Support in developed countries for natural history—the study of the fundamental nature of organisms and how and where they live and interact with their environment—appears to be in steep decline. Yet natural history provides essential knowledge for fields as varied as human health, food security, conservation, land management, and recreation. In the April issue of BioScience, a group of scientists from institutions across North America details examples supporting their conviction that a revitalization of the practice of natural history will provide important benefits for ...

Decreased exposure to air pollution in utero is linked with improved childhood developmental scores and higher levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a key protein for brain development, according to a study looking at the closure of a coal-burning power plant in China led by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health at the Mailman School of Public Health. The study is the first to assess BDNF and cognitive development with respect to prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), a component of air pollution commonly ...

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), a multi-institutional partnership led by Berkeley Lab, have identified the genetic origins of a microbial resistance to ionic liquids and successfully introduced this resistance into a strain of E. coli bacteria for the production of advanced biofuels. The ionic liquid resistance is based on a pair of genes discovered in a bacterium native to a tropical rainforest in Puerto Rico. "We identified two genes in Enterobacter lignolyticus, a soil bacterium that is tolerant to imidazolium-based ...

VIDEO: On March 23 when the TRMM satellite passed over Gillian, it was at hurricane-force. TRMM revealed intense storms in a well-defined eye wall producing rain at a rate of over... Click here for more information. Tropical Cyclone Gillian was near peak intensity when the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite passed overhead and saw towering thunderstorms and very heavy rainfall in the storm on March 23. By March 26, Gillian had weakened to a tropical storm and ...

HOUSTON – (March 26, 2014) –It is probably not a good idea to shop for leisure travel from the office during business hours, according to a new study from Rice University and Iowa State University. Using data from a major online hotel reservation site, the study examined the quality of the hotel that consumers chose for their vacations and subsequently how satisfied they were with their stay. They found that consumers who traveled farther and made reservations during business hours were more likely to select higher quality hotels but were less satisfied after their stay. ...

Quintessence and phantom fields, two hypotheses formulated using data from satellites, such as Planck and WMAP, are among the many theories that try to explain the nature of dark energy. Now researchers from Barcelona and Athens suggest that both possibilities are only a mirage in the observations and it is the quantum vacuum which could be behind this energy that moves our universe. Cosmologists believe that some three quarters of the universe are made up of a mysterious dark energy which would explain its accelerated expansion. The truth is that they do not know what ...

March 26, 2014 – (BRONX, NY) – From uncovering the role nerve cells play in metastasis to identifying new cancer-causing genes, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University made notable advances in the understanding and potential treatment of cancer during the past year. Several Einstein faculty members and students will present their recent research at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting, taking place in San Diego April 5-9, 2014. Among the presentations are those during major and mini symposia: Gene Regulation ...

Rochester, Minn. — Gout is on the rise among U.S. men and women, and this piercingly painful and most common form of inflammatory arthritis is turning out to be more complicated than had been thought. The standard way to check for gout is by drawing fluid or tissue from an affected joint and looking for uric acid crystals, a test known as a needle aspirate. That usually works, but not always: In a new Mayo Clinic study, X-rays known as dual-energy CT scans found gout in one-third of patients whose aspirates tested negative for the disease. The CT scans allowed rheumatologists ...

Reston, Va. (March 21, 2012) – New quantitative data suggests that 30 percent of the surgeries performed for non-small cell lung cancer patients in a community-wide clinical study were deemed unnecessary. Additionally, positron emission tomography (PET) was found to reduce unnecessary surgeries by 50 percent, according to research published in the March issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine. PET imaging prior to surgery helps stage a patient's disease by providing functional images of tumors throughout the body, especially areas where cancer has spread, otherwise known ...

With sales of electronic cigarettes, or "e-cigarettes," on the rise and expected to hit $1.5 billion this year, concerns over potential health risks of using the trendy devices are also gaining momentum and political clout. An article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society, delves into what scientists and regulators are doing about e-cigarettes, which are now being cleverly marketed under more appealing names such as hookah pens and vape pipes. The battery-powered devices deliver an inhalable vapor, with or without ...

Sanitary-minded pool-goers who preach "no peeing in the pool," despite ordinary and Olympic swimmers admitting to the practice, now have scientific evidence to back up their concern. Researchers are reporting that when mixed, urine and chlorine can form substances that can cause potential health problems. Their study appears in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology. Jing Li, Ernest Blatchley, III, and colleagues note that adding chlorine to pool water is the most common way to kill disease-causing microbes and prevent swimmers from getting sick. But as people ...

One of the most serious threats to global biodiversity and the leisure and tourism industries is set to increase with climate change according to new research by Queen's University Belfast. Researchers at Queen's have found that certain invasive weeds, which have previously been killed off by low winter temperatures, are set to thrive as global temperatures increase. The team based at Quercus, Northern Ireland's centre for biodiversity and conservation science research, predicts that invasive waterweeds will become more widespread over the next 70 years. The researchers ...

Strict guidelines for treating paracetamol overdoses – introduced 18 months ago – are costing the NHS millions of pounds a year, researchers claim. The number of patients receiving hospital treatment for paracetamol poisoning in the UK each year has risen by almost 50 per cent since the guidelines were updated by the Medicines and Health Regulatory Authority, a study estimates. Researchers have assessed the impact of the MHRA decision to revise the guidelines, which was taken following the death of a young girl from a paracetamol overdose. Patients with a life-threatening ...

