ANN ARBOR, Mich.---The more complex a plant or animal, the more difficulty it should have adapting to changes in the environment. That's been a maxim of evolutionary theory since biologist Ronald Fisher put forth the idea in 1930. But if that tenet is true, how do you explain all the well-adapted, complex organisms---from orchids to bower birds to humans---in this world? This "cost of complexity" conundrum puzzles biologists and offers ammunition to proponents of intelligent design, who hold that such intricacy could arise only through the efforts of a divine designer, ...

Software downloaded during a routine office visit cuts the risk of inappropriate shocks by 50 percent for patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD), according to research reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. "Hundreds of patients have been saved from unnecessary shocks by software that is safe and can be painlessly downloaded in one minute during a standard defibrillator check," said Charles D. Swerdlow, M.D., lead author of the study and a cardiac electrophysiologist at the Cedars Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles and ...

Using data from more than 270,000 hospital stroke admissions, scientists have identified how to predict which patients are at greatest risk of dying in the hospital after stroke. Before their study, well validated models to predict in-hospital death risk after stroke were lacking, the researchers reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. "A mortality risk assessment tool for hospitalized stroke patients is important to clinicians, hospitals and patients," said Eric E. Smith, M.D., M.P.H., lead author of the study and assistant professor of neurology ...

VIDEO: In a few tenths of a second, Sclerotinia expels hundreds of thousands of spores in a plume that can rise 20 cm, much higher than any single spore by itself.... Click here for more information. Long before geese started flying in chevron formation or cyclists learned the value of drafting, fungi discovered an aerodynamic way to reduce drag on their spores so as to spread them as high and as far as possible. One fungus, the destructive Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, ...

In a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Cary Institute aquatic ecologist Dr. Emma Rosi-Marshall and colleagues report that streams throughout the Midwestern Corn Belt are receiving insecticidal proteins that originate from adjacent genetically modified crops. The protein enters streams through runoff and when corn leaves, stalks, and plant parts are washed into stream channels. Genetically-modified plants are a mainstay of large-scale agriculture in the American Midwest, where corn is a dominant crop. In 2009, more than ...

Burness Communications Godwin Atser g.atser@cgiar.org 234-803-443-0027 CGIAR Scientists arrive in Senegal to give African hunger a black eye At the World Cowpea Research Conference, crop experts embrace one of agriculture's oldest legumes -- prized for protein and resilience to hot, dry climates -- as food for people, livestock and astronauts This release is available in French. DAKAR, SENEGAL (27 September 2010)—A long neglected crop with the potential to halt hunger for millions in Africa, sustain the livestock revolution underway in developing countries, ...

Researchers in the Midwest are developing microelectronic circuitry to guide the growth of axons in a brain damaged by an exploding bomb, car crash or stroke. The goal is to rewire the brain connectivity and bypass the region damaged by trauma, in order to restore normal behavior and movement. Pedram Mohseni, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Case Western Reserve University, and Randolph J. Nudo, a professor of molecular and integrative physiology at Kansas University Medical Center, believe repeated communications between distant neurons in ...

Baby boomers appear to be driving a dramatic rise in suicide rates among middle-aged people, a new study finds. The suicide rate for middle-aged people – a group considered relatively protected from suicide and with historically stable suicide rates – took an upward jump between 1999 and 2005, according to research by sociologists Ellen Idler of Emory University and Julie Phillips of Rutgers University. Their study has been published in the September/October issue of the journal Public Health Reports. "The findings are disturbing, because they're a reversal of a long-standing ...

A report presented today by Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner John Dalli to the Agriculture Council concludes that specific measures relating to storing and the application of isolation distances can help limit or avoid the co-mingling of genetically modified (GM) maize with conventional and organic maize. In particular, the Best Practice Document, prepared by the European Coexistence Bureau (ECoB) and published by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), notes that storing seeds adequately and applying spatial isolation are the best ways to limit or ...

TORONTO, Sept. 27, 2010 − Homeless young people are victims of crime at rates that society would consider unacceptable for any other group, according to a new report by researchers at York University and the University of Guelph. The report, Surviving Crime and Violence: Street Youth and Victimization in Toronto, highlights the degree to which it is street youth themselves − often perceived as delinquent and dangerous − who are vulnerable to crime and violence. "The very people we are taught to fear are the ones who are most at risk," said Professor ...

Researchers have long held that there are steps that can be taken to make brainstorming sessions more productive. New research from North Carolina State University finds that these recommendations actually do contribute to success when applied in real-world business environments. "Previous research has laid out best practices that are conducive to brainstorming, or group decision making, and we wanted to see whether using those practices makes a difference in the real world," says Dr. Joe Brazel, associate professor of accounting at NC State and co-author of a paper describing ...

The appearance of a spot of light on the retina causes sudden activation of millions of neurons in the brain within tenths of milliseconds. At the first cortical processing stage, the primary visual cortex, each neuron thereby receives thousands of inputs from both close neighbors and further distant neurons, and also sends-out an equal amount of output to others. During the recent decades, individual characteristics of these widespread network connections and the specific transfer characteristics of single neurons have been widely derived. However, a coherent population ...

Diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory agent, has been deployed successfully in human medicine for decades. In most EU countries medication containing Diclofenac is only approved for treatment of humans. In India, Pakistan and Nepal it has been deployed in veterinary medicine as well since the 90s, in particular for livestock. When vultures feed on cattle carcasses, they too ingest the drug. As a result, the populations of three species of these birds of prey – the Indian vulture, the Oriental white-backed vulture and the slender-billed vulture – have shrunk to a mere three percent ...

