Dolphins and porpoises use echolocation for hunting and orientation. By sending out high-frequency sound, known as ultrasound, dolphins can use the echoes to determine what type of object the sound beam has hit. Researchers from Sweden and the US have now discovered that dolphins can generate two sound beam projections simultaneously. "The beam projections have different frequencies and can be sent in different directions. The advantage is probably that the dolphin can locate the object more precisely", says Josefin Starkhammar, a newly examined doctor in Electrical ...

The European eel is on the way to disappearing for good. The species is critically endangered, and there are strong scientific arguments for suspending all fishing. Despite this situation, Swedish eel fishery is allowed to continue. Analysis of the eel management plan by the Swedish Institute for the Marine Environment identifies clear shortcomings. It is unlikely that Sweden will meet the target that has been set for silver eels capable of migrating back to the Sargasso Sea so that they can contribute to regeneration. The recruitment of new annual cohorts of European ...

(Boston) - In what is believed to be the first published study on the topic, researchers affiliated with the Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) believe female military service-members from Operation Enduring Freedom OEF)/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) may be as resilient to combat-related stress as men. These findings currently appear on-line in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Though the literature suggests that women may be more vulnerable to the effects of trauma exposure, most available studies on combat trauma have relied on samples in which women's combat ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. — As automated traffic monitoring systems such as red light cameras keep a law enforcement "eye" on the streets across the country, many drivers accuse city governments of installing the monitors as a way to generate revenue. New research from the University of Missouri says the safety benefits of automated traffic monitoring systems far outweigh the potential for abuse. "A red light camera is not a panacea for traffic problems; it is a very effective tool for safe and efficient transportation," said Carlos Sun, an associate professor of civil engineering ...

Protein folding has nothing to do with laundry. It is, in fact, one of the central questions in biochemistry. Protein folding is the continual and universal process whereby the long, coiled strings of amino acids that make up proteins in all living things fold into more complex three-dimensional structures. By understanding how proteins fold, and what structures they are likely to assume in their final form, researchers are then able to move closer to predicting their function. This is important because incorrectly folded proteins in humans result in such devastating ...

BOULDER—New research focusing on the Houston area suggests that widespread urban development alters wind patterns in a way that can make it easier for pollutants to build up during warm summer weather instead of being blown out to sea. The international study, led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), could have implications for the air quality of fast-growing coastal cities in the United States and other midlatitude regions overseas. The reason: the proliferation of strip malls, subdivisions, and other paved areas may interfere with breezes needed to ...

RICHLAND, Wash. -- By adding the right amount of heat, researchers have developed a method that improves the electrical capacity and recharging lifetime of sodium ion rechargeable batteries, which could be a cheaper alternative for large-scale uses such as storing energy on the electrical grid. To connect solar and wind energy sources to the electrical grid, grid managers require batteries that can store large amounts of energy created at the source. Lithium ion rechargeable batteries -- common in consumer electronics and electric vehicles -- perform well, but are too ...

An investigation by the Spanish Scientifc Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC) reveals that the large impacts occurred during the last ice age maintain their effects on the current distribution of dung beetles of the scarab family (Scarabaeidae). The presence of these beetles in Europe seems to be more influenced by the climate of that glaciation than by the present one. The study, published yesterday in the journal Ecology Letters, analyzed the species richness and the structure of their communities throughout the different regions of the European ...

The world is a dazzling array of people, objects, sounds, smells and events: far too much for us to fully experience at any moment. So our attention may automatically be snagged by something startling, such as a slamming door, or we may deliberately focus on something that is important to us right then, such as locating our child among the happily screaming hordes on the school playground. We also know that people are hard-wired to seek out and pay attention to things that are rewarding, such as food when we are hungry, or water when we are thirsty. So what happens ...

Dr. Kotis, a Chicago plastic surgeon, made an appearance on the popular daytime television show The Doctors. He and the show's host, Dr. Drew Ordon, scrubbed in to demonstrate a cutting-edge procedure that can end the pain and limitations caused by rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. In the May 24th airing of The Doctors take on Chicago, Dr. Kotis performed a surgery to replace a thumb joint which has been worn down on a woman due to a terrible car accident. The damaged joint caused the bones in the thumb to rub together causing severe rheumatoid as well as osteoarthritis. ...

Metal-on-Metal ("MoM") hip replacements have come under scrutiny lately. On May 6, 2011, the Food and Drug Administration ordered 21 manufacturers of 145 different MoM hip replacements to study and report the outcomes of patients who have received these devices. Such a study is called a "postmarket surveillance study." Attorney Ron Brown, of St. Louis-based law firm Brown and Crouppen, welcomed the development saying, "I'm very glad to see the FDA's action on this." Recent years have seen growing concern in both the United States and ...

Whales are the earth's largest creatures, yet they are incredibly hard to study in the open ocean. For decades scientists have used boats, aircraft and even high cliffs to conduct visual surveys and gather data on whale and dolphin populations. Today, these live surveys form the basis of our knowledge of these marine mammals—what species live where in the world, which ones tend to live together and how abundantly they are represented. Now, recent work by paleobiologist Nick Pyenson of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, has revealed a second, equally ...

The Holiday Inn Express & Suites Atlanta Perimeter Hotel (North), near Perimeter Mall, provides close accommodations to the fans attending New Kids on the Block and Back Street Boys in concert. The show will take place on June 22, 2011 at Philips Arena in downtown Atlanta. It will feature members of both American vocal groups, who will performances of many of their music hit as well as and new joint songs, "Don't Turn Out the Lights" and "All in My Head". The two groups first appeared together in November, 2010 at the American Music Awards. The ...

