Durham, NC — A new study of North American songbirds reveals that birds that live with fluctuating weather are more flexible singers. Mixing it up helps birds ensure that their songs are heard no matter what the habitat, say researchers at Australian National University and the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center. To test the idea, the researchers analyzed song recordings from more than 400 male birds spanning 44 species of North American songbirds — a data set that included orioles, blackbirds, warblers, sparrows, cardinals, finches, chickadees and thrushes. They ...

When a damaging earthquake struck the area of L'Aquila in central Italy in 2009, it was the latest in the region's long history of strong and persistent quakes. The rich recorded history of settlement in the area, along with oral traditions, archaeological excavations, inscriptions and medieval texts, and offer insight into how often the region might expect destructive earthquakes. But according to a new study by Emanuela Guidoboni and colleagues, the historical record on ancient and medieval earthquakes comes with its own shortcomings that must be addressed before the ...

Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Grenoble, France, have determined the detailed 3-dimensional structure of part of the flu virus' RNA polymerase, an enzyme that is crucial for influenza virus replication. This important finding is published today in PLoS Pathogens. The research was done on the 2009 pandemic influenza strain but it will help scientists to design innovative drugs against all the different influenza strains, and potentially lead to a new class of anti-flu drugs in the next 5-10 years. The scientists focused on the endonuclease ...

Despite the current and rapid melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, it remains far from certain just when we will have reached a point when scientists will be able to predict its disappearance. Recent research conducted by the University of Copenhagen in conjunction with the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the Danish National Survey and Cadastre (KMS) in collaboration with an international team of scientists reports that this is not the first time in recent history that the ice sheet has been in retreat and then stabilised again. The researchers' results have just ...

The greatest risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD) is advancing age. By age 85, the likelihood of developing the dreaded neurological disorder is roughly 50 percent. But researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say AD hits hardest among the "younger elderly" – people in their 60s and 70s – who show faster rates of brain tissue loss and cognitive decline than AD patients 80 years and older. The findings, reported online in the August 2, 2012 issue of the journal PLOS One, have profound implications for both diagnosing AD – which currently ...

The natural plant compound phenethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC) hinders the development of mammary tumors in a mouse model with similarities to human breast cancer progression, according to a study published August 2 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Edible plants are gaining ground as chemopreventative agents. PEITC has shown to be effective as a chemopreventative agent in mice for colon, intestinal, and prostate cancer, by inducing apoptosis. In order to determine the efficacy of PEITC in mammary tumors in mice, Shivendra V. Singh, Ph.D., of the University ...

To minimise the chance of being recognised and thus attacked by the birds they are trying to parasitize, female cuckoos have evolved different guises. The new research, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, was published today, 03 August, in the journal Science. The common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. On hatching, the young cuckoo ejects the host's eggs and chicks from the nest, so the hosts end up raising a cuckoo chick rather than a brood of their own. To fight back, reed warblers (a common host across Europe) have ...

Professors Lisa Schwartz and Steven Woloshin of the Center for Medicine and the Media at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice argue that last year's breast cancer awareness month campaign by Susan G Komen for the Cure "overstates the benefit of mammography and ignores harms altogether." Their views are published on bmj.com today as part of an occasional series highlighting the exaggerations, distortions, and selective reporting that make some news stories, advertising, and medical journal articles "not so." A growing and increasingly accepted ...

Implementation of graphic labels at 80% of the pack size front and back led to increased awareness of the risks of smoking Ban on multiple brand presentations reduced smokers' false beliefs that some cigarettes (e.g., "light" or "mild" cigarettes) are less harmful Strong support for tobacco control policies among smokers (Thursday August 2nd, 2012, Montevideo, Uruguay and Waterloo, Ontario, Canada): The International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (the ITC Project) today launched a new report on the effectiveness of tobacco control policies in Uruguay. ...

ATHENS, Ohio (Aug. 2, 2012)—The rise of the Rocky Mountains and the appearance of a major seaway that divided North America may have boosted the evolution of new dinosaur species, according to a new Ohio University-led study. The finding, published today in the journal PLOS ONE, may explain patterns of evolution and migration of North American duck-billed and horned dinosaurs in the years leading up to their extinction 65 million years ago, said Terry Gates, a postdoctoral researcher with Ohio University's Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine who is lead author on ...

A genetic screening approach to studying bone disease has found nine new genes associated with bone health and suggests a new way to discover genes that may be implicated in human skeletal diseases. A collaborative study of the mineral content, strength and flexibility of bones has found clues to the cause of bone disorders such as osteoporosis, osteogenesis imperfecta, and high bone density syndromes. The study, which brings together specialist skills in mouse gene deletion and bone measurement to assess the strength of bones in 100 mutant mouse lines, is the largest ...

ORLANDO, Fla. – Overweight and obese individuals can achieve a decade's worth of important health benefits by losing just 20 pounds, even if they regain the weight later that decade, according to research presented at the American Psychological Association's 120th Annual Convention. With a focus on psychology's role in overcoming the national obesity epidemic, the session also examined research that indicates foods high in sugar and fat could have addictive properties. Rena Wing, PhD, professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University's Alpert Medical School ...

African elephants are known to be great communicators that converse with extremely low-pitched vocalizations, known as infrasounds, over a distance of miles. These infrasounds occupy a very low frequency range—fewer than 20 Hertz, or cycles, per second—that is generally below the threshold of human hearing. Now, a new study shows that elephants rely on the same mechanism that produces speech in humans (and the vocalizations of many other mammals) to hit those extremely low notes. Christian Herbst from the University of Vienna, along with colleagues from Germany, Austria ...

