One of nature's mysteries is how plants survive impact by the huge amounts of energy contained in the sun's rays, while using this energy for photosynthesis. The hypothesis is that the light-absorbing proteins in the plant's blades quickly dissipate the energy throughout the entire protein molecule through so-called protein quakes. Researchers at DTU Physics have now managed to successfully 'film' this process. Both plants, algae and bacteria contain light-absorbing proteins which play a role in photosynthesis and thus how the organisms produce energy. However, it has ...

TORONTO, Aug. 27, 2014 – Stroke patients are 70 per cent more likely to continue taking their stroke prevention medications one year later if they have a prescription in hand when discharged – according to researchers at St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). Using data from 11 stroke centres, researchers determined how many Ontarians were taking their medications one week, one year and two years after having a stroke. The results reveal the importance of simple interventions, such as giving a prescription to a patient before ...

VIDEO: Sakis play the group service game. Click here for more information. Scientists have long been searching for the factor that determines why humans often behave so selflessly. It was known that humans share this tendency with species of small Latin American primates of the family Callitrichidae (tamarins and marmosets), leading some to suggest that cooperative care for the young, which is ubiquitous in this family, was responsible for spontaneous helping behavior. But it ...

Men who eat over 10 portions a week of tomatoes have an 18 per cent lower risk of developing prostate cancer, new research suggests. With 35,000 new cases every year in the UK, and around 10,000 deaths, prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men worldwide. Rates are higher in developed countries, which some experts believe is linked to a Westernised diet and lifestyle. To assess if following dietary and lifestyle recommendations reduces risk of prostate cancer, researchers at the Universities of Bristol, Cambridge and Oxford looked at the diets and lifestyle ...

Fluorochemicals are synthetically produced chemicals, which repel water and oil and are persistent towards aggressive physical and chemical conditions in industrial processing. These characteristics have made the fluorochemicals useful in numerous processes and products, such as coatings for food paper and board. The problem with fluorochemicals is that they are difficult to break down and accumulate in both humans and the environment. Some fluorochemicals have known correlations with harmful health effects, such as cancer, increased cholesterol and a weaker immune system ...

Dinosaurs are often depicted as giant, frightening beasts. But every creature is a baby once. A new examination of a rock slab containing fossils of 24 very young dinosaurs and one older individual is suggestive of a group of hatchlings overseen by a caretaker, according to a new study by University of Pennsylvania researchers. Penn's Brandon P. Hedrick and Peter Dodson led the work, collaborating with researchers from China's Dalian Museum of Natural History, where the specimen is held. Hedrick is a doctoral student in the School of Arts & Sciences' Department of Earth ...

This news release is available in German. Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1A is the most common inherited disease affecting the peripheral nervous system. Researchers from the Department of Neurogenetics at the Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine and University Medical Centre Göttingen have discovered that the maturity of Schwann cells is impaired in rats with the disease. These cells enwrap the nerve fibres with an insulating layer known as myelin, which facilitates the rapid transfer of electrical impulses. If Schwann cells cannot mature correctly, ...

Ebola is a rare, but deadly disease that exists as five strains, none of which have approved therapies. One of the most lethal strains is the Sudan ebolavirus (SUDV). Although not the strain currently devastating West Africa, SUDV has caused widespread illness, even as recently as 2012. In a new study appearing in the journal ACS Chemical Biology, researchers now report a possible therapy that could someday help treat patients infected with SUDV. John Dye, Sachdev Sidhu, Jonathan Lai and colleagues explain that about 50-90 percent of ebola patients die after experiencing ...

A growing number of consumers are willing to pay a premium for fruits, vegetables and other foods labelled "organic", but whether they're getting what the label claims is another matter. Now scientists studying conventional and organic tomatoes are devising a new way to make sure farms are labelling their produce appropriately. Their report, which appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, could help prevent organic food fraud. Researchers from the Bavarian Health and Food Safety Authority and the Wuerzburg University note that the demand for organic ...

New evidence puts into doubt the long-standing belief that a deficiency in serotonin — a chemical messenger in the brain — plays a central role in depression. In the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience, scientists report that mice lacking the ability to make serotonin in their brains (and thus should have been "depressed" by conventional wisdom) did not show depression-like symptoms. Donald Kuhn and colleagues at the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center and Wayne State University School of Medicine note that depression poses a major public health problem. More than 350 million ...

The effectiveness of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment may hinge significantly upon sleep quality, report researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System in a paper published today in the Journal of Neuroscience. "I think these findings help us understand why sleep disturbances and nightmares are such important symptoms in PTSD," said Sean P.A. Drummond, PhD, professor of psychiatry and director of the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program at the VA San Diego Healthcare System. "Our study ...

They say knowledge is power, and a new UCLA study has shown this is definitely the case when it comes to men making the best decisions about how to treat their prostate cancer. UCLA researchers found that men who aren't well educated about their disease have a much more difficult time making treatment decisions, called decisional conflict, a challenge that could negatively impact the quality of their care and their long-term outcomes. The study should serve as a wake-up call for physicians, who can use the findings to target men less likely to know a lot about their ...

In the aftermath of the Aug. 9 shooting of an 18-year-old African American man by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, much of the nation's attention has been focused on how law enforcement's use of military gear might have inflamed tensions. But what if the simple act of marching in unison — as riot police routinely do — increases the likelihood that law enforcement will use excessive force in policing protests? That's the suggestion of a new study by a pair of UCLA social scientists. "We have found that when men are walking in step with other men, they ...

