(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Beginning around 542 million years ago, a profusion of animals with shells and skeletons began to appear in the fossil record. So many life forms appeared during this time that it is often referred to as the "Cambrian Explosion." Geologists at UC Santa Barbara and a team of co-authors have proposed a rethinking of the timeline of these early animal appearances. Their findings are published in the latest issue of the Geological Society of America Bulletin. Charles Darwin, in his book "On the Origin of Species," was troubled by the way the fossil ...

University of California, Berkeley, scientists have found a way to overcome one of the main limitations of ultrasound imaging – the poor resolution of the picture. Everyone who has had an ultrasound, including most pregnant women, is familiar with the impressionistic nature of the images. One of the limits to the detail obtainable with sonography is the frequency of the sound: The basic laws of physics dictate that the smallest objects you can "see" are about the size of the wavelength of the sound waves. For ultrasound of deep tissues in the body, for example, the sound ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – New research has found that a mother's poor nutrition during pregnancy and nursing can cause problems for her offspring's ability to process medications, even well into adulthood. The results of the study, by Oregon State University researchers, suggest that in the future physicians prescribing drugs ranging from Tylenol to cancer chemotherapies may need to factor birth weight along with body weight into dosing decisions for their patients. In this laboratory study, the kidneys of underweight animals born to mothers fed low-protein diets during pregnancy ...

Monash University researchers have discovered that male Australian desert goby fish are surprisingly strategic when it comes to courtship, adapting their tactics depending on the frequency of their contact with females. Attracting females involves significant time, energy and exposure to predation and previous research has indicated that male gobies are more likely to court larger females due to the number of eggs they carry compared with their smaller counterparts. However, new research, published in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, indicates that ...

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Contrary to earlier research, a new, long-term study suggests that cholesterol level in mid-life may not be linked to later development of Alzheimer's disease, according to a study published in the November 10, 2010, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. However, the results suggest that large decreases in cholesterol levels in old age could be a better predictor of developing the memory-robbing disease. "While some studies suggest that cholesterol is a risk factor for dementia, others have not replicated ...

High cholesterol levels in middle age do not appear to increase women's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia later in life, new Johns Hopkins-led research finds, despite a body of scientific evidence long suggesting a link between the two. What the study, published online in the journal Neurology, does find is that women whose cholesterol levels decline from middle age to old age are at 2.5 times greater risk of developing the memory-wasting diseases than those whose cholesterol stayed the same or increased over the years. "Our research ...

Consumption of fructose-rich beverages, such as sugar-sweetened sodas and orange juice is associated with an increased risk of gout among women, although their contribution to the risk of gout in the population is likely modest because of the low incidence rate among women, according to a study that will appear in the November 24 print edition of JAMA. The study is being released early online to coincide with its presentation at the American College of Rheumatology annual scientific meeting. Gout is a common and very painful inflammatory arthritis. "The increasing disease ...

Atoms-for-Peace is the curious name given to a pair of interacting and merging galaxies that lie around 220 million light-years away in the constellation of Aquarius. It is also known as NGC 7252 and Arp 226 and is just bright enough to be seen by amateur astronomers as a very faint small fuzzy blob. This very deep image was produced by ESO's Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. A galaxy collision is one of the most important processes influencing how our Universe evolves, and studying them reveals important clues ...

Hanoi, Vietnam (November 10, 2010)—One of the world's largest global scientific partnerships for sustainable agricultural development has launched a bold new research initiative that aims to dramatically improve the ability of rice farmers to feed growing populations in some of the world's poorest nations. The efforts of the Global Rice Science Partnership, or GRiSP, are expected to lift 150 million people out of poverty by 2035 and prevent the emission of greenhouse gases by an amount equivalent to more than 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide. An initiative of the Consultative ...

A new study finds that an FDA-approved drug to treat the rare autoimmune disorder immune thromobocytopenia (ITP) is more effective than earlier medical therapies in helping patients avoid surgical treatment and significantly improving their quality of life. The paper in the Nov. 11 New England Journal of Medicine reports that treatment with romiplostim, which mimics the effects of a growth factor that regulates platelet production, was more than three times more successful than standard therapy with steroids or immunosuppressive drugs. "This is the first definitive ...

HOUSTON -- (Nov. 11, 2010) – The brain works because 100 billion of its special nerve cells called neurons regulate trillions of connections that carry and process information. The behavior of each neuron is precisely determined by the proper function of many genes. In 1999, Baylor College of Medicine (www.bcm.edu) researcher Dr. Huda Zoghbi (http://www.bcm.edu/genetics/index.cfm?pmid=11053), and her colleagues identified mutations in one of these genes called MECP2 as the culprit in a devastating neurological disorder called Rett syndrome (http://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/rett_syndrome.cfm). ...

A University of Colorado at Boulder-led study shows that specific types of stem cells transplanted into the leg muscles of mice prevented the loss of muscle function and mass that normally occurs with aging, a finding with potential uses in treating humans with chronic, degenerative muscle diseases. The experiments showed that when young host mice with limb muscle injuries were injected with muscle stem cells from young donor mice, the cells not only repaired the injury within days, they caused the treated muscle to double in mass and sustain itself through the lifetime ...

