PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Take a cursory look at the moon, and it can resemble a pockmarked golf ball. The dimples and divots on its surface are testament that our satellite has withstood a barrage of impacts from comets, asteroids and other space matter throughout much of its history. Because the geological record of that pummeling remains largely intact, scientists have leaned on the moon to reconstruct the chaotic early days of the inner solar system. Now a team led by Brown University planetary geologists has produced the first uniform, comprehensive catalog ...

Cambridge, Mass. and Manaus, Brazil – September 16, 2010 – Environmental engineers who might better be called "archeologists of the air" have, for the first time, isolated aerosol particles in near pristine pre-industrial conditions. Working in the remote Amazonian Basin north of Manaus, Brazil, the researchers measured particles emitted or formed within the rainforest ecosystem that are relatively free from the influence of anthropogenic, or human, activity. The finding, published in the September 16 issue of Science, could provide crucial clues to understanding cloud ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- In a paper appearing in the Sept. 16 online edition of Science, Matthew Vander Heiden assistant professor of biology and member of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT and researchers at Harvard University report a previously unknown element of cancer cells' peculiar metabolism. They found that cells can trigger an alternative biochemical pathway that speeds up their metabolism and diverts the byproducts to construct new cells. The finding could help scientists design drugs that block cancer-cell metabolism, essentially ...

Tool use is so rare in the animal kingdom that it was once believed to be a uniquely human trait. While it is now known that some non-human animal species can use tools for foraging, the rarity of this behaviour remains a puzzle. It is generally assumed that tool use played a key role in human evolution, so understanding this behaviour's ecological context, and its evolutionary roots, is of major scientific interest. A project led by researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Exeter examined the ecological significance of tool use in New Caledonian crows, a species ...

Palo Alto, CA—Scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology have taken a new approach on examining a proposal to fix the warming planet. So-called geoengineering ideas—large-scale projects to change the Earth's climate—have included erecting giant mirrors in space to reflect solar radiation, injecting aerosols of sulfate into the stratosphere making a global sunshade, and much more. Past modeling of the sulfate idea looked at how the stratospheric aerosols might affect Earth's climate and chemistry. The Carnegie researchers started out differently ...

Even children of a healthy weight who have an imbalanced metabolism due to poor diet or exercise may be at increased risk of asthma, according to new research, which challenges the widespread assumption that obesity itself is a risk factor for asthma. "Our research showed that early abnormalities in lipid and/or glucose metabolism may be associated to the development of asthma in childhood," said lead author Giovanni Piedimonte, M.D., who is professor and chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at West Virginia University School of Medicine, physician-in-chief at WVU ...

VIDEO: The following video relates to a Science paper featuring contributing author Preston Marx, a Tulane University virologist. The article, "Island Biogeography Reveals the Deep History of SIV, " is embargoed until... Click here for more information. The HIV-like virus that infects monkeys is thousands of years older than previously thought, according to a new study led by researchers from Tulane University. Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which is the ...

Berkeley — Research on a drug commonly prescribed to Alzheimer's disease patients is helping neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, better understand perceptual learning in healthy adults. In a new study, to be published online Thursday, Sept. 16, in the journal Current Biology, researchers from UC Berkeley's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and School of Optometry found that study participants showed significantly greater benefits from practice on a task that involved discriminating directions of motion after they took donepezil, sold under the ...

The response time to antidepressants, such as Prozac, is around three weeks. How can we explain this? The adaptation mechanisms of the neurons to antidepressants has, until now, remained enigmatic. Research, published this week by the teams of Odile Kellermann (Inserm Unit 747 Cellules souches, Signalisation et Prions, Université Paris-Descartes) and of Jean-Marie Launay (Inserm Unit 942 Hôpital Lariboisière, Paris and the mental health network, Santé Mentale), sheds new light on the mechanisms of action of these drugs which have been used for more than 30 years and are ...

What, in nature, drives the incredible diversity of flowers? This question has sparked debate since Darwin described flower diversification as an 'abominable mystery.' The answer has become a lot clearer, according to scientists at the University of Calgary whose research on the subject is published today in the on-line edition of the journal Ecology Letters. Drs. Jana Vamosi and Steven Vamosi of the Department of Biological Sciences have found through extensive statistical analysis that the size of the geographical area is the most important factor when it comes to biodiversity ...

An ancestor of HIV that infects monkeys is thousands of years older than previously thought, suggesting that HIV, which causes AIDS, is not likely to stop killing humans anytime soon, finds a study by University of Arizona and Tulane University researchers. The simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV, is at least 32,000 to 75,000 years old, and likely much older, according to a genetic analysis of unique SIV strains found in monkeys on Bioko Island, a former peninsula that separated from mainland Africa after the Ice Age more than 10,000 years ago. The research, which appears ...

The moon is more geologically complex than previously thought, scientists report Sept. 17 in two papers published in the journal Science. Their conclusion is based on data from the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), an unmanned mission to comprehensively map the entire moon. The spacecraft orbits some 31 miles above the moon's surface. The new data reveal previously unseen compositional differences in the moon's crustal highlands and have confirmed the presence of material surprisingly abundant in silica — a compound ...

Catalan researchers have studied the factors relating to urban transport service provision in 45 European cities, including Barcelona, Bilbao and Madrid. The study, published in the latest issue of Transportation research part E-logistics and transportation review, concludes that Central European cities have the best urban transport service provision in Europe. Capital cities are at the head of the league, both in terms of supply and demand. "The geographic variables we studied show that Mediterranean countries have the least developed (offer the poorest range) in terms ...