Tropical Storm Saola and Typhoon Damrey appear on NASA satellite imagery to be arm-in-arm as they enter China on August 2. NASA's Terra satellite passed over both tropical cyclones and captured them in one image, using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument onboard. MODIS captured a visible image on August 2, 2012 at 0245 UTC that showed the southern extent (or arm) of Typhoon Damrey, making landfall north of Shanghai, feeding into the northern extent (or arm) of Tropical Storm Saola, making landfall south of Shanghai. MODIS imagery also ...

ATLANTA – Results from a study conducted at Georgia State University suggest that a "fight" between bacteria normally living in the intestines and the immune system, kicked off by another type of bacteria, may be linked to two types of chronic disease. The study suggests that the "fight" continues after the instigator bacteria have been cleared by the body, according to Andrew Gewirtz, professor of biology at the GSU Center for Inflammation, Immunity and Infection. That fight can result in metabolic syndrome, an important factor in obesity, or inflammatory bowel disease ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers have taken a new look at an old, but seldom-used technique developed by the petroleum industry to recover oil, and learned more about why it works, how it could be improved, and how it might be able to make a comeback not only in oil recovery but also environmental cleanup. The technology, called "microbial enhanced oil recovery," was first developed decades ago, but oil drillers largely lost interest in it due to its cost, inconsistent results and a poor understanding of what was actually happening underground. The new findings by engineers ...

AUDIO: Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a potential target for treating diabetes and obesity. They discovered that when a particular protein is disabled in... Click here for more information. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a potential target for treating diabetes and obesity. Studying mice, they found that when the target protein was disabled, the animals became more ...

There's a passage in the Old Testament's Deuteronomy that says if a case too difficult to decide comes before the courts, it should be brought to the Levite priests who will render a verdict in God's name. However, one University of Alberta researcher says that may be taking religious freedom a step too far. Sarah Hamill, a doctoral student in the Faculty of Law, recently published an article in response to a premise that said judges who lack direction-setting precedence in cases should use religious-based reasoning. Hamill contends that—aside from being a serious breach ...

KINGSTON, R.I. – August 2, 2012 – A postdoctoral researcher at the University of Rhode Island has observed a never-before-seen defensive strategy used by a small species of deep-sea squid in which the animal counter-attacks a predator and then leaves the tips of its arms attached to the predator as a distraction. Stephanie Bush said that when the foot-long octopus squid (Octopoteuthis deletron) found deep in the northeast Pacific Ocean "jettisons its arms" in self-defense, the bioluminescent tips continue to twitch and glow, creating a diversion that enables the squid ...

In science fiction novels, evil overlords and hostile aliens often threaten to vaporize the Earth. At the beginning of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the officiously bureaucratic aliens called Vogons, authors of the third-worst poetry in the universe, actually follow through on the threat, destroying the Earth to make way for a hyperspatial express route. "We scientists are not content just to talk about vaporizing the Earth," says Bruce Fegley, professor of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, tongue firmly in cheek. "We want to understand ...

Last year, astronomers discovered a quiescent black hole in a distant galaxy that erupted after shredding and consuming a passing star. Now researchers have identified a distinctive X-ray signal observed in the days following the outburst that comes from matter on the verge of falling into the black hole. This tell-tale signal, called a quasi-periodic oscillation or QPO, is a characteristic feature of the accretion disks that often surround the most compact objects in the universe -- white dwarf stars, neutron stars and black holes. QPOs have been seen in many stellar-mass ...

Durham, NC – What makes some species more prone to extinction? A new study of nearly 300 species of New Zealand birds — from pre-human times to the present — reveals that the keys to survival today differ from those of the past. The results are important in light of the growing number of studies that try to predict which species could be lost in the future based on what kinds of species are considered most threatened today, said lead author Lindell Bromham of Australian National University. In the roughly 700 years since humans arrived in the remote islands that make ...

Jeanne Romero-Severson, associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Notre Dame, and her collaborators, are tracking the evolution of the live oaks of eastern North America, seeking to understand how the trees adapted to climate change during glacial periods. When the ice advanced, the oaks retreated. When the ice retreated the oaks advanced, spreading from tropical to temperate zones, up from Central America and Mexico into the Piedmont Carolinas. The researchers expect the study of live oak migrations and phylogeny will provide clues to the success ...

Computer-generated characters have become so lifelike in appearance and movement that the line separating reality is almost imperceptible at times. "The Matrix" sequels messed with audiences' perceptions of reality (in more ways than one) with action scenes mixing CG characters and real actors. Almost a decade later, superheroes and alien warriors dominate the multiplex. But while bipeds and quadrupeds have reigned supreme in CG animation, attempts to create and control their skeleton-free cousins using similar techniques has proved time-consuming and laborious. Georgia ...

On the classic TV show "I Love Lucy," Ricky Ricardo was known for switching into rapid-fire Spanish whenever he was upset, despite the fact Lucy had no idea what her Cuban husband was saying. These scenes were comedy gold, but they also provided a relatable portrayal of the linguistic phenomenon of code-switching. This kind of code-switching, or switching back and forth between different languages, happens all the time in multilingual environments, and often in emotional situations. In a new article in the July issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal ...