SALT LAKE CITY, June 14, 2012 – In Israel's Negev Desert, a plant called sweet mignonette or taily weed uses a toxic "mustard oil bomb" to make the spiny mouse spit out the plant's seeds when eating the fruit. Thus, the plant has turned a seed-eating rodent into a seed spreader that helps the plant reproduce, says a new study by Utah and Israeli scientists. "It's fascinating that these little mice are doing analytical chemistry, assaying the fruit for toxic compounds" and learning not to bite into the seed, says Denise Dearing, a coauthor of the study and professor ...

WASHINGTON – Cyclists in Washington, D.C. who use Capital Bikeshare for their daily commutes are much less likely to wear helmets than commuters on their own bikes. That is the finding from an observational study conducted by Georgetown University School of Nursing & Health Studies (NHS) researchers that compares the rate of helmet use of casual and commuting Bikeshare riders with private cyclists. The research was published today in the American Journal of Public Health. Bike sharing is a popular option for transportation in the interest of personal fitness and environmental ...

Highlights Homeless kidney disease patients suffer from much higher rates of depression and substance abuse and are more likely to develop kidney failure and die prematurely than impoverished patients with stable housing. Homeless kidney disease patients are also far more likely to use costly emergency medical services. Washington, DC (June 14, 2012) — Among patients with moderate to advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD), homeless people experience higher rates of premature death and kidney failure, and they use emergency services much more often than impoverished ...

BETHESDA, MD – June 14, 2012 -- A new spin to our understanding of the relationship between Alzheimer's disease and diabetes, which could point to a therapeutic target for both diseases, is published in a research report in the June 2012 issue of the journal Genetics. In the report, scientists from City College of New York-City University of New York (CCNY-CUNY) show that a gene in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, which is similar to a human gene correlated with Alzheimer's disease, is involved in multiple metabolic pathways, including the insulin pathway. "Mutations ...

The practice of cave art in Europe thus began up to 10,000 years earlier than previously thought, indicating the paintings were created either by the first anatomically modern humans in Europe or, perhaps, by Neanderthals. Fifty paintings in 11 caves in Northern Spain, including the UNESCO World Heritage sites of Altamira, El Castillo and Tito Bustillo, were dated by a team of UK, Spanish and Portuguese researchers led by Dr Alistair Pike of the University of Bristol, UK. As traditional methods such as radiocarbon dating don't work where there is no organic pigment, ...

RIO: World leaders have made pitiful progress on their guarantee to protect global oceans from overfishing and other threats. In a paper published today (Friday 15th June) in Science, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and world renowned researchers have reviewed commitments made by governments to protect the world's oceans and shown that there has been little success over the past 20 years. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, heads of 192 governments came together to agree on key issues - including targets for protecting vulnerable species ...

Contact: Ellen Wilson ewilson@burnesscommunications.com 301-280-5723 Preeti Singh psingh@burnesscommunications.com 301-280-5722 Burness Communications New report: Unlikely alliances bringing back dead rivers, barren landscapes, and farm yields Approach reducing conflict over land, water in Brazil's Atlantic Forest, Sub-Saharan Africa and in dozens of other regions; major agriculture groups call for urgently scaling up 'whole landscape' approaches ahead of Rio+20 WASHINGTON, DC (14 JUNE 2012)—An unconventional approach that involves building alliances between ...

CHAPEL HILL – More than 15 percent of new HIV infections occur in children. Without treatment, only 65 percent of HIV-infected children will live until their first birthday, and fewer than half will make it to the age of two. Although breastfeeding is attributed to a significant number of these infections, most breastfed infants are not infected with HIV, despite prolonged and repeated exposure. HIV researchers have been left with a conundrum: does breast milk transmit the virus or protect against it? New research from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine ...

ATLANTA – June 14, 2012 – The number of Americans with a history of cancer, currently estimated to be 13.7 million, will grow to almost 18 million by 2022, according to a first-ever report by the American Cancer Society in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The report, Cancer Treatment and Survivorship Facts and Figures, and accompanying journal article published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, used data from the NCI-funded Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program to generate brand new estimates of cancer survivor prevalence ...

Battery-powered devices could soon be a thing of the past thanks to a group of UK researchers who have created a novel energy harvester to power some of the latest wearable gadgets. By strapping the energy harvester to the knee joint, a user could power body-monitoring devices such as heart rate monitors, pedometers and accelerometers by simply walking and not have the worry of running out of power and replacing batteries. Soldiers may find this device particularly useful as they often have to carry up to 10kg of power equipment when on foot patrol. The device has ...

NGC 3314A and B might look like they are in the midst of a galactic pile-up, but they are in fact separated by tens of millions of light years of void. Their apparent proximity is simply a trick of perspective. How do we know this? The biggest hint as to whether galaxies are interacting is usually their shapes. The immense gravitational forces involved in galactic mergers are enough to pull a galaxy out of shape long before it actually collides. Deforming a galaxy like this does not just warp its structure, but it can trigger new episodes of star formation, usually visible ...

About Florida Institute of Technology Founded at the dawn of the Space Race in 1958, Florida Tech is the only independent, technological university in the Southeast. The university has been named a Barron's Guide "Best Buy" in College Education, designated a Tier One Best National University in U.S. News & World Report, and is one of just nine schools in Florida lauded by the 2012 Fiske Guide to Colleges and recognized by Bloomberg Businessweek as the best college for return on investment in Florida. A recent survey by PayScale.com ranks Florida Tech as the top private ...

