Mercenary soldiers are notoriously unreliable because their loyalty is as thin as the banknotes they get paid, and they may turn against their employers before moving on to the next dirty job. Not so in fungus-farming ants, where a new study reports that permanent parasites that are normally a chronic social burden protect their hosts against a greater evil. "Our experiments show that the scouts can detect whether or not a host colony has a cohabiting guest ant colony before deciding to initiate a raid so the guest ants serve as an effective front line defense. Dr. ...

Women with ectopic pregnancies could be spared surgery if they are treated with a lung cancer drug, a study suggests. Researchers treated ectopic pregnancies – where an embryo implants inside the Fallopian tube – by combining an existing treatment with a lung cancer therapy. They found that prescribing both drugs together was more effective at helping cure an ectopic pregnancy than the conventional drug alone. The lung cancer drug – called gefitinib – helps by blocking a protein that is known to encourage cell growth, and which was found to be present in high levels ...

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated a new mechanism for extracting energy from light, a finding that could improve technologies for generating electricity from solar energy and lead to more efficient optoelectronic devices used in communications. Dawn Bonnell, Penn's vice provost for research and Trustee Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, led the work, along with David Conklin, a doctoral student. The study involved a collaboration among additional Penn researchers, through the ...

In summer excavations at the foot of the Temple Mount, Hebrew University of Jerusalem archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar made a stunning discovery: two bundles of treasure containing thirty-six gold coins, gold and silver jewelry, and a gold medallion with the menorah (Temple candelabrum) symbol etched into it. Also etched into the 10-cm medallion are a shofar (ram's horn) and a Torah scroll. A third-generation archaeologist working at the Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology, Dr. Mazar directs excavations on the City of David's summit and at the Temple Mount's southern ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio—Commercial uses for ultraviolet (UV) light are growing, and now a new kind of LED under development at The Ohio State University could lead to more portable and low-cost uses of the technology. The patent-pending LED creates a more precise wavelength of UV light than today's commercially available UV LEDs, and runs at much lower voltages and is more compact than other experimental methods for creating precise wavelength UV light. The LED could lend itself to applications for chemical detection, disinfection, and UV curing. With significant further development, ...

Tropical Depression Nine formed yesterday, Sept. 8 in the far eastern Atlantic, and NASA's Aqua satellite saw it strengthen into Tropical Storm Humberto today, Sept. 9 at 5 a.m. EDT. As that storm strengthened, the remnants of the once-tropical-storm Gabrielle continued to struggle near the Bahamas as NASA's HS3 mission investigated. Tropical Storm Humberto is affecting the Cape Verde Islands, so there's a tropical storm warning in up for the southern islands of Maio, Santiago, Fogo, and Brava. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Humberto hours before ...

Inciweb.org updates the Rim Fire with this information: "Firefighters will face continued hot and extremely dry conditions. Shifting winds coupled with low humidity will provide conditions for active fire behavior. Pockets of unburned vegetation within the fire perimeter will continue to burn creating the potential for spot fires across containment lines. Today's top priority is to contain all spot fires especially along Tioga Road. Firefighters will continue to patrol mop up and monitor lines while maintaining structure defense. Yesterday firefighters responded to a new ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A University of California, Riverside assistant professor of electrical engineering and several colleagues have created a new measurement tool that could help avoid an energy crisis like the one California endured during the early 2000s and better prepare the electricity market for the era of the smart grid. The tool also unifies existing measures that assess "market power," which is the ability of power generating companies to alter energy prices. It also incorporates smart grid concepts such as large-scale storage, renewable power generation and ...

Now that California's greenhouse gas cap-and-trade policy is law, attention is shifting to recognizing industry efficiency. Driven by that goal, a team of researchers from Northwestern University, the University of California, Berkeley and the international consulting company Ecofys has spent the last year and a half developing science-based methods to determine the amount of free allowances California facilities are eligible to receive based on the products they manufacture. The research team was hired by the state to assist with cap-and-trade design for several key ...

For many of us, it's the fuel that wakes us up and gets us started on our day. Now, University of Cincinnati researchers are discovering that an ingredient in our old coffee grounds might someday serve as a cheaper, cleaner fuel for our cars, furnaces and other energy sources. Yang Liu, a graduate student in environmental engineering in UC's College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS), presents a summary of early-but-promising discoveries on his team's research at the American Chemical Society's (ACS) 246th National Meeting & Exposition this week in Indianapolis. Liu ...

A new reconstruction of climate in the South Pacific during the past 446 years shows rainfall varied much more dramatically before the start of the 20th century than after. The finding, based on an analysis of a cave formation called a stalagmite from the island nation of Vanuatu, could force climate modelers to adjust their models. The models are adjusted to match the current levels of climate variability that are smaller now than they were in the recent past for this region. "In this case, the present is not the key to the past, nor the future," says Jud Partin, a research ...

Augusta, Ga. – A little STING could go a long way in helping treat or even avoid autoimmune diseases such as arthritis, type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis, researchers report. With some prompting, the protein STING can turn down the immune response or even block its attack on healthy body constituents like collagen, insulin and the protective covering of neurons, all targets in these debilitating diseases, said Dr. Andrew L. Mellor, immunologist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University. MCG researchers saw STING's critical role play out after ...

Waves breaking over sandy beaches are captured in countless tourist photos. But enormous waves breaking deep in the ocean are seldom seen, although they play a crucial role in long-term climate cycles. A University of Washington study for the first time recorded such a wave breaking in a key bottleneck for circulation in the world's largest ocean. The study was published online this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The deep ocean is thought of as dark, cold and still. While this is mostly true, huge waves form between layers of water of different density. ...

