Scientists at the University of Leicester are using an unusual resource to investigate ancient climates– prehistoric animal urine. The animal in question is the rock hyrax, a common species in countries such as Namibia and Botswana. They look like large guinea pigs but are actually related to the elephant. Hyraxes use specific locations as communal toilets, some of which have been used by generations of animals for thousands of years. The urine crystallises and builds up in stratified accumulations known as 'middens', providing a previously untapped resource for studying ...

Scientists at the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) have developed a means of representing a 3D model ear, to help redefine the standard for a pinna simulator (the pinna is the outer part of the ear) – used to measure sound in the way we perceive it. The nature of human hearing is heavily dependent on the shape of the head and torso, and their interaction with sound reaching the ears allows for the perception of location within a 3D sound field. Head and Torso Simulators (HATS) are designed to model this behaviour, enabling measurements and recordings to be made ...

The metal chromium is an essential nutrient for plant and animal metabolism, but it can accumulate to toxic and hazardous levels in the environment when discharged in industrial waste water; a point made infamous by the movie Erin Brockovich. Chromium-contaminated wastewaters usually originate from dye and pigment manufacturing, wood preserving, electroplating and leather tanning. The element can exist in water as charged particles in one of two states, oxidation state 3+ (trivalent form) and 6+ (the hexavalent form usually exists as chromate or dichromate). Other oxidation ...

Having a family history of breast cancer can lead some women to wonder if the risk is out of their control. However, a study of more than 85,000 postmenopausal women, published in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research, observed that regular physical activity, maintaining a healthy weight, and drinking less alcohol lowers breast cancer risk for those with and without a family history of the disease. The University of Rochester Medical Center study is good news for women who have a close relative with breast cancer and fear that no matter what they ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A giant star in a faraway galaxy recently ended its life with a dust-shrouded whimper instead of the more typical bang. Ohio State University researchers suspect that this odd event -- the first one of its kind ever viewed by astronomers – was more common early in the universe. It also hints at what we would see if the brightest star system in our galaxy became a supernova. In a paper published online in the Astrophysical Journal, Christopher Kochanek, a professor of astronomy at Ohio State, and his colleagues describe how the supernova appeared ...

Direct-to-consumer personal genetic profiling services that claim to predict people's health risks by analysing their DNA are often inconclusive and companies that sell them should provide better information about the evidence on which the results are based, says the UK Nuffield Council on Bioethics, in a new report on the ethics of so-called personalised healthcare services. The report says that claims that these services are leading to a new era of 'personalised healthcare' are overstated and should be treated with caution. The Council recommends that regulators of ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers looking at corals in the western tropical Pacific Ocean have found records linking a profound shift in the depth of the division between warm surface water and colder, deeper water traceable to recent global warming. The finding is the first real evidence supporting what climate modelers have been predicting as the effects of global climate change on the subsurface ocean circulation. The report by researchers from Ohio State University and the University of Toronto was published in the latest online edition of the journal Geophysical Research ...

Goods trains move at night because during daytime the Swiss rail system is used to full capacity by passenger traffic. Unfortunately, it is goods trains which make the most noise – and they operate at exactly the time when most people want to sleep. If the policy of shifting goods transport from the roads to the rail network is to succeed, then goods trains must be made significantly quieter. The Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) therefore tasked a team of scientists, headed by Kurt Eggenschwiler of Empa's Acoustics and Noise Control Laboratory, with the ...

Researchers used Einstein's famous E=mc2 equation and the Large Hadron Collider to recreate a miniature version of the event at the origins of our Universe, and the first findings from their work were published in the journal Physical Review Letters. Dr. Andreas Warburton of McGill's Department of Physics made leading contributions to the analysis of data from the experiment, known as "ATLAS," meaning the findings have a special significance for Canadian science. Warburton and 3171 colleagues from around the world are using the data collected from the recreation in an ...

Changes in the human population, including aging and urbanization, could significantly affect global emissions of carbon dioxide over the next 40 years, according to research results published this week. The research, results of which appear in a paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was conducted by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It was funded by the National ...

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A Kansas State University professor's research and the upcoming Ecological Genomics Symposium continue to make the university a leader in the emerging field of ecological genomics. Ecological genomics is an integrated field that focuses on how organisms, ecosystems and communities respond to environmental change. It uses genomic technologies, such as gene sequencing and expression analysis, on a wider scale to ask and research ecological questions, said Michael Herman, associate professor of biology. "We're working hard to advance this field," Herman ...

All-Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) are associated with a significant and increasing number of hospitalizations for children in the U.S., according to a new report by the Center for Injury Research and Policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Over a nine- year period (1997-2006) hospitalizations for ATV injuries increased 150 percent among youth younger than 18 years, with important demographic variations. Rates increased the most dramatically in the South and Midwest, and among teens ages 15 to 17. While males between 15 to 17 have the highest rate of ATV ...

