Posts

February 27, 2013

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4:15 PM | Omega-3 Shows Protective Effect Against Skin Cancer

The anti-inflammatory effect of fish and fish oil supplements have long been used to bring down high blood pressure and keep heart disease at bay. The secret ingredient is their omega-3 fatty acids. A new study shows that omega-3 may be good for your skin, too. Most skin cancer is the result of exposure to ultraviolet radiation [...]

February 25, 2013

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9:43 PM | Stress Makes Organic Fruits Healthier Than Conventional

Next time you’re in the supermarket weighing the glossy conventional fruit against the small, blotched organic alternative, consider this: organic fruits’ stunted size may be the signal of their nutritional prowess. Various studies in recent years have shown that some organic fruits and vegetables have nutritional advantages over conventionally-grown produce. For instance, organic tomatoes contain [...]

February 22, 2013

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4:47 PM | Bullying Harms Not Only Victims But Bullies Too

Researchers at Duke have spent the last two decades studying bullying and they say that it seriously affects mental health in childhood and adulthood, for the bully as well as the victim. The researchers interviewed some 1,420 kids in North Carolina during their adolescent years, starting at age 9, 11, or 13. About a quarter of the [...]

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1:33 AM | Most zombie ant photographs are upside down

Since we’re on the topic of zombies, a public service announcement: Most zombie ant photographs are upside-down. Few insect natural history stories capture public imagination as much as “zombie ants”. These ants are infected with a brain fungus that directs them to a resting place with ideal humidity for fungal growth. The fungus then kills [...]

February 21, 2013

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6:43 PM | Watch This: 3-D Printing an Implantable Ear

How do you make a human ear that looks and functions like a real one? Researchers at Cornell published the first successful process in PLoS ONE Wednesday. Step 1: Take a laser scan of a real human ear. Step 2: Use digitization to print an ear-shaped collagen mold using a 3-D printer. Step 3: Inject [...]

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2:53 PM | Disease-Carrying Mosquitoes Can Tolerate DEET Repellant

DEET is the mother of all mosquito repellants. Its strong stench keeps bugs at bay by affronting their olfactory systems with an intensely offensive odor. But scientists are now running into a problem with DEET’s effectiveness: after three hours the stuff no longer deters buzzing biters. N,N-Diethyl-3-methylbenzamide, a.k.a. DEET, first emerged as a pesticide for [...]

February 20, 2013

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6:32 PM | New SARS-Like Virus is Well-Equipped for Infecting Humans

A virus related to SARS has claimed its sixth victim, officials announced yesterday. A British man has died of the coronavirus, called HCoV-EMC, which was first identified last year. There have been a total of 12 cases of the coronavirus in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Now in a new study researchers have actually [...]

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4:05 PM | Retinal Implant Restores Vision to the Blind Without a Camera

In people with hereditary retinal diseases like retinitis pigmentosa, the eyes’ photoreceptors, or light sensors, degenerate slowly over time, eventually leading to blindness. While these people are unable to see, the rest of their visual pathway remains intact and functional. Researchers in Germany now have a way to work around this roadblock by introducing an implant [...]

February 19, 2013

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6:08 PM | Ancient Tooth Plaque Reveals Dietary Decline

It’s pretty standard for scientists to look at human skeletons to reconstruct past human health. But a new approach looks not at our ancestors themselves but the hardened gunk on their teeth to re-create the timeline of human dietary changes. Scientists performed that analysis by looking at an array of ancient teeth. They found that shifts in the [...]

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2:09 PM | Fossils Reveal Four New Species of Ancient Whales

Paleontologists in California announced this week that fossils excavated in the early 2000s represent four new species of ancient whales. The toothed baleen whales apparently stuck around longer than scientists once thought, and they may hold clues about how and when whales evolved from toothy giants to the baleen-equipped beasts we see today. It all [...]

February 16, 2013

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4:41 PM | Art of the Living Dead

Swarms of army ants naturally inspire fear, of course, but to people who know ants this painting is even more terrifying. Hashime Murayama has not only drawn army ants, but undead army ants, their reanimated corpses lurching towards us in eerie procession. The bodies rigid, antennae jarringly askew, these ants are clearly chasing us from [...]

February 14, 2013

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11:48 PM | Confirmed: Cosmic Rays Come From Exploding Stars

Supernovae, the spectacular death rattles of the largest stars, are the astronomical gifts that keep giving. The stellar explosions can add a temporary new jewel to the night (and sometimes day) sky, and they leave behind spectacular and intricate formations known as remnants. A certain class of supernovae helped astronomers realize that the universe’s expansion [...]

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7:39 PM | Anti-Anxiety Drug in Water System Changes Fish Behavior

“Must be something in the water” isn’t just a line from the opening minutes of a horror movie. New evidence confirms fears that animals’ behavior can be altered by medication inadvertently introduced into their habitats via our sewage systems. In a study published today Swedish researchers report that fish given Oxazepam, an anxiety-moderating drug for [...]

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6:51 PM | Gut Bacteria Influence Worms’ Lifespans

It’s not as exciting as El Dorado’s source of eternal youth, but nitric oxide-producing bacteria are extending the lifespan of the humble roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans. The worm lacks the enzyme needed to produce nitric oxide. In animals which are capable of manufacturing nitric oxide, it has been shown to increase blood flow, promote efficient nerve [...]

