Chicago — Americans' moral opposition to animal testing has grown significantly since 2001, according to a new study presented today at the annual meeting of the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago. Researchers from PETA and Western Governors University examined data collected in independent surveys by the Gallup organization from 2001 to 2013, in which approximately 1,000 American adults each year were asked whether they found "medical testing on animals" to be "morally acceptable" or "morally wrong." The researchers ...

Forecasts of when a volcano is ready to erupt could be a little closer thanks to work by geologists at the University of California, Davis, and Oregon State University published online Feb. 16 in the journal Nature. For an eruption to occur, the magma, or molten rock under the volcano must be sufficiently mobile to erupt. "The question is, what percentage of time is the magma in an eruptible state?" said Kari Cooper, associate professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at UC Davis and lead author on the paper. "People think about there being ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study suggests that the magma sitting 4-5 kilometers beneath the surface of Oregon's Mount Hood has been stored in near-solid conditions for thousands of years, but that the time it takes to liquefy and potentially erupt is surprisingly short – perhaps as little as a couple of months. The key, scientists say, is to elevate the temperature of the rock to more than 750 degrees Celsius, which can happen when hot magma from deep within the Earth's crust rises to the surface. It is the mixing of the two types of magma that triggered Mount Hood's last ...

The spread of antibiotic-resistance to one of the most pristine locations in Asia is linked to the annual human pilgrimages to the region, new research has shown. Experts from Newcastle University, UK, and the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi (IIT-Delhi), sampled water and sediments at seven sites along the Upper Ganges River, in the foothills of the Himalayas. They found that in May and June, when hundreds of thousands of visitors travel to Rishikesh and Haridwar to visit sacred sites, levels of resistance genes that lead to "superbugs" were found to be about ...

Hyperactivity of our immune system can cause a state of chronic inflammation. If chronic, the inflammation will affect our body and result in disease. In the devastating disease multiple sclerosis, hyperactivity of immune cells called T-cells induce chronic inflammation and degeneration of the brain. Researchers at BRIC, the University of Copenhagen, have identified a new type of regulatory blood cells that can combat such hyperactive T-cells in blood from patients with multiple sclerosis. By stimulating the regulatory blood cells, the researchers significantly decreased ...

AMES, Iowa – Wendy Wintersteen, dean of Iowa State University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, spoke on Sunday of the importance of public-private partnerships in strengthening global food security during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. During her talk, part of a panel on research and development for sustainable agriculture and food security, Wintersteen stressed the importance of partnerships in providing the innovation necessary to meet global challenges. She said climate change, pests, plant ...

The deep ocean, the largest domain for life on earth, is also its least explored environment. Humans are now encroaching more vigorously than ever into the ocean's deep regions, exploiting the deep's resources and placing its wealth of vibrant habitats and natural services for the planet at risk. Lisa Levin, a biological oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, believes the vital functions provided by the deep sea—from carbon sequestration to nurturing fish stocks—are key to the health of the planet. As humans ramp up exploitation of deep-sea ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have pinpointed why normal aging is accompanied by a diminished ability to regain strength and mobility after muscle injury: Over time, stem cells within muscle tissues dedicated to repairing damage become less able to generate new muscle fibers and struggle to self-renew. "In the past, it's been thought that muscle stem cells themselves don't change with age, and that any loss of function is primarily due to external factors in the cells' environment," said Helen Blau, PhD, the Donald and Delia ...

An electrode designed like a pomegranate – with silicon nanoparticles clustered like seeds in a tough carbon rind – overcomes several remaining obstacles to using silicon for a new generation of lithium-ion batteries, say its inventors at Stanford University and the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. "While a couple of challenges remain, this design brings us closer to using silicon anodes in smaller, lighter and more powerful batteries for products like cell phones, tablets and electric cars," said Yi Cui, an associate professor at Stanford ...

Lincoln, Neb., Feb. 17, 2014 -- Fertilizer could be too much of a good thing for the world's grasslands, according to study findings to be published online Feb. 16 by the journal Nature. The worldwide study shows that, on average, additional nitrogen will increase the amount of grass that can be grown. But a smaller number of species thrive, crowding out others that are better adapted to survive in harsher times. It results in wilder swings in the amount of available forage. "More nitrogen means more production, but it's less stable," said Johannes M.H. Knops, a University ...

A new study reconstructing the evolutionary tree of flu viruses challenges conventional wisdom and solves some of the mysteries surrounding flu outbreaks of historical significance. The study, published in the journal Nature, provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the evolutionary relationships of influenza virus across different host species over time. In addition to dissecting how the virus evolves at different rates in different host species, the study challenges several tenets of conventional wisdom, for example the notion that the virus moves largely ...

New findings on why skeletal muscle stem cells stop dividing and renewing muscle mass during aging points up a unique therapeutic opportunity for managing muscle-wasting conditions in humans, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study. According to CU-Boulder Professor Bradley Olwin, the loss of skeletal muscle mass and function as we age can lead to sarcopenia, a debilitating muscle-wasting condition that generally hits the elderly hardest. The new study indicates that altering two particular cell-signaling pathways independently in aged mice enhances muscle stem ...

