WOODS HOLE, Mass.—How a group of animals can abandon sex, yet produce more than 460 species over evolutionary time, became a little less mysterious this week with the publication of the complete genome of a bdelloid rotifer (Adineta vaga) in the journal Nature. Rather than the standard way of using sexual reproduction to weed out harmful mutations to its DNA, this tiny aquatic animal appears to have adopted other strategies to maintain lineages over millennia that aren't burdened by genetic damage or killed off altogether, says David Mark Welch of the Marine Biological ...

Is binge eating a tell-tale sign of suicidal thoughts? According to a new study of African American girls, by Dr. Rashelle Musci and colleagues from the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University in the US, those who experience depressive and anxious symptoms are often dissatisfied with their bodies and more likely to display binge eating behaviors. These behaviors put them at higher risk for turning their emotions inward, in other words, displaying internalizing symptoms such as suicide. The study is published online in Springer's journal, Prevention Science. With ...

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – The benefits of race-conscious college admissions are only fully realized under certain conditions, concludes new University of Maryland-led research. To stimulate meaningful cross-racial engagement, incoming freshman classes should reflect both racial and socio-economic diversity, the researchers report. The peer-reviewed study appears in the June 2013 issue of the "American Educational Research Journal." The researchers say their study is the first to test empirically how socio-economic diversity affects racial interaction in colleges. "Social ...

PITTSBURGH—The age of 3D printing, when every object so created can be personalized, will increase the need for tags to keep track of everything. Happily, the same 3D printing process used to produce an object can simultaneously generate an internal, invisible tag, say scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft Research. These internal tags, which the researchers have dubbed InfraStructs, can be read with an imaging system using terahertz (THz) radiation, which can safely penetrate many common materials. In proof-of-concept experiments, Karl Willis, a recent ...

Alexandria, VA - In a field like earth science, adventures in the outdoors are commonplace. As this summer's field season comes to a close and the lanterns are extinguished one last time, EARTH Magazine explores the ritual of field camp as geoscientists' rite of passage from classroom learner to a workforce-ready scientist. Earth science is just that, the study of the Earth. Thorough understanding of the surface expression of textbook concepts helps geoscientists provide protection and valuable resources to society. Thousands of U.S. college students participate in field ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study has found that heat waves are increasing in the western portions of the Pacific Northwest, but not the kind most people envision, with scorching hot days of temperatures reaching triple digits. These heat waves occur at night. Researchers documented 15 examples of "nighttime heat waves" from 1901 through 2009 and 10 of those have occurred since 1990. Five of them took place during a four-year period from 2006-09. And since the study was accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, another nighttime heat ...

An integrative approach to treating chronic pain significantly reduces pain severity while improving mood and quality of life, according to a new study from the Bravewell Practice-Based Research Network (BraveNet) published last month in BioMed Central Complementary and Alternative Medicine journal. Researchers found a reduction in pain severity of more than 20 percent and a drop in pain interference of nearly 30 percent in patients after 24 weeks of integrative care. Significant improvements in mood, stress, quality of life, fatigue, sleep and well-being were also observed. "Chronic ...

EUGENE, Ore. -- (July 22, 2013) -- Conventional scientific wisdom has it that plants and other creatures have only lived on land for about 500 million years, and that landscapes of the early Earth were as barren as Mars. A new study, led by geologist Gregory J. Retallack of the University of Oregon, now has presented evidence for life on land that is four times as old -- at 2.2 billion years ago and almost half way back to the inception of the planet. That evidence, which is detailed in the September issue of the journal Precambrian Research, involves fossils the size ...

ANN ARBOR—In events that could exacerbate sea level rise over the coming decades, stretches of ice on the coasts of Antarctica and Greenland are at risk of rapidly cracking apart and falling into the ocean, according to new iceberg calving simulations from the University of Michigan. "If this starts to happen and we're right, we might be closer to the higher end of sea level rise estimates for the next 100 years," said Jeremy Bassis, assistant professor of atmospheric, oceanic and space sciences at the U-M College of Engineering, and first author of a paper on the new ...

Global warming five million years ago may have caused parts of Antarctica's large ice sheets to melt and sea levels to rise by approximately 20 metres, scientists report today in the journal Nature Geoscience. The researchers, from Imperial College London, and their academic partners studied mud samples to learn about ancient melting of the East Antarctic ice sheet. They discovered that melting took place repeatedly between five and three million years ago, during a geological period called Pliocene Epoch, which may have caused sea levels to rise approximately ten metres. Scientists ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Painstaking new analysis of the genetic sequence of the X chromosome—long perceived as the "female" counterpart to the male-associated Y chromosome—reveals that large portions of the X have evolved to play a specialized role in sperm production. This surprising finding, reported by Whitehead Institute scientists in a paper published online this week in the journal Nature Genetics, is paired with another unexpected outcome: despite its reputation as the most stable chromosome of the genome, the X has actually been undergoing relatively swift change. ...

People with epilepsy are ten times more likely to die early, before their mid-fifties, compared with the general population, according to a 41 year study in Sweden published today in the Lancet and part-funded by the Wellcome Trust. The findings reveal a striking correlation between premature death and mental illness in these patients and people with epilepsy were four times more likely to have received a psychiatric diagnosis in their lifetime compared with the general population. The figures are considerably higher than previously thought and have important implications ...

