Boulder, Colo., USA – New Geology postings discuss a vanished link between Antarctica and Australia; the West Salton Detachment fault in California, USA; chemical interaction between peridotite and intruding melts in the Northern Apennines, Italy; calving barchan dunes; the nature of black shale in the Late Devonian Appalachian Basin; the August 2008 avulsion belt of the Kosi River, India; reef island formation; and a one-year record of eight quakes within dune deposits of the Navajo Sandstone, Utah, USA. Highlights are provided below. GEOLOGY articles published ahead ...

Research calling for the use of a wearable computing system installed in a helmet to protect construction workers from carbon monoxide poisoning, a serious lethal threat in this industry, has garnered the Virginia Tech investigators a Best Paper Award from a prestigious scientific and engineering community. This award will be presented at the August 17-21, 2013 Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Conference on Automation Science and Engineering. Carbon monoxide poisoning is a significant problem for construction workers in both residential and industrial ...

Philadelphia, PA, August 15, 2013 – A team of investigators systematically analyzed the effect of calcium and vitamin D supplementation on joint symptoms in a rigorous and controlled study of postmenopausal women. They found that supplementation did not reduce the severity of joint symptoms reported by the participants. Their results are published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The influence of low calcium and vitamin D deficiency on joint symptoms has been studied with mixed results. Only some observational studies have associated vitamin D ...

PHILADELPHIA — A phase I clinical trial showed diffuse, large B-cell lymphomas (DLBCLs) resistant to chemotherapy can be reprogrammed to respond to treatment using the drug azacitidine, according to a study published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. Patients whose lymphomas recur after initial chemotherapy are treated with a combination of approaches, including high-dose chemotherapy followed by a stem cell transplant. However, some patients have tumors that do not respond to these extensive second treatments, and many of ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- MIT researchers have engineered a new rechargeable flow battery that doesn't rely on expensive membranes to generate and store electricity. The device, they say, may one day enable cheaper, large-scale energy storage. The palm-sized prototype generates three times as much power per square centimeter as other membraneless systems -- a power density that is an order of magnitude higher than that of many lithium-ion batteries and other commercial and experimental energy-storage systems. The device stores and releases energy in a device that relies on a ...

High cholesterol levels are much more risky for middle-aged men than middle-aged women when it comes to having a first heart attack, a new study of more than 40,000 Norwegian men and women has shown. The study, just published in the September issue of Epidemiology, shows that being a middle-aged male and having high cholesterol levels results in a negative synergistic effect that the researchers did not observe in women. However, current clinical guidelines for treating high cholesterol levels do not differentiate between men and women. "Our results suggest that in ...

Giving men with testicular cancer a single dose of chemotherapy alongside radiotherapy could improve the effectiveness of treatment and reduce the risk of long-term side-effects, a new study reports. As many as 96% of men with testicular cancer now survive at least ten years from diagnosis (1), but more advanced forms need to be treated with combination chemotherapy – which can have serious long-term complications. Researchers at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust have therefore been searching for new treatments that would ...

VIDEO: University of East Anglia scientists have revealed how females select the 'right' sperm to fertilize their eggs when faced with the risk of being fertilized by wrong sperm from a... Click here for more information. University of East Anglia scientists have revealed how females select the 'right' sperm to fertilize their eggs when faced with the risk of being fertilized by wrong sperm from a different species. Researchers investigated salmon and trout, which fertilize ...

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite detected dozens of fires burning in southeastern Africa in mostly Mozambique and Malawi. The fires are outlined in red. The location, widespread nature, and number of fires suggest that these fires were deliberately set to manage land. Farmers often use fire to return nutrients to the soil and to clear the ground of unwanted plants. While fire helps enhance crops and grasses for pasture, the fires also produce smoke that degrades air quality. The main growing season starts with the first ...

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite detected dozens of fires burning in eastern Russia in this satellite image captured on August 15, 2013. The fires are outlined in red. Smoke appears as grayish, wispy air currents. The location, widespread nature, and number of fires suggest that these fires were deliberately set to manage land. Farmers often use fire to return nutrients to the soil and to clear the ground of unwanted plants. While fire helps enhance crops and grasses for pasture, the fires also produce smoke that degrades ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Older heart patients present unique challenges for determining the optimal dosages of medications, so a new study from researchers at Duke Medicine offers some rare clarity about the use of drugs that are used to treat patients with heart attacks. For certain heart patients older than age 75, a half-dose of the anti-platelet drug prasugrel works about as well as the typical dosage of clopidogrel, according to a team led by the Duke Clinical Research Institute that looked at a sub-study of a large clinical trial. "As people live longer throughout the ...

ARLINGTON, VA, August 16, 2013—The advent of antiretroviral therapy (ART) has transformed HIV from a death sentence into a chronic disease. In one of the largest studies of perinatally infected HIV (PHIV) patients to date, Agwu, et al, found that the proportion of patients on ART has increased and rates of viremia and advanced immunosuppression have decreased. But the rates of both markers in older patients are higher, according to an article in the Fall issue of The Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (JPIDS). The retrospective study of the HIV Research ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Children with autism and average IQs consistently demonstrated superior math skills compared with nonautistic children in the same IQ range, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. "There appears to be a unique pattern of brain organization that underlies superior problem-solving abilities in children with autism," said Vinod Menon, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and a member of the Child Health Research Institute at Packard Children's. The autistic ...

