A team of Australian researchers involving DNA experts from the University of Adelaide has identified a new, critically endangered species of ground parrot in Western Australia. The team, led by Australian Wildlife Conservancy's Dr Stephen Murphy, used DNA from museum specimens up to 160 years old to reveal that populations of ground parrots in eastern and western Australia are highly distinct from each other and that the western populations should be recognized as a new species, Pezoporus flaviventris. "The discovery has major conservation implications," said Dr Murphy. ...

Putting tobacco out of sight in shops can change the attitude of young people to smoking, while not hitting retailers in the pocket, researchers at The University of Nottingham have discovered. Academics from the University's UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies looked at the effect of the removal of tobacco displays in the Republic of Ireland, ahead of similar legislation which is due to come into force in the UK. The findings are published today in the journal Tobacco Control. In one study the research team found that the number of teenagers who recalled tobacco ...

St. Louis, MO, 23 November, 2010 – Proper nutrition therapy is essential for the successful management of type 1 and type 2 diabetes and registered dietitians (RDs) can play a key role as part of the health care team. An article in the December issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association reviews the evidence and nutrition practice recommendations presented in the American Dietetic Association Nutrition Practice Guidelines for Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes in Adults. This complete and systematic review presents 29 key nutrition practice guidelines in order to ...

A daily dose of an oral antiretroviral drug, currently approved to treat HIV infection, reduced the risk of acquiring HIV infection by 43.8 percent among men who have sex with men. The findings, a major advance in HIV prevention research, come from a large international clinical trial published online Nov. 23 by the New England Journal of Medicine. The study, titled "Chemoprophylaxis for HIV Prevention in Men," found even higher rates of effectiveness, up to 72.8 percent, among those participants who adhered most closely to the daily drug regimen. "We now have strong ...

A research team led by the University of Bristol has used STFC's ISIS Neutron Source to come up with a new way to treat carbon dioxide (CO2), so that it can be used in efficient and environmentally friendly methods for extracting oil. These new CO2 soluble additives can also be used to reduce the environmental damage caused by every day industrial processes such as food processing and the manufacture of electronics. The results of this work are published in the journal Langmuir. The researchers have developed a soap-like additive for CO2 that turns it into a viable solvent ...

(San Francisco, CA) – In a finding with the potential to fundamentally change strategies to slow the global HIV epidemic, a new study called iPrEx shows that individuals at high risk for HIV infection who took a single daily tablet containing two widely used HIV medications, emtricitabine and tenofovir (FTC/TDF), experienced an average of 43.8% fewer HIV infections than those who received a placebo pill (95% CI 15.4 to 62.6%; P=0.005). The study, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the first evidence that this new HIV prevention method, called pre-exposure ...

BOSTON (Nov. 23, 2010) —Breast cancer stem cells (CSCs), the aggressive cells thought to be resistant to current anti-cancer therapies and which promote metastasis, are stimulated by estrogen via a pathway that mirrors normal stem cell development. Disrupting the pathway, researchers were able to halt the expansion of breast CSCs, a finding that suggests a new drug therapy target. The study, done in mice, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Early Edition this week. "A critical aspect of our work was to discover that estrogen could ...

ARLINGTON, VA-- NOVEMBER 23, 2010 - - CONRAD is pleased to join in congratulating the Global iPrEx study team for their successful trial of oral tenofovir (TDF) with emtricitabine (FTC) for HIV prevention. Results of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) sponsored study were announced today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Daily use of the widely used antiretroviral combination pill was found to be an average of 44% effective in reducing risk of HIV infection in men who have sex with men (MSM), a historically high risk population. Among participants who took ...

If you're lucky, it will all be kisses and hugs around the Thanksgiving dinner table, with friends and family near and dear gathered about, and puppies gathered around your feet waiting for table scraps. But peace won't reign within the confines of the oral cavity, where Streptococcus mutans and other harmful bacteria will await their own holiday feast. Your meal will enable S. mutans to launch one of its biggest assaults of the year on your tooth enamel. New work by dental researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center brings both good and bad news. While ...

In many developing countries, forest restoration at home has led to deforestation abroad, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The authors say their findings could have significant implications for ongoing efforts to protect the world's remaining forests, which are disappearing at an annual rate of more than 32 million acres – an area roughly the size of England. "Reducing deforestation is an international priority, given its impacts on carbon emissions and biodiversity," said study co-author Eric Lambin of Stanford ...

Ask the Eucalyptus connoisseurs Koalas may be the pickiest marsupials around: They evolved to feed almost exclusively on the leaves of Eucalyptus trees, and they are highly selective when it comes to which species and even which individual trees they visit. When the furry leaf-eater settles on a particular tree, it relies on a number of factors, including taste, to make its selection. In a study published in the November issue of Ecology, a journal of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), researchers used koala feeding preferences to design a new method that could help ...

Fuel cells could create a breakthrough for electric cars, because refuelling them is fast and easy, just like your traditional gas guzzler. But there's an obstacle. Current fuel cells need platinum in order to work. And that's expensive. Now chemists from Copenhagen, Potsdam and Hanau have taken the first step towards producing fuel cells using very little of the precious metal. At the University of Copenhagen Matthias Arenz has specialized in testing the catalysts that do the actual work in fuel cells. Presented with a so called "Core Shell catalyst" developed by Clarkson ...

NEW YORK (Nov. 23, 2010) -- A hormone made by the body may be a potential therapeutic tool for the treatment of two anemic blood disorders -- beta-thalassemia and hemochromatosis. The new research was led by scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College and published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation and the journal Blood. Commonly known as Cooley's anemia, beta-thalassemia affects nearly 1,000 individuals in the United States; worldwide, approximately 300,000 children are born each year with thalassemias. The conditions cause excessive iron absorption in the body's ...