MINNEAPOLIS/ST.PAUL (Oct. 12, 2010) – Children's health insurance coverage still varies significantly at both the state and national levels, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health (SPH). In particular, researchers found gaps in coverage that vary across states by age, race/ethnicity and income. Even states with relatively low rates of uninsured children have gaps in coverage for some groups of children, according to researchers. Conversely, some states demonstrating high rates of uninsurance have relatively low gaps or disparity ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – A University of Missouri researcher believes his latest work moves scientists closer to a cure for cystic fibrosis, one of the world's most common fatal genetic diseases. The Journal of Biological Chemistry has published findings by Tzyh-Chang Hwang, a professor in the School of Medicine's Department of Medical Pharmacology and Physiology and the Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center. The publication has been recognized as the "paper of the week" for the journal, meaning Hwang's work is considered to be in the top 1 percent of papers reviewed annually ...

When it comes to gambling, many people rely on game theory, a branch of applied mathematics that attempts to measure the choices of others to inform their own decisions. It's used in economics, politics, medicine -- and, of course, Las Vegas. But recent findings from a Tel Aviv University researcher suggest that we may put ourselves on the winning side if we look to bacteria instead. According to Prof. Eshel Ben-Jacob of Tel Aviv University's School of Physics and Astronomy, current game theory can't account for bacteria's natural decision-making abilities -- it's just ...

As the population ages, health care epidemiologist Padma Kaul and cardiologist Paul Armstrong, researchers in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta, want health-care professionals to talk to their patients about their options on places to die, whether it be at home, in hospital or a palliative care facility like hospice. The researchers found, in their recent study, that the majority of heart failure patients pass away in an acute care hospital and the cost is more than double for those who died elsewhere. This is the first study to examine ...

Last March, the U.S. Congress heard testimony about a scientific study in the journal Safety Science. A military analyst worried that the paper presented a model of how an attack on a small, unimportant part of the U.S. power grid might, like dominoes, bring the whole grid down. Members of Congress were, of course, concerned. Then, a similar paper came out in the journal Nature the next month that presented a model of how a cascade of failing interconnected networks led to a blackout that covered Italy in 2003. These two papers are part of a growing reliance on a particular ...

A pregnant woman's immune response to viral infections may induce subtle neurological changes in the unborn child that can lead to an increased risk for neurodevelopmental disorders including schizophrenia and autism. Research published in the online journal mBio® provides new insights into how this may happen and suggests potential strategies for reducing this risk. "Infection during pregnancy is associated with increased risk of damage to the developing nervous system. Given that many agents have been implicated, we decided to focus on mechanisms by which the maternal ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Research led by a Michigan State University psychologist is playing a key role in the effort to change the way mental health clinicians classify personality disorders. The study by Christopher Hopwood and colleagues calls for a more scientific and practical method of categorizing personality disorders – a proposal that ultimately could improve treatment, Hopwood said. "We're proposing a different way of thinking about personality and personality disorders," said Hopwood, MSU assistant professor of psychology and an experienced clinician. "There's ...

The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's Bocas del Toro Research Station and Galeta Point Marine Laboratory are reporting an anomalous sea temperature rise and a major coral bleaching event in the western Caribbean. Although the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, issued an advisory in July announcing above-average sea surface temperatures in the wider Caribbean region, there had been no clear indication of increased sea temperatures in Panama and the western Caribbean until late August-early September. Scientists and local dive operators first ...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2010 — Key articles in a special print edition of the American Chemical Society journal, Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T), one of the world's premier environmental journals, are now available online. The articles will appear Jan. 1, 2011 in an ES&T issue on environmental policy. The topics range from the mysterious disorder decimating honey bee colonies to ways to capture and store carbon and mitigate greenhouse effect. Those marked "Feature" are written in a less technical style and suitable for general readers, including students and non-scientists. ...

Montreal, October 12, 2010 – Five American teenagers, all bullied because they were gay, have committed suicide over the past few weeks. The deaths have caused a media storm and raised a critical question: Did the social or healthcare system fail these adolescents? "Absolutely," says Concordia University Professor Deborah Dysart-Gale. "Bullying and such resulting suicides are avoidable. Healthcare workers have tools that can help queer teens – no one needs to die because of their sexual orientation." As Chair of the General Studies Unit of the Faculty of Engineering ...

BEER-SHEVA, Israel, October 12, 2010 — A research team at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Soroka University Medical Center in Beer-Sheva, Israel has detected a genetic mutation resulting in a progressive disease of severe mental retardation and epilepsy beginning at infancy. The research was just published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. The team, led by BGU Prof. Ohad Birk of the National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev determined that the defect is associated with the production of the 21st amino acid, selenocysteine (SEC), which leads to ...

Air Force Office of Scientific Research-supported physicists at the University of California, Berkeley in collaboration with researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, became the first researchers to observe the motion of an atom's valence or outermost electrons in real-time by investigating the ejection of an electron from an atom by an intense laser pulse. In the experiments, an electron in a krypton atom is removed by a laser pulse that lasts less than four femtoseconds (one ...

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago are the first to use brain imaging to examine the effects of emotion on working memory function in children with pediatric bipolar disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The study is published in the October issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. PBD and ADHD are very severe developmental disorders that share behavioral characteristics such as impulsivity, irritability and attention problems. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, researchers at UIC examined ...