Argentine ants are taking over the world – or at least the nice temperate parts. They've spread into Mediterranean and subtropical climates across the globe in sugar shipments from Argentina, and no native ant species has been known to withstand their onslaught – until now. A group of Stanford University undergraduate students working on a class project have discovered that a native species, the plucky winter ant, has been using chemical warfare to combat the Argentine tide. The winter ants – named for their unusual ability to function in cold weather, rather than grind ...

Saxo Bank, the online trading and investment specialist, has announced the launch of ForexTrading.com which will offer retail investors a select range of FX crosses and CFDs with variable spreads - as low as 0.8 pips. ForexTrading.com provides investors with a range of basic functionalities designed to make trading flexible and straightforward. ForexTrading.com is powered by Saxo Bank, which is renowned for aggregating liquidity from the world's leading FX dealers. ForexTrading.com gives traders the ability to trade in the world's most liquid currency pairs and global ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Despite billions of dollars spent on health care each year, the United States ranks 27th out of 33 developed countries for life expectancy at birth. Leading causes of infant mortality are complications related to pre-term birth or low birth weight-outcomes that have been linked with domestic violence. A University of Missouri researcher says a key factor in addressing this issue is preventing violence against mothers and children. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has released "Healthy People 2020", a 10-year plan for improving the health ...

Montreal, June 7, 2011 – Sex work is unprotected, increasingly dangerous and needs to be decriminalized, according to a new report published in the Canadian Review of Sociology. Co-authored by Concordia University and University of Windsor researchers, the study calls for sweeping changes to sex work performed on and off the streets. "We must not only change our laws, we must also revamp our attitudes and implement policies that protect the social, physical and psychological rights of sex workers," says first author Frances Shaver, chair and professor in Concordia's ...

Macmillan has revealed the line-up for Macmillan's Big Mix 2011, featuring a number of acts including musicians, comedians, fashion designers and artists. The event will take place on Saturday 18 June across venues in Shoreditch. First lady of festivals and BBC Radio 1 DJ Edith Bowman will be gracing the decks on the night, playing her pick of the latest and greatest from the world of indie and alternative music. Edith, a long time supporter of Macmillan, said: "I love how Macmillan have put the Big Mix together - they've got everything in there from folk artists ...

Europcar, the leader in car hire services in Europe for both leisure and business users, just made car hire easier, with the launch of its new freeDeliver service. Now customers hiring a car for two days or more can sit back and Europcar will deliver it to their door as well as collect it when their trip is finished - at no extra charge. The new, unique, service reflects Europcar's sustained commitment to bring travellers added value on every booking. freeDeliver offers Europcar customers the convenience of free car hire delivery and collection to their home address, ...

In work published in the June 2011 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine, Kolossov, Spring and their co-investigators - a multidisciplinary team within the Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois - have transferred the concept of redox-sensitive Green Fluorescent Proteins (GFPs) to a quantitative Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) imaging platform. For the FRET-based sensors, a change in redox induces a conformational change in a redox-sensitive switch that links two fluorescent proteins (the donor and acceptor), changing their distance, which ...

As it turns out, humans aren't the only organisms that turn to caffeine for a pick-me-up. University of Iowa scientists have identified four different bacteria that actually can live on caffeine. One of them, known as Pseudomonas putida CBB5, was found in a flowerbed outside a UI research laboratory. The research team says the discovery -- and the new understanding of how the process works -- could in the future allow scientists to convert waste from leftover coffee, tea and even chocolate into useful substances, like pharmaceuticals, animal feed or biofuels. Previous ...

Confused.com has revealed the unluckiest make of car in the UK by looking at 12 months' worth of customers quotes and finding out which make and model had the highest accident rates. Top of the list was Honda's FR-V six-seater. 2,529 owners of this vehicle made 466 accident claims in the past five years. That's a claim rate of 18.4 per cent, or almost one in five. Next came Volvo's XC90. Of the 3,886 drivers of this model who bought cover through Confused.com, 619 made claims for accidents - a rate of 15.9 per cent. The Lexus RX had a claim rate of 15.5 per cent ...

As warm weather arrives and the great outdoors beckons, more and more men and women will be taking to the trails, the beaches, or their yards and gardens, embarking on physical activities that may result in sore, aching, swollen joints. While it may be tempting to ignore these aches and pains or treat them with a little over-the-counter liniment, a wiser choice is to visit a physician who can determine if the symptoms are due to bursitis, inflammation of the fluid-filled bursae, or sacs, that surround and cushion the joints. Bursitis occurs when the bursae become irritated ...

June 6, 2011 – (BRONX, NY) – Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have developed a desktop genome analyzer and browser that allows biologists to rapidly and easily analyze and process their high-throughput data. The open-source software, called GenPlay, is described in the May 19 online edition of Bioinformatics. Currently, genomic data is analyzed mainly by information specialists rather than by the biologists who designed the experiments that produce the data. GenPlay was created with the goal of offering biologists a user-friendly, ...

VIENNNA, Austria – At the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) meeting this week, American researchers are unveiling a new tool for detecting illegal nuclear explosions: the Earth's global positioning system (GPS). Even underground nuclear tests leave their mark on the part of the upper atmosphere known as the ionosphere, the researchers discovered, when they examined GPS data recorded the same day as a North Korean nuclear test in 2009. Within minutes on that day, GPS stations in nearby countries registered a change in ionospheric electron density, ...