Agriculture alters the landscape more than any other human activity, with trickle-down effects on water, soil, climate, plant and wildlife diversity, wildfire, and human health. Crop and rangeland occupies nearly 40 percent of earth's ice-free land, and mountains and deserts make much of the remaining surface unwelcoming to agriculture. Our increasing population applies constant pressure for further conversion of wild lands to agricultural production. With yields plateauing in many parts of the world, managers, both private and public, are looking for new ideas to get the ...

MINNEAPOLIS – People who stop taking cholesterol drugs may be at an increased risk for developing Parkinson's disease, according to research that appears in the July 24, 2013, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Previous studies on the relationship between cholesterol drugs called statins and the risk of Parkinson's disease have had inconsistent results. The current study involved 43,810 people in Taiwan who were taking statins and did not have Parkinson's disease. Taiwan's compulsory national health insurance program ...

Getting the undivided attention of a female is tough at the best of times but it's even harder when surrounded by other male suitors. It's no wonder males often resort to ostentatious displays to distinguish themselves from the crowd, and nowhere is this clearer than in peacocks. Sexual selection has driven the evolution of their showy iridescent trains, whose main purpose is to attract females. But what is it about this train of colourful feathers that attracts peahens? Is it the characteristic eyespots or perhaps the green scale-like feathers? Researchers have tried to ...

Criminal psychopathy can be both repulsive and fascinating, as illustrated by the vast number of books and movies inspired by this topic. Offenders diagnosed with psychopathy pose a significant threat to society, because they are more likely to harm other individuals and to do so again after being released. A brain imaging study in the Netherlands shows individuals with psychopathy have reduced empathy while witnessing the pains of others. When asked to empathize, however, they can activate their empathy. This could explain why psychopathic individuals can be callous and ...

Weight discrimination may increase risk for obesity rather than motivating individuals to lose weight, according to research published July 24 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Angelina Sutin and Antonio Terracciano from the Florida State University College of Medicine. The researchers compared the height and weight of over 6000 participants, measured in 2006 and 2010. They found that participants who experienced weight discrimination earlier were 2.5 times more likely to become obese by the follow-up assessment in 2010. Obese participants who perceived weight discrimination ...

Researchers have designed tiny, light-controlled gold particles that can release DNA controls to switch blood clotting off and on. The results are reported July 24 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Kimberly Hamad-Schifferli and colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The two-way switch for blood clotting relies on the ability of two gold nanoparticles to selectively release different DNA molecules from their surface under different wavelengths of laser excitation. When stimulated by one wavelength, one nanorod releases a piece of DNA that binds ...

Professionals evaluating graduate school or job applicants frequently attribute applicants' credentials to their personal qualities rather than their circumstances, according to research published July 24 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Samuel Swift from the University of California, Berkeley and colleagues from other institutions. Higher grading schools and work environments that make it easier to succeed can play a significant role in inflating applicants' qualifications. In this study, participants were presented fictitious examples of graduate school applicants ...

A speaker's power to act on his words influences how a listener perceives the meaning of their message, according to research published July 24 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky from the University of Marburg, Germany, and colleagues from other institutions. For example, listeners are more likely to believe a political figure is capable of acting on the words "Tear down this wall!" than when an ordinary citizen makes the same statement. In this study, researchers presented participants with videotaped statements about politics spoken by ...

COLLEGE PARK, Md - Commercial honey bees used to pollinate crops are exposed to a wide variety of agricultural chemicals, including common fungicides which impair the bees' ability to fight off a potentially lethal parasite, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Maryland and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The study, published July 24 in the online journal PLOS ONE, is the first analysis of real-world conditions encountered by honey bees as their hives pollinate a wide range of crops, from apples to watermelons. The researchers collected ...

Newly published research by investigators at Johns Hopkins Children's Center and the Johns Hopkins Institute of Genetic Medicine reveals that a faulty genetic pathway already known for its role in some connective tissue disorders is also a potent player in many types of allergies. Scientists have long understood that allergies are the result of a complex interplay between environment and genes, but now, in what investigators believe is a scientific first, a single genetic pathway has been implicated in an array of allergic disorders. A report on the study's findings, ...

The identification of a single gene critical for yield of the oil palm, a crop that accounts for nearly half of world-wide edible vegetable oil, is reported along with the plant's genomic sequence in a set of papers published online July 24, 2013 ahead of print in Nature. The findings have implications for enhancing the future production and sustainability of palm oil, including a reduction in the pressure this productive tropical crop exerts on the footprint of wild rainforests. The work was authored by investigators from the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) and Orion Genomics. "Our ...

Women think it would be easier to overcome their fears of sex after having a heart attack if their doctors gave them more information, according to new research in the Journal of the American Heart Association. "Most women don't have discussions with their doctors about resuming sex after a heart attack even though many experience fear or other sexual problems," said Emily M. Abramsohn, M.P.H., the study's lead author and a researcher at the University of Chicago. "We wanted to get a better understanding of women's sexual recovery and how it could be improved." Researchers ...

The human papillomavirus (HPV) triples the risk of people developing yet another cancer, oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), according to research led by University of New South Wales (UNSW) academics. In addition to causing cervical, anal and genital cancers, HPV has more recently been found to cause some head and neck cancers. "One of the main issues is this form of oesophageal cancer is usually diagnosed quite late and so has a very high mortality," says the first author of the paper, Dr Surabhi Liyanage, a PhD candidate with the School of Public Health and ...

