Ancient rises in sea levels and global warming are partially attributable to cyclical activity below the earth's surface, researchers from New York University and Ottawa's Carleton University have concluded in an analysis of geological studies. However, the article's authors, NYU's Michael Rampino and Carleton University's Andreas Prokoph, note that changes spurred by the earth's interior are gradual, taking place in periods ranging from 60 million to 140 million years—far less rapidly than those brought on by human activity. Their analysis appears in Eos, a newspaper ...

This press release is available in German. Highly developed antennae containing different types of olfactory receptors allow insects to use minute amounts of odors for orientation towards resources like food, oviposition sites or mates. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, have now used mutant flies and for the first time provided experimental proof that the extremely sensitive olfactory system of fruit flies − they are able to detect a few thousand odor molecules per milliliter of air, whereas humans need hundreds of millions ...

Researchers Robert Hoare (Landcare Research, New Zealand) and Erik van Nieukerken (Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Netherlands) have named new moths after the Minotaur of Greek mythology and the legendary Italian philanderer Giacomo Casanova in a study of the evolution of southern pigmy moths. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. The tiny moths, with wingspans of 3 to 8 millimetres, belong to a very old group (the family Nepticulidae), which dates back more than 110 million years to the time of the dinosaurs. Australian pigmy moths are particularly ...

In a small, preliminary study of regular migraine sufferers, scientists have found that measuring a fat-derived protein called adiponectin (ADP) before and after migraine treatment can accurately reveal which headache victims felt pain relief. A report on the study of people experiencing two to 12 migraine headaches per month, led by researchers at Johns Hopkins, is published in the March issue of the journal Headache. "This study takes the first steps in identifying a potential biomarker for migraine that predicts treatment response and, we hope, can one day be used ...

Philadelphia, Pa. (March 18, 2013) – Abuse of the anesthesia drug propofol is a "rapidly progressive form of substance dependence" that is being more commonly seen among health care professionals, reports a study in the April Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. "Propofol addiction is a virulent and debilitating form of substance dependence" with a "rapid downhill course," write Drs Paul Earley and Torin Finver of ...

It is increasingly recognized that protected areas alone are not sufficient for successful biodiversity conservation, and that management of production areas (e.g. forestry and agricultural land) plays a crucial role in that respect. Retention forestry and agroforestry are two land management systems aiming to reconcile the production of human goods with biodiversity conservation. The retention forestry model is, as the name suggests, based on retaining some of the local forest structures when harvesting trees in an attempt to preserve local biodiversity. Agroforestry ...

New Rochelle, NY, March 18, 2013—The more than 100 million Americans living with chronic pain and daily suffering often have limited outlets to talk about their conditions with others who can understand and offer comfort. Online chatrooms may provide a beneficial forum where chronic pain sufferers can openly and safely communicate, as discussed in an article in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free online on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking website. ...

This press release is available in Spanish. The pale cyst nematode, Globodera pallida, is one bad roundworm. Unchecked, the pest burrows into potato roots to feed, obstructing nutrients and causing stunted growth, wilted leaves and other symptoms that can eventually kill the plant. Severe infestations can cause tuber yield losses of up to 80 percent. Now, however, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and cooperating scientists are evaluating new ways to control G. pallida using naturally occurring chemicals called egg-hatching factors. According to lead scientist ...

A newly published article "Revision of the Afrotropical Mayrellinae (Cynipoidea, Liopteridae), with the first record of Paramblynotus from Madagascar" by Dr. Simon van Noort, from Natural History Department, Iziko South African Museum, and Dr. Matthew L. Buffington from the Systematic Entomology Lab, USDA offers the description of 9 remarkable new species of wasps. Mayrellinids are extremely rare wasps, which are under-represented in museum collections. Most species are known from single specimens. The study was published in the open access Journal of Hymenoptera Research. The ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Pediatricians regularly dispense advice to parents of young children during well-child visits, but a new University of Michigan poll shows that many aren't following doctors' orders. Only one-third of parents (31 percent) said they follow advice from their child's health care provider all of the time, according to the most recent University of Michigan Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. Thirteen percent said they follow the provider's advice only occasionally. Parents from lower-income households ( END ...

EUGENE, Ore. -- (March 18, 2013) -- University of Oregon chemists have synthesized organic molecular structures that move both positive and negative electrical charges -- a highly desired but often difficult combination to achieve in current efforts to create highly flexible electronic devices and other new-age technologies. The research utilized a family of readily available and inexpensive hydrocarbons known as indenofluorenes to build molecular scaffolding for integrative circuitry. An indenofluorene-derivative framework, said co-author Michael M. Haley, head of the ...

A new study from researchers at UH Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital and other centers suggests that preterm infants with a low-grade bleeding in the brain may have similar neurodevelopmental outcomes as infants with no bleeding. The study appears online at JAMA Pediatrics. The study's lead author Allison Payne, MD MS, a neonatologist at UH Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital and instructor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, said, "The results are important because it is a large multi-center study showing different results than a recent study ...

WASHINGTON, DC – Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women in the United States. Yet historically, women have been less likely than men to receive evidence-based medical care for both the prevention and management of heart disease. In 1999 the American Heart Association (AHA) published the first clinical recommendations for the prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in women. This was soon followed by the implementation of The Heart Truth® campaign for consumers in 2002 by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), which was expanded in 2004 ...

