Rounded pebbles on the surface of Mars indicate that a stream once flowed on the red planet, according to a new study by a team of scientists from NASA's Curiosity rover mission, including a University of California, Davis, geologist. The study will be published in the May 31 issue of the journal Science. Rounded pebbles of this size are known to form only when transported through water over long distances. They were discovered between the north rim of the planet's Gale Crater and the base of Mount Sharp, a mountain inside the crater. The finding represents the first ...

Every chemist's dream, to snap an atomic-scale picture of a chemical before and after it reacts, has now come true, thanks to a new technique developed by chemists and physicists at the University of California, Berkeley. Using a state-of-the-art atomic force microscope, the scientists have taken the first atom-by-atom pictures – including images of the chemical bonds between atoms – clearly depicting how a molecule's structure changed during a reaction. Until now, scientists have only been able to infer this type of information from spectroscopic analysis. "Even though ...

Sharks are worth more in the ocean than in a bowl of soup, according to researchers from the University of British Columbia. A new study, published today in Oryx – The International Journal of Conservation, shows that shark ecotourism currently generates more than US$314 million annually worldwide and is expected to more than double to US$780 million in the next 20 years. In comparison, the landed value of global shark fisheries is currently US$630 million and has been in decline for the past decade. An estimated 38 million sharks are killed per year to feed the global ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A mystery of the moon that imperiled astronauts and spacecraft on lunar missions has been solved by a Purdue University-led team of scientists as part of NASA's GRAIL mission. Large concentrations of mass lurk on the lunar surface hidden like coral reefs beneath the ocean waves - an unseen and devastating hazard. These concentrations change the gravity field and can either pull a spacecraft in or push it off course, sealing its fate to a crash on the face of the moon. "In 1968 these mass concentrations were an unwelcome discovery as scientists ...

South American rainforests thrived during three extreme global warming events in the past, say paleontologists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in a new report published in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science. No tropical forests in South America currently experience average yearly temperatures of more than 84 degrees Fahrenheit (29 degrees Celsius). But by the end of this century, average global temperatures are likely to rise by another 1 F (0.6 C), leading some scientists to predict the demise of the world's most diverse terrestrial ecosystem. ...

Observations by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity have revealed areas with gravel and pebbles that are characteristic of a former riverbed. Researchers, including members of the Niels Bohr Institute, have analysed their shapes and sizes and the rounded pebbles clearly show that there has been flowing water on Mars. The results are published in the scientific journal, Science. The Mars rover's stereo camera took pictures of a few areas with densely packed pebbles, cemented together like concrete. The image field of an area named Hottah was a mosaic of approximately 1.4 meters ...

Scientists at the University of Leeds have found a way to target and destroy a key protein associated with the development of cervical and other cancers. The E7 protein is produced early in the lifecycle of the human papillomavirus (HPV) and blocks the body's natural defences against the uncontrolled division of cells that can lead to cancer. Researchers at the University of Leeds' School of Molecular and Cellular Biology have synthesised a molecule, called an RNA aptamer, that latches onto the carcinogenic protein and targets it for destruction, significantly reducing ...

Giving double doses of the antiviral drug oseltamivir, or Tamiflu, offers no clinical or virological advantages over a standard dose for patients admitted to hospital with severe influenza infection, according to a randomised trial published today and funded by the Wellcome Trust, US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Singapore National Medical Research Council. This is the first study to look at the effectiveness of higher doses of oseltamivir in cases of severe flu infection and has implications for global guidelines on clinical management ...

Despite satellite images that show vast networks of channels, past Mars rover missions have shown limited evidence for flowing water on Mars. Now, rocks analyzed by NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover team, including Linda Kah, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, provide solid evidence that Mars had rivers or streams. This suggests that the environment was drastically different than today's cold and dry conditions, with the potential to support life. A paper on the team's findings is published in this week's edition ...

CHICAGO–A new study of young women with breast cancer has found that most chose to have a mastectomy rather than a surgical procedure that would conserve the breast, researchers will report at the 49th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, May 31-June 4, in Chicago. Shoshana Rosenberg, ScD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard School of Public Health, and her colleagues evaluated 277 women who were diagnosed with breast cancer at age 40 or younger, who reported having a choice between a mastectomy and a breast conserving lumpectomy, and whose ...

(NEW YORK, NY, May 30, 2013) – A new study from Columbia University School of Nursing supports a growing body of evidence that women are less likely to contract bloodstream or surgical site infections than their male counterparts. Researchers investigated the incidence of infection in thousands of hospitalized patients and found the odds for women succumbing to a bloodstream infection (BSI) and surgical-site infection (SSI) were significantly lower than for men. The odds of community-associated BSI were 30% higher in men compared to women, for healthcare-associated ...

(Boston) – A study led by Boston University School of Medicine has identified a novel approach to create an unlimited number of human red blood cells and platelets in vitro. In collaboration with Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) and Boston Medical Center (BMC), the researchers differentiated induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells into these cell types, which are typically obtained through blood donations. This finding could potentially reduce the need for blood donations to treat patients requiring blood transfusions and could help researchers examine novel ...

Virginia Commonwealth University researchers studying a key molecular player called Hsp70 that is responsible for protein homeostasis have uncovered how it binds together with another molecule responsible for intracellular energy transfer to enhance its overall activity and efficiency – details that have previously not been well understood. Heat shock proteins, particularly the 70-kilodalton heat shock proteins, Hsp70, are important for cellular processes such as protein folding and protecting cells from stress. It is also involved with protein assembly, degradation and ...