Smoking during pregnancy appears to be a prenatal risk factor associated with conduct problems in children, according to a study published by JAMA Psychiatry, a JAMA Network publication. Conduct disorder represents an issue of significant social, clinical, and practice concern, with evidence highlighting increasing rates of child conduct problems internationally. Maternal smoking during pregnancy is known to be a risk factor for offspring psychological problems, including attention deficits and conduct problems, the authors write in the study background. Professor Gordon ...

In recent decades there has been increased variability in yearly temperature records for large parts of Europe and North America, according to a study published online today (24th July 2013) in Nature. The study was carried out by scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, the University of East Anglia and the University of Exeter. Lead author Dr Chris Huntingford from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology said, "Fluctuations in annual average temperatures have shown very substantial geographical alteration in recent decades. However, to our surprise, when considered ...

Fitness fanatics may soon be able to gauge if their hard work is paying off without the need for weighing scales thanks to a new device that can instantly tell if your body is burning fat. The portable, pocket-sized sensor, produced by a group of researchers in Japan, works by measuring increased levels of acetone on the breath – a good indicator of when the body has begun to break down fat. The device has been presented today, 25 July, in IOP Publishing's Journal of Breath Research. Acetone is primarily produced in the blood when fat is broken down; however, it is ...

A family history of cancer increases the risk of other members of the family developing not only the same cancer (known as a concordant cancer) but also a different (discordant) cancer, according to a large study of 23,000 people in Italy and Switzerland. The research, published in the leading cancer journal Annals of Oncology [1] today (Thursday), provides a comprehensive picture of the risk of developing various different types of cancer in families where there is a history of the disease, and is one of the few large studies of this kind that takes into account other ...

Researchers have warned of an "economic time-bomb" in the Arctic, following a ground-breaking analysis of the likely cost of methane emissions in the region. Writing in a Comment piece in the journal, Nature, academics argue that a significant release of methane from thawing permafrost in the Arctic could have dire implications for the world's economy. The researchers, from Cambridge and Rotterdam, have for the first time calculated the potential economic impact of a scenario some scientists consider increasingly likely – that methane from the East Siberian Sea will ...

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, St. Louis, MO and Cold Spring Harbor, NY-- A multinational team of scientists has identified a single gene, called Shell, that regulates yield of the oil palm tree. The fruit and seeds of the oil palm are the source of nearly one-half of the supply of edible vegetable oil worldwide, and provide one of the most promising sources of biofuel. The discovery, the product of a multiyear effort to provide a high-quality full genome map of the oil palm plant and to scour the sequence for genes of importance to both science and industry, has major implications ...

This news release is available in German. The rabbit can't do it, neither can a frog, but zebrafish and axolotls can and flatworms are true masters of the craft: Regeneration. Why some animals can re-grow lost body parts or organs while others cannot remains a big mystery. And even more intriguing to us regeneration-challenged humans is the question whether one might be able to activate regenerative abilities in species that don't usually regenerate. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden are now one step further ...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- Unlike humans, galaxies don't have an obesity problem. In fact there are far fewer galaxies at the most massive end of the galactic scale than expected and scientists have long sought to explain why. A new, UMD-led study published in the journal Nature suggests that one answer lies in a kind of feast and fast sequence through which large galaxies can keep their mass down. Galaxies become more massive by 'consuming' vast clouds of gas and turning them into new stars. The new study shows in unprecedented detail how a burst of star formation in a galaxy ...

NEW YORK—Key molecular pathways that ultimately lead to late-onset Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of the disorder, have been identified by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). The study, which used a combination of systems biology and cell biology tools, presents a new approach to Alzheimer's disease research and highlights several new potential drug targets. The paper was published today in the journal Nature. Much of what is known about Alzheimer's comes from laboratory studies of rare, early-onset, familial (inherited) forms of the disease. ...

UC San Francisco researchers are recommending a combination of six comprehensive measures to prevent the spread of hepatitis C, in an effort to address the more than 31,000 young people they estimate may be newly infected with the virus each year in the United States due to injection-drug use. The measures, which stem from a 16-year UCSF research project with injection-drug users, known as the “U Find Out” or UFO Study, build upon the successes of clean syringe programs and similar efforts, while recommending greater focus on the social issues behind drug use and further ...

Philadelphia, July 24, 2013 –Researchers have identified a master network of signaling molecules that acts like a "fuse box" to regulate the cellular effects of defective energy flow in mitochondrial respiratory chain diseases—a diverse set of difficult-to-treat genetic-based energy disorders. Using that knowledge, they showed that nicotinic acid, a form of vitamin B3, partially restores normal functioning in cells taken from patients with mitochondrial disease. The study, from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), suggests that the regulatory signaling network ...

A new study published in the journal Nature shows how vigorous star formation can turn the tables on a starburst galaxy by forcing hydrogen and other gases high into the surrounding galactic halo, leaving little fuel for the next generation of stars. These new observations may help solve the mystery of the missing high-mass galaxies that theories predict should exist, but are conspicuously absent. Astronomers using the new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope have discovered billowing columns of cold, dense gas fleeing the disk of nearby starburst ...