A new NASA study shows Earth's climate likely will continue to warm during this century on track with previous estimates, despite the recent slowdown in the rate of global warming. This research hinges on a new and more detailed calculation of the sensitivity of Earth's climate to the factors that cause it to change, such as greenhouse gas emissions. Drew Shindell, a climatologist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, found Earth is likely to experience roughly 20 percent more warming than estimates that were largely based on surface temperature observations ...

VIDEO: This video demonstrates the difference in how sound waves act with and without the acoustic cloak in their path. The red and blue lines represent the high and low points... Click here for more information. DURHAM, N.C. -- Using little more than a few perforated sheets of plastic and a staggering amount of number crunching, Duke engineers have demonstrated the world's first three-dimensional acoustic cloak. The new device reroutes sound waves to create the impression that ...

VIDEO: Videos show the effect of electric fields on the movement of epithelial cells. The first clip shows the cells migrating normally until the electric field is turned on, causing the... Click here for more information. Berkeley -- Sometimes it only takes a quick jolt of electricity to get a swarm of cells moving in the right direction. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, found that an electrical current can be used to orchestrate the flow of a group ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Prosocial behaviors, or actions intended to help others, remain an important area of focus for researchers interested in factors that reduce violence and other behavioral problems in youth. However, little is known regarding the connection between prosocial and antisocial behaviors. A new study by a University of Missouri human development expert found that prosocial behaviors can prevent youth from associating with deviant peers, thereby making the youth less likely to exhibit antisocial or problem behaviors, such as aggression and delinquency. "This ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – March 11, 2014 – Discovering where a common virus hides in the body has been a long-term quest for scientists. Up to 80 percent of adults harbor the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), which can cause severe illness and death in people with weakened immune systems. Now, researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center's Institute for Regenerative Medicine report that stem cells that encircle blood vessels can be a hiding place, suggesting a potential treatment target. In the American Journal of Transplantation (online ahead of print), senior scientist ...

Beverly, MA, March 11, 2014 – Surgeons in France have successfully replaced the aortic valve in two patients without opening the chest during surgery. The procedure, using totally endoscopic aortic valve replacement (TEAVR), shows potential for improving quality of life of heart patients by offering significantly reduced chest trauma. It is described in the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, an official publication of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery. Endoscopic surgery is already used by cardiovascular surgeons for procedures such as atrial ...

VIDEO: One puppet peeks at another puppet's drawing because he can't decide what to draw, but he then draws a unique picture. Click here for more information. Even very young children understand what it means to steal a physical object, yet it appears to take them another couple of years to understand what it means to steal an idea. University of Washington psychologist Kristina Olson and colleagues from Yale and the University of Pennsylvania discovered that preschoolers ...

AMHERST, Mass. – The largest analysis to date of the effect of urbanization on bird and plant species diversity worldwide confirms that while human influences such as land cover are more important drivers of species diversity in cities than geography or climate, many cities retain high numbers of native species and are far from barren environments. Urban ecologist Paige Warren of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, co-leader of a 24-member research working group at the University of California Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis ...

A diet high in protein, particularly animal protein, may help elderly individuals function at higher levels physically, psychologically, and socially, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Due to increasing life expectancies in many countries, increasing numbers of elderly people are living with functional decline, such as declines in cognitive ability and activities of daily living. Functional decline can have profound effects on health and the economy. Research suggests that aging may reduce the body's ability to absorb or ...

DETROIT – A molecular substance that occurs naturally in humans and rats was found to "substantially reduce" brain damage after an acute stroke and contribute to a better recovery, according to a newly released animal study by researchers at Henry Ford Hospital. The study, published online before print in Stroke, the journal of the American Heart Association, was the first ever to show that the peptide AcSDKP provides neurological protection when administered one to four hours after the onset of an ischemic stroke. This type of a stroke occurs when an artery to the brain ...

NASA's Aqua and TRMM satellites have been providing rainfall data, cloud heights and temperature and other valuable information to forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center as they track Tropical Cyclones Hadi and Lusi in the South Pacific. NASA's Aqua satellite captured both storms in one infrared image on March 10 at 14:47 UTC/10:47 a.m. EST. At that time, Hadi was near the east Queensland coast while Lusi was several hundred miles north of New Caledonia. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument captured infrared data that was used to create a false-colored ...

Boulder, Colo., USA – On 27 Feb. and 6 Mar. 2014, GSA Bulletin published 11 articles online ahead of print, including two that are open access: "O2 constraints from Paleoproterozoic detrital pyrite and uraninite" and "Sediment transfer and deposition in slope channels: Deciphering the record of enigmatic deep-sea processes from outcrop." Other articles cover geological features in the Alps; the Appalachians; Death Valley; India; the Himalaya; the Columbia River Basalt Province; San Simeon, California; Kaua'i, Hawai'i; and artic Canada. GSA Bulletin articles published ...

In 2010, scientists in Italy reported that a woman and her daughter showed a puzzling array of disabilities, including epilepsy and cleft palate. The mother had previously lost a 15-day-old son to respiratory failure, and the research team noted that the mother and daughter were missing a large chunk of DNA on their X chromosome. But the researchers were unable to definitively show that the problems were tied to that genetic deletion. Now a team from the University of Pennsylvania and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has confirmed that those patients' ailments ...

