Conserving a wealth of diversity: The dry tropical forests of Latin America
Dry forests in Latin America are among the world’s most threatened tropical forests. Less than 10 percent of their original extent remains in many countries, much less than many rain forests such as Amazonia, which remains approximately 80 percent intact. Dry forests...
Engineers create room-temperature multiferroic material
Multiferroics – materials that exhibit both magnetic and electric order – are of interest for next-generation computing but difficult to create because the conditions conducive to each of those states are usually mutually exclusive. And in most multiferroics found to...
Melatonin, biological clock keep singing fish on time
In the 1980s, people living on houseboats in the San Francisco Bay were puzzled by a droning hum of unknown origin that started abruptly in the late evening and stopped suddenly in the morning. A lengthy investigation revealed the culprit: male plainfin midshipman...
Plant-made Antimicrobial Peptide Targets Dental Plaque and Gum Tissues
Protein drugs, which derive from biological sources, represent some of the most important and effective biopharmaceuticals on the market. Some, like insulin, have been used for decades, while many more based on cloned genes are coming to market and are valued for...
New Species of Ancient Texas Reptile Offers Clues to Evolution of Dinosaurs
A newly described species of extinct reptile that roamed Texas more than 200 million years ago had a strikingly dome-shaped head with a very thick skull and a large natural pit on top that lends the appearance of an extra eye, according to a study released Sept. 22 in...
Stanford researchers reveal details about the unique feeding habits of whales
Whales are the biggest animals to ever have existed on Earth, and yet some subsist on creatures the size of a paper clip. It’s a relatively common factoid, but, in truth, how they do this is only just being uncovered, thanks to new technologies. What scientists do...
Researchers identify protein critical in causing chronic UTIs
Researchers have identified a potential way to prevent chronic urinary tract infections (UTIs). Their research points to a key protein that bacteria use to latch onto the bladder and cause UTIs, according to scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in...
Galactic Fireworks Illuminate Monster Hydrogen Blob
An international team of researchers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and other telescopes has discovered the power source illuminating a so-called Lyman-alpha Blob – a rare, brightly glowing, and enormous concentration of gas in the...
‘Schroedinger’s Cat’ Molecules Give Rise to Exquisitely Detailed Movies
One of the most famous mind-twisters of the quantum world is the thought experiment known as “Schroedinger’s Cat,” in which a cat placed in a box and potentially exposed to poison is simultaneously dead and alive until someone opens the box and peeks inside....
Hope for hair loss: Arthritis drug spurs regrowth
Researchers at Yale and Stanford have provided the most conclusive evidence to date that a rheumatoid arthritis drug can also be used to grow hair on patients with a disease that causes disfiguring hair loss. Alopecia areata is a frequently devastating autoimmune...
Researchers invent waterproof patch to monitor UV ray exposure
How much sun exposure is enough? Andrea Armani, holder of the Fluor Early Career Chair in Engineering and graduate researcher Michele Lee of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering have developed a color-changing patch that can notify users of exposure to ultraviolet...
African-American Transplant Recipients at risk for skin cancer
A new study from Drexel University College of Medicine suggests all organ transplant recipients, regardless of race, should receive routine, total-body screenings for skin cancer. Out of 259 nonwhite transplant recipients who were evaluated in the study, 19 skin...
‘Likes’ less likely to affect self-esteem of people with purpose
How many likes did I get? The rush of self-esteem that comes with the ubiquitous thumbs-up has more people asking that question, as Facebook and other social media sites offer more ways for friends to endorse photos and posts. But one group seems immune to that rush:...
Scientists triple known types of viruses in world’s oceans
The world’s oceans teem with scientific mystery, unknowns that could prove to be tools that will one day protect the planet from global warming. Today, researchers report they’ve tripled the known types of viruses living in waters around the globe, and now have a...
What’s happening beneath Greenland?
A new study on the Greenland Ice Sheet provides valuable insight on climate change, using unique research methods to establish new estimates of ice loss for both modern and ancient times, says UB geologist Beata Csatho, one of more than a dozen team members on the...