For years, scientists around the world have dreamed of building a complete, functional, artificial cell. Though this vision is still a distant blur on the horizon, many are making progress on various fronts. Prof. Roy Bar-Ziv and his research team in the Weizmann Institute's Material's and Interfaces Department recently took a significant step in this direction when they created a two-dimensional, cell-like system on a glass chip. This system, composed of some of the basic biological molecules found in cells – DNA, RNA, proteins – carried out one of the central functions ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– After almost four decades of absence from local waters, a special sea slug appears to be making a comeback, and marine scientists at UC Santa Barbara are eagerly anticipating its return. With its vivid blue and gold colors and its discovery by UC zoologists in 1901, the nudibranch Felimare californiensis, also known as the California chromodorid, has been a favorite species of sea slug for UC marine scientists and students for decades. But while it held a special place in their hearts, it lost its place in local waters, which once included La ...

One of the most basic laws of quantum mechanics is that a system can be in more than one state – it can exist in multiple realities – at once. This phenomenon, known as the superposition principle, exists only so long as the system is not observed or measured in any way. As soon as such a system is measured, its superposition collapses into a single state. Thus, we, who are constantly observing and measuring, experience the world around us as existing in a single reality. The principle of superposition was first demonstrated in 1922 by Otto Stern and Walther Gerlach, ...

The digital rectal exam is an important screening test that can discover prostate cancer that a prostate-specific antigen or PSA test may not, despite the higher sensitivity of the PSA test, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. The digital rectal examination is a procedure where a physician feels the surface of the prostate with a gloved finger. The doctor is able to feel any lumps or hard areas on the prostate. A PSA test checks for levels of prostate-specific antigen in the blood, with higher levels signaling potential cancer. As men age, the ...

Research led by a psychologist at the University of Liverpool has found that using memories of recent meals reduces the amount of food eaten later on. It also found that being distracted when eating leads to increased consumption. Researchers analysed 24 separate studies which had examined the impact of awareness, attention, memory and distraction on how much food we eat. They found that remembering meals, being more aware and paying added attention to meals results in lower food consumption and could help with weight loss programmes. Techniques such as writing down ...

Stroke, heart attacks and numerous other common disorders result in a massive destruction of cells and tissues called necrosis. It's a violent event: As each cell dies, its membrane ruptures, releasing substances that trigger inflammation, which in turn can cause more cellular necrosis. A new Weizmann Institute study may help develop targeted therapies for controlling the tissue destruction resulting from inflammation and necrosis. The study, conducted in the laboratory of Prof. David Wallach of the Biological Chemistry Department, focused on a group of signaling enzymes, ...

Milan, 18 March 2013 – A new study from Japan investigated various prognostic indicators, including clinico-pathological and pre-operative hematological factors to develop a novel prognostic factors-based risk stratification model for disease-specific survival (DSS) in bladder cancer (BCa) patients treated with radical cystectomy (RC). This large series demonstrated that two types of pre-operative haematological disorders assessed by haemoglobin (Hb) and C-reacted protein (CRP) are independent prognostic indicators for patients with BCa treated by RC. "Despite the wealth ...

The study appears as an early e-publication for the journal Cell Transplantation, and is now freely available on-line at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/pre-prints/ct0832liu. "Allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation can cure many hematologic diseases," said study co-author Dr. Qifa Liu of the Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China. "However, poor graft function is a complication that occurs in five to 27 percent of patients receiving allo-HSCT and is associated with considerable morbidity and mortality." According to the researchers, ...

One of the most widely advocated strategies for dealing with HIV/AIDS could double the number of multi-drug-resistant HIV cases in the population of men who have sex with men (MSM) in LA County over the next 10 years, cautions a new study. In the United States, LA County has the largest incident population of HIV positive individuals. The so-called "test and treat" policy — which calls for universal testing for HIV as well as treatment with antiretroviral drugs for even those at the earliest stages of the disease — is popular because it has been shown to decrease the ...

As recently as the Vietnam and Korean wars, soldiers' families commonly had to wait months to receive word from family members on the front lines. Now, cell phones and the internet allow deployed soldiers and their families to communicate instantly. However, along with the benefits of keeping in touch, using new communication technologies can have negative consequences for both soldiers and their families, according to a study by University of Missouri researcher Brian Houston. This research could lead to guidelines for how active military personnel and their families can ...

WASHINGTON — Neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) have discovered a brain anomaly that explains why some people diagnosed with autism cannot easily recognize faces — a deficit linked to the impairments in social interactions considered to be the hallmark of the disorder. They also say that the novel neuroimaging analysis technique they developed to arrive at this finding is likely to help link behavioral deficits to differences at the neural level in a range of neurological disorders. The final manuscript published March 15 in the online journal ...

(Boston)--Boston Medical Center pediatricians Laura Johnson, MD, MPH, Jenny Radesky, MD, and Barry Zuckerman, MD, the Joel and Barbara Alpert Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, have published a paper in the current issue of the journal Pediatrics that addresses how understanding the origins and goals of parenting behaviors can help pediatricians strengthen relationships with families, demonstrate cultural sensitivity, and more effectively offer guidance on the challenges of childrearing. According to the paper, parenting goals and behavior ...