Patterns in nature are in everything from ocean currents to a flower's petal. Scientists are taking a new look at Earth patterns, studying the biodiversity of yard plants in the U.S. and that of desert mammals in Israel, studying where flowers and bees live on the Tibetan plateau and how willow trees in America's Midwest make use of water. They're finding that ecology, the study of relationships between living organisms and their environment, and phylogenetics, research on evolutionary relationships among groups of organisms, are inextricably intertwined. Results ...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6, 2012—Inspired by the erratic behavior of photons zooming around and bouncing off objects and walls inside a room, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, the University of Wisconsin, and Rice University combined these bouncing photons with advanced optics to enable them to "see" what's hidden around the corner. This technique, described in a paper published today in the Optical Society's (OSA (http://www.osa.org)) open-access journal Optics Express (http://www.opticsinfobase.org/oe), may one day prove invaluable ...

Two proteins that act in opposing directions – one that promotes cancer and one that suppresses cancer — regulate the same set of genes in prostate cancer, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center researchers have found. The findings, reported recently in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, point toward potential drug targets and prognostic markers for prostate cancer. "We are trying to understand the molecular genetics of prostate cancer: what are the genes that are altered in human prostate cancer, and very importantly, how do they lead to cancer when they are changed?" ...

SYRACUSE. N.Y, August 6, 2012 – Tree cover in the nation's Lower 48 states covers 659 million acres, more than one-third of the nation, according to a U.S. Forest Service study of national tree cover and impervious surfaces. New Hampshire leads the nation in percent tree cover (89 percent), followed by Maine (83 percent) and Vermont (82 percent). On the other end of the spectrum, North Dakota has the lowest percent tree cover (3 percent), followed by Nebraska (4 percent) and South Dakota (6 percent). Using aerial photograph interpretation of circa 2005 imagery, U.S. ...

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A commercial vaccine for cattle can effectively reduce levels of E. coli by more than 50 percent, a Kansas State University study has found. The vaccine is also effective using two doses instead of the recommended three doses, which can help cut costs for the beef industry. David Renter, associate professor of epidemiology, is the principal investigator on a project that researched the effectiveness of products used to prevent the shedding of E. coli O157:H7 in cattle. The research appears in a recent online version of the journal Vaccine and helps ...

WASHINGTON — The current approach for identifying and destroying buried chemical munitions and related chemical warfare materials uncovered during environmental remediation projects is neither reliable enough nor has the capability to efficiently tackle large-scale projects, says a new report from the National Research Council. An alternative or modified approach is needed to remediate the Redstone Arsenal and other such projects on active and former U.S. Department of Defense sites and ranges. Additionally, the report recommends that the Office of the Secretary of Defense ...

Aug. 6, 2012 ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Many people have probably heard of off-label drug use, but they may not know when that applies to prescriptions they are taking, a Mayo Clinic analysis found. Off-label drug use occurs when a physician prescribes medication to treat a condition before that use has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. In a newly published article in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, researchers pose and answer 10 questions about off-label drug use. "Since the Food and Drug Administration does not regulate the practice of medicine, off-label drug ...

Washington, D.C. – For years, scientists have debated how big a role elephants play in toppling trees in South African savannas. Tree loss is a natural process, but it is increasing in some regions, with cascading effects on the habitat for many other species. Using high resolution 3-D mapping, Carnegie scientists have for the first time quantitatively determined tree losses across savannas of Kruger National Park. They found that elephants are the primary agents—their browsing habits knock trees over at a rate averaging 6 times higher than in areas inaccessible to them. ...

Soot particles are dangerous – there is nothing new in this knowledge. But what is it that makes fine particulates dangerous? Is it only diesel soot from vehicle engines? Does the danger also come from wood-burning stoves in holiday chalets? Or even from grease-laden fryer fumes from the restaurant around the corner? For a long time, these questions have been a hard nut for science to crack. Indeed, fine soot particles were collected in filters and their chemical components were analysed. Yet the question remained: what precisely is the source of the danger? Is it the soot ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Freedom of the press is viewed by many as a cornerstone of democracy. But can it actually help improve people's lives and make them happy? Researchers at the University of Missouri have found that citizens of countries with press freedom tend to be much happier than citizens of countries without free presses. Edson Tandoc, Jr., a doctoral student in the MU School of Journalism, says that press freedom directly predicts life satisfaction across the world. "We already know that having reliable, objective news sources can benefit democracy, but in this study, ...

Adalimumab (an anti-tumor necrosis factor [TNF] antibody) is effective in maintaining remission in certain pediatric patients with Crohn's disease, according to a new study in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. Steroids are commonly used in Crohn's disease, but can stunt growth and delay puberty. Incidence of this disease, which causes intestinal inflammation, is on the rise in children. This study is the largest double-blind study of an anti-TNF agent in children with Crohn's disease. It found that more than 80 ...

New research by University of Warwick historian Dr Tim Lockley has found why yellow fever had a green bias in 19th century fever outbreaks in the southern states of the US. Almost half of the 650 people killed by yellow fever in Savannah Georgia in 1854 were Irish immigrants. Dr Tim Lockley's study is based on four sources: the burial records of Laurel Grove cemetery; the records of the city's Catholic cemetery; the minutes of Savannah's Board of Health; and published lists of the dead in the Savannah Morning News. These sources yielded the names of 650 people who died ...

