Athens, Ga. — A new University of Georgia study that is the first to examine comprehensively the magnitude of hydrocarbon gases released during the Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico oil discharge has found that up to 500,000 tons of gaseous hydroca…
The rise of social media has allowed people to connect and re-connect with friends, colleagues and family from across the world. A new paper by University of Minnesota computer scientists in the College of Science and Engineering provides insights i…
The increased frequency of drought observed in eastern Africa over the last 20 years is likely to continue as long as global temperatures continue to rise, according to new research published in Climate Dynamics.
This poses increased risk to the …
LA JOLLA, CA — January 20, 2011 — Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have found that a known enzyme in cells protects against measles virus, likely by altering the virus’s genetic material, RNA. Cells lacking the enzyme become highly v…
ALBANY, Calif. — Forests in the southwestern United States are changing and will face reduced growth if temperatures continue to rise and precipitation declines during this century, according to a study conducted by a team of scientists from the U….
Children aren’t the only youngsters who are picky eaters: More than half of all species are believed to change their diets — sometimes more than once — between birth and adulthood. And a new study by ecologists at Rice University and the Universit…
It’s not just you everybody zones out when they’re reading. For a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, scientists recorded eye movements during reading and found that the eyes keep mo…
BUFFALO, N.Y. — In the first study of its kind, researchers have found compelling evidence that our best and worst experiences in life are likely to involve not individual accomplishments, but interaction with other people and the fulfillment of an…
One of the hottest nutritional supplements, currently manufactured by fermentation only in Japan, may eventually be synthesized in the United States thanks to research at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Bruce H. Lipshutz, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UCSB, has developed a way to prepare coenzyme Q 10 (CoQ10 ) that he calls “short and sweet.” His method is patented and he is already talking to U.S. companies regarding potential commercialization. The process is economically competitive, using transition metal catalysts along the way, such as inexpensive nickel and cobalt complexes.
Scientists at the Center for the Study of Macular Degeneration at the Neuroscience Research Institute of the University of California, Santa Barbara have found a link between the brain plaques that form in Alzheimer?s disease and the deposits in the retina that are associated with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). AMD is a disease that leads to loss of central vision and affects 5 to 10 percent of the population over age 60.
It might be 500,000 years or five years, but the Central Valley of Costa Rica will definitely experience major volcanic activity again, according to Phillip B. Gans, professor of geology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He presented a study of volcanic rocks of Costa Rica in his recent talk at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America.
Biodiversity worldwide may be decreasing, but at smaller scales it is increasing or at least changing in composition, suggesting the need for a dramatic shift in the current focus of ecological research. These changes may undermine the functioning of local ecosystems, according to an article in December’s American Naturalist. The authors studied data collected on oceanic island land birds and plants. Records from islands are useful because they present discrete areas where additions and subtractions of species can be accurately determined. The article, “Species Invasions Exceed extinctions on Islands Worldwide: A Comparative Study of Plants and Birds,” documents the fact that “land birds have experienced massive extinctions on oceanic islands, with many islands losing more than half of their native species,” said Gaines. “On these same islands, however, many exotic bird species have become established, such that the total number of land bird species has remained relatively unchanged.”