ScienceBlog.com

Drug abusers are increasingly turning to a slow-release form of a powerful painkiller for a quick and dangerous high, University of Florida researchers warn. The trend is raising alarm as the number of people dying from an overdose of the drug fentanyl, an opioid 100 times more potent than morphine, rises.

Applied physicists at the California Institute of Technology have devised a plasma experiment that shows how huge long, thin jets of material shoot out from exotic astrophysical objects such as young stars, black holes, and galactic nuclei.

A new analysis based on animal studies suggests that showering in manganese-contaminated water for a decade or more could have permanent effects on the nervous system. The damage may occur even at levels of manganese considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency, according to researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Medicaid beneficiaries living with HIV/AIDS in Mississippi are about to be denied access to medications they need to stay alive. A law that takes effect tomorrow, July 1, limits Mississippi Medicaid beneficiaries to two brand-name drugs. But controlling HIV infection requires three drugs, and all of them are brand name.

Fishermen in northern Thailand have netted a fish as big as a grizzly bear, a 646-pound Mekong giant catfish, the heaviest recorded since Thai officials started keeping records in 1981. The behemoth was caught in the Mekong River and may be the largest freshwater fish ever found.

A report issued by the Royal Society in the U.K. sounds the alarm about the world’s oceans. “If CO2 from human activities continues to rise, the oceans will become so acidic by 2100 it could threaten marine life in ways we can’t anticipate,” commented Dr. Ken Caldeira, co-author of the report and a newly appointed staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, California.

Global warming may proceed more quickly and be more severe than previously predicted according to research about to be published in the scientific journal “Nature”. Reductions in airborne particle pollution, or aerosols, as air quality is improved, will amplify climate change by reducing the cooling effect due to aerosols and also by increasing the amount of carbon dioxide that remains in the atmosphere. Uncertainty about the magnitude of past and present cooling, however, means that we cannot be certain about the strength of future warming, which may exceed previous estimates.

Tooth whiteners that could enhance teeth’s natural healing ability may soon be available in over-the-counter gels and strips, according to a dental researcher who shared his team’s latest findings today at the American Dental Association’s national media conference.

July is UV Safety Month, and the American Academy of Ophthalmology reminds Americans of the importance of protecting their eyes from the sun’s harmful rays by wearing sunglasses and wide-brimmed hats. One of the greatest threats to your eyes is invisible. The scientific evidence is piling up: long-term exposure to invisible ultraviolet radiation can damage our eyes and lead to vision loss. Everyone — including children — is at risk.

A team of researchers recently revealed it has discovered the smallest planet yet found orbiting a normal star outside the solar system thanks to a new computer program developed under the guidance of a NASA astronomer. The team studied irregularities in the motion of two known giant extrasolar planets circling the star Gliese 876 and its motion to deduce the presence of a third planet in that system, according to a scientific paper submitted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. An extrasolar planet is a planet that orbits any star other than the sun.

A study using new measures of heart disease risk shows that gastric bypass surgery reduces the risk of heart disease even more than previously believed. The researchers say the finding underscores the value of the surgery for extremely overweight people, whose obesity puts them in danger of heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular illness.

A new study shows that a drug, called daclizumab, is effective at reducing organ rejection and risk of infection in heart transplant patients. The multi-center study by cardiologists from the United States, Sweden, Germany and Canada will be published in the June 30 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Scientists funded by the USDA have found that the higher the carbohydrate intake, the higher the odds of developing a certain type of cataract among a group of women aged 53 to 73 years. When damaged proteins gather within one or both of the eye lenses, the resulting area that becomes cloudy, or opaque, is called cataract.

What Hollywood studios call censorship and copyright infringement, software companies call freedom and parental choice. Any wonder that the legal issues raised by new film software is winding up in the courts and before Congress? The technology that has Hollywood angry allows consumers to skip over scenes and mute words of copyrighted films. The technology comes in several forms.

A recently completed study by scientists at the Oregon Research Institute (ORI) in Eugene confirmed earlier findings from a pilot study that walking on a cobblestone mat surface resulted in significant reductions in blood pressure and improvements in balance and physical performance among adults 60 and over. An article published in an early online publication of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society summarizes the study results in a randomized trial.

Comparative studies of captive breeding strategies conducted at Rice University bolster the case for costly and sometimes troublesome breeding programs that preserve maximum genetic variability in small populations of endangered species. Worldwide, zoos spend millions of dollars each year transporting rare animals thousands of miles in order to breed them with their most distantly related relatives. Some have questioned the need for such programs, which can stress rare animals, even to the point of death.

The intense controversy surrounding the new conflict-of-interest regulations at the National Institutes of Health prompted The Science Advisory Board to look closely at what constitutes acceptable pursuits for government scientists to engage in for compensation from industry.

A scientist has developed a new way to calculate the age of the Milky Way that is free of the unvalidated assumptions that have plagued previous methods. The method, which he reports in the June 29 issue of the journal Nature, can now be used to tackle other mysteries of the cosmos that have remained unsolved for decades.

As a part of a research collaboration, scientists at the Sahlgrenska Academy at Göteborg University, Sweden, have developed a new drug candidate against HIV-infection. The new substance, named alphaHGA, will be tested on patients this year.

Predicted increases in precipitation due to warmer air temperatures from greenhouse gas emissions may actually increase sea ice volume in the Antarctic’s Southern Ocean. This finding from a new study adds evidence of potential asymmetry between the two poles and may be an indication that climate change processes may have varying impacts on different areas of the globe.