Solving one problem in order to gain access to another, which will enable you to address a third problem (and so on) in order to finally reach a goal – so-called sequential problem solving – is considered to be cognitively highly challenging as it requires the ability to spatially and mentally distance oneself from a desired goal. In the study, ten untrained cockatoos faced a puzzle box showing a nut behind a transparent door closed by five different interlocking devices, each one jamming the next along the series and each required different motor actions in order to ...

New research from Western University unravels a novel means of communication that allows bacteria such as Burkholderia cenocepacia (B. cenocepacia) to resist antibiotic treatment. B. cenocepacia is an environmental bacterium that causes devastating infections in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) or with compromised immune systems. Dr. Miguel Valvano and first author Omar El-Halfawy, PhD candidate, show that the more antibiotic resistant cells within a bacterial population produce and share small molecules with less resistant cells, making them more resistant to antibiotic ...

Fossil fuel companies have been funding smear campaigns that raise doubts about climate change, writes John Sauven in the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine. Environmental campaigner Sauven argues: "Some of the characters involved have previously worked to deny the reality of the hole in the ozone layer, acid rain and the link between tobacco and lung cancer. And the tactics they are applying are largely the same as those they used in the tobacco wars. Doubt is still their product." Governments around the world have also attempted to silence scientists who ...

(Boston) – In a study from Boston University's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL), researchers have generated a map of the cellular circuitry of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of human tuberculosis (TB). This information, which is being published online as an Advanced Online Publication in the journal Nature, sheds new light on the bacterium's ability to survive inactive in the human body for decades, resist treatment and cause disease. M. tuberculosis can cause devastating infections of the lungs and other body sites. In 2011 ...

New research, published today in The Lancet, highlights important information for health professionals and parents about the factors which may increase the likelihood of a baby being born with a birth defect. The findings, from researchers at the Universities of Bradford and Leeds, funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), confirm that the two main factors associated with an increased risk of babies being born with a birth defect are being born to an older mother or to parents who are blood relations. In addition, the research team was also able to ...

A model of great ape history over the past 15 million years has been fashioned through the study of genetic variation in a large panel of humans, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. The catalog of great ape genetic diversity, the most comprehensive ever, elucidates the evolution and population histories of great apes from Africa and Indonesia. The resource will likely also aid in current and future conservation efforts which strive to preserve natural genetic diversity in populations. More than 75 scientists and wildlife conservationists from around the world assisted ...

Researchers of the Cancer Metabolism group at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), Catalan Oncology Institute (ICO) and the Division of Hematology-Oncology of the University of Cincinnati, led by George Thomas, have discovered a role for ribosomal 5S RNA in the formation of a complex that regulates the stability of p53. Normally, p53 prevents healthy cells from becoming tumorigenic. It is maintained at low levels when cells function properly and increases when there is a cellular damage. The results have been published in the online edition of Cell Reports. Cell ...

Los Angeles, CA (July 3, 2013) – With more and more women representing the 50 states on Capitol Hill every year, many have noted that female politicians are not given the same treatment as males in the media. A recent study from a special mini symposium in Political Research Quarterly (a SAGE Journal) finds that news coverage of female politicians focuses more on character traits and less on their policy arguments than it does for their male counterparts. "There is clear variation across [poltical] races in terms of the focus of news stories," stated study authors Johanna ...

Call it a bird's eye view of migration. Scientists are taking a fresh look at animal movement with a big data approach that combines GPS tracking data with satellite weather and terrain information. The new Environmental-Data Automated Track Annotation (Env-DATA) system, featured in the journal Movement Ecology, can handle millions of data points and serve a hundred scientists simultaneously, said co-founder Dr. Roland Kays, a zoologist with North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. "This is a powerful tool for understanding ...

Physical activity reorganizes the brain so that its response to stress is reduced and anxiety is less likely to interfere with normal brain function, according to a research team based at Princeton University. The researchers report in the Journal of Neuroscience that when mice allowed to exercise regularly experienced a stressor — exposure to cold water — their brains exhibited a spike in the activity of neurons that shut off excitement in the ventral hippocampus, a brain region shown to regulate anxiety. These findings potentially resolve a discrepancy in research ...

A team of scientists at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University has discovered why long-term treatment with many common antibiotics can cause harmful side effects—and they have uncovered two easy strategies that could help prevent these dangerous responses. They reported the results in the July 3rd issue of Science Translational Medicine. "Clinical levels of antibiotics can cause oxidative stress that can lead to damage to DNA, proteins and lipids in human cells, but this effect can be alleviated by antioxidants," said Jim Collins, ...

COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M University System scientists from the departments of nutrition and food science and poultry science have developed a new medium for the cultivation of beneficial microorganisms called lactobacilli. A better understanding of lactobacilli metabolism can help improve feed efficiency in animals and combat malnutrition in humans, according to the researchers. "Lactobacilli are normal residents of the human gastrointestinal and urogenital tracts, where they promote host health and can be taken as probiotics," said Dr. Joseph Sturino, a Texas A&M ...

Alexandria, VA – Of all the water on Earth, less than 3 percent is available for human use, and as climates change and populations boom, the strategies used to extract it will become increasingly complex. With increasing demand, policymakers, scientists and leaders must recognize the energy-water nexus. The energy-water nexus describes an interdependent relationship that exists between availability of water resources and the energy required to obtain, distribute and utilize them. The way we manage the delicate relationship between energy and water will have major implications ...