Since Erwin Schroedinger's famous 1935 cat thought experiment, physicists around the globe have tried to create large scale systems to test how the rules of quantum mechanics apply to everyday objects. Researchers at the University of Calgary recently made a significant step forward in this direction by creating a large system that is in two substantially different states at the same time. Until this point, scientists had only managed to recreate quantum effects on much smaller scales. Professor Alex Lvovsky and associate professor Christoph Simon from the Physics and ...

PHILADELPHIA – Food is an integral part of life; but, for some, it can be harmful. Allergic inflammation caused by inappropriate immune responses to some types of food has become a major public health issue. Over the past ten years, the prevalence of food allergies has increased by nearly 20 percent, affecting an estimated six million people in the U.S. Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is a food allergy-associated disease that affects children and adults and is caused by inflammation in response to such trigger foods as eggs, nuts, milk, wheat, and soy. Inflammation of ...

PHILADELPHIA – The evolution of adaptations for life on land have long puzzled biologists – are feathers descendents of dinosaur scales, how did arms and legs evolve from fins, and from what ancient fish organ did the lung evolve? Biologists have known that the co-development of the cardiovascular and pulmonary systems is a recent evolutionary adaption to life outside of water, coupling the function of the heart with the gas exchange function of the lung. And, the lung is one of the most recent organs to have evolved in mammals and is arguably the most vital for terrestrial ...

VIDEO: Stowers investigators use genetics and live cell imaging to illuminate molecular mechanisms that position the cell division machinery in growing tissues. Click here for more information. KANSAS CITY, MO—Constructing a body is like building a house—if you compromise structural integrity, the edifice can collapse. Nowhere is that clearer on a cellular level than in the case of epithelial sheets, single layers of cells that line every body cavity from the gut to mammary ...

Almost 100 million euros has been spent so far on conservation efforts for the last 250 remaining Iberian lynxes in the wild. But the charismatic species is likely to go extinct within 50 years because the current management plans do not account for the effects of climate change. If they did, the population might increase instead concludes a new international study with participation from the Centre for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen. The study highlights the importance of integrating climate models in management plans for biodiversity. "Our ...

BERKELEY — A new milestone by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, can help robots become more touchy-feely, literally. A research team led by Ali Javey, UC Berkeley associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, has created the first user-interactive sensor network on flexible plastic. The new electronic skin, or e-skin, responds to touch by instantly lighting up. The more intense the pressure, the brighter the light it emits. "We are not just making devices; we are building systems," said Javey, who also has an appointment as ...

Monash University researchers have gained new insight into the early stages of our immune response, providing novel pathways to develop treatments for diseases from multiple sclerosis to cancer. In a study published today in Nature Immunology, a team of researchers led by Professor Paul Hertzog, of the Monash Institute of Medical Research (MIMR) and Professor Jamie Rossjohn, of the School of Biomedical Sciences, have characterised for the first time how interferon beta (IFNβ) proteins bind to cells and activate an immune response. Produced when viral and bacterial ...

Although it may not be immediately obvious, the mechanical properties of optical components have a significant impact on the performance of lasers employed in precision sensing applications. Currently, the mechanical damping of such components, and the inherent mechanical fluctuations they generate, present a roadblock to further advancement of ever more precise measurements of time and space. For the past decade, researchers in the precision measurement community have been searching for a solution that allows for the development of high-reflectivity mirrors with simultaneously ...

In older men, a natural antioxidant compound found in red grapes and other plants -- called resveratrol -- blocks many of the cardiovascular benefits of exercise, according to research published today [22 July 2013] in The Journal of Physiology. Resveratrol has received widespread attention as a possible anti-aging compound and is now widely available as a dietary supplement; much has been made of its role in explaining the cardiovascular health benefits of red wine, and other foods. But now, new research at The University of Copenhagen surprisingly suggests that eating ...

Multiple sclerosis treatments that repair damage to the brain could be developed thanks to new research. A study has shed light on how cells are able to regenerate protective sheaths around nerve fibres in the brain. These sheaths, made up of a substance called myelin, are critical for the quick transmission of nerve signals, enabling vision, sensation and movement, but break down in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). The study, by the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge, found that immune cells, known as macrophages, help trigger the regeneration of myelin. Researchers ...

Deforestation in parts of Africa could be reversed with changes to land use, a study suggests. A more strategic approach to managing trees across the continent could have a positive impact on the changing climate, researchers say. A pioneering study of African savannas by the University of Edinburgh has revealed deforestation in south-central Africa, driven by rising populations in the aftermath of war, and increasing demand for trees for agriculture and fuel. This loss of forests threatens the ecosystem and the livelihood of populations. Scientists suggest that ...

Climate friendly fuel cells for hydrogen cars have come one step closer. Researchers at the Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen, have shown how to build fuel cells that produce as much electricity as current models, but require markedly less of the rare and valuable precious metal platinum. Their discovery was published in the highly reputable periodical Nature Materials. Cheaper hydrogen cars with new fuel cell design Fuel cells ought to replace internal combustion engines in our cars. They are better for the climate and for the environment. Partly because ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—July 21, 2013—Alzheimer's, Huntington's, Parkinson's. Names forever linked to what they represent: diseases that ravage the brain's neurons and leave entire regions to wither and die. These and other so-called neurodegenerative diseases are often associated with the buildup of toxic proteins that lead to the death of neurons. But now, scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have discovered that the progression of disease is not due to the buildup of toxins itself, but rather in the individual neurons' ability to flush these toxins out. Further, they have ...