The computer game Tetris may have a special ability to reduce flashbacks after viewing traumatic images not shared by other types of computer game, Oxford University scientists have discovered in a series of experiments. In earlier laboratory work the Oxford team showed that playing Tetris after traumatic events could reduce memory flashbacks in healthy volunteers. These are a laboratory model of the types of intrusive memories associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this new experimental study, the researchers compared the effectiveness of Tetris ...

Men taking androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) for prostate cancer may have an increased risk of colorectal cancer, according to a study published online November 10 in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Androgen deprivation therapy is a widely-prescribed treatment in men with prostate cancer, although its usage for low-risk disease remains controversial, given the adverse side effects, including osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity; the last two are risk factors for colorectal cancer. To determine whether prostate cancer patients taking ...

Think New York is an exceptional city? It's not. The Big Apple is just about average for a city of its size. However, San Francisco is exceptional. Its inhabitants are wealthier, more productive, more innovative, and subject to fewer crimes than you would expect, given its size. Turns out many of the cities we typically think of as great ones probably wouldn't show up near the top of most rankings, if Luis Bettencourt of the Santa Fe Institute has his way. He and his colleagues believe traditional per-capita measures are not very useful for determining what makes one ...

Obstetricians and midwives should wait a few minutes before clamping the umbilical cords of newborn infants so that babies are not harmed by the procedure, argues Dr David Hutchon in an article published on bmj.com today. Hutchon, a retired consultant obstetrician from the Memorial Hospital in Darlington, says it's time for the UK to follow guidance from the World Health Organisation and the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics and refrain from early cord clamping. Despite evidence for the benefit of delayed cord clamping, clinicians in the UK seem ...

AUDIO: Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have identified mutations in a single gene that are associated with a poor prognosis for patients with acute myeloid leukemia. The discovery suggests... Click here for more information. Decoding the DNA of a woman who died of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) has led researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis to a gene that they found to be commonly altered in many patients who died quickly of ...

Researchers have discovered mutations in a particular gene that affects the treatment prognosis for some patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an aggressive blood cancer that kills 9,000 Americans annually. The scientists report their results in the Nov. 11, 2010, on-line issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. The Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis team initially discovered a mutation by completely sequencing the genome of a single AML patient. They then used targeted DNA sequencing on nearly 300 additional AML patient samples to confirm ...

An Australian research team from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland has identified a new risk factor for developing breast cancer. This has been published online in the journal Cancer Prevention Research. The risk factor involves a modification (DNA methylation) to the BRCA1 gene. BRCA1 is known for its involvement in breast and ovarian cancer. Women with mutations in this gene, which inactivates its function, are predisposed to these diseases. The DNA methylation modification is known as an epimutation and ...

Variations in atmosphere carbon dioxide around 40 million years ago were tightly coupled to changes in global temperature, according to new findings published in the journal Science. The study was led by scientists at Utrecht University, working with colleagues at the NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and the University of Southampton. "Understanding the relationship between the Earth's climate and atmospheric carbon dioxide in the geological past can provide insight into the extent of future global warming expected to result from carbon dioxide emission ...

How well a person performs in a coalition is partly hereditary, according to a recent study. Researchers found that how successfully an individual operates in a group is as much down to having the right genetic make-up as it is to having common cultural ties with fellow group members. After assessing nearly 1000 pairs of adult twins, researchers at the University of Edinburgh found that strong genetic influences have a major influence on how loyal a person feels to their social group. It also has a significant impact on how flexibly they can adapt group membership. Family ...

Evidence suggesting that the risk of childhood asthma associated with prenatal paracetamol exposure may depend on antioxidant genes in the mother has been found by a team of UK scientists. The results of their study - which strengthens the argument for a causal link between paracetamol exposure in early life and later childhood asthma - are published online (10 November) in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Led by Seif Shaheen, Professor of Respiratory Epidemiology at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, the team examined data from the ...

New ultra-clean nanowires produced at the Nano-Science Center, University of Copenhagen will have a central role in the development of new high-efficiency solar cells and electronics on a nanometer scale. PhD student Peter Krogstrup, Niels Bohr Institute, in collaboration with a number of well-known researchers and the company SunFlake A/S, is behind the breakthrough. The new findings have recently been published in the prestigious journal Nano Letters. Nanowires are one-dimensional structures with unique electrical and optical properties – a kind of building blocks, ...

A new Reference Report published today by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) lists 79 reference methods for GMO analysis which have been validated according to international standards. This Compendium, developed jointly by the European Union Reference Laboratory for Genetically Modified Food and Feed (EU-RL GMFF) and the European Network of GMO Laboratories (ENGL), presents the technical state of the art in GMO detection methods. Each method is described in a user-friendly way, facilitating the implementation of GMO legislation by official control bodies. Presenting ...

Adults born deaf react more quickly to objects at the edge of their visual field than hearing people, according to groundbreaking new research by the University of Sheffield. The study, which was funded by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), has, for the first time ever, seen scientists test how peripheral vision develops in deaf people from childhood to adulthood. Dr Charlotte Codina, from the University's Academic Unit of Ophthalmology and Orthoptics, led the research and found that children born deaf are slower to react to objects in their peripheral ...