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Environment6 Aug 2013

Seafood menus from Hawaii reflect long-term ocean changes

DURHAM, N.C. -- The colorful restaurant menus that thousands of tourists bring home as souvenirs from Hawaii hold more than happy memories of island vacations. They also contain valuable data that are helping a trio of researchers track long-term changes to important fisheries in the Aloha State. The scientists are using the menus as part of a larger project to fill a 45-year gap in official records of wild fish populations in Hawaii's ocean waters during the mid-20th century. "Market surveys and government statistics are the traditional sources for tracking fisheries. ...

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Science6 Aug 2013

New insight on vulnerability of public-supply wells to contamination

Key factors have been identified that help determine the vulnerability of public-supply wells to contamination. A new USGS report describes these factors, providing insight into which contaminants in an aquifer might reach a well and when, how and at what concentration they might arrive. About one-third of the U.S. population gets their drinking water from public-supply wells. "Improving the understanding of the vulnerability of public-supply wells to contamination is needed to safeguard public health and prevent future contamination," said Suzette Kimball, acting USGS ...

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Technology6 Aug 2013

Shadows and light: Dartmouth researchers develop new software to detect forged photos

Dartmouth and UC Berkeley researchers have developed new software to detect faked photos, using a geometric algorithm to locate inconsistent shadows that are not obvious to the naked eye. The new method is a significant step in the field of digital forensics, which national security agencies, the media, scientific journals and others use to differentiate between authentic images and computerized forgeries. The study, titled "Exposing Photo Manipulation with Inconsistent Shadows," was presented last week at the Association for Computing Machinery's SIGGRAPH conference ...

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Environment6 Aug 2013

USGS science at the Ecological Society of America

Forest Drought Stress in Southwest May Exceed Most Severe Droughts in Last Thousand Years: Severe wildfires and drought-induced tree deaths have increased greatly over the past two decades in the southwestern United States. Historical ecological sources about Southwest fire regimes and forest patterns over the past 10,000 years provide context for recent fire and vegetation trends. Specifically, these sources show that regional forest landscapes are greatly affected by interactive changes among human land management, climate and disturbances. Such linkages are further emphasized ...

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Science6 Aug 2013

Odd Martian crater type made by impacts into ancient ice

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Geologists from Brown University have developed a promising new explanation for a mysterious type of crater on the surface on Mars. Double-layered ejecta craters or DLEs, like other craters, are surrounded by debris excavated by an impactor. What makes DLEs different is that the debris forms two distinct layers — a large outer layer with a smaller inner layer sitting on top. These distinctive craters were first documented in data returned from the Viking missions to Mars in the 1970s, and scientists have been trying ever since to ...

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Environment6 Aug 2013

Tom Bowman's Climate Report delves into Arctic methane controversy

August 5, 2013 – Signal Hill, CA – Tom Bowman, climate science communications expert and host of the Climate Report™ with Tom Bowman, interviews economist Chris Hope and oceanographer Peter Wadhams, two of the three authors of an article in the journal Nature that has stirred scientific controversy since its release on July 24, 2013. The authors modeled the economic impact of a single phenomenon of global warming in the Arctic — the release of methane from thawing permafrost beneath the East Siberian Sea — and concluded that it "comes with an average global price tag of ...

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Science6 Aug 2013

Abused children found to smoke more as teens and adults

Researchers have long suspected some kind of link between childhood abuse and smoking. But in an interesting twist, a new study from the University of Washington finds a connection not between whether or not an abused child will ever begin smoking, but to how much they smoke once they do start. "In other words, people are as likely to smoke whether or not they were sexually or physically abused, but they're inclined to smoke more if they were abused and have a history of smoking," said Todd Herrenkohl, a professor in the UW School of Social Work. The paper is published ...

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Science6 Aug 2013

The doctor will email you now

NEW YORK (August 5, 2013) -- Patients like it and so do health organizations, but electronic communications in clinical care will likely not be widely adopted by primary care physicians unless patient workloads are reduced or they are paid for the time they spend phoning and emailing patients, both during and after office hours. Those are some key conclusions of an in-depth examination by investigators at Weill Cornell Medical College of six diverse medical practices that routinely use electronic communication for clinical purposes. The detailed report, the most comprehensive ...

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Science6 Aug 2013

Young vs. old: Who performs more consistently?

