Boulder, CO, USA — Stegosaurs might be portrayed as lumbering plant eaters, but they were lethal fighters when necessary, according to paleontologists who have uncovered new evidence of a casualty of stegosaurian combat. The evidence is a fatal stab wound in the pubis bone of a predatory allosaur. The wound – in the conical shape of a stegosaur tail spike – would have required great dexterity to inflict and shows clear signs of having cut short the allosaur's life. "A massive infection ate away a baseball-sized sector of the bone," reports Houston Museum ...

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 21, 2014—Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have discovered exceptional properties in a garnet material that could enable development of higher-energy battery designs. The ORNL-led team used scanning transmission electron microscopy to take an atomic-level look at a cubic garnet material called LLZO. The researchers found the material to be highly stable in a range of aqueous environments, making the compound a promising component in new battery configurations. Researchers frequently seek to improve ...

Boulder, CO, USA — Washington's coast is so close to the seismically active Cascadia Subduction Zone that if a megathrust earthquake were to occur, a tsunami would hit the Washington shoreline in just 25 minutes. One coastal community is preparing for such a disaster by starting construction on the nation's first tsunami evacuation refuge, large enough to shelter more than 1,000 people who are within 20-minute walking distance. The vertical evacuation-refuge will be the roof of the gym of the new school in Grays Harbor County, Washington. The Ocosta Elementary ...

They may be tiny and stingless but there's nothing sweet and innocent about a species of native Sugarbag bee when it goes to war over a coveted honey-filled hive. A study by behavioural ecologist Dr Paul Cunningham, from QUT, and molecular biologist Dr James Hereward, from the University of Queensland, published in American Naturalist, found the bees' used their jaws as lethal weapons when they zoomed in on a neighbouring Brisbane hive to boot out the inhabitants and install their own queen to rule. Dr Cunningham said the attacking bees arrived in a swarm and clashed ...

This news release is available in German. Stroma cells are derived from connective tissue and may critically influence tumour growth. This knowledge is not new. However, bioanalyst Christopher Gerner and an interdisciplinary team from the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna have developed a novel methodology for investigation. Using modern mass spectrometry, tumour-promoting activities from breast fibroblasts were directly determined from needle biopsy samples. Recently this experimental break-through is published in the renowned Journal of Proteome ...

Folsom, Calif., (October 21, 2014) – A new animal study published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease indicates that a diet including walnuts may have a beneficial effect in reducing the risk, delaying the onset, slowing the progression of, or preventing Alzheimer's disease. Research led by Abha Chauhan, PhD, head of the Developmental Neuroscience Laboratory at the New York State Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities (IBR), found significant improvement in learning skills, memory, reducing anxiety, and motor development in mice fed a walnut-enriched ...

When it comes to the brain, "more is better" seems like an obvious assumption. But in the case of synapses, which are the connections between brain cells, too many or too few can both disrupt brain function. Researchers from Princeton University and the University of California-San Diego (UCSD) recently found that an immune-system protein called MHCI, or major histocompatibility complex class I, moonlights in the nervous system to help regulate the number of synapses, which transmit chemical and electrical signals between neurons. The researchers report in the Journal ...

Massive black holes spewing out radio-frequency-emitting particles at near-light speed can block formation of new stars in aging galaxies, a study has found. The research provides crucial new evidence that it is these jets of "radio-frequency feedback" streaming from mature galaxies' central black holes that prevent hot free gas from cooling and collapsing into baby stars. "When you look into the past history of the universe, you see these galaxies building stars," said Tobias Marriage, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins and co-lead author ...

A new medical imaging method being developed at Rutgers University could help physicians detect cancer and other diseases earlier than before, speeding treatment and reducing the need for invasive, time-consuming biopsies. The potentially lifesaving technique uses nanotechnology to reveal small cancerous tumors and cardiovascular lesions deep inside the body. It is showing promise in early tests by Rutgers researchers in the schools of engineering and pharmacy. The Rutgers scientists, who published initial results of their work in the July issue of the journal Nature ...

Undescended testis is commonly found in newborn boys and usually normalizes spontaneously by the age of six months. In one in a hundred boys, however, at least one testis remains undescended—a condition associated with impaired fertility and a higher risk of testicular cancer in later life. About 3500 boys are affected with this condition in Germany each year. In the currently valid medical guideline for the treatment of undescended testis, early surgery is recommended, i.e., orchidopexy before the child's first birthday, in order to prevent late sequelae. Nonetheless, ...

LAWRENCE — Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey. Grumpy Cat. "Peanut," the Ugliest Dog in the World. These might be a sampling of the most familiar animals to millions of users of social networking sites like Facebook. But one doctoral student in geography at the University of Kansas recognizes social networking sites as a potential boon for scientifically documenting Earth's biodiversity, particularly in developing nations. In fact, for this idea, Vijay Barve was just honored with a Young Researchers Award from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, an international ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass--The boom in oil and gas produced through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is seen as a boon for meeting U.S. energy needs. But one byproduct of the process is millions of gallons of water that's much saltier than seawater, after leaching salts from rocks deep below the surface. Now researchers at MIT and in Saudi Arabia say they have found an economical solution for removing the salt from this water. The new analysis appears this week in the journal Applied Energy, in a paper co-authored by MIT professor John Lienhard, postdoc Ronan McGovern, and four ...

