When the Larsen B Ice Shelf in Antarctica collapsed in 2002, the event appeared to be a sudden response to climate change, and this long, fringing ice shelf in the north west part of the Weddell Sea was assumed to be the latest in a long line of victims of Antarctic summer heat waves linked to Global Warming. However scientists now say that the shelf was already teetering on collapse before the final summer. Global warming had a major part to play in the collapse, but it is only one in a number of contributory factors.
Our alarm clocks may spring forward on March 9, but our biological clocks may take longer to adjust. That's because our internal clocks are so tightly wound to many physiological and behavioral processes. Researchers have learned that circadian rhythms--the 24-hour cycles that keep our bodies on time--are involved in sleep, weight gain, mood disorders, and a variety of diseases. Now, they've made remarkable strides in identifying genes and neural pathways involved in regulating our internal clocks. Building on this bed of research could lead to new treatments for insomnia, jet lag, depression, obesity, and other disorders.
New research shows that parents influence their child's likelihood of involvement with drugs, alcohol and risky sexual activity even after their child leaves for college. Specifically, students who said their fathers were in the loop had a lower likelihood of doing drugs or engaging in risky sexual behaviors. When mothers were in the know, students were less likely to drink alcohol. The protective effect of mothers' awareness was more pronounced when the students also felt close to their mom. Under those circumstances, the researchers found that students were less likely to be involved in any of the three risk behavior categories studied: drugs, alcohol and risky sexual activity.
A study to assess the adverse effects of anti-retroviral drugs shows that two widely-used HIV drugs are associated with an increased risk of heart attack/the formation of blood clots in the heart. With the use of Didanosine, the risk of developing a heart attack increases by 49 percent; with Abacavir, the increased risk is 90 percent. The effect is most pronounced in patients with a high underlying cardiovascular risk.
Madagascar's turtles and tortoises, which rank among the most endangered reptiles on earth, will continue to crawl steadily toward extinction unless major conservation measure are enacted, according to a recent assessment. The researchers said there is still hope to save these ancient animals, but time is running out as their habitat continues to shrink and illegal hunting worsens. Five of the nine assessed species have been downgraded to critically endangered, with one variety -- the ploughshare tortoise -- now numbering only a few hundred individuals. The other critically endangered species include the radiated tortoise, flat-tailed tortoise, spider tortoise and Madagascar big-headed turtle, all of which are found nowhere else on earth.
The Big Apple, a densely populated metropolis of more than 8.2 million people in the 332 square miles of blocks, boroughs and buildings, could have been named metaphorically by outsiders as a fertile land of opportunity. New York City, in other words, can be considered concretely as a geographical location with a large population, but it also can be viewed symbolically as the gateway to America. While both of these descriptions are accurate, they are based on an individual’s perception of, and even physical distance from, the city. People tend to perceive objects as being more abstract when those stimuli are difficult to process mentally, known as cognitive disfluency, or are physically further away. Using this research-based theory, it is safe to assume, therefore, that people residing in Tokyo have a more symbolic notion of New York than New Yorkers have of themselves.
Researchers have sequenced the genome of a rare bacterium that harvests light energy by making an even rarer form of chlorophyll, chlorophyll d. Chlorophyll d absorbs "red edge," near infrared, long wave length light, invisible to the naked eye. In so doing, the cyanobacterium Acaryochloris marina, competes with virtually no other plant or bacterium in the world for sunlight.
A new study may change current thinking about how best to treat patients in respiratory distress in hospital intensive care units. It has been commonly believed that high levels of carbon dioxide or hypercapnia in the blood and lungs of patients with acute lung disease may be beneficial to them. Now, for the first time, scientists have shown how elevated levels of carbon dioxide actually have the opposite effect and impair lung functioning.
A new study suggests that socioeconomic factors best explain patterns of the infectious disease American Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in Costa Rica. Contrary to the established belief that deforestation reduces the risk of infection, the research shows that deforestation may actually make socially marginalized human populations more vulnerable to infection.
Out of chaos, control: Molecular biologists have discovered how a protein called PARP-1 binds to genes and regulates their expression across the human genome. Knowing where PARP-1 is located and how it works may allow scientists to target this protein while battling common human diseases.
Scientists have shown, with terahertz (THz) spectroscopy, that proteins do significantly modify water molecules in their environment: The water molecules, which generally move around like disco dancers in their collective network motions behave more like in a neat minuet under protein influence. Protein folding also changes the dancing steps of water.
Aphids that eat Brussels sprouts are smaller than normal and live in undersized populations, which has a negative knock-on effect up the food chain according to new research in Science. The study shows for the first time that the nutritional quality of plant food sources for herbivores has a far-reaching impact on an ecosystem as a whole, potentially impeding important functions that the ecosystem performs, such as the natural predation and control of agricultural pests.
Diets with high amounts of whole grains may help achieve significant weight loss, and also reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to a nutritional researchers. In the study, the whole grain group experienced a 38 percent decrease in C-reactive protein levels in their blood. A high level of this inflammatory marker is thought to place patients at a higher risk for diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease.
Many scientists believe up to 40 percent of liver cancer is caused by stem cells gone wild. Despite years spent looking, no one has ever found these liver "cancer stem cells." Now, researchers report discovering both types of stem cells, and by comparing their genetic "signatures," they found evidence to suggest that a new type of experimental drug might offer benefit in treating liver cancer.
