Collaborative research at the University of Guam has people asking: "What IS a species" and entomologists wondering about the relationship between an insect species and the host plant or plants it feeds on. Western Pacific Tropical Research Center (WPTRC) entomologist Ross Miller has been studying aphids for years and this work has brought him in contact with entomologists in Canada and the US mainland. Aphid systemetist Robert Foottit, DNA expert Eric Maw and aphid authority Keith Pike have been working with Miller on the identification of aphids, particularly the dreaded ...

While the overall hospitalization rate for stroke has declined in recent years, the numbers have jumped dramatically for patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), suggesting they may be up to three times more likely to suffer a stroke than people uninfected by the virus that causes AIDS. In a paper published in the Jan. 19 online issue of Neurology, Bruce Ovbiagele, MD, professor of neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Avindra Nath, MD, of Johns Hopkins University, reviewed a national dataset of all hospital ...

ST. PAUL, Minn. – New research suggests that people infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) may be up to three times more likely to have a stroke compared to those not affected with HIV. The study is published in the January 19, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. "Our findings showed that stroke hospitalizations in the United States decreased by seven percent in the general population within the last decade while stroke hospitalizations for people with HIV rose 67 percent," said Bruce Ovbiagele, MD, MSc, ...

Ohio State University entomologists have conducted the first genetic study of bedbugs, paving the road to the identification of potential genes associated with pesticide resistance and possible new control methods for the troublesome insect, whose sudden resurgence in the United States has led to a public health scare. The discovery was reported Jan. 19 in the online journal PLoS ONE. "While bedbugs are poised to become one of the major household pests across the United States in the coming years, we know very little about their genetic makeup and their mechanisms of ...

The secrets behind the mysterious nano-sized electromagnetic "hotspots" that appear on metal surfaces under a light are finally being revealed with the help of a BEAST. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a single molecule imaging technology, dubbed the Brownian Emitter Adsorption Super-resolution Technique (BEAST), that has made it possible for the first time to directly measure the electromagnetic field inside a hotspot. The results hold promise for a number of technologies including ...

UCSF researchers have developed a new approach to decoding the vast information embedded in an organism's genome, while shedding light on exactly how cells interpret their genetic material to create RNA messages and launch new processes in the cell. By combining biochemical techniques with new, fast DNA-sequencing technology and advanced computer technology, the team was able to examine with unprecedented resolution how a cell converts DNA into RNA – a molecular cousin of DNA that is used in the process of creating proteins that govern most biological functions. And they ...

The Orion Nebula, also known as Messier 42, is one of the most easily recognisable and best-studied celestial objects. It is a huge complex of gas and dust where massive stars are forming and is the closest such region to the Earth. The glowing gas is so bright that it can be seen with the unaided eye and is a fascinating sight through a telescope. Despite its familiarity and closeness there is still much to learn about this stellar nursery. It was only in 2007, for instance, that the nebula was shown to be closer to us than previously thought: 1350 light-years, rather ...

(Toronto, Canada – January 20, 2011) – Cancer scientists led by Dr. John Dick at the Ontario Cancer Institute (OCI) and collaborators at St Jude Children's Research Hospital (Memphis) have found that defective genes and the individual leukemia cells that carry them are organized in a more complex way than previously thought. The findings, published today in Nature (DOI:10.1038/nature09733), challenge the conventional scientific view that cancer progresses as a linear series of genetic events and that all the cells in a tumour share the same genetic abnormalities and ...

Society has long debated the contrasting advantages of monogamy and promiscuity and, in western society at least, the long term benefits of monogamy have in general won out. However new research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology shows that sperm from polygamous mice are better competitors in the race for fertilisation. Dr Renée Firman at the Centre for Evolutionary Biology, University of Western Australia, has used house mice to show that sperm from rival males compete to fertilise females and that, over several generations, polygamy ...

What makes music beautiful? The best compositions transcend culture and time – but what is the commonality which underscores their appeal? New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Research Notes suggests that the brain simplifies complex patterns, much in the same way that 'lossless' music compression formats reduce audio files, by removing redundant data and identifying patterns. There is a long held theory that the subconscious mind can recognise patterns within complex data and that we are hardwired to find simple patterns pleasurable. Dr ...

A multifaceted quality improvement intervention that included education, reminders and feedback through a collaborative telecommunication network improved the adoption of evidenced-based care practices in intensive care units at community hospitals for practices such as preventing catheter-related bloodstream infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia, according to a study that will appear in the January 26 issue of JAMA. The study is being published early online to coincide with its presentation at the annual meeting of the Society of Critical Care Medicine. Despite ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — University of Illinois materials scientists have developed a simple, generalizable technique to fabricate complex structures that assemble themselves. Their advance, published in the Jan. 20 issue of Nature, utilizes a new class of self-assembling materials that they developed. The team demonstrated that they can produce a large, complex structure – an intricate lattice – from tiny colloidal particles called triblock Janus spheres. "This is a big step forward in showing how to make non-trivial, non-obvious structures from a very simple thing," said ...

Cambridge, Mass., January 19, 2011 – Invention and innovation are essential to remaining globally competitive, and a new survey shows an untapped group of potential inventors in the U.S. The 2011 Lemelson-MIT Invention Index , announced today, indicates that American women ages 16 – 25 possess many characteristics necessary to become inventors, such as creativity, interest in science and math, desire to develop altruistic inventions, and preference for working in groups or with mentors – yet they still do not see themselves as inventive. Young men in the same age group ...

