WASHINGTON D.C. Mar. 4, 2014 -- Animal flight behavior is an exciting frontier for engineers to both apply knowledge of aerodynamics and to learn from nature's solutions to operating in the air. Flying snakes are particularly intriguing to researchers because they lack wings or any other features that remotely resemble flight apparatus. Before you envision flying snakes raining down from the sky, the ones involved in this study are small -- about 1 meter in length and the width of your thumb -- and live in the lowland tropical forests of Asia and Southeast Asia. Virginia ...

MARCH 4, 2014 — That chicken wing you're eating could be as deadly as a cigarette. In a new study that tracked a large sample of adults for nearly two decades, researchers have found that eating a diet rich in animal proteins during middle age makes you four times more likely to die of cancer than someone with a low-protein diet — a mortality risk factor comparable to smoking. "There's a misconception that because we all eat, understanding nutrition is simple. But the question is not whether a certain diet allows you to do well for three days, but can it help you survive ...

From the Statue of Liberty in New York to the Tower of London or the Sydney Opera House -- sea-level rise not only affects settlement areas for large parts of the world population but also numerous sites of the UNESCO World Heritage. This is shown in a new study by Ben Marzeion from the University of Innsbruck and Anders Levermann from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. "The physical processes behind the global rise of the oceans are gradual, but they will continue for a very long time," says climate scientist Ben Marzeion. "This will also impact the cultural ...

Some of the world's most recognisable and important landmarks could be lost to rising sea-levels if current global warming trends are maintained over the next two millennia. This is according to a new study, published today, 5 March, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, that has calculated the temperature increases at which the 720 sites currently on the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites would be impacted by subsequent sea-level rises. The Statue of Liberty, Independence Hall, Tower of London and Sydney Opera House are among the 136 sites that ...

Exposure to passive smoking in childhood causes irreversible damage to the structure of children's arteries, according to a study published online today (Wednesday) in the European Heart Journal [1]. The thickening of the arteries' walls associated with being exposed to parents' smoke, means that these children will be at greater risk of heart attacks and strokes in later life. The researchers from Tasmania, Australia and Finland say that exposure to both parents smoking in childhood adds an extra 3.3 years to the age of blood vessels when the children reach adulthood. The ...

A new study published online today in the journal Rheumatology has found that the lower the ratio between a person's index finger (2D) and their ring finger (4D), the higher their risk of developing severe osteoarthritis in their knees, requiring a total knee replacement. Osteoarthritis (OA) is a major public health problem linked with significant disability in knees and hips. Hormonal factors are thought to play a role, which is thought to account for the well documented difference in prevalence of OA between men and women. Anthropological studies have suggested that ...

This news release is available in German. Leipzig. Plants are also able to make complex decisions. At least this is what scientists from the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the University of Göttingen have concluded from their investigations on Barberry (Berberis vulgaris), which is able to abort its own seeds to prevent parasite infestation. The results are the first ecological evidence of complex behaviour in plants. They indicate that this species has a structural memory, is able to differentiate between inner and outer conditions as well ...

UCPs or uncoupling proteins are present in mitochondria, the powerhouse of each cell in the body. The functions of most of the five known UCPs remain mysterious (UCP2-UCP5), whereby only the distinct function for UCP1 has thus far been discovered. UCP1 is responsible for heat production when muscle activity is deficient such as is the case with babies and animals in hibernation. The research team at the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna were able to provide a fundamental explanatory concept for the function of UCP2 ...

BOSTON – Call it what you will – getting red in the face, hot under the collar, losing your cool, blowing your top – we all experience anger. And while we know that anger is a normal, sometimes even beneficial emotion, we're also aware of the often harmful connection between anger and health. New research from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical shows an even more compelling reason to think about getting anger in check – a nearly fivefold increase in risk for heart attack in the two hours following outbursts of anger. "There has been a lot of research on anger; we already ...

They hitchhike with us under the soles of our shoes and muddy car tires. Harsh and cold climates do not seem to stop alien plants from establishing themselves in high altitudes, where they now successfully penetrate the alpine vegetation, according to a study at Umeå University in Sweden and the University of Antwerp, Netherlands. "Alien plants often gain advantages in their new environment because they lack natural enemies, and in this case the lack of strong competitors amongst alpine plants may be the key to success for generalist native species," says ecologist Ann ...

Horses suffering from neurological conditions similar to those that affect humans could be helped by a breakthrough from stem cell scientists. Researchers who are the first to create working nerve cells from horse stem cells say the advance may pave the way for cell therapies that target conditions similar to motor neurone disease. The research could also benefit horses affected by grass sickness, a neurological condition that affects around 600 horses a year in the UK. Little is known about the disease, which causes nerve damage throughout the body. It is untreatable ...

Women's jobs are poorer paid, less flexible, more stressful, and offer fewer promotion opportunities than men's, a large international study has found. Researchers say that the results disprove the theory that women have voluntarily traded less high-powered jobs in order to have more flexibility for their responsibilities at home. Professor Haya Stier, of Tel Aviv University, and Professor Meir Yaish, University of Haifa, analysed survey data on the working lives of 8,500 men and 9,000 women in 27 industrialised countries, including the UK. In a paper published ...