Pregnant women who are overweight or obese can encounter a host of health complications. The added weight also appears to affect how their children grow and develop, at least initially. In a new study published in the Journal of Pediatrics, a team led by a University of Iowa researcher compared the weight and height of babies born to overweight and obese mothers with those born to normal-weight mothers. Contrary to expectations, babies of overweight/obese mothers gained less weight and grew less in length than babies of normal-weight women from just after birth to ...

Working with mice, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have figured out how stem cells found in a part of the brain responsible for learning, memory and mood regulation decide to remain dormant or create new brain cells. Apparently, the stem cells "listen in" on the chemical communication among nearby neurons to get an idea about what is stressing the system and when they need to act. The researchers say understanding this process of chemical signaling may shed light on how the brain reacts to its environment and how current antidepressants work, because in animals these ...

(SALT LAKE CITY)—Women battling stubborn major depression may have a surprising new ally in their fight—the muscle-building dietary supplement creatine. In a new proof-of-concept study, researchers from three South Korean universities and the University of Utah report that women with major depressive disorder (MDD) who augmented their daily antidepressant with 5 grams of creatine responded twice as fast and experienced remission of the illness at twice the rate of women who took the antidepressant alone. The study, published Aug. 3, 2012, in the American Journal of Psychiatry ...

Insurance status is a better predictor of survival after a serious cardiac event than race, and may help explain racial disparities in health outcomes for cardiovascular disease. A new study by Derek Ng, from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the US, and his team shows that race is not linked to an increased risk of death but being underinsured is a strong predictor of death among those admitted into hospital with a serious cardiac event. Their work¹ appears online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine², published by Springer. African Americans ...

A researcher at Moffitt Cancer Center and his international team of colleagues have reported study results on a novel multireceptor-targeted somatostatin analogue called pasireotide (SOM230) manufactured by Novartis Pharma AG. The Phase II, open-label, multicenter study in patients with advanced neuroendocrine tumors (NET) whose symptoms were no longer responsive to octreotide LAR therapy found that the drug was effective and well tolerated in controlling patient symptoms. The study results are reported in a recent issue of Endocrine-Related Cancer, a publication of ...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two researchers have reprised in the journal Energy Policy their groundbreaking finding that improvements in lighting — from candles to gas lamps to electric bulbs — historically have led to increased light consumption rather than lower overall energy use by society. In an article in the journal Energy Policy, Sandia researcher Jeff Tsao and Harry Saunders of The Breakthrough Institute in Oakland, Calif., predicted in 2010 that the same phenomenon might apply to light-emitting diodes (LEDs), poised to take over from the Edison light bulb as the ...

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say neutrophils, an abundant type of white blood cell typically tasked with attacking bacteria and other foreign invaders, also plays an unexpected role in mediating insulin resistance – the central characteristic of type 2 diabetes, which afflicts an estimated 26 million Americans. The findings are published in the August 5, 2012 Advance Online Publication of Nature Medicine. Neutrophils are the first immune cells to respond to tissue inflammation, and can promote chronic inflammation by summoning ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- It's a longstanding question in biology: How do cells know when to progress through the cell cycle? In simple organisms such as yeast, cells divide once they reach a specific size. However, determining if this holds true for mammalian cells has been difficult, in part because there has been no good way to measure mammalian cell growth over time. Now, a team of MIT and Harvard Medical School (HMS) researchers has precisely measured the growth rates of single cells, allowing them to answer that fundamental question. In the Aug. 5 online edition of ...

Genetic variability revealed in malaria genomes newly sequenced by two multi-national research teams points to new challenges in efforts to eradicate the parasite, but also offers a clearer and more detailed picture of its genetic composition, providing an initial roadmap in the development of pharmaceuticals and vaccines to combat malaria. The research appears in two studies published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Genetics. They focus on Plasmodium vivax (P. vivax), a species of malaria that afflicts humans and the most prevalent human malaria parasite outside ...

SEATTLE – Developing resistance to chemotherapy is a nearly universal, ultimately lethal consequence for cancer patients with solid tumors – such as those of the breast, prostate, lung and colon – that have metastasized, or spread, throughout the body. A team of scientists led by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has discovered a key factor that drives this drug resistance – information that ultimately may be used to improve the effectiveness of therapy and buy precious time for patients with advanced cancer. They describe their findings online Aug. 5 in advance of ...

Researchers have found that a bacterium that emerged centuries ago in Europe has now been spreading globally into countries undergoing rapid development and industrialization. Unlike other diarrheal diseases, this one is unlikely to be resolved by providing access to clean water. As developing countries become more industrialized the numbers of infections with dysentery-causing Shigella flexneri are known to decline, associated with improved health, lifestyle and perhaps most importantly access to clean water, but the incidence of another form of the dysentery-causing bacterium, ...

An international study to understand and predict the likely impact of ocean acidification on shellfish and other marine organisms living in seas from the tropics to the poles is published this week (date) in the journal Global Change Biology. Ocean acidification is occurring because some of the increased carbon dioxide humans are adding to the atmosphere dissolves in the ocean and reacts with water to produce an acid. The results suggest that increased acidity is affecting the size and weight of shells and skeletons, and the trend is widespread across marine species. ...

VIDEO: Stem-cell derived heart muscle cells were genetically labeled with fluorescent calcium to flash when they contract. By correlating this optical signal from the graft cells with an electrocardiogram --... Click here for more information. Researchers have made a major advance in efforts to regenerate damaged hearts. Grafts of human cardiac muscle cells, grown from embryonic stem cells, coupled electrically and contracted synchronously with host muscle following transplantation ...