recent years, there has been significant debate about the consumption of fish among pregnant and breastfeeding women. In June, following a survey that found that the majority of pregnant women do not eat much fish and thus may have inadequate intake of certain omega 3 fatty acids, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The health benefits of over-the-counter curcumin supplements might not get past your gut, but new research shows that a modified formulation of the spice releases its anti-inflammatory goodness throughout the body. Curcumin is a naturally occurring compound found in the spice turmeric that has been used for centuries as an Ayurvedic medicine treatment for such ailments as allergies, diabetes and ulcers. Anecdotal and scientific evidence suggests curcumin promotes health because it lowers inflammation, but it is not absorbed well by the body. Most curcumin ...

BOSTON - (November 6, 2014) - Mary R. Loeken, Ph.D., Investigator in the Section on Islet Cell and Regenerative Biology at Joslin Diabetes Center and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, has discovered a molecular pathway responsible for neural tube defects in diabetic pregnancies. Her latest research findings in this pathway were published in the October issue of Diabetes. For 20 years, scientists have known of a gene involved in neural tube defects (such as spina bifida), but until now it was not known exactly what causes this gene to malfunctions ...

The modern sequencing techniques have shown that bats can carry a bacterial species previously been shown to cause deadly human infections in USA. When the research group of Arto Pulliainen at the Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki, Finland, analyzed an array of bat samples from Finland and UK, one class of identified bacteria turned out to be exceptionally significant. Multilocus sequence analyses of clonal bat Bartonella isolates demonstrated that bats carry Bartonella mayotimonensis. This species has previously been shown to cause deadly human infections ...

MANHATTAN, KANSAS -- A Kansas State University psychological sciences professor is using twin studies to understand the nature versus nurture debate of the workplace: Do genetic factors or environmental factors influence employee proactivity? His answer: The interaction between the genetic and environmental factors determines why some employees are more proactive than others. "It's more like nature and nurture rather than nature versus nurture," said Wendong Li, assistant professor of psychological sciences in the College of Arts & Sciences. "It is the reciprocal relationship ...

For decades, scientists have been perfecting models of how contagions spread, but newly published research takes the first steps into building a model that includes the loop linking individual human behavior and the behavior of the epidemic itself. The first results of the highly complex modeling led by researchers at the New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering were recently spotlighted as "brilliant research" by the American Physical Society. Eventually, the team hopes the model will more accurately predict who should be vaccinated and isolated first ...

By combining projections of climate change, emissions reductions and changes in land use across the USA, an international research team estimate that by 2050, cumulative exposure to ozone during the summer will be high enough to damage vegetation. Although the research findings - published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions - focus on the impact in the USA, they raise wider concerns for global air quality, according to lead researcher Dr Maria Val Martin, from the University of Sheffield's Faculty of Engineering "Modelling future air quality is very complex, ...

The dreaded scratch or puncture test is the most common way of assessing allergic reactions to as many as 40 different substances at once. But because the test involves needles that prick multiple points along the skin's surface, it's a particularly high-stress examination for children -- and their understandably anxious parents. A new study by Tel Aviv University researchers provides the first quantitative analysis of the role of "medical clowns" in assuaging the anxiety and pain felt by children undergoing allergy tests. The research, published in Allergy, was conducted ...

Far too many "teachable moments" are lost in a doctor's office during which young adults with hypertension could have learned how to reduce their blood pressure. In fact, only one in every two hypertensive young Americans does in fact receive such advice and guidance from a healthcare provider within a year from being diagnosed, says Heather M. Johnson of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in the US. She led a study which examined how regularly such education is provided and documented by one of the ten largest physician practice groups in ...

A major new Series on health and ageing, published in The Lancet, warns that unless health systems find effective strategies to address the problems faced by an ageing world population, the growing burden of chronic disease will greatly affect the quality of life of older people. As people across the world live longer, soaring levels of chronic illness and diminished wellbeing are poised to become a major global public health challenge. Worldwide, life expectancy of older people continues to rise. By 2020, for the first time in history, the number of people aged 60 years ...

A car powered by its own body panels could soon be driving on our roads after a breakthrough in nanotechnology research by a QUT team. Researchers have developed lightweight "supercapacitors" that can be combined with regular batteries to dramatically boost the power of an electric car. The discovery was made by Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr Jinzhang Liu, Professor Nunzio Motta and PhD researcher Marco Notarianni, from QUT's Science and Engineering Faculty - Institute for Future Environments, and PhD researcher Francesca Mirri and Professor Matteo Pasquali, from Rice ...

Toronto, ON - For most cancer patients, primary tumours are often not the most deadly. Instead, it is the metastatic tumours - tumours that spread from their original location to other parts of the body - that are the cause of most cancer deaths. The catalysts behind the formation of these deadly metastatic tumours are believed to be cancer cells that are launched into the bloodstream from the original site of the cancer. Researchers are very interested in leveraging these circulating tumour cells, or CTCs, which have the potential to allow the properties of a tumour ...

