Boulder, Colorado, USA – The April/May GSA Today science article is now online at www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/. In this issue, Simon Williams and colleagues from the Earthbyte Group of the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney present GPlates, a powerful new method for analyzing geological and geophysical data sets within the context of tectonic reconstructions. GPlates is part of a new generation of plate reconstruction software that incorporates functionality familiar from GIS software with the added dimension of geological time. By enabling the user to ...

Graphite, more commonly known as pencil lead, could become the next big thing in the quest for smaller and less power-hungry electronics. Resembling chicken wire on a nano scale, graphene – single sheets of graphite – is only one atom thick, making it the world's thinnest material. Two million graphene sheets stacked up would not be as thick as a credit card. The tricky part physicists have yet to figure out how to control the flow of electrons through the material, a necessary prerequisite for putting it to work in any type of electronic circuit. Graphene behaves very ...

Amsterdam, NL -- Investigators from the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, have shown that in most elderly patients invasive and expensive techniques, i.e. lumbar puncture and PET scan, are not useful to establish the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. They arrived at this conclusion after analysis of data from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), a large collaborative research project of medical centers in the USA and Canada. The Dutch researchers divided the ADNI sample into two halves, a younger (74 y). They showed that the CSF biomarkers (amyloid ...

London -- New strategies injecting cardiovascular disease (CVD) patients with vaccines and monoclonal antibodies to combat atherosclerosis could soon change the treatment landscape of heart disease. Both approaches, Professor Jan Nilsson told delegates at the Frontiers in CardioVascular Biology (FCVB) 2012 meeting, can be considered truly ground breaking since for the first time they target the underlying cause of CVD. The FCVB meeting, organised by the Council on Basic Cardiovascular Science (CBCS) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), held 30 March to 1 April at ...

Children who develop asthma by age seven have deficits in lung function and increased bronchial responsiveness as neonates, a new study from researchers in Denmark suggests. "Previous research on the relationship between neonatal lung function and the development of asthma has been conflicting," said lead author Hans Bisgaard, MD, DMSci, professor of pediatrics at the University of Copenhagen and head of the Danish Pediatric Asthma Centre. "Our study shows that children with asthma by age seven already had significant airflow deficits and increased bronchial responsiveness ...

DARIEN, IL – Obstructive sleep apnea and other symptoms of OSA are associated with probable major depression, regardless of factors like weight, age, sex or race, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There was no link between depression and snoring. "Snorting, gasping or stopping breathing while asleep was associated with nearly all depression symptoms, including feeling hopeless and feeling like a failure," said Anne G. Wheaton, PhD, lead author of the study. "We expected persons with sleep-disordered breathing to report trouble ...

A single-center study found that percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedures performed during the middle of the night do not adversely affect the safety and effectiveness of procedures performed the next day by the same operator. Findings now available in Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI), show late night work while on call does not worsen performance of the interventionist doing PCIs the next day. Studies have shown that sleep ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Nine out of 10 drugs successfully tested in mice and other animal models ultimately fail to work in people, and one reason may be traced back to a common fact of life for laboratory mice: they're cold, according to a researcher at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Laboratory mice, which account for the vast majority of animal research subjects, are routinely housed in chilly conditions, which may affect their well-being as well as the outcome of research studies, said Joseph Garner, PhD, associate professor of comparative medicine. "If you ...

London -- Russians born during the Leningrad Siege in World War II, which was responsible for some of the greatest losses of civilian life in history, are giving scientists new strategies to identify people who experienced intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and starvation during childhood at greatest risk of developing long term heart complications. The abstract study¹, presented at the Frontiers in CardioVascular Biology (FCVB) meeting, in London, UK, 30 March to 1 April 2012, makes use of a unique population of people exposed to extreme starvation both as foetuses ...

Some six billion light years ago, almost halfway from now back to the big bang, the universe was undergoing an elemental change. Held back until then by the mutual gravitational attraction of all the matter it contained, the universe had been expanding ever more slowly. Then, as matter spread out and its density decreased, dark energy took over and expansion began to accelerate. Today BOSS, the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, the largest component of the third Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III), announced the most accurate measurement yet of the distance scale ...

RICHMOND, Va. (March 30, 2012) – Man's best friend may make a positive difference in the workplace by reducing stress and making the job more satisfying for other employees, according to a Virginia Commonwealth University study. Stress is a major contributor to employee absenteeism, morale and burnout and results in significant loss of productivity and resources. But a preliminary study, published in the March issue of the International Journal of Workplace Health Management, found that dogs in the workplace may buffer the impact of stress during the workday for their ...

Two new studies into the "plumbing systems" that lie under volcanoes could bring scientists closer to predicting large eruptions. International teams of researchers, led by the University of Leeds, studied the location and behaviour of magma chambers on the Earth's mid-ocean ridge system - a vast chain of volcanoes along which the Earth forms new crust. They worked in Afar (Ethiopia) and Iceland - the only places where mid-ocean ridges appear above sea level. Volcanic ridges (or "spreading centres") occur when tectonic plates "rift" or pull apart. Magma (hot molten ...

A team of international scientists working in the central Pacific have discovered that coral which has survived heat stress in the past is more likely to survive it in the future. The study, published today in the journal PLoS ONE, paves the way towards an important road map on the impacts of ocean warming, and will help scientists identify the habitats and locations where coral reefs are more likely to adapt to climate change. "We're starting to identify the types of reef environments where corals are more likely to persist in the future," says study co-author Simon ...

