NEWPORT, Ore. – Pilot whales that have died in mass strandings in New Zealand and Australia included many unrelated individuals at each event, a new study concludes, challenging a popular assumption that whales follow each other onto the beach and to almost certain death because of familial ties. Using genetic samples from individuals in large strandings, scientists have determined that both related and unrelated individuals were scattered along the beaches – and that the bodies of mothers and young calves were often separated by large distances. Results of the study ...

PHILADELPHIA - Brown fat is a hot topic, pardon the pun. Brown fats cells, as opposed to white fat cells, make heat for the body, and are thought to have evolved to help mammals cope with the cold. But, their role in generating warmth might also be applied to coping with obesity and diabetes. The lab of Patrick Seale, PhD, at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, studies what proteins guide the development, differentiation, and function of fat cells. Seale and postdoctoral fellow Sona Rajakumari, PhD, along with Jun Wu from the Dana-Farber Cancer ...

Scientists already knew that some social bee species warn their conspecifics when detecting the presence of a predator near their hive, which in turn causes an attack response to the possible predator. Researchers at the University of Tours (France) in collaboration with the Experimental Station of Arid Zones of Almeria (Spain) have now demonstrated that they also use chemical signals to mark those flowers where they have previously been attacked. Researchers at the University of Tours (France) and the Experimental Station of Arid Zones of Almeria (EEZA-CSIC) conducted ...

Mountain View, Calif. – March 14, 2013 – In the largest ever genome-wide association study on myopia, 23andMe, the leading personal genetics company, identified 20 new genetic associations for myopia, or nearsightedness. The company also replicated two known associations in the study, which was specific to individuals of European ancestry. The study included an analysis of genetic data and survey responses from more than 50,000 23andMe customers and demonstrates that the genetic basis of myopia is complex and affected by multiple genes. Myopia is the most common eye ...

A new research technique, pioneered by Dr. Maria Angela Franceschini, will be published in JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) on March 14th. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School have developed a non-invasive optical measurement system to monitor neonatal brain activity via cerebral metabolism and blood flow. Of the nearly four million children born in the United States each year, 12% are born preterm, 8% are born with low birth weight, and 1-2% of infants are at risk for death associated with respiratory distress. The result ...

Bangkok, 14 March 2013. CITES plenary today accepted Committee recommendations to list five species of highly traded sharks under the CITES Appendices, along with those for the listing of both manta rays and one species of sawfish. Japan, backed by Gambia and India, unsuccessfully challenged the Committee decision to list the oceanic whitetip shark, while Grenada and China failed in an attempt to reopen debate on listing three hammerhead species. Colombia, Senegal, Mexico and others took the floor to defend Committee decisions to list sharks. "We are thrilled with this ...

BANGKOK -- March 14, 2013 -- The following statement was issued today by WCS President and CEO Cristian Samper: The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) today celebrates the decision by an historic, broad group of nations from around the world to list five new sharks, freshwater sawfish, and two manta ray species for protection by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). This vote is a first, critical step in working to ensure that international trade does not threaten the survival of commercially valuable shark and ray ...

The European Parliament recently voted to scrap the controversial discards policy, which has seen fishermen throwing thousands of edible fish and fish waste back into the sea because they have exceeded their quotas. Scientists at Plymouth University believe this could have a negative impact on some seabirds, which have become used to following the fishing vessels and are increasingly reliant on their discards. But they say others could return to using foraging as their sole source of food, as long as there are sufficient numbers of fish to meet their needs. Dr Stephen ...

How you get the chameleon of the molecules to settle on a particular "look" has been discovered by RUB chemists led by Professor Dominik Marx. The molecule CH5+ is normally not to be described by a single rigid structure, but is dynamically flexible. By means of computer simulations, the team from the Centre for Theoretical Chemistry showed that CH5+ takes on a particular structure once you attach hydrogen molecules. "In this way, we have taken an important step towards understanding experimental vibrational spectra in the future", says Dominik Marx. The researchers report ...

A project led by scientists from Royal Holloway University in collaboration with Princeton University, has found evidence of how people form into tribe-like communities on social network sites such as Twitter. In a paper published in EPJ Data Science, they found that these communities have a common character, occupation or interest and have developed their own distinctive languages. "This means that by looking at the language someone uses, it is possible to predict which community he or she is likely to belong to, with up to 80% accuracy," said Dr John Bryden from ...

American bullfrogs are native to eastern North America but have been transported by people to many other parts of the globe, and other parts of North America, where they have readily established populations and become an invasive alien menace to native ecosystems. In the largest study of its kind to date, the stomach contents of over 5,000 invasive alien American bullfrogs from 60 lakes and ponds on southern Vancouver Island were examined to identify the native and exotic animals that they had preyed upon. The study was published in the open access journal NeoBiota. Over ...

Philadelphia, PA, March 14, 2013 – Since the 1960s, psychiatrists have been hunting for substances made by the body that might accumulate in abnormally high levels to produce the symptoms associated with schizophrenia. In particular, there was a search for chemicals that might be related to the hallucinogens phencyclidine (PCP) or lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), which could explain the emergence of psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia. This "auto-intoxication" hypothesis led investigators on a wild goose chase where substances, including the "Pink Spot" and the "Frohman ...

Testing can improve learning among young and old people alike, according to new research from Rice University. The study found that regardless of their age, intelligence or whether they work or attend college, people appear to learn more by taking tests rather than merely rereading or studying information. The research was published in the March 2013 edition of Psychology and Aging. "There is a significant body of research examining the benefits of testing among young students," said Ashley Meyer '09, the study's lead author. Currently a cognitivepsychologist with the ...

