Bats orient themselves through echolocation, and they find their prey by emitting calls and then process the echoes reflected back to them from the prey. Small insects reflect small echo signals, and large insects reflect large signals - simply because they are bigger. This makes it easier for bats to discover the large insects. Large moths have to do something extra to avoid the bats, and their trick is to hear better. Their eardrums are larger and therefore more sensitive than ears of small moths, and this enables them to hear their enemies from at a greater distance. ...

Horses who develop a limp are one of the major sources of frustration for horse owners as well as vets. The same applies for Wobblers disease (ataxia) where growth abnormalities or articular process joint osteoarthritis put pressure on the spinal cord causing ataxic gait. At least one in a hundred horses develop Wobblers disease, which often leads to the horse having to be euthanased. Both lameness and Wobblers disease have an effect on a horses gait, and so far veterinarians have only been able to study horse movement in a gait-laboratory, which commonly only allows study ...

A study by a postgraduate researcher at the University of Southampton has found that Neanderthals were more culturally complex than previously acknowledged. Two cultural traditions existed among Neanderthals living in what is now northern Europe between 115,000 to 35,000 years ago. Dr Karen Ruebens from the Centre for the Archaeology of Human Origins (CAHO) and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) examined the design of 1,300 stone tools originating from 80 Neanderthal sites in five European countries; France, Germany, Belgium, Britain and the Netherlands. Dr ...

SINGAPORE – Surprise! Your morning cup of tea or coffee may be doing more than just perking you up before work. An international team of researchers led by Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School (Duke-NUS) and the Duke University School of Medicine suggest that increased caffeine intake may reduce fatty liver in people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Worldwide, 70 percent of people diagnosed with diabetes and obesity have NAFLD, the major cause of fatty liver not due to excessive alcohol consumption. It is estimated that 30 percent of adults in the United ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A new population-based study has found that patients with glioblastoma who died in 2010, after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of bevacizumab, had lived significantly longer than patients who died of the disease in 2008, prior to the conditional approval of the drug for the treatment of the deadly brain cancer. Bevacizumab is used to treat patients with certain cancers whose cancer has spread. The study appears in the journal Cancer. "There has been a great deal of debate about the effectiveness of bevacizumab in treating patients with ...

Since records began in 1776, the people of Youngstown, Ohio had never experienced an earthquake. However, from January 2011, 109 tremors were recorded and new research in Geophysical Research-Solid Earth reveals how this may be the result of shale fracking. In December 2010, Northstar 1, a well built to pump wastewater produced by fracking in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania, came online. In the year that followed seismometers in and around Youngstown recorded 109 earthquakes; the strongest being a magnitude 3.9 earthquake on December 31, 2011. The study authors ...

By determining the three-dimensional structure of proteins at the atomic level, researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered how some commonly used flame retardants, called brominated flame retardants (BFRs), can mimic estrogen hormones and possibly disrupt the body's endocrine system. BFRs are chemicals added or applied to materials to slow or prevent the start or growth of fire. "We're beginning to have a better understanding of flame retardants and their effect on human health. This particular study helps us literally see what brominated flame retardants ...

Climate change combined with rapid population increases, economic growth and land subsidence could lead to a more than nine-fold increase in the global risk of floods in large port cities between now and 2050. 'Future Flood Losses in Major Coastal Cities', published in Nature Climate Change, is part of an ongoing project by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to explore the policy implications of flood risks due to climate change and economic development. This study builds on past OECD work which ranked global port cities on the basis of ...

For the first time, researchers have documented irregular brain activity within the first 24 hours of a concussive injury, as well as an increased level of brain activity weeks later—suggesting that the brain may compensate for the injury during the recovery time. The findings are published in the September issue of the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society. Thomas Hammeke, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, is the lead author. Collaborators at the Cleveland Clinic; St. Mary's Hospital in Enid, ...

DETROIT – While more patients in the U.S. are suffering from complications such as blood clots and infections after major cancer surgery, fewer are dying from their operations. The finding, part of a first-of-its-kind study by researchers at Henry Ford Hospital and others in the U.S., Canada and Germany, could lead to recommended changes in national health care policy and a reallocation of resources. The study was published online in British Medical Journal Open. Jesse Sammon, D.O., Henry Ford Hospital urologist, research fellow and co-author of the paper, says the ...

Johns Hopkins biomedical engineers have teamed up with clinicians to create a new drug-delivery strategy for a type of central vision loss caused by blood vessel growth at the back of the eye, where such growth should not occur. In addition to testing a new drug that effectively stops such runaway vessel growth in mice, the team gave the drug a biodegradable coating to keep it in the eye longer. If proven effective in humans, the engineers say, it could mean only two or three needle sticks to the eye per year instead of the monthly injections that are the current standard ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Adults across the U.S. rate childhood obesity as the top health concern for children in 2013, but priorities vary based on racial and ethnic backgrounds, according to a new University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. In the poll's annual top 10 list, a nationwide sample of adults were asked to identify the top 10 biggest health concerns for kids in their communities. Overall, childhood obesity is rated at the top of the list (38 percent of adults said obesity is a 'big problem' for children in their communities). ...

NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the tropical cyclone known as Pewa after it strengthened into a typhoon in the northwestern Pacific Ocean. The Aqua satellite image revealed that Pewa had developed a small eye. On Sunday, Aug. 18, Pewa was a tropical storm when it crossed the International Date Line and moved from the Central Pacific to the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. Pewa now falls under the forecast authority of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. On Aug. 18, infrared satellite data showed that thunderstorm development and convection had slightly weakened, but the ...