New immunotherapy for leukemia shows promise in small clinical trial
A new type of immunotherapy shows promise against cases of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) that recur after treatment or that never respond to therapy in the first place. A small clinical trial at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis provides evidence...
Indian Ocean sea level on the rise
A new paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows that sea level rise in the northern Indian Ocean rose twice as fast as the global average since 2003. This represents a stark contrast to the previous decade, when the region experienced very little sea level...
Thirdhand smoke lingers in the home long after smokers have quit.
Even when you quit smoking, residue left behind by cigarette smoke can stick to surfaces, penetrate deep into materials in your home and settle in for a long time to come. A new study led by researchers at San Diego State University finds that even six months after...
Moderate Alcohol Use Linked to Heart Chamber Damage, Atrial Fibrillation in New Study
Enjoy a glass of wine with dinner or a nightcap before bed, but don’t count on their heart benefits. A new study by UC San Francisco researchers found that even moderate alcohol consumption may change the structure of the heart in ways that increase the risk of atrial...
Automated screening for childhood communication disorders
For children with speech and language disorders, early-childhood intervention can make a great difference in their later academic and social success. But many such children — one study estimates 60 percent — go undiagnosed until kindergarten or even later. Researchers...
New DNA from understudied groups reveals modern genetic variation, ancient population shifts
A study of hundreds of new genomes from across the globe has yielded insights into modern human genetic diversity and ancient population dynamics, including compelling evidence that essentially all non-Africans today descend from a single migration out of Africa. The...
Greenland ice is melting 7 percent faster than previously thought
The same hotspot in Earth’s mantle that feeds Iceland’s active volcanoes has been playing a trick on the scientists who are trying to measure how much ice is melting on nearby Greenland. According to a new study in the journal Science Advances, the hotspot softened...
Astronomers pinpoint how Milky Way Galaxy was formed
Using colors to identify the approximate ages of more than 130,000 stars in the Milky Way’s halo, astronomers have produced the clearest picture yet of how our galaxy formed more than 13.5 billion years ago. The astronomers, based at the University of Notre Dame, are...
Past climate swings orchestrated early human migration waves out of Africa
Homo sapiens left Africa around 100,000 years ago in a series of astronomically paced slow migration waves and arrived for the first time in southern Europe around 80,000-90,000 years ago, according to a new study published in the journal Nature. These results by a...
Two mood drugs combat virus implicated in birth defects
Two mood-stabilizing drugs provide protection against a potentially dangerous virus implicated in birth defects as well as disease in people with compromised immune systems, Yale School of Medicine researchers have found. The related drugs, valnoctamide and...
Antarctic mystery solved?
Scientists say ocean fossils found in mountains are cause for concern over future sea levels Tiny ocean fossils distributed widely across rock surfaces in the Transantarctic Mountains point to the potential for a substantial rise in global sea levels under conditions...
Could a floor price fix Australia’s alcohol problem?
An innovative analysis by our researchers could unstick a decades-old debate over alcohol taxation policy. The new paper, by Anurag Sharma, Fabrice Etilé and Kompal Sinha, provides much-needed insight into how alcohol consumption would look under a different alcohol...
Mothers of Children with Autism May Face Higher Risks for Heart Disease
Mothers who were raising children with autism and reported chronic stress were more likely to have high levels of “bad” cholesterol and lower levels of protective progenitor cells than lower-stressed mothers of “neurotypical” children – two factors that may boost...
Biological ‘dark matter’ molecule plays surprise role in heart failure
Scientists at UCLA have identified a molecule that appears to play a key role in the development of heart failure. The scientists found that blocking the molecule, known as chaer, in animal studies prevented the animals from developing heart failure. Although the...
Graphene nanoribbons show promise for healing spinal injuries
The combination of graphene nanoribbons made with a process developed at Rice University and a common polymer could someday be of critical importance to healing damaged spinal cords in people, according to Rice chemist James Tour. The Tour lab has spent a decade...