Have you ever been disappointed by a cantaloupe from the grocery store? Too ripe? Not ripe enough? Luckily for you, researchers from the University of California, Davis might have found a way to make imperfectly ripe fruit a thing of the past. The method will be published on March 30 in the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE). "We are involved in a project geared towards developing rapid methods to evaluate ripeness and flavour of fruits," said paper-author Dr. Florence Negre-Zkharov. "We evaluated an electronic nose to see if it can differentiate maturity of fruit, ...

According to a recent study headed by scientists from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the University of Granada, eating commercial baked goods (fairy cakes, croissants, doughnuts, etc.) and fast food (hamburgers, hotdogs and pizza) is linked to depression. Published in the Public Health Nutrition journal, the results reveal that consumers of fast food, compared to those who eat little or none, are 51% more likely to develop depression. Furthermore, a dose-response relationship was observed. In other words this means that "the more fast food you consume, ...

What experts and the public have already long suspected is now supported by representative data collected by researchers at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) and University of Basel: ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, is over-diagnosed. The study showed that child and adolescent psychotherapists and psychiatrists tend to give a diagnosis based on heuristics, unclear rules of thumb, rather than adhering to recognized diagnostic criteria. Boys in particular are substantially more often misdiagnosed compared to girls. These are the most important results of a study ...

It may be difficult to imagine, but pouring juice into a plastic cup can be a great challenge to a robot. While one hand holds the glass bottle firmly, the other one must gently grasp the cup. Researchers at Saarland University together with associates in Bologna and Naples have developed a robotic hand that can accomplish both tasks with ease and yet including the actuators is scarcely larger than a human arm. This was made possible by a novel string actuator, making use of small electric motors to twist strings. The robotic hand is thus powerful yet delicate and could ...

ProjectLine Solutions Inc. (www.projectline.ca), a leading provider of business enterprise and software solutions for small and mid-sized businesses, announces Intec Controls Inc. as one of its newest customers implementing the SAP Business One application. With offices across Western Canada, ProjectLine Solutions will be completing the implementation from its Saskatoon, SK office. Based in Saskatoon, Intec Controls Inc. (www.inteccontrols.ca) represents a number of leading product lines in Saskatchewan and Manitoba from globally recognized manufacturers. In addition ...

Research from North Carolina State University shows that honey bees "self-medicate" when their colony is infected with a harmful fungus, bringing in increased amounts of antifungal plant resins to ward off the pathogen. "The colony is willing to expend the energy and effort of its worker bees to collect these resins," says Dr. Michael Simone-Finstrom, a postdoctoral research scholar in NC State's Department of Entomology and lead author of a paper describing the research. "So, clearly this behavior has evolved because the benefit to the colony exceeds the cost." Wild ...

Extreme weather such as hurricanes, torrential downpours and droughts will become more frequent in pace with global warming. Consequently, this increases the risk for species extinction, especially in bio diverse ecosystems such as coral reefs and tropical rainforests. Human impact means that flora and fauna become extinct at a rate 100 times higher than normal. Climate change has been deemed as one of the main causes of species depletion. A research team in theoretical biology at Linköping University in Sweden has, through the use of mathematical modelling and simulation, ...

WASHINGTON — An estimated 2.2 million people in the United States live with epilepsy, a complex brain disorder characterized by sudden and often unpredictable seizures. The highest rate of onset occurs in children and older adults, and it affects people of all ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds, yet this common disorder is widely misunderstood. Epilepsy refers to a spectrum of disorders with seizures that vary in type, cause, severity, and frequency. Many people do not know the causes of epilepsy or what measures to take if they witness a seizure. A new report ...

Scientists have taken an important step forward in developing a new material using nano-sized magnets that could ultimately lead to new types of electronic devices, with greater capacity than is currently feasible, in a study published today in the journal Science. Many modern data storage devices, like hard disk drives, rely on the ability to manipulate the properties of tiny individual magnetic sections, but their overall design is limited by the way these magnetic 'domains' interact when they are close together. Now, researchers from Imperial College London have ...

The decline of Caribbean coral reefs has been linked to the recent effects of human-induced climate change. However, new research led by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego suggests an even earlier cause. The bad news – humans are still to blame. The good news – relatively simple policy changes can hinder further coral reef decline. Employing a novel excavation technique to reconstruct the timeline of historical change in coral reefs located on the Caribbean side of Panama, a team of scientists led by Scripps alumna Katie Cramer and current ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Registered dietitians are one of several groups of healthcare professionals who report using dietary supplements as part of their health regimen, according to a newly published study in Nutrition Journal, a peer-reviewed, online journal that focuses on the field of human nutrition. According to data from the 2009 "Life…supplemented" Healthcare Professionals (HCP) Impact Study, 74 percent of dietitians use dietary supplements regularly while 22 percent reported using them occasionally or seasonally. The data also indicated that an overwhelming percentage ...

The deposition of amyloid beta in the brain of individuals with Alzheimer's disease is the focus of much research into both its cause and treatment. While there may not be a consensus as to whether the deposition contributes to the disease or is a consequence of the disease, there is agreement that it is not favoured thermodynamically, meaning that something else is promoting the process. Other proteins are often co-deposited in vivo with amyloid beta and one such protein is serum amyloid P component (or SAP). Recent evidence has suggested that SAP is elevated in Alzheimer's ...