Tropical Storm Trami appears to be a very large storm in infrared data from NASA's Aqua satellite. In a NASA image, Trami appears to be about two-thirds the size of the Philippines. Satellite data also indicates that the massive storm is now making a U-turn in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean, from a southeastern path to a northwestern path. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Trami on Aug. 18, the AIRS instrument aboard captured an infrared image that showed a large area of thunderstorm activity within the storm. The Aqua satellite passed over Trami at ...

The thirteenth Tropical Depression of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean season didn't last long. In fact, Tropical Depression 13W lived for less than a day as a depression before fizzled. TD13W was "born" at 1500 UTC/11 a.m. EDT on Aug. 17 with maximum sustained winds near 25 knots. Later that day at 2100 UTC/5 p.m. EDT, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center issued its final bulletin on the depression. At that time it was located near 28.0 north latitude and 126.0 east longitude, about 109 nautical miles northwest of Kadena Air Base, Japan. Before TD13W dissipated, the MODIS ...

Fires continue to ignite parts of the West. In this image, fires in Idaho and Wyoming can be seen. The Hardluck Fire was started by lightning on July 17, 2013 deep in the wilderness. The small two acre fire was discovered on July 20 by a fire detection flight, but the inaccessible terrain precluded sending crews in safely. Now the fire is almost 20,000 acres in size, and increasing in size and activity due to winds from the southwest. Warm dry weather is forecast for the next 2-3 days so the fire is expected to burn actively. Lighting also caused the Gold Pan Complex ...

NASA's Aqua satellite has been busy capturing temperature data from developing tropical cyclones around the world. Aqua captured an image of Tropical Storm Unala in the central Pacific Ocean where it formed early today, Aug. 19. Over several hours, Unala moved into the northwestern Pacific where it quickly weakened to a depression. NASA's Aqua satellite caught Unala in the same image as Typhoon Storm Pewa, which is responsible for Unala's quick weakening. The two tropical cyclones are just 184 nautical miles apart and are expected to be just 60 miles from each other later ...

Fires have been burning out of control on the Portuguese island of Madeira. The fire that broke out in the early hours of the morning on August 16, 2013 above the village of Monte became stronger towards noontime as intense heat and the wind made the flames spread. News outlets have been reporting that up to eleven houses were destroyed over the weekend. Firefighters have been battling to control the flames which reached the outskirts of the capital Funchal by Friday night. The hospital in Funchal had to be evacuated, according to reports. The original fires are reported ...

DALLAS – Aug. 19, 2013 – For the two-thirds of lung cancer patients with locally advanced or metastatic disease, tumor size is not used currently to predict overall survival times. A new study, however, led by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers has shown that even in advanced stages total tumor size can have a major impact on survival. Using data from a National Cancer Institute-sponsored Phase 3 trial involving 850 patients with advanced lung cancer, Dr. David Gerber, assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern, and colleagues from other academic ...

Contact: Bob Henson bhenson@ucar.edu 303-497-8605 University Corporation for Atmospheric Research David Hosansky hosansky@ucar.edu 303-497-8611 NCAR/UCAR Media Relations John Fasullo fasullo@ucar.edu 303-497-1712 National Center for Atmospheric Research Global sea level rise dampened by Australia floods BOULDER - When enough raindrops fall over land instead of the ocean, they begin to add up. New research led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) shows that when three atmospheric patterns came together over the Indian and Pacific ...

Scientists have discovered a vast plume of iron and other micronutrients more than 1,000 km long billowing from hydrothermal vents in the South Atlantic Ocean. The finding, soon to be published in the journal Nature Geoscience, calls past estimates of iron abundances into question, and may challenge researchers' assumptions about iron sources in the world's seas. "This study and other studies like it are going to force the scientific community to reevaluate how much iron is really being contributed by hydrothermal vents and to increase those estimates, and that has implications ...

The human body is full of tiny microorganisms—hundreds to thousands of species of bacteria collectively called the microbiome, which are believed to contribute to a healthy existence. The gastrointestinal (GI) tract—and the colon in particular—is home to the largest concentration and highest diversity of bacterial species. But how do these organisms persist and thrive in a system that is constantly in flux due to foods and fluids moving through it? A team led by California Institute of Technology (Caltech) biologist Sarkis Mazmanian believes it has found the answer, at ...

The longest and largest study of the effectiveness of insulin pumps to treat type 1 diabetes in children has shown that the pumps are more effective at controlling blood sugar than insulin injections and cause fewer complications. The research is published in Diabetologia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, and is by Associate Professor Elizabeth Davis, Princess Margaret Hospital for Children, Perth, WA, Australia and colleagues. The increasing use of insulin pump therapy over the last 15 years, particularly in children, has been driven ...

A gene that helps control the ageing process by acting as a cell's internal clock has been linked to cancer by a major new study. Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, found a genetic variant that influences the ageing process among four new variants they linked to myeloma – one of the most common types of blood cancer. The study more than doubles the number of genetic variants linked to myeloma, bringing the total number to seven, and sheds important new light on the genetic causes of the disease. The research, published in the prestigious journal ...

By carefully adjusting the function of crucial immune cells, scientists may have developed a completely new type of cancer immunotherapy—harnessing the body's immune system to attack tumors. To accomplish this, they had to thread a needle in immune function, shrinking tumors without triggering unwanted autoimmune responses. The new research, performed in animals, is not ready for clinical use in humans. However, the approach, making use of a key protein to control immune function, lends itself to further study using candidate drugs that employ the same mechanisms. "This ...