This news release is available in German. In the Research Group of Nuno Maulide, a chemist working at the University of Vienna, a new chemical synthesis for α-arylated Carbonyl derivatives was developed. Members of this class of substances typically possess interesting biological and pharmacological properties and often find applications as medicines. The new technique developed by the Maulide group, which allows such Carbonyl derivatives to be generated easily, efficiently and in an environmentally friendly manner – without wasting any atoms –, has raised ...

Nearly 60% of soldier suicide attempts can be traced to pre-enlistment mental disorders, which are much more common among nondeployed U.S. Army soldiers than demographically similar populations of civilians (25.1% vs. 11.6%), according to a major new study. The vast majority (76.6%) of soldiers with mental disorders say their conditions started before enlistment, researchers found. These are among the initial results published online today in JAMA Psychiatry based on a survey carried out as part of the Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (Army STARRS), ...

A chemical found in plants could reduce the symptoms of a rare muscle disease that leaves children with little or no control of their movements. Scientists have found that a plant pigment called quercetin – found in some fruits, vegetables, herbs and grains – could help to prevent the damage to nerves associated with the childhood form of motor neuron disease. Their findings could pave the way for new treatments for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) – also known as floppy baby syndrome – which is a leading genetic cause of death in children. The team has found that the ...

BOSTON, March 4, 2014 – Women who used an injectable contraceptive called DMPA were more likely to acquire HIV than women using a similar product called NET-EN, according to a secondary analysis of data from a large HIV prevention trial called VOICE, researchers from the National Institutes of Health-funded Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) reported today at the 21st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Boston. An unexpected finding in the study was that the combination of being positive for herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) and using DMPA ...

Social media may fuel unprecedented civic engagement. Digital networks might make possible mass protest and revolution – think "Arab Spring." But sometimes and maybe even most of the time, a new study suggests, the accomplishments of online activism are much more modest. Published in Sociological Science, the paper was co-authored by Kevin Lewis, of the University of California, San Diego's department of sociology, with Kurt Gray, department of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Jens Meierhenrich, department of international relations, London ...

VIDEO: This animation of NOAA's GOES satellite data shows the progression of the major winter storm over the US Mid-Atlantic and southern states on Mar. 2 and 3. Click here for more information. As NOAA's GOES-East satellite sat in a fixed orbit in space it monitored and provided visible and infrared imagery of the major winter storm that hit the U.S. east coast on March 2 and 3. Now, that data has been compiled and made into a video at NASA. On March 2 and 3, a major winter ...

An experimental drug aimed at restoring the immune system's ability to spot and attack cancer halted cancer progression or shrank tumors in patients with advanced melanoma, according to a multisite, early-phase clinical trial at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and 11 other institutions. All patients had experienced disease progression despite prior systemic therapies, and most had received two or more prior treatments. Patients who showed responses to the drug, nivolumab (anti-PD-1; BMS-936558; MDX-1106; ONO-4538), survived for an average 16.8 months following initiation ...

Many breast cancer survivors experience fatigue and other debilitating symptoms that persist months to years after their course of treatment has ended. Now researchers at the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University have found clues that may explain how these symptoms can linger. Chemotherapy, one of the major treatments for breast cancer, can leave a long-lasting epigenetic imprint in the DNA of breast cancer patients' blood cells. That imprint is associated with biological signs of inflammation up to six months after the completion of treatment. Inflammation in ...

Johns Hopkins researchers say they have identified a set of genes that appear to predict which tumors can evade detection by the body's immune system, a step that may enable them to eventually target only the patients most likely to respond best to a new class of treatment. Immune therapy for ovarian, breast and colorectal cancer — treatments that encourage the immune system to attack cancer cells as the foreign invaders they are — has so far had limited success, primarily because the immune system often can't destroy the cancer cells. In a report published online Feb. ...

Astronomers at the University of Washington have developed a new method of gauging the atmospheric pressure of exoplanets, or worlds beyond the solar system, by looking for a certain type of molecule. And if there is life out in space, scientists may one day use this same technique to detect its biosignature — the telltale chemical signs of its presence — in the atmosphere of an alien world. Understanding atmospheric pressure is key to knowing if conditions at the surface of a terrestrial, or rocky, exoplanet might allow liquid water, thus giving life a chance. The ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have discovered a link between prostate cancer aggressiveness and the accumulation of a compound produced when cholesterol is metabolized in cells, findings that could bring new diagnostic and treatment methods. Findings also suggest that a class of drugs previously developed to treat atherosclerosis might be repurposed for treatment of advanced prostate cancer. The research showed depletion of the compound cholesteryl ester significantly reduced prostate cancer cell proliferation, impaired its ability to invade a laboratory tissue ...

Just like adults, children as young as 3 tend to judge an individual's character traits, such as trustworthiness and competence, simply by looking at the person's face, new research shows. And they show remarkable consensus in the judgments they make, the findings suggest. The research, led by psychological scientist Emily Cogsdill of Harvard University, shows that the predisposition to judge others based on physical features starts early in childhood and does not require years of social experience. The study is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association ...

Amid times of crisis, citizens often turn to social media as a method to share information, make observations and vent. But as a Georgia Tech professor's research into social media use amid the Mexican drug war shows, posts can reveal growing numbness, or desensitization, during times of protracted violence and stress. Munmun De Choudhury, formerly of Microsoft Research and now an assistant professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech, led the research. Her team's paper, "'Narco' Emotions: Affect and Desensitization in Social Media during the Mexican ...