The lightweight skeletons of organisms such as sea sponges display a strength that far exceeds that of manmade products constructed from similar materials. Scientists have long suspected that the difference has to do with the hierarchical architecture of the biological materials—the way the silica-based skeletons are built up from different structural elements, some of which are measured on the scale of billionths of meters, or nanometers. Now engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have mimicked such a structure by creating nanostructured, hollow ...

The report [1] by researchers at Queen Mary University of London collates data from six regional registers [2], a national coverage of 36 per cent of the births in England and Wales. Examples of congenital anomalies include heart and lung defects, Down syndrome, neural tube defects such as spina bifida, and limb malformations such as club foot. Funded by Public Health England (PHE), the study is the most up-to-date and comprehensive of its kind, bringing together existing data in England and Wales from 2007 to 2011. However, the editor of the report, Professor Joan Morris, ...

Good asthma management during pregnancy is vital during pregnancy as poor asthma control can have adverse effects on maternal and fetal outcomes, says a new review published today (06 September) in The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (TOG). Asthma is a common condition that affects around 10% of pregnant women, making it the most common chronic condition in pregnancy. The review notes that the severity of asthma during pregnancy remains unchanged, worsens or improves in equal proportions. For women with severe asthma, control is more likely to deteriorate (around 60% ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Being in the minority in an ethnically diverse crowd is distressing, regardless of your ethnicity, unless you have a sense of purpose in life, reports a Cornell University developmental psychologist. Anthony Burrow, assistant professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology, led the study, which was conducted on Chicago trains. The findings shed light on how people encounter diversity in everyday settings at a time when the United States is more racially mixed than ever, with demographic trends pointing to a more multicultural melting pot ...

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been hard on military marriages, with the risk of divorce rising directly in relation to the length of time enlisted service members have been deployed to combat zones, according to a new RAND Corporation study. The negative effects of deployment were largest among female military members, with women facing a greater chance of divorce than men under all the scenarios examined by researchers, according to the findings published online by the Journal of Population Economics. While researchers found that any deployment increases the ...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – New studies exploring breast cancer risk perceptions and use of radiotherapy and MRI for women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS, a preinvasive form of breast cancer) were highlighted today in a virtual presscast in advance of the 2013 Breast Cancer Symposium. The Symposium will take place September 7-9, 2013, at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis in San Francisco. Three major studies were highlighted in today's presscast: Radiation therapy for DCIS is safe, and does not appear to increase the risk of developing or dying from cardiovascular disease: ...

Researchers at the University of Alberta announced today that they have determined the chemical composition of human urine. The study, which took more than seven years and involved a team of nearly 20 researchers, has revealed that more than 3,000 chemicals or "metabolites" can be detected in urine. The results are expected to have significant implications for medical, nutritional, drug and environmental testing. "Urine is an incredibly complex biofluid. We had no idea there could be so many different compounds going into our toilets," noted David Wishart, the senior ...

Children with behavioral problems may be at risk of many chronic diseases in adulthood including heart disease, obesity, diabetes, as well as inflammatory illnesses (conditions which are caused by cell damage). Analyzing data on more than 4,000 participants in the Children of the 90s study at the University of Bristol, researchers from Harvard and Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health found that children with behavioral problems at the age of 8, had higher levels of two proteins (C-reactive protein—CRP; and Interleukin 6—IL-6) in their blood when tested at the age ...

The brown, smog-filled skies that engulf Beijing have earned China a poor reputation for environmental stewardship. But despite China's dirty skies, a study led by Stanford environmental scientists has found that a government-run clean water program is providing substantial benefit to millions of people in the nation's capital. The Miyun reservoir, 100 miles north of Beijing, is the main water source for the city's more than 20 million inhabitants. Greater agricultural demands and a decline in precipitation, among other factors, have cut the reservoir's output by two-thirds ...

In recent years, Stanford biologists have found that coffee growers in Costa Rica bolster bird biodiversity by leaving patches of their plantations as untouched rainforest. The latest finding from these researchers suggests that the birds are returning the favor to farmers by eating an aggressive coffee bean pest, the borer beetle, thereby improving coffee bean yields by hundreds of dollars per hectare. The study is the first to put a monetary value on the pest-control benefits rainforest can provide to agriculture, which the researchers hope can inform both farmers ...

A key requirement when performing scientific experiments is the accessibility of material resources, including the reagents or model organisms, needed to address a specific hypothesis. The published scientific literature is a source of this valuable information, but frequently lacks sufficient detail to the extent that researchers are unable to identify material resources used to perform experiments. A study, published today in PeerJ, demonstrates the magnitude of the problem – a problem that negatively affects the ability of scientists to reproduce and extend reported ...

Stanford, CA— Coral reefs are tremendously important for ocean biodiversity, as well as for the economic and aesthetic value they provide to their surrounding communities. Unfortunately they have been in great decline in recent years, much of it due to the effects of global climate change. One such effect, called bleaching, occurs when the symbiotic algae that are essential for providing nutrients to the coral either lose their identifying photosynthetic pigmentation and their ability to perform photosynthesis or disappear entirely from the coral's tissue. Without a healthy ...