Structural biologists from Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) have captured the first three-dimensional crystalline snapshot of a critical but fleeting process that takes place thousands of times per second in each human cell. The research appears online today in the journal Cell Reports and could prove useful in the study of cancer and other diseases. The biological "freeze-frame" shows the initial step in the formation of actin, a sturdy strand-like filament that is vital for humans. Actin filaments help cells maintain their shape. The filaments, which ...

Salmon and other native freshwater fish in California will likely become extinct within the next century due to climate change if current trends continue, ceding their habitats to non-native fish, predicts a study by scientists from the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, Davis. The study, published online in May in the journal PLOS ONE, assessed how vulnerable each freshwater species in California is to climate change and estimated the likelihood that those species would become extinct in 100 years. The researchers found that, of 121 native ...

Two Johns Hopkins gynecologic surgeons are among the first in the nation to perform a robotic hysterectomy using a single, small incision. Amanda Nickles Fader, M.D., associate professor of gynecologic oncology and director of the Kelly Gynecologic Oncology Service and the Minimally Invasive Surgery Center in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics; and Stacey Scheib, M.D., assistant professor of gynecology and obstetrics and director of the Multidisciplinary Fibroid Center in the Division of Gynecologic Specialties at Johns Hopkins, recently performed other several ...

NJIT Distinguished Professor and electrical engineer Atam Dhawan hits the lecture trail again this summer as a distinguished speaker for an IEEE life sciences lecture series. His focus will be how "Point of Care Healthcare" can reduce illness, improve the quality of life, and stop spiraling healthcare costs. Dhawan, who will stop at conferences in Japan, Colombia and Croatia, tells audiences about the following. If you aren't already using a "wearable" sensor—whether it's a watch that reads your blood pressure or a temperature strip for your child's forehead—you soon ...

Research has shown that healthy behaviors are associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease and dementia, but less is known about the potential link between positive lifestyle choices and milder memory complaints, especially those that occur earlier in life and could be the first indicators of later problems. To examine the impact of these lifestyle choices on memory throughout adult life, UCLA researchers and the Gallup organization collaborated on a nationwide poll of more than 18,500 individuals between the ages of 18 and 99. Respondents were surveyed about ...

While there has been a steep decline in kids' consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages in California, African-American and Latino children may be replacing soda with 100 percent fruit juice while their white peers are not, according to a new study from UC San Francisco. The study was the first to compare trends of sugar-sweetened beverages and 100 percent juice consumption in California. "The decrease in the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages among kids is a promising public health trend," said Amy Beck, MD, MPH, lead author and pediatrician at UCSF Benioff ...

GLYX-13, a molecular cousin to ketamine, induces similar antidepressant results without the street drug side effects, reported a study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) that was published last month in Neuropsychopharmacology. Major depression affects about 10 percent of the adult population and is the second leading cause of disability in U.S. adults, according to the World Health Organization. Despite the availability of several different classes of antidepressant drugs such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), 30 to 40 percent ...

PHILADELPHIA — A newly developed, single-step Raman spectroscopy algorithm has the potential to simultaneously detect microcalcifications and enable diagnosis of the associated breast lesions with high precision, according to data published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "Nearly 1.6 million breast biopsies are performed and roughly 250,000 new breast cancers are diagnosed in the Unites States each year," said Ishan Barman, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and the study's ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- An Indiana University study that compared the performance of elite track and field athletes younger than 20 and those 20 and older found that only a minority of the star junior athletes saw similar success as senior athletes. The researchers think physical maturation is behind the disparity, with athletes who mature early reaping the benefits early, seeing their best times, jumps and throws at a younger age than Olympians, many of whom mature later. "You see it in a lot of sports," said Robert Chapman, assistant professor in the IU School of Public ...

Keep your business in the black when negotiating a commercial lease Article provided by Ethan A. Glaubiger Visit us at http://www.glaubigerlaw.com To paraphrase an old adage, there are three things that are most important in real estate: location, location, location. In this slowly recovering economy, the large number of vacancies in commercial buildings means that you may even have several desirable locations to choose from when selecting a site for your business. But not so fast; simply having a location in mind does not mean you have to sacrifice favorable ...

Deaths due to distracted driving may be underreported Article provided by Kamensky Cohen & Riechelson Visit us at http://www.kcrlawfirm.com In recent years, safety experts, lawmakers and even U.S. Department of Transportation head Ray LaHood have spoken out against the dangers of distracted driving. No matter the behavior - be it texting while driving or talking on a cell phone while behind the wheel - everyone agrees that driving while distracted is extremely dangerous. A new study indicates, however, that the practice may, in fact, be far deadlier than previously ...

Ohio woman sentenced to 8 years in prison for fatal DUI hit-and-run Article provided by Horwitz & Horwitz, LLC Visit us at http://www.horwitzlawsite.com Most people know that Ohio law prohibits people from operating a vehicle while they are under the influence of alcohol. However, not everyone internalizes just how dangerous drunk driving can be, nor do they realize how serious the legal consequences can be if they cause a car accident that injures or kills another person. A recent case in Logan County should serve as a cautionary tale to anyone who drinks ...