People eat more breakfast cereal, by weight, when flake size is reduced, according to Penn State researchers, who showed that when flakes are reduced by crushing, people pour a smaller volume of cereal into their bowls, but still take a greater amount by weight and calories. "People have a really hard time judging appropriate portions," said Barbara Rolls, professor of nutritional sciences and Helen A. Guthrie Chair in Nutrition. "On top of that you have these huge variations in volume that are due to the physical characteristics of foods, such as the size of individual ...

Researchers at Warwick Medical School have shown for the first time how a protein motor, Kif15, uses acrobatic flexibility to navigate within the mitotic spindle. Understanding how it works could prove vital for the development of targeted cancer therapies. The new study, published in eLife, describes the behaviour of Kif15 for the first time and provides a breakthrough step towards understanding the role it plays in cell division. Many frontline cancer drugs target microtubules, the molecular cables that are used to build the mitotic spindle - the protein machine that ...

The adult offspring of parents who were addicted to drugs or alcohol are more likely to have arthritis, according to a new study by University of Toronto researchers. Investigators examined a group of 13,036 adults and found that 20.4 per cent of respondents had been diagnosed with arthritis by a medical professional. Investigators found that 14.5 per cent of all respondents reported having at least one parent whose drug or alcohol use caused problems while were under the age of 18 and still living at home. Results indicate that individuals whose parents were addicted ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study shows that teenagers can be persuaded to cut back on sugary soft drinks – especially with a little help from their friends. A 30-day challenge encouraging teens to reduce sugar-sweetened drink use lowered their overall consumption substantially and increased by two-thirds the percentage of high-school students who shunned sugary drinks altogether. The "Sodabriety" challenge, piloted by Ohio State University researchers, was an effort to confront the largest source of added sugar in the U.S. diet: sugar-sweetened soft drinks, sports and energy ...

UPTON, NY-Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have made the first 3D observations of how the structure of a lithium-ion battery anode evolves at the nanoscale in a real battery cell as it discharges and recharges. The details of this research, described in a paper published in Angewandte Chemie, could point to new ways to engineer battery materials to increase the capacity and lifetime of rechargeable batteries. "This work offers a direct way to look inside the electrochemical reaction of batteries at the nanoscale to better understand ...

The problems people with autism have with memory formation, higher-level thinking and social interactions may be partially attributable to the activity of receptors inside brain cells, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have learned. Scientists were already aware that the type of receptor in question was a potential contributor to these problems – when located on the surfaces of brain cells. Until now, though, the role of the same type of receptor located inside the cell had gone unrecognized. Such receptors inside cells significantly ...

Starting about 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, brachiopod groups disappeared in large numbers, along with 90 percent of the planet's species. Today, only a few groups, or genera, of brachiopods remain. "Most people won't be familiar with brachiopods. They're pretty rare in the modern ocean," said Jonathan Payne, a paleobiologist at Stanford University. Meanwhile, bivalves flourished, diversifying into a staggering variety of shapes and sizes, and spread from marine to freshwater habitats. "After the end-Permian mass extinction, we find far fewer ...

The study found a 'stop mechanism' that determined brain signals telling the individual to stop drinking water when no longer thirsty, and the brain effects of drinking more water than required. Researcher Professor Derek Denton from the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne said the study provided insight into the human instincts that determine survival behaviour and are also of medical importance. 
 "Different areas of the brain involved in emotional decision-making were activated when people drank water after becoming ...

Seattle, WA—A new team approach has improved safety—reducing rates of major complications by two thirds—for complex spinal reconstructive surgery for spinal deformity in adult Group Health patients at Virginia Mason Hospital & Seattle Medical Center. An article in the March issue of Spine Deformity gives a detailed description of the standardized protocol before, during, and after the surgery, stressing the new approach's three main features: Two spine surgeons in the operating room A live preoperative screening conference Monitoring bleeding during the operation The ...

Creating surrogate human organs, coupled with insights from highly sensitive mass spectrometry technologies, a new project is on the brink of revolutionizing the way we screen new drugs and toxic agents. ATHENA, the Advanced Tissue-engineered Human Ectypal Network Analyzer project team, is developing four human organ constructs – liver, heart, lung and kidney – that are based on a significantly miniaturized platform. Each organ component will be about the size of a smartphone screen, and the whole ATHENA "body" of interconnected organs would fit neatly on a desk. "By ...

Washington, DC—Although people live longer today than they did 50 years ago, people who were overweight and obese as teenagers aren't experiencing the same gains as other segments of the population, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). The life expectancy of the average American born in 2011 was 78.7 years, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The average lifespan has increased by more than a decade since 1950, but rising obesity rates threaten to take a toll on ...

New research shows sugary drinks are the worst offenders in the fight against youth obesity and recommends that B.C. schools fully implement healthy eating guidelines to reduce their consumption. Data from the 2008 Adolescent Health survey among 11,000 grade seven to 12 students in British Columbia schools indicates sugary drinks like soda increased the odds of obesity more than other foods such as pizza, french fries, chips and candies. The study, published today in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, found that students in schools ...