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has snapped a striking view of a multiple star system called XZ Tauri, its neighbour HL Tauri, and several nearby young stellar objects. XZ Tauri is blowing a hot bubble of gas into the surrounding space, which is filled with bright and beautiful clumps that are emitting strong winds and jets. These objects illuminate the region, creating a truly dramatic scene. This dark and ominous landscape is located some 450 light-years away in the constellation of Taurus The Bull). It lies in the north-eastern part of a large, dark cloud known ...

Engineers at the University of California, San Diego, are proposing a new surgical intervention for children born with a single ventricle in their heart--instead of the usual two. The new approach would potentially reduce the number of surgeries the patients have to undergo in the first six months of life from two to just one. If successful, it would also create a more stable circuit for blood to flow from the heart to the lungs and the rest of the body within the first days and months of life. Engineers ran computer simulations of the surgery and found it would reduce ...

Scientists at Helmholtz Zentrum München (HMGU), at Karolinska Institutet (KI), Stockholm and the University College London investigated the function of ciliary cell extensions in the pancreas. Stimulation of the insulin-producing beta cells increases the number of insulin receptors on their cilia. The cilia consequently play an important role in the release and signal transduction of insulin, a hormone that reduces sugar levels. Defective cilia lead to elevated blood sugar levels and lowered insulin release The lead author of the paper Dr. Jantje Gerdes, formerly ...

Human-caused climate change, ocean acidification and species extinctions may eventually threaten the collapse of civilization, according to some scientists, while other people argue that for political or economic reasons we should allow industrial development to continue without restrictions. In a new paper, two astrophysicists argue that these questions may soon be resolvable scientifically, thanks to new data about the Earth and about other planets in our galaxy, and by combining the earth-based science of sustainability with the space-oriented field of astrobiology. "We ...

This news release is available in German. "The technique makes it possible for the first time to remove large organic molecules from associated structures and place them elsewhere in a controlled manner," explains Dr. Ruslan Temirov from Jülich's Peter Grünberg Institute. This brings the scientists one step closer to finding a technology that will enable single molecules to be freely assembled to form complex structures. Research groups around the world are working on a modular system like this for nanotechnology, which is considered imperative for the ...

New research reports that the rate of hospitalization due to hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection has significantly declined in the U.S. from 2002 to 2011. Findings published in Hepatology, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, show that older patients and those with chronic liver disease are most likely to be hospitalized for HAV. Vaccination of adults with chronic liver disease may prevent infection with hepatitis A and the need for hospitalization. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that each year 1.4 million individuals worldwide ...

A genetically diverse mouse model is able to predict the range of response to chemical exposures that might be observed in human populations, researchers from the National Institutes of Health have found. Like humans, each Diversity Outbred mouse is genetically unique, and the extent of genetic variability among these mice is similar to the genetic variation seen among humans. Using these mice, researchers from the National Toxicology Program (NTP), an interagency program headquartered at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), were able to identify ...

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 6, 2014--Short-term certificate programs at community colleges offer limited labor-market returns, on average, in most fields of study, according to new research published today in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (EEPA), a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association. The results of the study, which focused on community college programs in Washington State, are in line with recent research in other states (Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia) that found only small economic returns from short-term programs. ...

WASHINGTON, DC (November 6, 2014)--In honor of Veterans Day, the peer-reviewed journal Women's Health Issues (WHI) today released a new Special Collection on women veterans' health, with a focus on mental health. The special collection also highlights recent studies addressing healthcare services, reproductive health and cardiovascular health of women veterans. "In recent years, we have seen the Veterans Administration working to improve care and health outcomes of women veterans and service members," said Chloe Bird, editor-in-chief of Women's Health Issues. "The studies ...

Paramedics respond to a 911 call to find an elderly patient who's having difficulty breathing. Anxious and disoriented, the patient has trouble remembering all the medications he's taking, and with his shortness of breath, speaking is difficult. Is he suffering from acute emphysema or heart failure? The symptoms look the same, but initiating the wrong treatment regimen will increase the patient's risk of severe complications. Researchers from MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics, working with physicians from Harvard Medical School and the Einstein Medical Center in ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Power outages have never been more costly. Electricity is critical to communication, transportation, commerce and national security systems, and wide-spread or prolonged outages have the potential to threaten public safety and cause millions, even billions, of dollars in damages. "It doesn't seem that dire until a storm hits, or somebody makes a mistake, and then you are risking a blackout," said Inara Scott, an assistant professor in the College of Business at Oregon State University. "You have to consider the magnitude of the potential harm ...