Financial innovations can make or break an economy. While the negative impact of financial innovation has been extensively covered, a new study of financial innovations before and during the last financial crisis indicates that financial innovations are not all bad. Many provide positive returns, especially in the United States. However, those that are easy for consumers to understand provide the best returns for investors. The study by Gerard J. Tellis, professor, director of the Center for Global Innovation and Neely Professor of American Enterprise at USC Marshall ...

Ann Arbor, MI, August 27, 2014 — Childhood obesity in the United States remains high. A tax on sugar-sweetened beverages such as sodas, energy drinks, sweet teas, and sports drinks would reduce obesity in adolescents more than other policies, such as exercise or an advertising ban, and would also generate significant revenue for additional obesity prevention activities, say researchers writing in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The study also demonstrated that physical activity would benefit children ages 6-12 most. Nearly one in three young people between ...

As of seven hours ago the Happy Camp Complex of fires had consumed 24,939 acres of land in Northern California, the July complex had consumed 35,530 as of eight hours ago. Lightning strikes started seventeen fires on the Happy Camp Ranger District of the Klamath National Forest when a thunderstorm passed through the area on August 11, 2014. All but three of those fires are now 100 percent contained. The following is a list of contained fires and their size at containment: Delta, 150 acres; Sutcliffe, 27 acres; Jackson, 21 acres;Thompson, 17 acres; Tims, 13 acres; Ranch, ...

Listeria is a dreaded bacterium that can be found in both unprocessed and processed foods. Over the last few weeks, 28 persons in Denmark have been infected with Listeria from processed food, sold in supermarkets. 13 have died. The bacterium is notoriously difficult to fight because it has an almost uncanny ability to adapt to changes in its surroundings, says Associate Professor Birgitte Kallipolitis, University of Southern Denmark. Together with colleagues from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, she has published a study, which in details reveals ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University have found that century-old museum specimens hold clues to how global climate change will affect a common insect pest that can weaken and kill trees – and the news is not good. "Recent studies found that scale insect populations increase on oak and maple trees in warmer urban areas, which raises the possibility that these pests may also increase with global warming," says Dr. Elsa Youngsteadt, a research associate at NC State and lead author of a paper on the work. "More scale insects would be a problem, since scales ...

New research from UCL shows we will soon uncover the origin of the ultraviolet light that bathes the cosmos, helping scientists understand how galaxies were built. The study published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters by UCL cosmologists Dr Andrew Pontzen and Dr Hiranya Peiris (both UCL Physics & Astronomy), together with collaborators at Princeton and Barcelona Universities, shows how forthcoming astronomical surveys will reveal what lit up the cosmos. "Which produces more light? A country's biggest cities or its many tiny towns?" asked Dr Pontzen, lead author ...

Sheepdogs use just two simple rules to round up large herds of sheep, scientists have discovered. The findings could lead to the development of robots that can gather and herd livestock, crowd control techniques, or new methods to clean up the environment. For the first time scientists used GPS technology to understand how sheepdogs do their jobs so well. Until now, they had no idea how the dogs manage to get so many unwilling sheep to move in the same direction. NERC fellow, Dr Andrew King of Swansea University, fitted a flock of sheep and a sheepdog with backpacks ...

An expedition to Mount Everest by Italian researchers has shown for the first time that blood pressure monitored over a 24-hour period rises progressively as people climb to higher altitudes. The researchers also found that while a drug used for lowering blood pressure, called telmisartan, was effective in counteracting the effects of altitude up to 3400 metres, it was not effective at 5400 metres above sea level – the height of the Everest base camp. The study is published online today (Wednesday) in the European Heart Journal [1], and its findings have implications ...

An unusual new fossil discovery of one of the earliest animals on earth may also provide the oldest evidence of muscle tissue – the bundles of cells that make movement in animals possible. The fossil, dating from 560 million years ago, was discovered in Newfoundland, Canada. On the basis of its four-fold symmetry, morphological characteristics, and what appear to be some of the earliest impressions of muscular tissue, researchers from the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with the University of Oxford and the Memorial University of Newfoundland, have interpreted ...

Continuous positive airway pressure is effective at treating sleep apnoea in older people, a new study has found. Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is a condition where the walls of the throat relax and narrow during sleep, interrupting normal breathing and causing profound sleepiness. For people with moderate or severe OSA, doctors usually recommend using a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device, which consists of a small pump that delivers pressurised air into the nose through a mask, stopping the throat from closing. Previous studies have established the ...

A comprehensive review of all potential factors behind the 2013/2014 UK winter floods is published today in the journal Nature Climate Change. The paper does not definitively answer whether human activity played a role in the magnitude of the winter flood events. It does, though, examine how factors such as the state of the global oceans may have interacted with wind patterns and subsequent high-level atmospheric features. The review was led by scientists at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, in collaboration with the Met Office and the Universities of Oxford, Exeter ...

People from low socio-economic positions in Britain still eat more salt than those from higher socio-economic positions, irrespective of where they live. A paper published in the BMJ Open journal and led by Warwick Medical School suggests social inequalities in salt intake have hardly changed in the period from 2000-01 to 2011. This is despite a national average salt reduction over this time. This paper is the first to monitor social inequalities following the national salt reduction programme. The research was carried out by the World Health Organization Collaborating ...