BATON ROUGE – LSU Professor Edward Shihadeh and Ph.D. candidate Raymond Barranco recently published a study titled "Latino Immigration, Economic Deprivation and Violence: Regional Differences in the Effect of Linguistic Isolation" in the journal Homicide Studies. The researchers found that when Latinos in the United States lack English language capability, they are far more likely to be murdered. But this link between English language proficiency and victimization exists only in places where Latinos have settled recently – in places that the authors term "new Latino destinations." ...

WASHINGTON — Earth and space science missions developed and implemented by federal agencies in collaboration typically result in additional complexity and cost and increased risks from divided responsibilities and accountability, says a new report from the National Research Council. Federal agencies should not partner in conducting space and earth science missions unless there is a compelling reason to do so and clear criteria are met in advance. "A common misperception among policymakers and individual agencies is that collaboration on these missions will save money ...

23 November 2010 (Geneva, Switzerland) – The International AIDS Society (IAS) cautiously notes the comments from Pope Benedict that condom use could, in specific circumstances, be acceptable, but calls on the Pope and the Catholic Church to come out clearly and strongly in support of all evidence-based methods of HIV prevention, including condom use. By implying that there can only be some exceptional circumstances that could allow for condom usage, such as that of male prostitutes, the Pope is ignoring scientific evidence that shows that both male and female condoms, ...

November 23, 2010 – Geneva, Switzerland – The International AIDS Society (IAS) calls on the Burmese Government to reverse a ruling made on November 18 to shut down a charitable HIV/AIDS clinic in Rangoon. The government demand came just one day after Aung San Suu Kyi, the recently released Nobel Peace Prize laureate visited the centre to show her support. The clinic known as the HIV/AIDS Patients Care Center has been given up to November 25 to close. The Burmese Government has repealed the clinic's permit as well as refusing to renew residence permits to the 80 patients ...

TORONTO, ON – Many people say they wouldn't cheat on a test, lie on a job application or refuse to help a person in need. But what if the test answers fell into your lap and cheating didn't require any work on your part? If you didn't have to face the person who needed your help and refuse them? Would that change your behaviour? New research out of the University of Toronto Scarborough shows it might. In two studies that tested participants' willingness to behave immorally, the UTSC team discovered people will behave badly – if it doesn't involve too much work on their ...

In the nanoworld many things are different. Scientists only recently started unveiling and harnessing the underlying laws and principles. A team associated with Professor Johannes Barth from the Physics Department of the TU Muenchen have now succeeded in capturing rod-shaped molecules in a two-dimensional network in such a way that they autonomously form small rotors that turn in their honeycomb-like cages. Nature itself provides the role model for such self-organizing systems. This is how proteins bring reactants so close together that reactions can take place – reactions ...

CHICAGO (November 23, 2010) - Even though most people are aware that good oral health is essential for the overall health of both mother and child, misunderstandings about the safety of dental care during pregnancy may cause pregnant women to avoid seeing their dentist. The fact is that dentists can create a treatment plan that is safe, effective, and essential for combating the adverse effects of oral disease during pregnancy. During the course of pregnancy, a woman's oral health can undergo significant changes. According to an article published in the November/December ...

Even when equipped with compressed-air bottles and diving regulators, humans reach their limits very quickly under water. In contrast, unmanned submarine vehicles that are connected by cable to the control center permit long and deep dives. Today remote-controlled diving robots are used for research, inspection and maintenance work. The possible applications of this technology are limited, however, by the length of the cable and the instinct of the navigator. No wonder that researchers are working on autonomous underwater robots which orient themselves under water and carry ...

While Africa is certainly no stranger to violence, the response to the Kenyan presidential elections of 2007 came as a surprise. Political unrest evolved into outright and unmitigated violence, marring the relatively peaceful history of Kenya's educated and mainly urban population. During allegations of voter manipulation and election fraud, two of Kenya's largest tribes, the Kalenjin and the Kikuyu, found themselves divided by anger, fueled by another tribe's promises of power and control. Wesley Shrum, LSU professor of sociology, had experience dealing with human tragedy ...

AMES, Iowa - Most living plant and animal species have a certain, relatively small, amount of variation in their genetic make-up. Differences in height, skin and eye color of humans, for example, are very noticeable, but are actually the consequences of very small variations in genetic makeup. Researchers at Iowa State University, China Agricultural University and the Beijing Genomics Institute in China recently re-sequenced and compared six elite inbred corn (maize) lines, including the parents of the most productive commercial hybrids in China. When comparing the different ...

Tel Aviv -- Ferrography, a practice used by the American and Israeli air forces to monitor the condition of machinery, extracts tiny iron particles from lubricants such as oil and grease to analyze wear in machines. Determining whether a system requires preventative maintenance can be the key to preventing catastrophic failure. Now Tel Aviv University scientists are exploring a modification of this technique for human analysis -- called "bio-ferrography" -- to diagnose diseases in their early stages, determine the efficacy of drugs, and ascertain the condition of orthopedic ...

Lions, bears, monkeys, crocodiles, parrots and iguanas may seem inoffensive at first glance when they're behind bars in zoos. But some exotic species can escape and become invasive species. This has been confirmed by a scientific team that has checked 1,568 animal houses in 63 Spanish zoos. Birds are the animals most likely to escape. "As zoos house a large number of exotic (non-indigenous) species, they could become an entry channel for these species if they escape, with the potential environmental risk that this implies", María C. Fàbregas, lead author of the study ...