Monash University researchers have found an important safety mechanism in the immune system that may malfunction in people with autoimmune diseases, such as Multiple Sclerosis, potentially paving the way for innovative treatments. Published today in Immunity, the research, led by Head of the Monash Department of Immunology Professor Fabienne Mackay, described for the first time how the body manages marginal zone (MZ) B cells, which form a general first line of attack against germs, but are potentially harmful. MZ B cells are integral to our defenses as they rapidly ...

A study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden has shown that neurons in our brain 'mirror' the space near others, just as if this was the space near ourselves. The study, published in the scientific journal Current Biology, sheds new light on a question that has long preoccupied psychologists and neuroscientists regarding the way in which the brain represents other people and the events that happens to those people. "We usually experience others as clearly separated from us, occupying a very different portion of space," says Claudio Brozzoli, lead author of the study at ...

A study of the photovoltaic industries in the US and China shows that China's dominance in solar panel manufacturing is not driven solely by cheaper labour and government support, but by larger-scale manufacturing and resulting supply-chain benefits. But the researchers say a balance could be achieved through future innovations in crystalline solar cell technology, which have the potential to equalise prices by enhancing access to materials and expanding manufacturing scale across all regions. The study is published today in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Energy ...

How many different molecules can be created when you release one of the universe's most reactive substances, hydrogen cyanide, in the lab? And will the process create some particularly interesting molecules? That is what scientists call a good question, because hydrogen cyanide seems to have played a role in creating some of life's building blocks. Hydrogen cyanide is an organic compound and it is found in large quantities in the universe. It may have helped in producing amino acids and DNA bases, some of life's basic molecules. If hydrogen cyanide can lead to the formation ...

Metro Manila – the world's 10th largest megacity and 6th largest conurbation, based on official statistics – is not a place one would normally expect to discover new species, even in a country that is known as a biodiversity hotspot. In a 83-hectare green island amidst the unnatural ocean of countless man-made edifices, researchers of the Ateneo de Manila University have discovered a tiny new species of aquatic beetle, aptly named Hydraena ateneo. It was named after the University, a 154-year-old Jesuit-run institution that is recognized as one of the premier universities ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The immune system is normally known for protecting the body from illness. But a subset of immune cells appear to be doing more harm than good. A new study from researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center found that these cells, called myeloid derived suppressor cells, provide a niche where the cancer stem cells survive. Cancer stem cells are thought to be resistant to current chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and researchers believe that killing the cancer stem cells is crucial for eliminating cancer. At the same ...

Drought shriveled crops in the Midwest, massive wildfires raged in the West and East Coast cities sweltered. The summer of 2012 was a season of epic proportions, especially July, the hottest month in the history of U.S. weather record keeping. And it's likely that we'll continue to see such calamitous weather. In the north-central and northeastern United States, extreme weather is more than four times as likely to occur than it was in the pre-industrial era, according to a new study by Noah Diffenbaugh, a Stanford associate professor of environmental Earth system science, ...

Ever been trading a flurry of text messages when there's an awkward pause? Well, new research shows you probably should be suspicious. A Brigham Young University study finds when people lie in digital messages – texting, social media or instant messaging – they take longer to respond, make more edits and write shorter responses than usual. "Digital conversations are a fertile ground for deception because people can easily conceal their identity and their messages often appear credible," says Tom Meservy, BYU professor of information systems. "Unfortunately, humans are ...

Water and wastewater managers are missing substantial opportunities to save energy and money, according to a report published Wednesday (Sept. 4) by Water in the West, a research center at Stanford University. The report, "Water and Energy Nexus: A Literature Review," also identifies the amount of water used to extract resources such as natural gas, oil and coal, and to generate electricity. The report finds "robust opportunities for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, as well as for the conservation of scarce water resources, coupled with the potential for generating ...

Scientists in Melbourne, Australia, have revealed the structure of a protein that is essential for triggering a form of programmed cell death, making possible the development of new drugs to treat chronic inflammatory diseases such as Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis. Dr James Murphy, Associate Professor John Silke, Dr Joanne Hildebrand, Dr Peter Czabotar, Professor Warren Alexander and colleagues from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute have shown that the protein MLKL plays a crucial role in the signalling pathways that trigger a recently discovered cell death ...

New research from the University of Adelaide has shown for the first time that pregnant women who smoke as well as having asthma are greatly increasing the risk of complications for themselves and their unborn children. In the first study of its kind in the world, researchers from the University's Robinson Institute compared data from more than 170,000 Australian women over 10 years. The results have been published online ahead of print in the European Respiratory Journal. Lead author Dr Nicolette Hodyl says: "We know that being pregnant and having asthma poses risks ...

September 5, 2013, Shenzhen, China – BGI in collaboration with Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and other Chinese institutes, have completed the genome sequencing of 161 Mycobacterium tuberculosis that can cause an infectious disease tuberculosis (TB). The study published online in Nature Genetics provides an invaluable resource for researchers to better understand the genetic basis underlying drug resistance TB. TB is one of the deadliest infectious diseases. The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world's population is infected ...

The Sun is a magnetically active star. Its activity manifests itself as dark sunspots and bright faculae on its visible surface, as well as violent mass ejections and the acceleration of high-energy particles resulting from the release of magnetic energy in its outer atmosphere. The frequency with which these phenomena occur varies in a somewhat irregular activity cycle of about 11 years, during which the global magnetic field of the Sun reverses. The solar magnetic field and the activity cycle originate in a self-excited dynamo mechanism based upon convective flows and ...