A large team of experts led by a Johns Hopkins geriatrician reports that efforts to improve the care of older adults and others with complex medical needs will fall short unless public policymakers focus not only on preventing hospital readmission rates, but also on better coordination of community-based "care transitions." Lessons learned from managing such transitions for older patients, they say, may offer a framework for overall improvement. Nationwide, some 22 percent of older adults experience so-called care transitions annually, moving from and among hospitals, ...

This news release is available in French and Spanish. Montreal, 11 March 2014—A new set of maps featured in the CEC's North American Environmental Atlas depicts land cover changes in North America's forests, prairies, deserts and cities, using satellite images from 2005 and 2010. These changes can be attributed to forest fires, insect infestation, urban sprawl and other natural or human-caused events. Produced by the North American Land Change Monitoring System (NALCMS), a trinational collaborative effort facilitated by the CEC, these maps and accompanying data can ...

The following highlights summarize research papers that have been recently published in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres (JGR-D), and Journal of Geophysical Research-Earth Surface (JGR-F). In this release: Cassini sheds light on Titan's second largest lake, Ligeia Mare Tectonic stress feedback loop explains U-shaped glacial valleys Measuring the effect of water vapor on climate warming First assessment of noctilucent cloud variability at midlatitudes Modeling surface circulation patterns in the Gulf of Mexico New ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Nothing dies of old age in the ocean. Everything gets eaten and all that remains of anything is waste. But that waste is pure gold to oceanographer David Siegel, director of the Earth Research Institute at UC Santa Barbara. In a study of the ocean's role in the global carbon cycle, Siegel and his colleagues used those nuggets to their advantage. They incorporated the lifecycle of phytoplankton and zooplankton — small, often microscopic animals at the bottom of the food chain —into a novel mechanistic model for assessing the global ocean carbon ...

"It's a whole new cancer world" and "I don't remember what it's like to have sleep" were the most common themes of mothers interviewed by University of Colorado Cancer Center researchers during the maintenance period after a child's treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Results of this qualitative study are published in a recent issue of the Journal of Pediatric Nursing. A second study, published today in the Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing, shows the quantitative differences between stress, anxiety and depression in these parents of chronically ill children ...

The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has published a report that aligns solar policy and market success with state demographics. By organizing the 48 contiguous states into four peer groups based on shared non-policy characteristics, the NREL research team was able to contextualize the impact of various solar policies on photovoltaic (PV) installations. "Although it is widely accepted that solar policies drive market development, there has not been a clear understanding of which policies work in which context," lead author Darlene Steward ...

Patients brought to hospital emergency departments (EDs) more than once in a year for treatment of opioid drug overdoses are more likely to be hospitalized for overdose and to need respiratory support with a mechanical ventilator. A study conducted by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators also identified factors that increased the risk of subsequent overdoses requiring emergency department visits. "To our knowledge this is the first study that has identified risk factors for repeat ED visits for opioid overdose," says Kohei Hasegawa, MD, MPH, MGH Department ...

Biomedical engineering researchers have developed a new technique that uses adenosine-5'-triphosphate (ATP), the so-called "energy molecule," to trigger the release of anti-cancer drugs directly into cancer cells. Early laboratory tests show it increases the effectiveness of drugs targeting breast cancer. The technique was developed by researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "This is a proof of concept, but we've demonstrated there is now a new tool for introducing anti-cancer drugs directly into cancer cells ...

VIDEO: First Rowena and then Liza watch videos of familiar chimpanzees yawning. Click here for more information. In their latest study about empathy, Yerkes National Primate Research Center researchers Matthew Campbell, PhD, and Frans de Waal, PhD, have shown chimpanzees exhibit flexibility in their empathy, just as humans do. These findings, which appear in the current issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, may help explain the evolution of how and when humans engage ...

First on top of the world and then in the depths of despair – this is what the extreme mood changes for people with bipolar disorder are like. Under the direction of scientists from Bonn, Mannheim and Basel, an international collaboration of researchers discovered two new gene regions that are connected to the prevalent disease. In addition, they were able to confirm three additional suspect genes. In this unparalleled worldwide study, the scientists are utilizing unprecedented numbers of patients. The results are now being published in the renowned journal "Nature Communications." Throughout ...

SAN FRANCISCO, March 11, 2014 -- In the global aftershock zone that followed the major April 2012 Indian Ocean earthquake, seismologists noticed an unusual pattern – a dynamic "stress shadow," or period of seismic silence when some faults near failure were temporarily rendered incapable of a large rupture. The magnitude (M) 8.6 earthquake, a strike-slip event at intraoceanic tectonic plates, caused global seismic rates of M≥4.5 to spike for several days, even at distances tens of thousands of kilometers from the mainshock site. But beginning two weeks after the ...

A timid jumping spider uses the scent of ants as a secret weapon to save itself from becoming the somewhat soggy prey of the predatory spitting spider. The downside to this plan is that jumping spiders are also a favorite snack of its very own saviors. To overcome this additional hazard, the spider has made yet another plan in the form of an ant-proof nest, writes Ximena Nelson of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and Robert Jackson of the University of Canterbury and the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Kenya, in Springer's journal Behavioral ...