SAN ANTONIO (Sept. 9, 2013) — Research from the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio suggests the exciting possibility of using cell transplants to treat schizophrenia. Cells called "interneurons" inhibit activity within brain regions, but this braking or governing function is impaired in schizophrenia. Consequently, a group of nerve cells called the dopamine system go into overdrive. Different branches of the dopamine system are involved in cognition, movement and emotions. "Since these cells are not functioning properly, ...

HOUSTON -- (Sept. 9, 2013) -- The next experiment from Rice University's Multi-Robot Systems Laboratory (MRSL) could happen on your desktop. The lab's researchers are refining their control algorithms for robotic swarms based upon data from five free online games that anyone can play. "What we learn from the game and our lab experiments applies directly to real-world challenges," said Aaron Becker, a postdoctoral researcher at MRSL. "For example, if a doctor had a swarm of several thousand microscopic robots, each carrying a tiny payload of anti-cancer drugs, might it ...

WASHINGTON, DC—Smart as the Mars Curiosity mission has been about landing and finding its own way on a distant world, the rover is pretty brainless when it comes to doing the science that it was sent 567 million kilometers to carry out. That has to change if future rover missions are to make discoveries further out in the solar system, scientists say. The change has now begun with the development of a new camera that can do more than just take pictures of alien rocks – it also thinks about what the pictures signify so the rover can decide on its own whether to keep exploring ...

A new study has revealed that the stunning iridescent wings of the tropical blue Morpho butterfly could expand the range of innovative technologies. Scientific lessons learnt from these butterflies have already inspired designs of new displays, fabrics and cosmetics. Now research by the University of Exeter, in collaboration with General Electric (GE) Global Research Centre, University at Albany and Air Force Research Laboratory, and funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has discovered that the physical structure and surface chemistry of ...

TORONTO, Sept. 9, 2013 – Men were more likely to develop a physical illness than women during a 10-year period studied by researchers at St. Michael's Hospital. Having a mental illness increases the risk of developing a physical illness by 10 times in both men and women, the study found. However, women with mental illness tend to develop a physical illness a year earlier than men, according to the study by Dr. Flora Matheson, a scientist in hospital's Centre for Research on Inner City Health. Women were at a 14 per cent reduced risk, compared to men, of developing ...

Irvine, Calif., Sept. 5, 2013 – What can the U.S. military learn from a common squid? A lot about how to hide from enemies, according to researchers at UC Irvine's Henry Samueli School of Engineering. As detailed in a study published online in Advanced Materials, they have created a biomimetic infrared camouflage coating inspired by Loliginidae, also known as pencil squids or your everyday calamari. Led by Alon Gorodetsky, an assistant professor of chemical engineering & materials science, the team produced reflectin – a structural protein essential in the squid's ability ...

Studies of a therapy designed to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) suggest that the treatment dramatically slows onset and progression of the deadly disease, one of the most common neuromuscular disorders in the world. The researchers, led by teams from The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital and the Ludwig Institute at the University of California, San Diego, found a survival increase of up to 39 percent in animal models with a one-time treatment, a crucial step toward moving the therapy into human clinical trials. The therapy reduces expression ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — The degeneration of a small, wishbone-shaped structure deep inside the brain may provide the earliest clues to future cognitive decline, long before healthy older people exhibit clinical symptoms of memory loss or dementia, a study by researchers with the UC Davis Alzheimer's Disease Center has found. The longitudinal study found that the only discernible brain differences between normal people who later developed cognitive impairment and those who did not were changes in their fornix, an organ that carries messages to and from the hippocampus, ...

Sept. 9, 2013 – Toronto, Canada – Scientists at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and University Health Network (UHN) have found a new link between early-onset Parkinson's disease and a piece of DNA missing from chromosome 22. The findings help shed new light on the molecular changes that lead to Parkinson's disease. The study appears online today in JAMA Neurology. Among people aged 35 to 64 who were missing DNA from a specific part of chromosome 22, the research team found a marked increase in the number of cases of Parkinson's disease, compared ...

Some symbiotic bacteria living inside Colorado potato beetles can trick plants into reacting to a microbial attack rather than that of a chewing herbivore, according to a team of Penn State researchers who found that the beetles with bacteria were healthier and grew better. "For the last couple of decades, my lab has focused on induced defenses in plants," said Gary W. Felton, professor and head of entomology. "We had some clues that oral secretions of beetles suppressed defenses, but no one had followed up on that research." Seung Ho Chung, graduate student in entomology ...

Scientists from UC San Francisco have identified a new way to manipulate the immune system that may keep it from attacking the body’s own molecules in autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. The researchers, led by immunologist Mark Anderson, MD, PhD, a professor with the UCSF Diabetes Center, have discovered a distinctive type of immune cell called an eTAC, which puts a damper on immune responses. Anderson’s research team found that eTACs reside in lymph nodes and spleen in both humans and mice, and determined ...

For American teenagers, most text messaging is as harmless as passing notes, but University of Texas at Dallas researchers have discovered that engaging in antisocial texting can actually predict deviant behavior. On Monday, in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, scientists reported a correlation between the frequency with which adolescents text about antisocial behaviors and the likelihood that they will engage in them. "We were interested in how adolescents use electronic communication, particularly text messaging," said Dr. Samuel Ehrenreich, post-doctoral ...