This news release is available in German. Conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), well-known from its use in hospitals, can typically resolve details of up to one tenth of a millimetre, for example in cross-sectional images of the human body. Together with colleagues at the University of Leipzig, researchers of ETH Zurich are working on massively increasing the resolution of the technique, with the goal of eventually imaging at the level of single molecules – demanding an over one million times finer resolution. By detecting the signal from a single hydrogen ...

(Austin, Texas) October 21, 2014 – The largest study to date of mortality trends in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) shows that the rate of mortality dropped significantly over a 16-year period. Advances in critical care medicine are seen as a direct cause of the decline. The study abstract was released today in an online supplement of the of the journal CHEST and will be presented at CHEST 2014, the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians in Austin, Texas held October 25-30. Researchers at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical ...

(Austin, Texas) October 21, 2014 – Patients who use a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device to treat obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) often believe that it makes them less sexually attractive, according to researchers at Rosalind Franklin University. A new study abstract released today in an online supplement of the journal CHEST, to be presented at CHEST 2014, the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians in Austin, Texas, shows that they do not need to worry. Erectile dysfunction (ED) is common in sleep apnea patients, but studies have ...

Alpine goats appear to be shrinking in size as they react to changes in climate, according to new research from Durham University. The researchers studied the impacts of changes in temperature on the body size of Alpine Chamois, a species of mountain goat, over the past 30 years. To their surprise, they discovered that young Chamois now weigh about 25 per cent less than animals of the same age in the 1980s. In recent years, decreases in body size have been identified in a variety of animal species, and have frequently been linked to the changing climate. However, ...

(Austin, Texas) October 21, 2014 – A new study shows that patients with stage I to stage III non-small cell lung cancer have different metabolite profiles in their blood than those of patients who are at risk but do not have lung cancer. The study abstract was released today in an online supplement of the journal CHEST and will be presented at CHEST 2014, the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians in Austin, Texas, on October 29. Researchers at Cleveland Clinic studied the blood serum of 284 subjects, 48% of whom were female with a mean age of ...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21, 2014 — It's National Chemistry Week, and this year's theme is the sweetest of all: candy. Whether it's ice cream, candy bars, pudding or cake, we love our sweets. But why do those treats actually taste sweet? Whether they're made with sugar or artificial sweeteners, it all comes down to chemistry. Find out more here: http://youtu.be/FaBFyEa8-eI. Subscribe to the series at Reactions YouTube, and follow us on Twitter @ACSreactions to be the first to see our latest videos. INFORMATION:The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization ...

The way in which male moths locate females flying hundreds of meters away has long been a mystery to scientists. Researchers know the moths use pheromones to locate their mates. Yet when these chemical odors are widely dispersed in a windy, turbulent atmosphere, the insects still manage to fly in the right direction over hundreds of meters with only random puffs of their mates' pheromones spaced tens of seconds apart to guide them. "The male moths are flying toward females integrating all of this information along the way and somehow getting to them," said Massimo Vergassola, ...

An international team of physicists has measured a subtle characteristic in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation that will allow them to map the large-scale structure of the universe, determine the masses of neutrinos and perhaps uncover some of the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. In a paper published this week in the Astrophysical Journal, the POLARBEAR consortium, led by University of California, Berkeley, physicist Adrian Lee, describes the first successful isolation of a "B-mode" produced by gravitational lensing in the polarization ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Children who show poor decision-making skills at age 10 or 11 may be more likely to experience interpersonal and behavioral difficulties that have the potential to lead to high-risk health behavior in their teen years, according to a new study from Oregon State University psychology professor. "These findings suggest that less-refined decision skills early in life could potentially be a harbinger for problem behavior in the future," said Joshua Weller, an assistant professor in the School of Psychological Science in OSU's College of Liberal Arts. However, ...

Boulder, CO, USA — The last ten years have been a remarkable time for great earthquakes. Since December 2004 there have been no less than 18 quakes of Mw8.0 or greater – a rate of more than twice that seen from 1900 to mid-2004. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost and massive damage has resulted from these great earthquakes. But as devastating as such events can be, these recent great quakes have come with a silver lining: They coincide with unprecedented advances in technological and scientific capacity for learning from them. "We previously had ...

Even though they are not hungry, children as young as three will find high-energy treats too tempting to refuse, new QUT research has found. In a study of three and four year olds, 100 per cent of children opted for a sweet or savory snack despite eating a filling healthy lunch only 15 minutes prior. Nutrition researcher Holly Harris, from QUT's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, said the results highlighted the health risks for children frequently confronted with an abundance of energy-dense, high-calorie foods. Ms Harris's study, published in the journal ...

Recreational fishermen prize large trophy fish. Commercial fishing gear targets big fish. After all, larger fish feed the egos of humans as well as their bellies. A new compilation of research from around the world now shows that big, old, fat, fertile, female fish – known as BOFFFFs to scientists – are essential for ensuring that fishery stocks remain sustainable. "Information on many different kinds of freshwater and marine fish tell the same story," says lead author Dr. Mark Hixon of the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. "The loss of big fish decreases ...

You are what you eat, unless you're not quite sure what you ate. A new paper by Jinan Banna and Marie Kainoa Fialkowski of the University of Hawai'i at Manoa's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources and Marilyn Townsend of the University of California, Davis' College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences takes a critical look at how faulty self-reporting of the food we eat can lead to incorrect conclusions about whether we are meeting dietary recommendations for certain essential nutrients. Banna's study is the first to examine how accounting for the ...