At the Large Hadron Collider at CERN protons crash into each other at incredibly high energies in order to 'smash' the protons and to study the elementary particles of nature – including quarks. Quarks are found in each proton and are bound together by forces which cause all other known forces of nature to fade. To understand the effects of these strong forces between the quarks is one of the greatest challenges in modern particle physics. New theoretical results from the Niels Bohr Institute show that enormous quantities of random numbers can describe the way in which ...

Coughing episodes are closely related to gastroesophageal reflux symptoms in patients who experience chronic cough, irrespective of other diagnoses, according to a new study in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute. Gastroesophageal reflux occurs when the acid contents of the stomach back up, or reflux, into the esophagus. This typically produces heartburn, a burning sensation below the sternum where your ribs come together. "This is the first study to investigate the temporal relationship between cough ...

It is to become the largest X-ray telescope ever: The International X-Ray Observatory (IXO), which has been planned in a cooperation between NASA, ESA and Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA, will be launched into space in 2021 and provide the world with brand new information about black holes and, thus, about the origin of the universe. Its dimensions are gigantic: The surface of the mirror alone, which is to capture, for example, the cosmic X-radiation of black holes, will be 1300 m2 in size. It will consist of commercially available silicon wafers with pores of ...

The idea behind this research arose because of the huge disparity in existing laws regulating the area of consumer protection, which made it necessary, according to the researchers, to carry out a systematic study to develop a "general report" which would gather the common principles and regulations regarding the different laws governing consumer protection. During the time this research study was underway, the Texto Refundido de la Ley General para la Defensa de los Consumidores y Usuarios (Consolidated Text of General Law of Consumer Protection) (LGDCU) was published; ...

Entanglement is a fascinating property connecting quantum systems. Albert Einstein called it the "spooky action at a distance". This bizarre coupling can link particles, even if they are located on opposite sides of the galaxy. The strength of their connections is behind the promising quantum computers, the dream machines capable of quick and efficient computations. The team lead by Rainer Blatt at the Institute of Experimental Physics of the University of Innsbruck has been working very successfully towards the realization of a quantum computer. In their recent study, ...

Healthcare professionals are still not receiving the appropriate training and support they need to help people who self-harm and this can result in negative attitudes and inadequate levels of care. Those are the key findings of a research review carried out by mental health specialists from the University of Nottingham, UK, and published in the October issue of the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. Staff nurse Jo McHale and lecturer Anne Felton studied 19 papers from the UK, Australia, Sweden and Ireland, dating from 1998 to 2009 and covering the views ...

"If you study, you are more likely to get a stable job, even if it doesn't have anything to do with your training". This is the thinking of workers living in Spain, according to a research study by the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), which studied the level of over-education in Spain, Italy and France, and the relationship between this and temporary work. "This can be explained by the high levels of employment insecurity in Spain in comparison with other European countries", Luis Ortiz, author of the study and a researcher at the UPF, tells SINC. The study, which has ...

A recent study undertaken by investigators at five research centres, amongst which is the CSIC-University of the Basque Country Biophysics Unit, provides new clues for the understanding of the 'cell suicide' process. The research was published in the latest issue of the prestigious Cell journal. Our bodies daily eliminate in a controlled manner more than 100 million defective cells, by means of a procedure known as 'cell suicide' or apoptosis. This is a highly complicated process, any imbalances thus arising causing serious diseases, prominent amongst which is cancer. ...

Flowering plants produce nectar to attract insect pollinators. Some plant species, such as Lima bean, also secrete nectar from so-called extrafloral nectaries to attract ants which in turn fend off herbivores. Scientists of the Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany, have discovered that the production of extrafloral nectar is light dependent. They have shown that the plants are able not only to distinguish between day and night, but also to adapt their nectar secretion to current light conditions by using a special photoreceptor, the phytochrome. Phytochrome probably influences ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- In one of the first studies to focus exclusively on the outcomes after treatment for patients with high-risk prostate cancer,(http://www.mayoclinic.org/prostate-cancer/) researchers have found that surgery provides high survival rates. Collaborating researchers at Mayo Clinic and Fox Chase Cancer Center (http://www.fccc.edu/) in Philadelphia discovered that patients with the most aggressive forms of prostate cancer who had radical prostatectomy procedures had a 10-year cancer-specific survival rate of 92 percent and an overall survival rate of 77 percent. The ...

While the U.S. has made great progress in the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis, the nation has become more susceptible to potential epidemics of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), according a study led by Johns Hopkins researchers. Computer simulations show that as TB prevalence falls, the risk for more extensive MDR-TB increases. In addition, the simulation also showed that higher detection of TB cases without proper treatment of cases also increased risk. The study findings are published in the September 22 edition of the journal PLoS ONE. An interactive ...

Newport Beach, CA – September 27, 2010 – Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian recently announced encouraging clinical study results for patient-specific vaccine therapy to treat metastatic melanoma. The study is ongoing, but the report concludes that patient-specific vaccines can sometimes induce durable complete regression of progressing soft-tissue melanoma metastases, as demonstrated in one particular patient who participated in the trial. The study report, entitled: "Durable Complete Response of Refractory, Progressing, Metastatic Melanoma after Treatment with a ...