Campaigns against disposable plastic shopping bags and their environmental impact recently scored a major win. In August, California lawmakers passed the first statewide ban on the bags, and Governor Jerry Brown is expected to sign it. But the plastic bag industry is not yielding without a fight, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society. Alexander Tullo, a senior correspondent with C&EN, reports that the anti-bag campaign logged its first small victory in 1990 when Nantucket became the first place ...

Ageing of insulin-secreting cells is coupled to a progressive decline in signal transduction and insulin release, according to a recent study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. The finding, which is published in the journal Diabetes, provides a new molecular mechanism underlying age-related impairment of insulin-producing cells and diabetes. Ageing is among the largest known risk factors for many diseases, and type 2 diabetes is no exception. People older than 65 years have an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes if their insulin-producing cells ...

New research has found that the Great Barrier Reef, as a whole, is a remarkably effective wave absorber, despite large gaps between the reefs. This means that landward of the reefs, waves are mostly related to local winds rather than offshore wave conditions. As waves break and reduce in height over reefs, this drives currents that are very important for the transport of nutrients and larvae. This reduction in wave height also has implications for shoreline stability. The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is the largest coral reef system in the world, extending 2,300 ...

New Rochelle, NY, September 17, 2014—Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), a specialized magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique that detects microstructural changes in brain tissue, can help physicians better predict the likelihood for poor clinical outcomes following mild traumatic brain injury compared to conventional imaging techniques such as computed tomography (CT), according to a new study published in Journal of Neurotrauma, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Journal of Neurotrauma website until October ...

Tropical Storm Kalmaegi made landfall on September 17 near the border of Vietnam and China and moved inland. Soon after the landfall as a typhoon, NASA's Terra satellite passed overhead and captured an image of the weaker tropical storm. The MODIS instrument that flies aboard Aqua took a visible picture of Tropical Storm Kalmaegi on Sept. 17 at 03:35 UTC (Sept. 16 at 11:35 p.m. EDT). The image showed the center of the storm in northeastern Vietnam, just south of the China border. Kalmaegi's clouds extended north into southern China and west into Laos. The Vietnamese ...

New research from the Copenhagen Centre for Social Evolution and Yale University offers compelling support for the general evolutionary theory that birth weight and -length can partially predict the likelihood of being diagnosed with mental health disorders such as autism and schizophrenia later in life. The study analyzed medical records of 1.75 million Danish births, and subsequent hospital diagnoses for up to 30 years, and adjusted for almost all other known risk factors. The study is published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, London B. The number of ...

From the most parched areas of Saudi Arabia to water-scarce areas of the western U.S., the idea of harvesting fog for water is catching on. Now, a novel approach to this process could help meet affected communities' needs for the life-essential resource. Scientists describe their new, highly efficient fog collector, inspired by a shorebird's beak, in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Cheng Luo and his doctoral student, Xin Heng, explain that deserts and semi-arid areas cover about half of the Earth's land masses. In some of these places, trucks bring in ...

Researchers in Biomedical Informatics at IMIM (Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute) and at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) have recently published a study in eLife showing that RNA called non-coding (IncRNA) plays an important role in the evolution of new proteins, some of which could have important cell functions yet to be discovered. Ribosomes produce proteins from the instructions found in an RNA molecule. However, only 2% of the human genome is RNA containing information for the synthesis of proteins, meaning it is coding. Other parts of the ...

A team of Spanish researchers have obtained the first partial genome sequence of an ancient pig. Extracted from a sixteenth century pig found at the site of the Montsoriu Castle in Girona, the data obtained indicates that this ancient pig is closely related to today's Iberian pig. Researchers also discard the hypothesis that Asian pigs were crossed with modern Iberian pigs. The study, published in Heredity, sheds new light on evolutionary aspects of pig species, and particularly on that of the Iberian breed, considered to be representative of original European Mediterranean ...

Smoke from the fires in the Selway Complex is wafting into the Selway River valley in this image taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra satellite on September 15, 2014. Actively burning areas, detected by MODIS's thermal bands, are outlined in red. All the fires began between August 10 and August 25, 2014 by lightning strikes. The following fires are part of the Selway Complex: Raven Creek, Elevator Mountain, Eagle Creek, Vance Mountain, Nick Wynn, and Jerusalem fires. The Johnson Bar fire is also contributing to the smoke ...

Lamprey—slimy, eel-like parasitic fish with tooth-riddled, jawless sucking mouths—are rather disgusting to look at, but thanks to their important position on the vertebrate family tree, they can offer important insights about the evolutionary history of our own brain development, a recent study suggests. The work appears in a paper in the September 14 advance online issue of the journal Nature. "Lamprey are one of the most primitive vertebrates alive on Earth today, and by closely studying their genes and developmental characteristics, researchers can learn more about ...

(MEMPHIS, TENN. – September 16, 2014) A study led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators has found the chemotherapy dose threshold below which male childhood cancer survivors are likely to have normal sperm production. The study appears in September 17 edition of the journal Lancet Oncology. By clarifying which patients are at highest risk for reduced sperm production as adults, researchers expect the findings to eventually increase use of pre-treatment fertility preservation methods such as sperm banking. The study involved drugs called alkylating agents ...