Some intensive care patients develop post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) after the trauma of a difficult hospital stay, and this is thought to be exacerbated by delusional or fragmentary memories of their time in the intensive care unit. Now researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Critical Care have found that if staff and close relatives make a diary for patients, featuring information about their stay and accompanied by photographs, PTSD rates can be significantly reduced. Professor Richard Griffiths and Christina Jones from the University of Liverpool, ...

People who have used cocaine run a great risk of becoming addicted, even after long drug-free periods. Now researchers at Linköping University and their colleagues can point to a specific molecule in the brain as a possible target for treatment to prevent relapses. Drugs are addictive because they "hijack" the brain's reward system, which is actually intended to make it pleasurable to eat and have sex, behaviors that are necessary for survival and reproduction. This "hijacking" is extremely long-lived and often leads to relapses into abuse, especially when the individual ...

London, UK (September 16, 2010) – Amid growing concern that synthetic life sciences pose biosecurity and biosafety risks, scrutiny is increasing into the burgeoning DNA sequence trade. Research published today in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by SAGE, looks at the necessity of a global regulator for DNA trade, and the significant barriers to creating one. Synthetic life sciences are making breakthroughs at a breakneck pace, and could offer technological fixes for our future ecological, technological, and biomedical challenges. But these benefits also ...

During the collision of India with the Eurasian continent, the Indian plate is pushed about 500 kilometers under Tibet, reaching a depth of 250 kilometers. The result of this largest collision in the world is the world's highest mountain range, but the tsunami in the Indian Ocean from 2004 was also created by earthquakes generated by this collision. The clash of the two continents is very complex, the Indian plate, for example, is compressed where it collides with the very rigid plate of the Tarim Basin at the north-western edge of Tibet. On the eastern edge of Tibet, the ...

A wall painting (fresco) of Tyche, the Greek goddess of fortune, was exposed during the 11th season of excavation at the Sussita site, on the east shore of the Sea of Galilee, which was conducted by researchers of the University of Haifa. Another female figure was found during this season, of a maenad, one of the companions of the wine god Dionysus. "It is interesting to see that although the private residence in which two goddesses were found was in existence during the Byzantine period, when Christianity negated and eradicated idolatrous cults, one can still find clear ...

VIDEO: New imaging technique developed by cardiologist, Dr. James A. White and colleagues at The University of Western Ontario shows 3-D image of the heart vasculature and myocardial scar tissue. Click here for more information. Cardiologists and surgeons may soon have a new tool to improve outcomes for patients requiring pacemakers, bypass surgery or angioplasties. Research led by Dr. James White and his colleagues at The University of Western Ontario has led to a new imaging ...

WASHINGTON, DC—Researchers at the Center for Neuroscience Research at Children's National Medical Center have discovered that the two major types of signaling pathways activated during brain cell development—the epidermal growth factor receptor pathway and the Notch pathway—operate together to determine how many and which types of brain cells are created during growth and repair in developing and adult brains. This knowledge may help scientists design new ways to induce the brain to repair itself when these signals are interrupted, and indicate a need for further research ...

NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite has provided a 3-D look at the power "under the hood" (of clouds) in powerful Category 4 Hurricane Igor as it heads toward Bermuda. In the meantime, Igor is creating dangerous surf in the eastern Atlantic, and it will affect the U.S. East coast later today. Igor is an extremely dangerous category four hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale today, Sept. 16, and he is expected to remain a large and powerful hurricane over the next several days. The TRMM satellite, operated by NASA and the Japanese ...

We've all heard this story: the Late Cretaceous of Asia and North America—about 65 million years ago—was dominated by several large-headed, bipedal predatory dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex and Tarbosaurus that had tiny arms. But a decade of new fossil discoveries that have more than doubled the number of known tyrannosaur species has changed this tale. Older and smaller tyrannosaurs have made the evolutionary tree of this group richer and more complex. Furthermore, a series of innovative research projects on topics like bone growth and biomechanics have added an enormous ...

Risk factors for venous thromboembolism after total hip replacement (THR) surgery were identified in a new study published in the September 2010 issue of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS). While the rate of thromboembolism has been significantly reduced through medication, understanding the risk factors could further reduce the likelihood of patients developing this potentially fatal complication. Two of the most common manifestations of a thromboembolism include: Deep vein thrombosis (DVT), in which the blood clot forms in a deep vein, commonly in the thigh ...

AUSTIN, Texas — Many women with low sex drives reported greater sexual satisfaction after taking a placebo, according to new psychology research from The University of Texas at Austin and Baylor College of Medicine. The study was conducted by Cindy Meston, a clinical psychology professor at The University of Texas at Austin, and Andrea Bradford, a 2009 University of Texas at Austin graduate and postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. They found that opening a new line of communication about sex can have a positive ...

For scientists, supernovae are true superstars -- massive explosions of huge, dying stars that shine light on the shape and fate of the universe. For a brief burst of time, supernovae can radiate more energy than the sun will emit in its lifetime. With the potential energy of 25 hundred trillion trillion nuclear weapons, they can outshine entire galaxies, producing some of the biggest explosions ever seen, and helping track distances across the cosmos. Now, a Princeton-led team has found a way to make computer simulations of supernovae exploding in three dimensions, ...