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6:02 PM | Urban Light Causes Birds to Bloom Early

City lights at night make pretty views from space, but they’re not so good for sleeping. To overcome a messed up inner clock, many urban dwellers have learned to use light-blocking curtains or eye masks. But people aren’t the only ones who have to adjust to this unnatural illumination. Blackbirds, too, are exposed to this nighttime glow, and [...]

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4:18 PM | Look at This: Colorful Birthplace of Galaxy’s Youngest Black Hole

This colorful supernova remnant is called W49B, and inside it astronomers think they may have found the Milky Way’s youngest black hole. It’s only 1,000 years old, as seen from Earth, and 26,000 lightyears away. From a vantage point on NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers observed and measured the remnant and determined it to be very [...]

February 13, 2013

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11:14 PM | Protein “Filmed” Unfolding for the First Time

Proteins — tools of living cells — can’t do their job if they’re not in shape. Literally. And a new study is the first to image the various stages of a protein’s undoing, which will lend valuable insight to treatment of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Those are just two of the diseases caused [...]

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8:40 PM | To Read Better, Dyslexics May Need to Speed Things Up

“Slow down. Sound it out.” This is the mantra for most dyslexic students learning to read. But results from a new computer training program suggest that the opposite may be true for dyslexics once they’ve learned to read—going faster could improve reading skills and comprehension. Researchers in Israel compared the reading skills of dyslexic and non-dyslexic university [...]

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7:19 PM | The Spider Assassin

Here’s a Belizean bug that doesn’t look like much: I’m serious. In the field the insect looked like so little I thought it merely debris in a disorganized spider’s web. I didn’t see the faint outline of a young assassin bug until the debris shuddered, ever so slightly. The dramatic contrast of the above image [...]

February 12, 2013

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3:24 PM | Asteroid Will Make Close Pass by Earth on Friday

On Friday, February 15, astronomers will get an unusually good look at a near-Earth asteroid called 2012 DA14. It will be the first time a known object of this size will come this close to Earth—a mere 8 percent the distance between us and our moon. The asteroid, which measures 150 feet across, was first [...]

February 11, 2013

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7:54 PM | Crowdsourcing New Names for Pluto’s Moons

Any mention of Pluto among astronomy buffs, around water coolers and in comments sections, is enough to spark controversy. When the diminutive world officially became known as a dwarf planet in 2006, many took the “demotion” personally. But an announcement today from the SETI Institute might just be cool enough to bring everyone together. The [...]

February 08, 2013

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8:51 PM | Salmon Navigate Home Using Earth’s Magnetic Fields

Sockeye salmon put on a lot of miles during their short life. From the freshwater riverbeds where they hatch and spend their first couple years, juvenile salmon travel some 4,000 miles to the ocean where they fatten up for two years before turning around and retracing their steps. But salmon can’t leave actual footprints, nor [...]

February 07, 2013

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4:30 PM | Brain Connections Contribute to Our Unique Personalities

Every person thinks and acts a little differently than the other 7 billion on the planet. Scientists now say that variations in brain connections account for much of this individuality, and they’ve narrowed it down to a few specific regions of the brain. This might help us better understand the evolution of the human brain [...]

February 06, 2013

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6:45 PM | Bionic Man Has Fully Functional Mechanical Organs

With working organs and a realistic face, the world’s most high-tech humanoid made his debut in London yesterday and will be a one-man show at the city’s London Science Museum starting tomorrow. The robot goes by Rex (short for robotic exoskeleton) or Million-Dollar Man (because that’s how much it cost to build him). Rex looks somewhat [...]

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2:09 PM | Listen as Solar Flare Engulfs Radio Waves

We’re not supposed to look at the sun, but no one said anything about listening. If you, like amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft, had your radio tuned to the right frequency last Saturday evening, you would have heard the garbled effects of a solar flare drowning out radio waves here on Earth after it erupted on [...]

February 05, 2013

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4:16 PM | Insects Clean Antennae to Sharpen Sense of Smell

Insects constantly clean their antennae, even when they appear to be clean. A group of researchers decided that the phenomenon warranted a closer look, and they used American cockroaches to see what was going on. It turns out that the obsessive behavior is actually the way many insects keep their sense of smell sharp—though it may [...]

February 04, 2013

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6:40 PM | DNA Analysis Confirms Skeleton of King Richard III

In their search for the lost grave of King Richard III, archaeologists unearthed a skeleton from underneath a parking lot last August. Today researchers announced that the skeleton is indeed that of England’s 500-year-deceased king, and they have the DNA and radiocarbon dating to prove it. Richard III is most famous for the Shakespeare play [...]

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6:00 PM | Darwin’s lost fossils

Last year some of Darwin’s fossils were refound in a British Geological Society cabinet. How good would that find feel? Perhaps an incentive for a quick clear out at work? After all, it is (almost) time for a good spring … Continue reading →

February 03, 2013

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6:09 PM | Publications, finally!

It can seem like a long, long, loooong slog until you see the seeds of your scientific labour bear publication fruit. First drafts, second drafts, co-author comments, third drafts, track changes, endless literature searches for that one critical reference, tenth … Continue reading →

February 02, 2013

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3:01 PM | Condensation, Not Temperature, May Drive Global Winds

What causes wind? Any elementary science textbook will tell you it’s about pressure differences: Hot air rises and cool air rushes into the void, creating wind in the process. This is the driving force of our climate system as a whole. The existing paradigm relies on temperature alone to create these pressure differences, but new [...]