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...
In blind people, brain’s vision center plays role in solving math problems
Human babies and even animals have a basic number sense that many believe evolves from seeing the world and trying to quantify all the sights. But vision has nothing to do with it—Johns Hopkins University neuroscientists have found that the brain network behind...
Sea Otter Survey Encouraging, but Comes Up Short of the ‘Perfect Story’
The southern sea otter, Enhydra lutris nereis, continues its climb toward recovery, according to the annual count released today by the U.S. Geological Survey and partners. For the first time, southern sea otters’ numbers have exceeded 3,090, which is the threshold...
New explanation offered for symptoms of fragile X syndrome
Until recently, scientists thought they understood one of the underlying causes of fragile X syndrome, the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability in the United States. The syndrome, which is associated with autism, was believed to be linked primarily...
How does a heart defect start? Stanford scientists use stem cells to find out
For years, pediatric cardiologists have been trying to understand the origin of a puzzling structural defect of the heart muscle wall, a congenital problem called left ventricular non-compaction (LVNC). In people with this defect, the muscle of the heart’s biggest...
Oxytocin Enhances Spirituality, New Study Says
Oxytocin has been dubbed the “love hormone” for its role promoting social bonding, altruism and more. Now new research from Duke University suggests the hormone may also support spirituality. In the study, men reported a greater sense of spirituality shortly after...
Engineers and intriguing data from deep space
After 10 weeks of flawless operation in 2015, the radar aboard NASA’s billion-dollar Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite suddenly stopped sending signals back to Earth. Understandably, “there was a sense of loss and disappointment,” said Mahta Moghaddam, a...
Pacific Ocean’s response to greenhouse gases could extend California drought for centuries
Clues from prehistoric droughts and arid periods in California show that today’s increasing greenhouse gas levels could lock the state into drought for centuries, according to a study led by UCLA professor Glen MacDonald. The study, published today in the Nature.com...
Maternal depression significantly higher in low- and middle-income countries
Mothers in low- and middle-income countries experience high rates of depression during pregnancy and following the birth of their babies, according to a new study led by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. They found that one in four women...
Making Catalysts Smarter
The industrial catalysts of the future won’t just speed up reactions, they’ll control how chemical processes work and determine how much of a particular product is made. A team of researchers led by Phillip Christopher, assistant professor of chemical and...
Quality, not quantity, of diet is key to health of baby birds
In a new study that upends the way ornithologists think about a young bird’s diet – but won’t shock parents used to scanning the nutritional profile of their children’s food – Cornell researchers have found that when it comes to what chicks eat, quality trumps...
Finding could improve nuclear reactors, detectors
Found in nuclear fuel and nuclear weapons, plutonium is an incredibly complex element that has far-ranging energy, security, and environmental effects. To understand plutonium, scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Washington State University delved...
Microbes help plants survive in severe drought
With California in its fifth year of severe drought and many western states experiencing another year of unusually dry conditions, plants are stressed. Agricultural crops, grasses and garden plants alike can get sick and die when factors such as drought and excess sun...
Hippocampus helps fill in the blanks of language
A new study shows that when you finish your spouse’s sentences or answer a fill-in-the-blank question, you’re engaging the brain’s relay station for memories, an area that until now was largely neglected by scientists studying language. It seems obvious that speaking...
Jet fuel may be grown on iconic Aussie gum trees
Scientists are a step closer to using Australia’s iconic gum trees to develop low-carbon renewable jet and missile fuel. Dr Carsten Kulheim from The Australian National University (ANU), a lead researcher in an international study published in Trends in...