Sometimes it's just not your day: First you can't remember where you put your car keys, then you forget about an important meeting at work. On days like that, our memory seems to let us down. But are there actually "good" and "bad" days for cognitive performance? And does age make a difference in the day-to-day variability in cognitive performance? Florian Schmiedek, Martin Lövdén, and Ulman Lindenberger examined these questions using data from the COGITO Study, an investigation conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. Their results are published ...

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Medicine6 Aug 2013

Scripps Florida scientists devise new way to dramatically raise RNA treatment potency

JUPITER, FL, August 5, 2013 – Scientists from the Jupiter campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have shown a novel way to dramatically raise the potency of drug candidates targeting RNA, resulting in a 2,500-fold improvement in potency and significantly increasing their potential as therapeutic agents. The new study, published recently online ahead of print by the journal Angewandte Chemie, confirms for the first time that a small molecule actually binds to a disease-causing RNA target—a breakthrough that should help scientists identify precise RNA targets within ...

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Science6 Aug 2013

ORNL research reveals new challenges for mercury cleanup

More forms of mercury can be converted to deadly methylmercury than previously thought, according to a study published Sunday in Nature Geoscience. The discovery provides scientists with another piece of the mercury puzzle, bringing them one step closer to understanding the challenges associated with mercury cleanup. Earlier this year, a multidisciplinary team of researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory discovered two key genes that are essential for microbes to convert oxidized mercury to methylmercury, a neurotoxin that can penetrate skin and at high doses affect ...

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Science6 Aug 2013

New initiative could help improve surgical outcomes in children, study suggests

A group of pediatric surgeons at hospitals around the country have designed a system to collect and analyze data on surgical outcomes in children – the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) is the first national database able to reliably compare outcomes among different hospitals where children's surgery is performed. The effort could dramatically improve surgical outcomes in children, say the initiative's leaders, who published their findings online August 5, 2013 in the journal, Pediatrics. The model is based on a similar effort adopted nationwide nearly ...

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Science6 Aug 2013

Trial finds more support for universal HIV screening in emergency departments

CINCINNATI—Screening everyone for HIV in the emergency department may be superior to testing only those with apparent risk, when trying to identify patients with undiagnosed HIV infection, according to a new results by researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC). Though the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and national research organizations have recommended universal HIV screening, lead author Michael Lyons, MD, says there is still disagreement among physicians on how to implement screening in the nation's already busy emergency departments. Lyons, ...

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Science6 Aug 2013

The molecule 'scanner'

PITTSBURGH—Molecules could soon be "scanned" in a fashion similar to imaging screenings at airports, thanks to a detector developed by University of Pittsburgh physicists. The detector, featured in a recent issue of Nano Letters, may have the ability to chemically identify single molecules using terahertz radiation—a range of light far below what the eye can detect. "Our invention allows lines to be 'written' and 'erased' much in the manner that an Etch A Sketch® toy operates," said study coauthor Jeremy Levy, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy within ...

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Space6 Aug 2013

Astronomers image lowest-mass exoplanet around a sun-like star

Using infrared data from the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, an international team of astronomers has imaged a giant planet around the bright star GJ 504. Several times the mass of Jupiter and similar in size, the new world, dubbed GJ 504b, is the lowest-mass planet ever detected around a star like the sun using direct imaging techniques. "If we could travel to this giant planet, we would see a world still glowing from the heat of its formation with a color reminiscent of a dark cherry blossom, a dull magenta," said Michael McElwain, a member of the discovery team at NASA's ...

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Medicine6 Aug 2013

Salk scientists add new bond to protein engineering toolbox

LA JOLLA, CA ---- Proteins are the workhorses of cells, adopting conformations that allow them to set off chemical reactions, send signals and transport materials. But when a scientist is designing a new drug, trying to visualize the processes inside cells, or probe how molecules interact with each other, they can't always find a protein that will do the job they want. Instead, they often engineer their own novel proteins to use in experiments, either from scratch or by altering existing molecules. Engineered proteins can be drugs that turn on or off signaling pathways ...

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Space6 Aug 2013

NASA eyes 2 Eastern Pacific tropical cyclones: 1 up, 1 down

Tropical Depression Gil has been weakening for a couple of days, while Tropical Storm Henrietta appears to be strengthening in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. NOAA's GOES-15 satellite captured both storms in one image that clearly showed Henrietta was the larger storm, and NASA's Aqua satellite peered under Henrietta's clouds to reveal a developing eye. Tropical Depression Gil is more than halfway to Hawaii from Mexico and continues to hold onto depression strength. Meanwhile, NOAA's GOES-15 satellite captured both storms in one image on Aug. 5 at 1200 UTC (8 a.m. EDT). The ...

