Pulsars are among the most exotic celestial bodies known. They have diameters...
Recent News
How to Boost the Power of Pain Relief, Without Drugs
Placebos reduce pain by creating an expectation of relief. Distraction—say, doing a puzzle—relieves it by keeping the brain busy. But do they use the same brain processes? Neuromaging suggests they do. When applying a placebo, scientists see activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. That’s the part of the brain that controls high-level cognitive functions like [...]
Super-Earth found in habitable zone of nearby cool star
An international team of scientists led by Carnegie’s Guillem Anglada-Escudé and Paul Butler has discovered a potentially habitable super-Earth orbiting a nearby star. The star is a member of a triple star system and has a different makeup than our Sun, being relatively lacking in metallic elements. This discovery demonstrates that habitable planets could form [...]
DNA test for Down syndrome IDs two other conditions
A newly available DNA-based prenatal blood test that can identify a pregnancy with Down syndrome can also identify two additional chromosome abnormalities: trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome) and trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome).The test for all three defects can be offered as early as 10 weeks of pregnancy to women who have been identified as being at [...]
What a tangled web Alzheimer’s weaves
One of the most distinctive signs of the development of Alzheimer’s disease is a change in the behavior of a protein that neuroscientists call tau. In normal brains, tau is present in individual units essential to neuron health. In the cells of Alzheimer’s brains, by contrast, tau proteins aggregate into twisted structures known as “neurofibrillary [...]
Wildlife treasure trove found in Peru
The Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Peru program announced today the discovery of 365 species previously undocumented in Bahuaja Sonene National Park (BSNP) in southeastern Peru. Fifteen researchers participated in the inventory focusing on plant life, insects, birds, mammals, and reptiles. The discovery included: thirty undocumented bird species, including the black-and-white hawk eagle, Wilson’s phalarope, and [...]
Male and Female Behavior Deconstructed
Hormones shape our bodies, make us fertile, excite our most basic urges, and as scientists have known for years, they govern the behaviors that separate men from women. But how? Now a team of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has uncovered many genes influenced by the male and female sex hormones [...]
Are Jellyfish Really Taking Over the World?
In recent years, media reports of jellyfish blooms and some scientific publications have fueled the idea that jellyfish and other gelatinous floating creatures are becoming more common and may dominate the seas in coming decades. The growing impacts of humans on the oceans, including overfishing and climate change, have been suggested as possible causes of [...]
Powering pacemakers with heartbeats
Though pacemakers require only small amounts of energy (about 1 millionth of a Watt), their batteries have to be replaced periodically, which means multiple surgeries for patients. Researchers have searched for ways to prolong battery life – trying to generate energy to power a pacemaker using blood sugar, or the motion of the hands and [...]
Massage is promising for muscle recovery
Researchers at McMaster University have discovered a brief 10-minute massage helps reduce inflammation in muscle. As a non-drug therapy, massage holds the potential to help not just bone-weary athletes but those with inflammation-related chronic conditions, such as arthritis or muscular dystrophy, says Justin Crane, a doctoral student in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster. While [...]
Facebook is Not Such a Good Thing for Those with Low Self-Esteem
In theory, the social networking website Facebook could be great for people with low self-esteem. Sharing is important for improving friendships. But in practice, people with low self-esteem seem to behave counterproductively, bombarding their friends with negative tidbits about their lives and making themselves less likeable, according to a new study which will be published [...]
Here is what real commitment to your marriage means
What does being committed to your marriage really mean? UCLA psychologists answer this question in a new study based on their analysis of 172 married couples over the first 11 years of marriage. “When people say, ‘I’m committed to my relationship,’ they can mean two things,” said study co-author Benjamin Karney, a professor of psychology [...]
Computer can tell what you hear by reading your brain
Neuroscientists may one day be able to hear the imagined speech of a patient unable to speak due to stroke or paralysis, according to University of California, Berkeley, researchers. These scientists have succeeded in decoding electrical activity in the brain’s temporal lobe – the seat of the auditory system – as a person listens to [...]
Eating fish in pregnancy makes offspring smarter, more social
Can pregnant women improve their progeny’s intelligence by eating fish? A study recently submitted to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and coordinated by the University of Granada professor Cristina Campoy Folgoso revealed that infants born to mothers who consumed more fish during pregnancy score higher in verbal intelligence and fine motor skill tests, and [...]
Fighting fires in outer space
Improving fire-fighting techniques in space and getting a better understanding of fuel combustion here on Earth are the focus of a series of experiments on the International Space Station, led by a professor at the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. to A first round of experiments ran from March 2009 [...]
Men have more accurate memory of unpleasant experiences
A woman’s memory of an experience is less likely to be accurate than a man’s if it was unpleasant and emotionally provocative, according to research undertaken by University of Montreal researchers at Louis-H Lafontaine Hospital. “Very few studies have looked at how ‘valence’ and ‘arousal’ affect memories independently of each other, that is to say, [...]
Land sell-off risks major displacement, bloodshed in Africa
New studies released in London today suggest that the frenzied sell-off of forests and other prime lands to buyers hungry for the developing world’s natural resources risk sparking widespread civil unrest—unless national leaders and investors recognize the customary rights of millions of poor people who have lived on and worked these lands for centuries. “Controversial [...]
Borna disease not cause of mental illness
Over the past 30 years, numerous studies have linked Borna disease virus (BDV) with mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety disorder and dementia. Genetic fragments and antibodies to this RNA virus, which causes behavior disorders in a range of mammals and birds, have been found to be prevalent in psychiatric patients, but study [...]
First plants caused ice ages
New research reveals how the arrival of the first plants 470 million years ago triggered a series of ice ages. Led by the Universities of Exeter and Oxford, the study is published today (1 February 2012) in Nature Geoscience. The team set out to identify the effects that the first land plants had on the [...]
Space tech could help push kidney stones right out
Just the mention of kidney stones can cause a person to cringe. They are often painful and sometimes difficult to remove, and 10 percent of the population will suffer from them. In space, the risk of developing kidney stones is exacerbated due to environmental conditions. The health risk is compounded by the fact that resource [...]
Decaf coffee preserves memory function
Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have discovered that decaffeinated coffee may improve brain energy metabolism associated with type 2 diabetes. This brain dysfunction is a known risk factor for dementia and other neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease. The research is published online in Nutritional Neuroscience. A research group led by Giulio Maria Pasinetti, [...]
