A team of U.S. and U.K. scientists has found geologic evidence that casts doubt on one of the conventional explanations for how Antarctica's ice sheet began forming. Ian Dalziel, research professor at The University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics and professor in the Jackson School of Geosciences, and his colleagues report the findings today in an online edition of the journal Geology. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), an ocean current flowing clockwise around the entire continent, insulates Antarctica from warmer ocean water to the north, helping ...

Using the same type of mathematical formulas used to draw political redistricting maps, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have developed a model that would allow for the more equitable allocation of livers from deceased donors for transplantation. Currently, in the United States, where you live dictates the availability of a liver transplant. Studies show that geography can mean the difference between a 10 percent chance of dying while on the waiting list for a donor liver, and a 90 percent chance, the researchers say. The new model depends not on the longstanding relationships ...

Simon Fraser University biologists have discovered a new, extinct family of insects that will help scientists better understand how some animals responded to global climate change and the evolution of communities. The Eocene Apex of Panorpoid Family Diversity, a paper by SFU's Bruce Archibald and Rolf Mathewes, plus David Greenwood from Brandon University, was recently published in the Journal of Paleontology. The researchers named the new family the Eorpidae, after the Eocene Epoch, the age when these insects lived some 50 million years ago. The fossils were found ...

More support is needed to help women overcome doubts in the hope that they will breastfeed their babies for longer, says a University of Alberta nutrition researcher. A study conducted by the University of Alberta in Canada found that new moms are weaning their infants early instead of feeding them just breast milk for the first six months of life, said Anna Farmer, an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science and the Centre for Health Promotion Studies. That falls below recommendations made by the World Health Organization and ...

CINCINNATI—A recently discovered form of the protein that triggers blood clotting plays a critical role in promoting the growth of metastatic pancreatic cancer and primary breast cancer, according to the cumulative findings from two new scientific manuscripts published online ahead of print in the International Journal of Cancer and PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). The protein, called "Tissue Factor," is present in various tissues—for example, walls of blood vessels. Earlier studies suggested that alternatively spliced Tissue Factor (asTF) may ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Last month, the first expedition to use a deep-diving submersible to study the Atlantic Ocean lionfish invasion found something very disturbing – at 300 feet deep, there were still significant populations of these predatory fish, and they were big. Big fish in many species can reproduce much more efficiently than their younger, smaller counterparts, and lionfish are known to travel considerable distances and move to various depths. This raises significant new concerns in the effort to control this invasive species that is devastating native fish populations ...

"Ocean predator" conjures up images of sharks and barracudas, but the voracious red lionfish is out-eating them all in the Caribbean – and Mother Nature appears unable to control its impact on local reef fish. That leaves human intervention as the most promising solution to the problem of this highly invasive species, said researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "Lionfish are here to stay, and it appears that the only way to control them is by fishing them," said John Bruno, professor of biology in UNC's College of Arts and Sciences and lead investigator ...

This week a European Earth-observing satellite confirmed that a large iceberg broke off of Pine Island Glacier, one of Antarctica's largest and fastest moving ice streams. The rift that led to the new iceberg was discovered in October 2011 during NASA's Operation IceBridge flights over the continent. The rift soon became the focus of international scientific attention. Seeing the rift grow and eventually form a 280-square-mile ice island gave researchers an opportunity to gather data that promises to improve our understanding of how glaciers calve. "Calving is a hot topic ...

VIDEO: The TRMM satellite flew over Soulik on July 10 at 14:06 UTC and saw a well-defined eye and multiple intense (red) and moderate and weak (green, blue). Click here for more information. When a hurricane or typhoon's eye becomes filled with clouds, it can be a sign the storm is weakening, or that high clouds have moved over it, or its eyewall is being replaced. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Typhoon Soulik on July 11 an instrument aboard noticed clouds filled ...

Tropical Storm Chantal moved over Hispaniola on July 10 when NASA's Terra satellite passed overhead from space, and less than twenty-four hours later the storm weakened to a remnant low pressure area. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Chantal when it was a tropical storm over Hispaniola on July 10 at 15:20 UTC (11:20 a.m. EDT). At that time, Chantal's northern quadrant covered the Dominican Republic and eastern Haiti while the center of the storm remained south of ...

Drug use is common among street children, posing serious threats to both their health and their chances for reintegration into society. It's difficult to reduce drug use among street children without a good understanding of the problem, and up to now the research has been confined mainly to local studies with inconsistent results. Today, Addiction has published a systematic review of 50 studies of drug use among street children in 22 countries, shedding new light on the magnitude of the problem, the causes and health consequences of drug use among street children, and ...

STANFORD, Calif. — A new, noninvasive technique for tracking stem cells after transplantation — developed by a cross-disciplinary team of radiologists, chemists, statisticians and materials scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine — could help surgeons determine whether a procedure to repair injured or worn-out knees is successful. The technique, described in a study to be published online July 12 in Radiology, relies on an imaging agent already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for an entirely different purpose: anemia treatment. Although ...