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Science6 Aug 2013

Personality may affect a new mother's decision to breastfeed

A new analysis has found that mothers who are more extroverted and less anxious are more likely to breastfeed and to continue to breastfeed than mothers who are introverted or anxious. Published early online in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, the study indicates that new mothers with certain personalities may need additional support and education to help them feel confident, self assured, and knowledgeable about breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is important for the health of both mother and baby: breastfed babies have lower levels of infections and allergies and are less ...

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Social Science6 Aug 2013

Driving simulation and cognitive models reveal differences between novice and experienced drivers

A recent study compared the differences between novice and experienced drivers using a driving simulator and modeled the difference using computational cognitive models. The method and results provide important cognitive-psychological bases for developing intelligent driver training and driving assistance systems. The study titled "Modeling the effect of driving experience on lane keeping performance using ACT-R cognitive architecture," authored by Shi Cao, Yulin Qin, and Mowei Shen, has been published on CHINESE SCIENCE BULLETIN, 2013. Driving experience is a critical ...

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Medicine6 Aug 2013

Walking to work cuts risk of diabetes and high blood pressure

People who walk to work are around 40 per cent less likely to have diabetes as those who drive, according to a new study. Researchers at Imperial College London and University College London examined how various health indicators related to how people get to work, using data from a survey of 20,000 people across the UK. They found that cycling, walking, and using public transport were all associated with lower risk of being overweight than driving or taking a taxi. People who walk to work were also 17% less likely than people who drive to have high blood pressure. Cyclists ...

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Medicine6 Aug 2013

Inca children were drugged with coca and alcohol before sacrifice

Scientists from the Department of Forensic Medicine at the University of Copenhagen have examined the bodies of three 500-year-old Inca children along with scientists from Bradford University in England. This has given new, detailed knowledge about the old Ince ritual 'capacocha' which also involved sacrificing humans. The results were published recently in the journal PNAS. One of the examined mummies is the 13-year-old girl, 'The Llullaillaco Maiden', named after the 6,379 meters tall volcanic mountain, Llullaillaco, where she was found frozen close to the mountain's ...

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Science6 Aug 2013

Tidy desk or messy desk? Each has its benefits

Working at a clean and prim desk may promote healthy eating, generosity, and conventionality, according to new research. But, the research also shows that a messy desk may confer its own benefits, promoting creative thinking and stimulating new ideas. The new studies, conducted by psychological scientist Kathleen Vohs and her fellow researchers at the University of Minnesota are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "Prior work has found that a clean setting leads people to do good things: Not engage in crime, not ...

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Medicine6 Aug 2013

Timber rattlesnakes indirectly benefit human health

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - The scientific name of the timber rattlesnake, Crotalus horridus, is a sign of the fear and loathing this native North American viper has inspired. But research by a team of University of Maryland biologists shows the timber rattlesnake indirectly benefits humankind by keeping Lyme disease in check. The team's findings, to be presented today in a talk at the annual conference of the Ecological Society of America, highlight the potential benefits of conserving all species – even those some people dislike. Human cases of Lyme disease, a bacterial illness ...

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Science5 Aug 2013

A novel motion tracking system assesses functional rehabilitation of the upper limbs

Upper limb function impairment is one of the most common sequelae of central nervous system injury. Conventional assessment methods cannot provide objective evaluation of patient performance and the effectiveness of therapies. The most common assessment tools are based on rating scales, which are inefficient when measuring small changes and can yield subjective bias. An objective quantification of patient performance during rehabilitation can be achieved using instruments to capture motion trajectories and specific details of task execution. Various commercial systems use ...

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Science5 Aug 2013

Ischemic stroke susceptibility gene in a Northern Han Chinese population

Interleukin-18 promoter gene polymorphisms may be associated with ischemic stroke pathogenesis, and the –607C allele increases ischemic stroke risk in the Han Chinese population. The frequency distribution of genetic polymorphisms varies among different populations, races, and living environments. A recent study by Haiping Wang and colleagues from Qingdao University Medical College demonstrates that the –13T/C (rs11024595) polymorphism, in the 5′-flanking region of the serum amyloid A gene, shows no correlation with ischemic cerebrovascular disease. However, the C ...

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