BOSTON (Feb. 17, 2014) —The longer the period of time a child is bullied, the more severe and lasting the impact on a child's health, according to a new study from Boston Children's Hospital published online Feb. 17 in Pediatrics. The study is the first to examine the compounding effects of bullying from elementary school to high school. "Our research shows that long-term bullying has a severe impact on a child's overall health, and that its negative effects can accumulate and get worse with time," says the study's first author Laura Bogart, PhD, from Boston Children's ...

This news release is available in French. Some people recall a dream every morning, whereas others rarely recall one. A team led by Perrine Ruby, an Inserm Research Fellow at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center (Inserm/CNRS/Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1), has studied the brain activity of these two types of dreamers in order to understand the differences between them. In a study published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, the researchers show that the temporo-parietal junction, an information-processing hub in the brain, is more active in high dream recallers. ...

CHICAGO -- (Feb. 16, 2014) -- Attendees of a workshop at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science will be immersed into "active learning," an approach inspired by national reports targeting U.S. science education, in general, and, more specifically, the 60 percent dropout rate of students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). "The goal of this session is to take many ideas around improving science education that are out there and make them applicable to the classroom," says Eleanor "Elly" V.H. Vandegrift, associate ...

If two minds are better than one, what could thousands of minds accomplish? The possibilities are endless -- if researchers can learn to effectively harness and utilize all that knowledge. Northwestern University professor Haoqi Zhang designs new forms of crowd-supported, mixed-initiative systems that tightly integrate crowd work, community process and intelligent user interfaces to solve complex problems that no machine nor person could solve alone. Zhang's systems can ease challenges in designing a custom trip or planning an academic conference, for example. Zhang ...

CHICAGO --- Daniel K. Mroczek, professor of psychology and professor of medical social sciences in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University, will discuss his research at a symposium on resilient aging during the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Chicago. The interdisciplinary symposium "The Science of Resilient Aging" will be held from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 16, in Grand Ballroom A in the Hyatt Regency Chicago. Through his research, Mroczek has found that personality traits have emerged ...

Chicago, Illinois - Understanding the human brain is one of the greatest challenges facing 21st century science. If we can rise to this challenge, we will gain profound insights into what makes us human, develop new treatments for brain diseases, and build revolutionary new computing technologies that will have far reaching effects, not only in neuroscience. Scientists at the European Human Brain Project—set to announce more than a dozen new research partnerships worth Eur 8.3 million in funding later this month—the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and the US BRAIN ...

Feeling extreme loneliness can increase an older person's chances of premature death by 14 percent, according to research by John Cacioppo, professor of psychology at the University of Chicago. Cacioppo and his colleagues' work shows that the impact of loneliness on premature death is nearly as strong as the impact of disadvantaged socioeconomic status, which they found increases the chances of dying early by 19 percent. A 2010 meta-analysis showed that loneliness has twice the impact on early death as does obesity, he said. Cacioppo, the Tiffany ...

The public's view that science and religion can't work in collaboration is a misconception that stunts progress, according to a new survey of more than 10,000 Americans, scientists and evangelical Protestants. The study by Rice University also found that scientists and the general public are surprisingly similar in their religious practices. The study, "Religious Understandings of Science (RUS)," was conducted by sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund and presented today in Chicago during the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference. ...

CHICAGO – What role does pre-existing vulnerabilities play for people who experience a climate shock? Does it amplify the effects of the climate shock or is effect negligible? Four Arizona State University archaeologists are looking into this as part of an international team examining how people can be most resilient to climate change when it comes to food security. The group questioned whether vulnerability to food shortages prior to a climate shock – not the actual experience of the food shortage – is related to the scale of impact of that shock. They found a strong ...

CHICAGO --- Joan Chiao, assistant professor of psychology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University, will discuss her research "Cultural and Neural Basis of Empathy" at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago. Her presentation is part of the symposium "Physiological and Cultural Foundations of Human Social Behavior" to be held from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 15 in Grand Ballroom E of the Hyatt Regency Chicago. The session will focus on recent findings in social neurosciences and ...

CHICAGO --- Robert Gordon, the Stanley G. Harris Professor in the department of economics in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University, will present "Long-Term Unemployment, Shrinking Participation and Future Economic Growth" at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago. His presentation is part of the symposium "Will the Workplace of Tomorrow Have Any Workers? Computing, Productivity and Jobs" to be held from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 15 in the Water Tower room at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. In ...

Mashed, smashed and fried, Americans love potatoes, but only a few varieties are grown in much of North American agriculture. In South America, where potatoes originated, more than 5,000 varieties continue to exist. A Penn State geographer is gathering all the information he can about the agrobiodiversity of these uniquely adapted tubers with an eye toward sustainability of this fourth largest food crop worldwide. "In the U.S. we rely primarily on 10 to 12 types of potatoes total," said Karl Zimmerer, department head and professor of geography. "In fact, mostly we use ...

The weakly electric black ghost knifefish of the Amazon basin has inspired Northwestern University's Malcolm MacIver and an interdisciplinary team of researchers to develop agile fish robots that could lead to a vast improvement in underwater vehicles used to study fragile coral reefs, repair damaged deep-sea oil rigs or investigate sunken ships. MacIver will discuss the research at a press briefing, "Robots from Nature: Making Mechanical Animals," to be held at 1 p.m. CST Saturday, Feb. 15, in Vevey Room 3 of the Swissôtel Chicago. The briefing is part of the American ...