Amsterdam, March 14, 2013 - Bumblebees are much more unstable when they hover than when they fly fast, according to new research published this month in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. The authors of the paper, Na Xu and Mao Sun from Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics in China, used a mathematical model to analyze the way bumblebees fly at different speeds, showing that the bumblebee is unstable when it hovers and flies slowly, and becomes neutral or weakly stable at medium and high flight speeds. The instability at hovering and low speed is mainly ...

Smoking significantly increases individuals' risk of developing serious forms of urothelial carcinoma and a higher likelihood of dying from the disease, particularly for women. That is the conclusion of a recent study published in BJU International. While the biological mechanisms underlying this gender difference are unknown, the findings indicate that clinicians and society in general should focus on smoking prevention and cessation to safeguard against deadly cancers of the bladder, ureters, and renal pelvis, especially in females. To evaluate the gender-specific effects ...

This press release is available in Spanish. A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientist is giving guidance to growers in Montana and the Dakotas on how grazing sheep when fields are left fallow will affect soil quality. Grazing sheep and other livestock was once common in the region before fertilizers were introduced in the 1950s. While fertilizers increased yields, they also have increased nitrogen runoff and leaching, made soils more acidic, and contributed to greenhouse gas emissions, according to Upendra Sainju, a soil scientist with the Agricultural Research ...

Researchers from the University of Granada and the Carlos III University of Madrid have patented a new method to measure the flow of motorized traffic that a specific street carries each day, by measuring solely the levels of atmospheric noise. This pioneer system, unique in the world, is an alternative, or a complement, to other methods currently used to measure traffic flow, such as image counting or magnetic discharge levels. This method, designed by the University of Granada, allows a differentiation between the flow of cars, LGVs, HGVs and motorbikes/scooters along ...

Terahertz (THz) radiation, a slice of the electromagnetic spectrum that occupies the middle ground between microwaves and infrared light, is rapidly finding important uses in medical diagnostics, security, and scientific research. As scientists and engineers find evermore practical uses for this form of radiation, questions persist about its potential human health risks. New research performed on lab-grown human skin suggests that short but powerful bursts of THz radiation may both cause DNA damage and increase the production of proteins that help the body fight cancer. ...

The beetle family Cerambycidae, also known as long-horned beetles or longicorns, is characterized by emblematic extremely long antennae, which are usually longer than the total body length of the animal. The family is rather rich in diversity with more than 20 000 species known, distributed worldwide. Some representatives of these bizarre-shaped beetles, are also known as serious pests with their wood-feeding larvae causing extensive damage to living trees or untreated lumber. The beetles from this family are mainly associated with leaf litter habitats, where the specimens ...

New Rochelle, NY, March 14, 2013—A woman's health status before pregnancy is critical for the health and wellbeing of the fetus and mother-to-be. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has set Healthy People 2020 national objectives for women of reproductive age, and young women are making important gains toward achieving some of those health goals, while some trends are less encouraging, as reported in a study published in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on ...

(WASHINGTON)-Transplants of blood-forming stem cells from umbilical cord blood may be an effective alternative to transplants of matched donor bone marrow stem cells to treat children with a rare, debilitating disease known as Hurler's syndrome (HS), according to results of a study published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH). HS is an inherited metabolic disease characterized by the lack of a critical metabolic enzyme (lysosomal α-L-iduronidase) that breaks down long chains of sugar molecules in the body. In the absence ...

TORONTO, ON – Both daughters and sons from divorced families are significantly more likely to initiate smoking in comparison to their peers from intact families, shows a new analysis of 19,000 Americans. This University of Toronto study, published online this month in the journal Public Health, shows that men who experienced parental divorce before they turned 18 had 48-per-cent higher odds of ever smoking 100 or more cigarettes than men whose parents did not divorce. Women from divorced families were also at risk, with 39-per-cent higher odds of smoking in comparison ...

TORONTO, ON — Researchers from the University of Toronto and SickKids Research Institute announced today that they have successfully mapped the genes in the fungus that causes Dutch Elm Disease. The researchers believe this is the first time the 30 million DNA letters for the fungus Ophiostoma ulmi have been mapped. The findings, published in this week's online journal BMC Genomics, could help scientists figure out how to prevent the fungus from destroying elm trees in the future. "Essentially, Dutch Elm Disease is caused by a fungus that prevents the normal distribution ...

A virus that most people have probably never heard of, yet most of us carry, is the number 1 infectious cause of congenital birth defects. One in 750 children are born with, or develop, permanent disabilities such as hearing loss or brain damage as a result of CMV (cytomegalovirus) infection in the womb. Major research efforts are underway to combat this invidious disease. Researchers from Cardiff University and the La Jolla Institute, California, have discovered a previously unknown cellular mechanism that could prove critical in creating a CMV vaccine. "CMV is ...

New research, published in Neuron, gives insight into how single mutations in the VCP gene cause a range of neurological conditions including a form of dementia called Inclusion Body Myopathy, Paget's Disease of the Bone and Frontotemporal Dementia (IBMPFD), and the motor neuron disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Single mutations in one gene rarely cause such different diseases. This study shows that these mutations disrupt energy production in cells shedding new light on the role of VCP in these multiple disorders. In healthy cells VCP helps remove damaged ...