Scientists have shown for the first time that the loudest animal on earth, relative to its body size, is the tiny water boatman, Micronecta scholtzi. At 99.2 decibels, this represents the equivalent of listening to an orchestra play loudly while sitting in the front row. The frequency of the sound (around 10 kHz) is within human hearing range and Dr. James Windmill of the University of Strathclyde, explains one clue as to how loud the animals are: "Remarkably, even though 99% of sound is lost when transferring from water to air, the song is so loud that a person walking ...

Young house spiders weave webs with perfect angles and regular patterns, but as they reach old age their webs deteriorate, showing gaping holes and erratic weaving. By using spiders as a simple model this research may provide insight into how age affects behaviour in other organisms, including humans. The reason web building skills are lost as spiders grow older may be due to degeneration of the central nervous system. PhD researcher, Mylène Anotaux, from Nancy University in France, says "Our next steps will be to understand whether age-induced changes in the central ...

The Employee Benefits offering from Love2reward includes: Flexebens Flexebens is a unique gift card platform which gives staff 7% discount every time they shop. The Flexebens card can be used in 23 leading retailers including River Island, Debenhams, New Look, Comet, Boots, Superdrug and Iceland, with new retailers joining the programme every month. Employees can save money onto their Flexebens card in one of two ways: Salary Exchange - this salary deduction scheme allows employees to choose how much money they wish to be taken from their salary each month. Each ...

Poor maternal diet before conception can result in offspring with reduced birth weights and increased risk of developing type II diabetes and obesity. This work, which is being presented at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Conference in Glasgow on Saturday the 2nd of July, used an animal model to illustrate the importance of maternal diet even before pregnancy begins. During the study mice that were fed a low protein diet for ten weeks before conception (but had a normal diet during pregnancy) gave birth to offspring that had lower birth weights, showed catch-up ...

A team of researchers — led by Pierre Gressens, at Inserm U676, Paris, France, and Vincent Lelièvre, at CNRS UPR-3212, Strasbourg, France — has identified a signaling pathway key for normal brain development in the mouse. Of paramount importance, the data generated suggest that environmental factors, including maternal ones, can influence the final size of the brain. Individuals with microcephaly primary hereditary (MCPH) are born with a very small head and a small brain. They suffer mild developmental delay, hyperkinesia (excessive restlessness), and mild to severe cognitive ...

Parkinson disease (PD) affects 1-2% of the population over the age of 65 years. It results from loss or loss of function of nerve cells in the brain that coordinate movement. As a result, the hallmark symptoms of PD are trembling in hands, arms, legs, jaw, and face; stiffness of the limbs and trunk; slowness of movement; and impaired balance and coordination. There is no cure for PD, but symptoms can be alleviated with a variety of drugs. A team of researchers, led by Chung-Chin Kuo, at National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taiwan, has now shown that pharmacological ...

Novis Shoes can provide shoe lifts custom designed for individual customers who experience leg length discrepancy problems. Our orthopedic footwear company specializes in all kinds of shoe modifications - from simple repairs to complete custom-made footwear - and can fill specific prescriptions quickly and easily. Our skilled Certified Pedorthist can apply shoe lifts for just about any shoe - for heights of 1/4 of an inch to six inches. Leg length discrepancy can be caused by a number of congenital and acquired conditions, including hip surgery, scoliosis, hip disease, ...

EDITOR'S PICK: A VIP for normal brain development A team of researchers — led by Pierre Gressens, at Inserm U676, Paris, France, and Vincent Lelièvre, at CNRS UPR-3212, Strasbourg, France — has identified a signaling pathway key for normal brain development in the mouse. Of paramount importance, the data generated suggest that environmental factors, including maternal ones, can influence the final size of the brain. Individuals with microcephaly primary hereditary (MCPH) are born with a very small head and a small brain. They suffer mild developmental delay, hyperkinesia ...

Infection with the gastric bacterium Helicobacter pylori provides reliable protection against allergy-induced asthma, immunologists from the University of Zurich have demonstrated in an animal model together with allergy specialists from the University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Their results published in the prestigious Journal of Clinical Investigation confirm the hypothesis recently put forward that the dramatic increase in allergic diseases in industrial societies is linked to the rapid disappearance of specific micro-organisms that populate ...

On the heels of the runaway success of the hit song "Friday," Ark Music Factory has partnered with ABC-TV's Good Morning America to find and develop America's next viral music star. And Tuesday morning, June 28, GMA will reveal her: Lexi St. George. Good Morning America started a series of stories on the talent search and development June 27; it will host the world premiere of Lexi's debut music video, "Dancing to the Rhythm," on Thursday, June 30 (check local listings for stations and air times). The video will also be featured on Ark Music Factory's ...

KINGSTON, R.I. – July 1, 2011 – Tiny marine organisms called zooplankton can use specialized adaptations that allow them to hide from predators in areas of the ocean where oxygen levels are so low that almost nothing can survive, but they may run into trouble as these areas expand due to climate change. "Oxygen minimum zones are very difficult places to survive," said University of Rhode Island doctoral student Leanne Elder. "But we have discovered that these tiny animals have adapted in two specialized ways. First, they suppress their metabolism, which is very much ...

Future computers may rely on magnetic microprocessors that consume the least amount of energy allowed by the laws of physics, according to an analysis by University of California, Berkeley, electrical engineers. Today's silicon-based microprocessor chips rely on electric currents, or moving electrons, that generate a lot of waste heat. But microprocessors employing nanometer-sized bar magnets – like tiny refrigerator magnets – for memory, logic and switching operations theoretically would require no moving electrons. Such chips would dissipate only 18 millielectron ...