From frogs to humans, selecting a mate is complicated. Females of many species judge suitors based on many indicators of health or parenting potential. But it can be difficult for males to produce multiple signals that demonstrate these qualities simultaneously. In a study of gray tree frogs, a team of University of Minnesota researchers discovered that females prefer males whose calls reflect the ability to multitask effectively. In this species (Hyla chrysoscelis) males produce "trilled" mating calls that consist of a string of pulses. Typical calls can range in ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA - MIT chemical engineers have discovered that arrays of billions of nanoscale sensors have unique properties that could help pharmaceutical companies produce drugs — especially those based on antibodies — more safely and efficiently. Using these sensors, the researchers were able to characterize variations in the binding strength of antibody drugs, which hold promise for treating cancer and other diseases. They also used the sensors to monitor the structure of antibody molecules, including whether they contain a chain of sugars that interferes with proper ...

The biological information that makes us unique is encoded in our DNA. DNA damage is a natural biological occurrence that happens every time cells divide and multiply. External factors such as overexposure to sunlight can also damage DNA. Understanding how the human body recognizes damaged DNA and initiates repair fascinates Michael Feig, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Michigan State University. Feig studies the proteins MutS and MSH2-MSH6, which recognize defective DNA and initiate DNA repair. Natural DNA repair occurs when proteins like MutS (the ...

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over two developing low pressure areas in the Central Pacific Ocean, just before one of them strengthened into Tropical Storm Pewa. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the Central Pacific on Aug. 16 at 00:35 UTC (8:35 p.m. EDT/Aug. 15), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument captured a visible image of two developing low pressure areas. The low farthest west was called System 91C, and that's the low that strengthened into Tropical Storm Pewa. The low pressure area east of Pewa is System 90C, which has a high ...

Tropical Storm Erin ran into cooler waters and dry, stable air over the Eastern Atlantic that sapped its strength and weakening the storm to depression status. NOAA's GOES-East satellite showed the storm waning today. NOAA's GOES-East satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Depression Erin on Aug. 16 at 1445 UTC/10:45 a.m. EDT. The image was created by NASA's GOES Project at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. and showed that the storm still had good circulation, but the clouds and showers had diminished. The National Hurricane Center noted that ...

Why are some individuals more attractive to the opposite sex than others? New research by a team from University College London and Oxford University, published in PLOS Genetics, has shown that in wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo), the essence of male beauty is mainly dependent on the way that males use their genes, rather than differences in the genes themselves. Males and females in many animals show profound differences in how they look and act, and some of these differences are key to sexual attractiveness. Within each sex, individuals often show a range of these ...

People who reported dietary intake that was most consistent with the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans had lower risk of pancreatic cancer, according to a new study published August 15 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Previous studies investigating the relationship between food and nutrient intake and pancreatic cancer have yielded inconsistent results. The U.S. Government issues evidence-based dietary guidelines that provide the basis for federal nutrition policy and education activities to promote overall health for Americans. The authors evaluated ...

This release is also available in Chinese on EurekAlert! Chinese. The 160 million-year-old fossil of an extinct rodent-like creature from China is helping to explain how multituberculates—the most evolutionarily successful and long-lived mammalian lineage in the fossil record—achieved their dominance. This fossil find—the oldest ancestor in the multituberculate family tree—represents a newly discovered species known as Rugosodon eurasiaticus. The nearly complete skeleton provides critical insights into the traits that helped such multituberculates thrive in their day. ...

HOUSTON – (Aug. 15, 2013) – Dr. David Corry compares the allergic response to a computer. "The core of a computer is its CPU (central processing unit) or chip. We are looking for the chip that drives allergic disease," said the professor of medicine, chief of the section of immunology, allergy and rheumatology in Baylor College of Medicine's department of medicine and director of the Biology of Inflammation Center at BCM. In a report that appears online in the journal Science, he and colleagues at BCM describe an important component of that chip – a molecule called toll-like ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Patients who participated in a smoking-cessation program during hospitalization for mental illness were able to quit smoking and were less likely to be hospitalized again for their psychiatric conditions, according to a new study led by a Stanford University School of Medicine scientist. The findings counter a longstanding assumption, held by many mental-health experts, that smoking serves as a useful tool in treating some psychiatric patients. Smoking among such patients has been embedded in the culture for decades, with cigarettes used as part of ...

Obesity is a lot more deadly than previously thought. Across recent decades, obesity accounted for 18 percent of deaths among Black and White Americans between the ages of 40 and 85, according to a study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This finding challenges the prevailing wisdom among scientists, which puts that portion at around 5%. "Obesity has dramatically worse health consequences than some recent reports have led us to believe," says first author Ryan Masters, PhD, who conducted the research as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar ...

Rochester, MN, August 15, 2013 – Nearly 400 million cups of coffee are consumed every day in America. Drinking large amounts of coffee may be bad for under-55s, according to a new study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. A study of more than 40,000 individuals found a statistically significant 21% increased mortality in those drinking more than 28 cups of coffee a week and death from all causes, with a greater than 50% increased mortality risk in both men and women younger than 55 years of age. Investigators warn that younger people in particular may need to avoid heavy ...