TORONTO, ON –Adult children of divorce are more likely to have seriously considered suicide than their peers from intact families, suggests new research from the University of Toronto In a paper published online this week in the journal Psychiatry Research, investigators examined gender specific differences among a sample of 6,647 adults, of whom 695 had experienced parental divorce before the age of 18. The study found that men from divorced families had more than three times the odds of suicidal ideation in comparison to men whose parents had not divorced. Adult daughters ...

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Athersys, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHX) announced a joint scientific study on spinal cord injury will be published today in the January issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. The study, by leading researchers from the Department of Neurosciences at the School of Medicine and scientists at Athersys, presents data supporting the potential therapeutic benefit of Athersys' MultiStem® program for spinal cord injury. Researchers observed that administration of Multipotent Adult Progenitor Cells (MAPC) following spinal cord injury in ...

PASADENA, Calif.—Using a common metal most famously found in self-cleaning ovens, Sossina Haile hopes to change our energy future. The metal is cerium oxide—or ceria—and it is the centerpiece of a promising new technology developed by Haile and her colleagues that concentrates solar energy and uses it to efficiently convert carbon dioxide and water into fuels. Solar energy has long been touted as the solution to our energy woes, but while it is plentiful and free, it can't be bottled up and transported from sunny locations to the drearier—but more energy-hungry—parts ...

Australian scientists using new image and cell technologies have for the first time caught malaria parasites in the act of invading red blood cells. The researchers, from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, Australia, and the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), achieved this long-held aim using a combination of electron, light and super resolution microscopy, a technology platform new to Australia. The detailed look at what occurs as the parasite burrows through the walls of red blood cells provides new insights into the molecular and cellular events ...

A University of British Columbia study shows that there are enough pharmacies situated throughout Ontario communities to absorb many closures without negatively affecting geographical accessibility for residents. The research suggests concerns that reducing generic pricing could result in pharmacy shortages are unfounded. Last summer, the Ontario government cut the price of generic drugs by half – to approximately 25 per cent of the equivalent brand – leading to heated discussions on the sustainability of existing pharmacies. Some pharmacy chains claimed they might be ...

An International research team has discovered that seasonal temperatures in Europe, above all in winter, have been affected over the past 500 years by natural factors such as volcanic eruptions and solar activity, and by human activities such as the emission of greenhouse gases. The study, with Spanish involvement, could help us to better understand the dynamics of climate change. Up until now, it was thought that Europe's climate prior to 1900 was barely affected by external factors, but now a group of scientists has shown that natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions ...

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, reveals that damaged alpha-synuclein proteins (which are implicated in Parkinson's disease) can spread in a 'prion-like' manner, an infection model previously described for diseases such as BSE (mad cow disease). "This is a significant step forward in our understanding of the potential role of cell-to-cell transfer of alpha-synuclein in Parkinson's disease pathogenesis and we are very excited about the findings", says Professor Patrik Brundin at Lund University, Sweden, who led a team of investigators from ...

Researchers at Neiker-Tecnalia (the Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development) have undertaken a study on the epidemiology and diagnosis of infection by visna/maedi virus. This is a virus that affects sheep herds causing chronic interstitial pneumonia, mastitis and neurological disorders. The study confirmed that horizontal transmission (direct contact between infected animals) of the virus is the most likely path of infection, rather than vertical transmission (from infected suckling milk or colostrum). Since there is no current effective treatment against ...

The research team at the Centre for the Studies of Archaeological and Prehistoric Heritage (CEPAP) of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have implemented an innovative system to register archaeological artefacts which eliminates problems in manual markings, such as errors in writing or erosion of data. The system, based on direct labelling using bi-dimensional data matrix (DM) codes, has been used by the CEPAP team during two years, in which numerous artefacts and bone remains from sites in Spain and Africa were registered. The marking of archaeological material, ...

Tel Aviv -- Although we're convinced that baby is brilliant when she mutters her first words, cognitive scientists have been conducting a decades-long debate about whether or not human beings actually "learn" language. Most theoretical linguists, including the noted researcher Noam Chomsky, argue that people have little more than a "language organ" -- an inherent capacity for language that's activated during early childhood. On the other hand, researchers like Dr. Roni Katzir of Tel Aviv University's Department of Linguistics insist that what humans can actually learn ...

Associate professor Anne Mangen at the University of Stavanger's Reading Centre asks if something is lost in switching from book to computer screen, and from pen to keyboard. The process of reading and writing involves a number of senses, she explains. When writing by hand, our brain receives feedback from our motor actions, together with the sensation of touching a pencil and paper. These kinds of feedback is significantly different from those we receive when touching and typing on a keyboard. Learning by doing Together with neurophysiologist Jean-Luc Velay at the ...

Malignant gliomas are fast-growing brain tumours with poor prospects of recovery depending on disease stage. Experts hope that the examination of patients by means of positron emission tomography (PET) is more helpful in the choice of the right treatment than other procedures. In a final report the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) has now investigated the benefit of PET in the detection of recurrences. According to this report, no robust conclusions are possible on the advantages or disadvantages of PET. Two research questions investigated The ...