Young men who are gang members suffer unprecedented levels of psychiatric illness, placing a heavy burden on mental health services, according to new research led by Queen Mary, University of London. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and Maurice & Jacqueline Bennett Charitable Trust funded study surveyed 4,664 men aged 18 to 34 in Britain. The survey covered measures of psychiatric illness, violence and gang membership. It is the first time research has looked into whether gang violence is associated with psychiatric illness, other than substance misuse. The ...

Spanish researchers at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC) have found that during the early stages of mammalian development, embryonic cells embark on a battle for survival. Through this battle, the less active of these cells are eliminated by their stronger sisters. The work is published today in the prestigious journal Nature. This phenomenon, termed cell competition, occurs in a defined time window, between days 3 and 7 of mouse development. During this period all embryonic cells compete with each other, as explained by Dr. Cristina Claveria, ...

Human migrations – from the prehistoric epoch to the present day – have extended cultures across the globe. With these travelers have come unwanted stowaways: mosquito-borne parasites belonging to the Plasmodium species – a group responsible for malaria, worldwide. As part of a team of collaborators from 10 countries, Ananias Escalante, a researcher at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, has been tracking the tenacious global spread of one of these malarial parasite species: Plasmodium vivax, the most prevalent cause of malaria in many countries outside ...

LOS ANGELES (July 11, 2013) – Deep brain stimulation therapy blocks or modulates electrical signals in the brain to improve symptoms in patients suffering from movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease, essential tremor and dystonia, but a new study suggests that several factors may cause electrical current to vary over time. Led by Michele Tagliati, MD, director of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Movement Disorders Program, the study identified variables that affect impedance – resistance in circuits that affect intensity and wavelength of electrical current. Doctors ...

Medical diagnostic and security scanners with higher sensitivity could result from University of Adelaide research into detecting T-rays (terahertz waves). Published in the journal Advanced Optical Materials, the researchers describe a novel structure which traps terahertz waves in tiny (micro-scale) holes to produce much higher contrast imaging than currently possible. Terahertz waves, which are electromagnetic waves with frequencies between those used for mobile phone communications and for optical fibre communications, are used for some airport body scanners and ...

Cancer vaccines prime the immune system to attack cancer cells, decreasing tumor progression. IL-12p70, a molecule produced by certain types of immune cells, has been shown to reduce tumor progression, but delivering it as part of a cancer vaccine has been limited because of its toxicity in high doses. In the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Dr. Beatriz Carreno and colleagues at Washington University report the results of a clinical trial that tested a vaccine to treat newly diagnosed advanced melanoma. A portion of each patient's own immune cells, ...

VIDEO: It might be cold in the Antarctic, but that doesn't mean that life there necessarily moves slowly. A report appearing in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, on July 11... Click here for more information. It might be cold in the Antarctic, but that doesn't mean that life there necessarily moves slowly. A report appearing in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, on July 11 reveals the discovery of a surprisingly fast-growing community of glass sponges in ...

The breakup and collapse of the Larsen A ice shelf in the western Weddell Sea in 1995 has resulted in fundamental changes to life on the sea bed in less than two decades. As reported by biologists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in the cover story of the current issue of the scientific journal Current Biology, Antarctic glass sponges have been the prime beneficiaries of the disappearance of the ice shelf. To the surprise of the scientists, the density of these archaic filter-feeders has increased threefold between 2007 ...

During the Great Recession, high school students became more concerned about others and the environment, psychologists at San Diego State University and University of California, Los Angeles report today. Concern for others declined significantly between the mid-1970s and 2004-2006, then rebounded between that pre-recession period and the Great Recession in 2008-2010. Compared to high school students in the pre-recession years, students who graduated from high school during the recent recession were more concerned for others, more interested in social issues and more ...

CHICAGO, IL – Anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) surgery is a common knee injury procedure, but the overall incidence rate of having to go through it again within 24 months is 6 times greater than someone who has never had an ACL tear, according to researchers presenting their work today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL. "In our study, female athletes after ACLR demonstrated more than four times greater rate of injury within 24 months than their healthy counterparts. This data highlights the ...

Researchers at the University of British Columbia have discovered a potential new pathway to treat cancer by asking some odd questions about the size of animals. "Mammals display a huge range in size from the largest blue whale to the tiniest fruit bat," says Colby Zaph, assistant professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Biomedical Research Centre, who co-authored the study published in Developmental Cell. "So why don't we have miniature whales or gigantic bats? It turns out that there are specific pathways that tell cells when to grow and when to stop." One ...

Found in every ocean around the world, killer whales are a force to be reckoned with globally. Their remarkable social bonds and sophisticated hunting techniques make them top predators in their salty domain. For many years, it was assumed that these clever, highly mobile whales bred with each other freely in the seemingly homogeneous ocean. As our understanding of the oceans' complexity has grown, and dedicated researchers have peered ever deeper into the world of killer whales, it has become clear that the truth is far more nuanced. As the agency responsible for conserving ...

Researchers from the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), lead by Lluís Espinosa, have identified a new function of the IB protein that is key in the development of squamous-cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer. The study has been published in the prestigious journal Cancer Cell and provides a new tool for the diagnosis of the disease and, in the future, will enable the identification of novel therapeutic targets to treat this type of cancer. "In this study we identified a new function of a protein that directly regulates the activity of the genes involved ...