CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers have found what they say is the only fossil ever discovered of a spider attack on prey caught in its web – a 100 million-year-old snapshot of an engagement frozen in time. The extraordinarily rare fossils are in a piece of amber that preserved this event in remarkable detail, an action that took place in the Hukawng Valley of Myanmar in the Early Cretaceous between 97-110 million years ago, almost certainly with dinosaurs wandering nearby. Aside from showing the first and only fossil evidence of a spider attacking prey in its web, the piece ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Keeping the lungs healthy could be an important way to retain thinking functions that relate to problem-solving and processing speed in one's later years, new research suggests. While these two types of "fluid" cognitive functions were influenced by reduced pulmonary function, a drop in lung health did not appear to impair memory or lead to any significant loss of stored knowledge, the study showed. Researchers used data from a Swedish study of aging that tracked participants' health measures for almost two decades. An analysis of the data with statistical ...

UPTON, NY - Using a computational model they designed to incorporate detailed information about plants' interconnected metabolic processes, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have identified key pathways that appear to "favor" the production of either oils or proteins. The research, now published online in Plant Physiology, may point the way to new strategies to tip the balance and increase plant oil production. The study focused on the metabolism of rapeseed, a crop grown primarily in temperate climates for the oil that accumulates ...

This spring, a Swedish scientist sparked international concern with a journal article saying that radioactive particles detected in 2010 showed North Korea had set off at least two small nuclear blasts--possibly in experiments designed to boost the yields of much larger bombs. Shortly after, the pot was stirred with separate claims that some intelligence agencies suspected the detonations were done in cooperation with Iran. Now, a new paper says the tests likely never took place—or that if they did, they were too tiny to have any military significance. The new report, ...

WASHINGTON, October 8, 2012 — Smart phones almost as thin and flexible as paper and virtually unbreakable. Solar panels molded to cover the surface of an electric or hybrid car. Possible treatments for damaged spinal cords. It's not science fiction. Those all are possible applications of a material known as graphene. This so-called "wonder material," the world's strongest (100 times stronger than steel) and thinnest (one ounce would cover 28 football fields), is the focus of a new episode of the ChemMatters video series. The video is at www.BytesizeScience.com. The video, ...

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil- Amyloidosis is a group of clinical syndromes characterized by deposits of amyloid fibrils throughout the body. These fibrils are formed by aggregates of proteins that have not been properly folded. Deposits of amyloid fibrils are found in a number of diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and type-2 diabetes. The amyloid deposits can be localized, as in the brain of Alzheimer's patients, or found spread through the body, as in amyloidosis related to mutations in the transthyretin gene. The clinical meaning of amyloid deposits ...

Women who choose to be permanently childfree perceive more social pressures to become mothers than other women, but feel less distress about not having kids than women who are childless from infertility or other reasons, a new national study shows. The study, from a national survey of nearly 1,200 American women of reproductive age with no children, identified various reasons why women have no children, from medical and situational barriers to delaying pregnancy to choosing to be childfree. It sought to determine if those reasons contributed to different types of concerns ...

URBANA – Recent studies have linked caffeine consumption to a reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease, and a new University of Illinois study may be able to explain how this happens. "We have discovered a novel signal that activates the brain-based inflammation associated with neurodegenerative diseases, and caffeine appears to block its activity. This discovery may eventually lead to drugs that could reverse or inhibit mild cognitive impairment," said Gregory Freund, a professor in the U of I's College of Medicine and a member of the U of I's Division of Nutritional Sciences. Freund's ...

New York, NY (October 8, 2012) — Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have found that a diet high in saturated fat raises levels of endothelial lipase (EL), an enzyme associated with the development of atherosclerosis, and, conversely, that a diet high in omega-3 polyunsaturated fat lowers levels of this enzyme. The findings establish a "new" link between diet and atherosclerosis and suggest a novel way to prevent cardiovascular heart disease. In addition, the research may help to explain why the type 2 diabetes drug rosiglitazone (Avandia) has been linked ...

TEMPE, Ariz. - Just because a lizard can grow back its tail, doesn't mean it will be exactly the same. A multidisciplinary team of scientists from Arizona State University and the University of Arizona examined the anatomical and microscopic make-up of regenerated lizard tails and discovered that the new tails are quite different from the original ones. The findings are published in a pair of articles featured in a special October edition of the journal, The Anatomical Record. "The regenerated lizard tail is not perfect replica," said Rebecca Fisher, an associate professor ...

Hospital readmission rates and early death rates are used to rank hospital performance but there can be significant variation in their values, depending on how they are calculated, according to a new study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). "Hospital-specific readmission rates have been reported as a quality of care indicator but no consensus exists on how these should be calculated. Our results highlight that caution is required when comparing hospital performance based on 30-day or urgent readmissions given their notable variation when methods used in their ...

To screen for cervical spine injuries such as fractures in the emergency department, the Canadian C-spine rule appears to be more accurate compared with NEXUS, another commonly used rule, according to a study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). NEXUS stands for the National Emergency X-Radiography Utilization Study. "In the only direct comparison, the Canadian C-spine rule appeared to have better diagnostic accuracy, and it should be used over NEXUS to assess the need for cervical spine imaging," writes Dr. Chris Maher, Director, Musculoskeletal Division, ...

VIDEO: Arizona State University researchers have developed a new software system capable of estimating greenhouse gas emissions across entire urban landscapes, all the way down to roads and individual buildings. Until... Click here for more information. TEMPE, Ariz. - Arizona State University researchers have developed a new software system capable of estimating greenhouse gas emissions across entire urban landscapes, all the way down to roads and individual buildings. Until ...

Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues at the University of South Florida and Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital in China have discovered that combining chemotherapy drugs and immunotherapy cancer vaccines results in an enhanced anti-tumor effect. The results, achieved by testing cancer cells in a laboratory, are surprising because chemotherapy generally reduces immunity and could cancel out the benefits of immunotherapy when given together. Their study appears in the Aug. 31 online issue of Cancer Research, a publication of the American ...

PHILADELPHIA—The key to restoring production of insulin in type I diabetic patients, previously known as juvenile diabetes, may be in recovering the population of protective cells known T regulatory cells in the lymph nodes at the "gates" of the pancreas, a new preclinical study published online October 8 in Cellular & Molecular Immunology by researchers in the Department of Bioscience Technologies at Thomas Jefferson University suggests. Tatiana D. Zorina, M.D., Ph.D., an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioscience Technologies, Jefferson School of Health Professions, ...

Alexandria, VA – The Arctic is getting warmer and wetter. As temperatures rise and sea ice melts, scientists suspect that system feedback cycles may further speed up the warming process. Now, a new study out of the University of Colorado at Boulder is showing how shifting patterns of humidity may bring about changes in the Arctic atmosphere. The new study compiled data from the 1950s through the present to examine the subtle changes in the Arctic atmosphere over time. The team then incorporated the data into six new weather models. How will these models affect our perceptions ...

AUSTIN, Texas — Depression and post-traumatic stress disorder are commonly associated with sexual assault, but a new study from The University of Texas at Austin shows that female victims suffer from a wide spectrum of debilitating effects that may often go unnoticed or undiagnosed. Researchers Carin Perilloux, now a visiting assistant professor at Union College in New York, and David Buss, a professor of psychology at The University of Texas at Austin, found significant negative consequences of rape and attempted sexual assault in 13 domains of psychological and social ...

New research shows that women who regularly use pain relief medications, particularly aspirin, have a decreased risk of serous ovarian cancer—an aggressive carcinoma affecting the surface of the ovary. The study published in Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, a journal of the Nordic Federation of Societies of Obstetrics and Gynecology, reports that non-aspirin non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), paracetamol (acetaminophen), or other analgesics did not decrease ovarian cancer risk. Ovarian cancer is the deadliest gynecological malignancy and the ...

Happiness and mental health are highest among people who eat seven portions of fruit and vegetables a day, according to a new report. Economists and public health researchers from the University of Warwick studied the eating habits of 80,000 people in Britain. They found mental wellbeing appeared to rise with the number of daily portions of fruit and vegetables people consumed. Wellbeing peaked at seven portions a day. The research was carried out in conjunction with Dartmouth College in the USA and is due to be published in the journal Social Indicators Research. Most ...

A study from the University of Granada based on police surveys indicates that in domestic violence crimes in which the woman kills her abuser, if she is more attractive she is perceived as guiltier. From a social psychology point of view, it has been noticed that physical attractiveness has an influence on how people are perceived by others in labour, academic and even legal fields. On the one hand, this creates the mental association of "what is beautiful is good". On the other hand though, when it comes to domestic violence the results are different. "One of the ...

Fetuses with congenital malformations can be helped by surgical intervention while still in the womb. The potential of intrauterine surgery to improve their chances of survival is described by Anke Diemert and her co-authors in the latest issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2012; 109(38): 603𔃆). This kind of intervention is indicated only in fetuses with diseases that would lead to intrauterine death or to damage not amenable to postnatal repair. Studies have shown a particularly high benefit of fetoscopic laser coagulation in twin-to-twin ...

Last winter, scientists at the University of Wisconsin and Erasmus University (Netherlands) shocked the world by announcing they had developed strains of H5N1 influenza that could easily pass between mammals (ferrets). In nature, H5N1 is extremely lethal (kills nearly 60% of its human cases), but it does not easily spread from person-to-person. Thus, biosafety concerns were raised over the possible release, accidental or intentional, of these new viruses. In January 2012, an international panel of 39 influenza researchers agreed on a 6-month moratorium on all gain-of-function ...

Car accidents are the main cause of serious injury and death among children in Norway. A new study from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health shows that 37 per cent of all children under 16 years are incorrectly restrained in the car. 23 per cent of children are so poorly restrained that a collision would have very serious consequences. The study results were presented at a seminar on traffic accidents in Oslo on 8th October. "With the correct use of safety equipment, fewer children will be injured and killed in traffic," says Dr Marianne Skjerven-Martinsen from the ...

A new-cloud based operating system for all kinds of computer is being developed by researchers in China. Details of the TransOS system are reported in a forthcoming special issue of the International Journal of Cloud Computing. Computer users are familiar to different degrees with the operating system that gets their machines up and running, whether that is the Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac, Linux, ChromeOS or other operating system. The OS handles the links between hardware, the CPU, memory, hard drive, peripherals such as printers and cameras as well as the components ...

Tampa, FL (Oct. 9, 2012) -- Adolescent girls participating in a sexual risk reduction (SRR) intervention study were more likely to practice abstinence and, if sexually active, showed substantial decreases in unprotected sex, number of partners, and unintended pregnancies, reports a research team led by principal investigator Dianne Morrison-Beedy, PhD, RN, WHNP-BC, FNAP, FAANP, FAAN, Senior Associate Vice President of USF Health and Dean of the College of Nursing at the University of South Florida. Results of the study demonstrate the value of risk-reduction interventions ...