State legislators are more attentive to wealthy citizens' political opinions compared to poor citizens' opinions when making policy decisions, but stricter regulations on professional lobbyists can promote more equal political representation, according to a Baylor University study. "Stricter lobbying laws are an important tool for ensuring that citizens' opinions receive more equal consideration when elected officials make important policy decisions," said researcher Patrick Flavin, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences. The ...

Sticklebacks, the roaches of the fish world, are the ideal animal in which to study the genes that control body shape. They've moved from the ocean into tens of thousands of freshwater streams and lakes around the world, each time changing their skeleton to adapt to the new environment. Breeding studies between marine and freshwater populations of sticklebacks now have turned up one of the genes that controls tooth number, plus evidence that a simple change in that gene's regulation in a freshwater population is associated with a near doubling in the number of teeth. ...

A new study of high school activities bears this message for incoming high school students: Play what the smart kids play. Joining an extra-curricular team or club with members that get good grades can double a high school student's odds of going to college. And Brigham Young University sociologist and study co-author Lance Erickson knows how to sell the study to teens. "Tell your parents, whatever they ground you from, it shouldn't be from practice or a club activity," said Erickson. "If they ground you from a school club, you are more likely to end up living at ...

VIDEO: In this Science Minute from NIMBioS, Dr. Elizabeth Hobson explains what monk parakeets can teach us about complex sociality. Click here for more information. KNOXVILLE—Science has learned a great deal about complex social behavior by studying nonhuman mammals and primates, but parrots might have something to teach too. With their unusually large brains relative to their body size and advanced cognition, parrots live in a complex social environment---not merely in ...

As nations zero in on the UN's post-2015 global Sustainable Development Goals, innovations being successfully pioneered and demonstrated in Malaysia offer several proven tactical ideas for improving the world, says an influential international sustainable development networking organization. The UN's Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), through its Malaysian chapter, cites ways in which the country is "rising to the challenge," including the construction of ingenious, self-sustaining "smart" villages -- each lifting about 100 families out of poverty and ...

The risk of severe maternal morbidity amongst women in Australia is increased by lower socioeconomic position, suggests a new study published today (17 September) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Australians generally enjoy high standards of living; however, existing research has concluded that health disparities exist, in particular between indigenous and non indigenous Australians. This case-control study aimed to explore the independent impact of socioeconomic position on severe maternal morbidities associated with direct maternal ...

Trees have been growing significantly faster since the 1960s. The typical development phases of trees and stands have barely changed, but they have accelerated -- by as much as 70 percent. This was the outcome of a study carried out by scientists from Technische Universität München based on long-term data from experimental forest plots that have been continuously observed since 1870. Their findings were published recently in Nature Communications. Three decades ago, "forest dieback" was a hot topic, with the very survival of large forest ecosystems seemingly in doubt. ...

One sip of a perfectly poured glass of wine leads to an explosion of flavours in your mouth. Researchers at Aarhus University, Denmark, have now developed a nanosensor that can mimic what happens in your mouth when you drink wine. The sensor measures how you experience the sensation of dryness in the wine. When wine growers turn their grapes into wine, they need to control a number of processes to bring out the desired flavour in the product that ends up in the wine bottle. An important part of the taste is known in wine terminology as astringency, and it is characteristic ...

This news release is available in Spanish and Spanish. As far as the conclusions of the study are concerned, the following aspects, among others, are worth highlighting: the more compact the town or city is, the more concentrated is its population; the more jobs there are in the municipality itself, etc., the less private vehicles are used; the better the offer of public transport, the lower the number of people who use private cars; the higher the per capita income is (in small localities), the greater is the tendency to use the private car. According to Mendiola, ...

This news release is available in Spanish. Obesity and overweight affect more than half of the population in our Community. Excess weight causes important alterations in the organism, one of which affects liver function. Fat accumulates in the liver producing hepatic steatosis which, in certain circumstances, causes inflammation, fibrosis and finally, cirrhosis. To date, the most reliable method for determining hepatic fat has been hepatic biopsy. Imaging techniques such as abdominal ecography detect it but are less precise for determining the quantity of fat. But ...

The car of the future will be safer, smarter and offer greater high-tech gadgets, but be warned without improved security the risk of car hacking is real, according to a QUT road safety expert. Professor Andry Rakotonirainy will speak at the Occupational Safety in Transport Conference (OSIT) on the Gold Coast on September 18-19 on the security threat facing drivers as vehicles become computers on wheels. Professor Rakotonirainy, from QUT's Centre for Accident Research & Road Safety - Queensland (CARRS), has researched the security systems of existing fleet, future ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Right now no one can say whether yoga provides clinical benefits to people with bipolar disorder, but in a new article in the Journal of Psychiatric Practice, researchers report survey responses they gathered from scores of people with the condition who practice yoga. What the collective testimony suggests is that yoga can be a substantial help, but it sometimes carries risks, too. "There is no scientific literature on hatha yoga for bipolar disorder," said lead author Lisa Uebelacker, associate professor (research) of psychiatry ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — After decades of decline, grasses have returned to some once-denuded patches of Cape Cod's saltmarshes. To the eye, the marsh in those places seems healthy again, but a new study makes clear that a key service of the marsh – coastal protection – remains diminished. "We've got the aesthetics back but the ecosystem function hasn't come back," said ecologist Mark Bertness, professor of biology at Brown and senior author of the study in the journal Biological Conservation. "The metric of a recovered habitat should not be 'Does it look ...