VIDEO: Dr. Manikkam Suthanthiran, the Stanton Griffis Distinguished Professor of Medicine, has developed a non-invasive test to detect whether a kidney transplant may be rejected. Click here for more information. NEW YORK (July 4, 2013) -- A breakthrough non-invasive test can detect whether transplanted kidneys are in the process of being rejected, as well as identify patients at risk for rejection weeks to months before they show symptoms, according to a study published in ...

New findings from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital reveal an unconventional control mechanism involved in the production of specialized T cells that play a critical role in maintaining immune system balance. The research appears in the current online edition of the scientific journal Nature. The work focused on white blood cells known as regulatory T cells. These cells are crucial for a balanced immune response. Regulatory T cells suppress other immune system components in order to protect healthy tissue from misguided immune attacks or to prevent runaway inflammation. St. ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — For years, pilots flying into combat have jammed enemy radar to get the drop on their opponents. It turns out that moths can do it, too. A new study co-authored by a University of Florida researcher shows hawkmoths use sonic pulses from their genitals to respond to bats producing the high-frequency sounds, possibly as a self-defense mechanism to jam the echolocation ability of their predators. Echolocation research may be used to better understand or improve ultrasound as a vital tool in medicine, used for observing prenatal development, measuring ...

Physicians at Johns Hopkins say they are encouraged by early results in three patients of their new treatment for gastroparesis, a condition marked by the failure of the stomach to properly empty its contents into the small intestine. In an article published online today in the journal Endoscopy, they describe how the placement of a small metal stent in the stomach can improve life for people who suffer from severe bouts of nausea, abdominal pain and vomiting that accompany the condition. John Clarke, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University ...

Johns Hopkins cancer scientists have discovered that a little-described gene known as FAM190A plays a subtle but critical role in regulating the normal cell division process known as mitosis, and the scientists' research suggests that mutations in the gene may contribute to commonly found chromosomal instability in cancer. In laboratory studies of cells, investigators found that knocking down expression of FAM190A disrupts mitosis. In three pancreatic cancer-cell lines and a standard human-cell line engineered to be deficient in FAM190A, researchers observed that cells ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A process combining some comparatively cheap materials and the same antifreeze that keeps an automobile radiator from freezing in cold weather may be the key to making solar cells that cost less and avoid toxic compounds, while further expanding the use of solar energy. And when perfected, this approach might also cook up the solar cells in a microwave oven similar to the one in most kitchens. Engineers at Oregon State University have determined that ethylene glycol, commonly used in antifreeze products, can be a low-cost solvent that functions well ...

LOS ANGELES — The La Brea Tar Pits have stirred the imaginations of scientists and the public alike for over a century. But the amount of time it took for ancient animals to become buried in asphalt after enduring their gruesome deaths has remained a mystery. Recent forensic investigations, led by Anna R. Holden of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM) and colleagues, reveal new insights into fossilization and the prevailing climate at the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits toward the end of the last Ice Age. The paper, entitled "Paleoecological and taphonomic implications ...

SYDNEY: An international team led by the University of New South Wales has studied a distant star where gravity is more than 30,000 times greater than on Earth to test its controversial theory that one of the constants of Nature is not a constant. Dr Julian Berengut and his colleagues used the Hubble Space Telescope to measure the strength of the electromagnetic force – known as alpha – on a white dwarf star. Their results, which do not contradict the variable constant theory, are to be published in the journal Physical Review Letters. Dr Berengut, of the UNSW School ...

New BYU research finds that people in happy marriages live less "in sickness" but enjoy more of life "in health." In a 20-year longitudinal study tracking health and marriage quality, BYU family life researcher Rick Miller found that as the quality of marriage holds up over the years, physical health holds up too. "There's evidence from previous research that marital conflict leads to poor health," Miller said. "But this study also shows happy marriages have a preventative component that keeps you in good health over the years." A previous BYU study caught national ...

In 2000, researchers at the UCLA Center for Sleep Research published findings showing that people suffering from narcolepsy, a disorder characterized by uncontrollable periods of deep sleep, had 90 percent fewer neurons containing the neuropeptide hypocretin in their brains than healthy people. The study was the first to show a possible biological cause of the disorder. Subsequent work by this group and others demonstrated that hypocretin is an arousing chemical that keeps us awake and elevates both mood and alertness; the death of hypocretin cells, the researchers ...

Brain aneurysms of all sizes — even small ones the size of a pea — are up to 12 times more likely to rupture if they are growing, according to a new UCLA study. Published July 2 in the online edition of the journal Radiology, the discovery counters current guidelines suggesting that small aneurysms pose a low risk for rupture, and it emphasizes the need for regular monitoring and earlier treatment. "Until now, we believed that large aneurysms presented the highest risk for rupture and that smaller aneurysms may not require monitoring," said lead author Dr. J. Pablo ...

University of Adelaide research has produced a potential new antibiotic which could help in the battle against bacterial resistance to antibiotics. The potential new antibiotic targets a bacterial enzyme critical to metabolic processes. The compound is a protein inhibitor which binds to the enzyme (called biotin protein ligase), stopping its action and interrupting the life cycle of the bacteria. "Existing antibiotics target the bacterial cell membranes but this potential new antibiotic operates in a completely different way," says Professor Andrew Abell, project ...