A group of Japanese scientists have surprised themselves by being able to predict the success or failure of blockbuster movies at the box office using a set of mathematical models. The researchers, publishing their study today, 15 June, in the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society's New Journal of Physics, used the effects of advertising and word-of-mouth communication to create a model that turned out to be successful in predicting how each movie fared once it hit the silver screen. The only data the researchers needed to put into the model were the daily ...

Male Cardiocondyla obscurior ants are diphenic (either winged or wingless). New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Ecology demonstrates that the dominant wingless (ergatoid) male is able to identify potential rivals before they emerge from their pupae. Constant patrolling of the nest ensures that this male is able to bite or chemically tag rivals as soon as they emerge from their pupae. Chemically tagged ants are quickly destroyed by workers. When ants emerge from their pupae (eclosion) they are vulnerable to attack because their exoskeleton ...

In recent years it became clear that people with diabetes face an ominous prospect – a far greater risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Now researchers at The City College of New York (CCNY) have shed light on one reason why. Biology Professor Chris Li and her colleagues have discovered that a single gene forms a common link between the two diseases. They found that the gene, known to be present in many Alzheimer's disease cases, affects the insulin pathway. Disruption of this pathway is a hallmark of diabetes. The finding could point to a therapeutic target for both ...

Population estimates for the Amazon basin just before Europeans arrived range from 2 to 10 million people. The newly reported reconstruction of Amazonian prehistory by Smithsonian scientist Dolores R. Piperno and colleagues suggests that large areas of western Amazonia were sparsely inhabited. This clashes with the belief that most of Amazonia, including forests far removed from major rivers, was heavily occupied and modified. The team's research is published in the June 15 issue of Science. "Drawing on questionable assumptions, some scholars argue that modern Amazonian ...

VIDEO: When it comes to diagnosing heart disease, experts like Dr. Martha Gulati of the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center are cautioning against relying too heavily on high-tech imaging, and are... Click here for more information. (COLUMBUS, Ohio) June 2012 – Most people might assume that technology first developed in 1928 would be obsolete by now. But from air conditioned buildings to sliced bread, many inventions of that era are still essential to our lives today. That ...

With an unprecedented commitment that bridges the urgent need to address diarrheal disease with unique opportunities to overcome it once and for all, leaders in global health issued today's Declaration on Scaling-up Treatment of Diarrhea and Pneumonia. PATH joins the US Agency for International Development, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, the Micronutrient Initiative, and others in raising a collective voice, calling for investments to scale-up the use of proven tools, particularly oral rehydration solution, zinc, and amoxicillin. "We call on all high-burden countries ...

The morphology of coelacanths has not fundamentally changed since the Devonian age, that is, for about 400 million years. Nevertheless, these animals known as living fossils are able to genetically adapt to their environment. This is described by PD Dr. Kathrin Lampert from the RUB's Department of Animal Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity along with colleagues from Würzburg, Bremen, Kiel and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) in the journal Current Biology. "Coelacanths are rare and extremely endangered. Understanding the genetic diversity of these animals could help make preservation ...

The use of genetic testing to establish racial origins for political purposes is not only scientifically foolish, but also unethical and should be condemned, the European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG) said today (Thursday June 14). The society, which promotes research in basic and applied human and medical genetics and ensures high standards in clinical genetic practice, said that the use by a member of parliament from the Hungarian far-right Jobbik party of a genetic test to attempt to prove his 'ethnic purity' was ethically unacceptable. The company Nagy Gén scanned ...

New research from psychologists at the Universities of Exeter and Cardiff shows that people can train their brains to become less impulsive, resulting in less risk-taking during gambling. The research could pave the way for new treatments for people with addictions to gambling, drugs or alcohol as well as impulse-control disorders, such as ADHD. Published today (14 June 2012), in the journal Psychological Science, the study assessed whether asking people to stop making simple movements while in a simulated gambling situation affected how risky or cautious they were ...

Character strengths can be defined as traits that are rated as morally positive. That they are positively linked to life satisfaction has already been shown in many studies. That they have a causal effect on life satisfaction and that practicing them triggers an increase in the sense of wellbeing, however, has now been proved by Willibald Ruch, René T. Proyer and Claudia Buschor from the Department of Personality and Assessment at the University of Zurich for the first time. Practice pays off For their current study, the team of researchers randomly divided a sample ...

When people say "Blood is thicker than water," they are literally right. Because nearly half of the 'life liquid' consists of solid components. The red blood cells form the greatest part of it – all in all around 40 percent of the blood. They contain the red pigment hemoglobin and are responsible for the transport of oxygen. "It is amazing that the percentage of this component is not only similar in all human beings but also in many other vertebrates," Prof. Dr. Stefan Schuster of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany) says. Therefore it can be assumed that ...

While youth suicide is declining overall, the rate of youth suicide in rural America has remained steady. A key to helping rural families with children at risk of suicide is frank discussion of guns says Jonathan Singer, assistant professor of social work at Temple University and co-author of a new study that examined how clinicians, including social workers and counselors involve parents in prevention and treatment of youth suicide. The study, "Engaging parents of suicidal youth in a rural environment" was published in the May issue of Child & Family Social Work. Singer ...

To address the question about how climate may develop in the future, earth scientists direct their attention to the past. They look for epochs with similar conditions to today. The major identified climatic processes are then simulated with numerical models to further test possible reactions of the Earths' system. An epoch which is often regarded suitable for such an undertaking is the Eemian warm period, which began around 125,000 years ago following the Saalian ice age. For about 10,000 years, average temperatures on Earth in the Eemian were rather enhanced – probably ...