A study published by the University of Reading's Centre for Agri Environmental Research suggests that honeybees may not be as important to pollination services in the UK than previously supposed. The research was published in the Journal Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. "Pollination services are vital to agricultural productivity in the UK" says lead author Tom Breeze "as of 2007, 20% of the UK's cropland was covered by insect pollinated crops like oilseed rape and apples. For decades now we have assumed that honeybees have been providing the majority of pollination ...

Winning margins in the Tour de France can be tight – last year just 39 seconds separated the top two riders after more than 90 hours in the saddle. When every second counts, riders do everything possible to gain a competitive advantage – from using aerodynamic carbon fibre bikes to the very latest in sports nutrition. Now there could be a new, completely legal and rather surprising weapon in the armoury for riders aiming to shave vital seconds off their time – beetroot juice. Research by the University of Exeter, published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports ...

A musculoskeletal system so far unknown in the animal world was recently discovered in weevils. The hip of Trigonopterus oblongus does not consist of the usual hinges, but of joints based on a screw-and-nut system. This first biological screw thread is about half a millimeter in size and was studied in detail using synchrotron radiation. The discovery is reported by the current issue of the Science magazine. (DOI:10.1126/science.1204245) "Such a construction for animal leg movement is quite unusual, as large areas of skeletal parts move on top of each other. Supply ...

Canvas prints specialists PhotoInCanvas has implemented a superb new feature at the site which helps customers that just can't choose which image to use. If people have too many great shots of a similar theme to choose from, then the team at PhotoInCanvas can put all of them into a fantastic photo canvas. This feature may be perfect for individuals that have been to an event such as festival where an abundance of photographs are taken. PhotoInCanvas is urging customers to send them all in so they can group them together to create a stunning image. The PhotoInCanvas ...

On the 22 June 2011 Star Partner received their GPWA sponsorship. Having the Seal of Approval from the GPWA signifies that Star Partner is of a professional standard. GPWA has over 10,000 public and private registered members and is the only professional organisation of its kind. The GPWA Seal of Approval is awarded to gambling portal websites that meet certain standards and the GPWA code of conduct. Being part of the GPWA enables public and private members to be part of online forums with in-depth news and advice about new industry developments, online gaming law, ...

Discharged from the hospital within two days of a total hip replacement operation? It's possible, thanks to the new 'Fast Track' protocol that underwent testing in the U.S., in response to both patient requests for shorter hospital stays and economic realities of providing medical care. According to Dr. Lawrence Gulotta and colleagues, from Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, a carefully screened group of patients undergoing total hip replacement can be discharged from the hospital two days after surgery, without any increase in complications or adverse effects compared ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The Obama administration turned a bright spotlight on prescription painkiller abuse in April when the Office of National Drug Control Policy released a national action plan and a statement from Vice President Joe Biden. With a cover article in the July edition of the Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA), dentists focus that spotlight on themselves both as major sources of opioid drugs and as professionals with largely untapped power to recognize and reduce abuse. "Many dentists really haven't even perceived there to be ...

Recognized as an expert in the field of cosmetics and technology in dentistry, Dr. Lambert, Grand Rapids dentist, is pleased to offer patients ongoing valuable insight to dentistry with his practice newsletter, Smile Update. These updates were created to offer patients a way to remain up-to-date with not only the office, but current dental health issues as well, and can be accessed via the practice's website. The Smile Update, by Dr. Thomas Lambert, was created to improve patient's' dental health and awareness. Patients can visit the practice's website to access this ...

As our bodies first form, developing cells are a lot like children put on the school bus with their names and addresses pinned to their shirts. The notes identify one as a future heart cell, another as a liver cell, a third as a neuron. And that's what they each grow up to be. But once those cells reach adulthood, changes to those original marching orders caused by aging, disease and other stressors like smoking can precipitate a kind of identity crisis, researchers at the University of Michigan Health System have found. The cells start to forget things like which ...

Usher syndrome is the most common form of combined congenital deaf-blindness in humans and affects 1 in 6,000 of the population. It is a recessive inherited disease that is both clinically and genetically heterogeneous. In the most severe cases, patients are born deaf and begin to suffer from a degeneration of the retina in puberty, ultimately resulting in complete blindness. These patients experience major problems in their day-to-day life. While hearing loss can be compensated for with hearing aids and cochlea implants, it has not proven possible to develop a treatment ...

The world's largest database on plants' functional properties, or traits, has been pub-lished. Scientists compiled three million traits for 69,000 out of the world's ~300,000 plant species. The achievement rests on a worldwide collaboration of scientists from 106 re-search institutions. The initiative, known as TRY, is hosted at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena (Germany). Jointly coordinated with the University of Leipzig (Germany), IMBIV-CONICET (Argentina), Macquarie University (Australia), CNRS and University of Paris-Sud (France), TRY promises to ...

Geoffroy Berthelot and Stephane Len, both researchers at the IRMES (Institut de Recherche bioMédicale et d'Epidemiologie du Sport at INSEP, Paris, France), have published their findings in Age, the official journal of the American Aging Association, describing the evolution of performances in elite athletes and chess grandmasters. This article is congruous with the epidemiological approaches developed by the laboratory, and suggests that changes in individual performance are linked to physiological laws structuring the living world. Physiological parameters that characterize ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- A new study co-authored by University of Florida researchers provides details on the first cookiecutter shark attack on a live human, a concern as warm summer waters attract more people to the ocean. The study currently online and appearing in the July print edition of Pacific Science warns that swimmers entering the cookiecutter's range of open ocean tropical waters may be considered prey. The sharks feed near the surface at night, meaning daytime swimmers are less likely to encounter them. The species is small, with adults reaching about 2 feet, ...