http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A reduction of as little as five per cent in fisheries catch could result in as much as 30 per cent of the British Columbia coastal ecosystems being protected from overfishing, according to a new study from the UBC Fisheries Centre. http://www.physorg.com/news167476630.html Space & Earth Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:18:49 EST news167476630 Winter chill, a vital climatic trigger for many tree crops, is likely to decrease by more than 50 percent during this century as global climate warms, making California no longer suitable for growing many fruit and nut crops, according to a team of researchers from the University of California, Davis, and the University of Washington. http://www.physorg.com/news167457253.html Space & Earth Wed, 22 Jul 2009 05:30:01 EST news167457253 The new research study led by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego suggests that by improving overall ocean health, corals are better able to recover from bleaching events, which occur when rising sea temperatures force corals to expel their symbiotic algae, known as zooxanthellae. Coral bleaching is a phenomenon that is expected to increase in frequency as global climate change increases ocean temperatures worldwide. http://www.physorg.com/news167458823.html Space & Earth Wed, 22 Jul 2009 05:21:30 EST news167458823 A cellular protein that may prevent nerve cells from dying also helps to improve insulin action and lower blood glucose levels, according to a study by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in collaboration with scientists at University of California, Los Angeles. http://www.physorg.com/news167458070.html Medicine & Health Wed, 22 Jul 2009 05:08:30 EST news167458070 Long-term declines of elephants, giraffe, impala and other animals in Kenya are occurring at the same rates within the country's national parks as outside of these protected areas, according to a study released this week. http://www.physorg.com/news166251048.html Biology Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:51:23 EST news166251048 Fear is a powerful emotion and neuroscientists have for the first time located the neurons responsible for fear conditioning in the mammalian brain. Fear conditioning is a form of Pavlovian, or associative, learning and is considered to be a model system for understanding human phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders. http://www.physorg.com/news166161392.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Jul 2009 04:57:22 EST news166161392 (PhysOrg.com) -- In addition to providing fundamental insights into the early evolution of the estrogen receptor, research by a team at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine may lead to a contraceptive for female lampreys - a jawless fish considered an invasive pest species in the Great Lakes region of the United States. This could prove important to the Great Lakes region, where lampreys aggressively consume trout, salmon, sturgeon and other game fish. http://www.physorg.com/news165125517.html Biology Thu, 25 Jun 2009 05:40:01 EST news165125517 (AP) -- Puzzling new research suggests women have a harder time than men looking at babies with facial birth defects. It's a surprise finding. Psychiatrists from the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital, who were studying perceptions of beauty, had expected women to spend more time than men cooing over pictures of extra-cute babies. Nope. http://www.physorg.com/news165038430.html Medicine & Health Wed, 24 Jun 2009 05:20:01 EST news165038430 A new University of Florida study shows mammals change their dietary niches based on climate-driven environmental changes, contradicting a common assumption that species maintain their niches despite global warming. http://www.physorg.com/news163226727.html Other Sciences Wed, 03 Jun 2009 05:47:45 EST news163226727 Current tests to identify specific strains of infectious prions, which cause a range of transmissible diseases (such as mad cow) in animals and humans, can take anywhere from six months to a year to yield results - a time-lag that may put human populations at risk. http://www.physorg.com/news162818825.html Medicine & Health Fri, 29 May 2009 12:27:34 EST news162818825 It's a long-standing and crucial question that, as yet, remains unanswered: just how common is scientific misconduct? In the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE, Daniele Fanelli of the University of Edinburgh reports the first meta-analysis of surveys questioning scientists about their misbehaviours. The results suggest that altering or making up data is more frequent than previously estimated and might be particularly high in medical research. http://www.physorg.com/news162795064.html Other Sciences Fri, 29 May 2009 05:52:29 EST news162795064 Focusing HIV drug development on immune cells called macrophages instead of traditionally targeted T cells could bring us closer to eradicating the disease, according to new research from University of Florida and five other institutions. http://www.physorg.com/news162670146.html Medicine & Health Wed, 27 May 2009 19:21:49 EST news162670146 A biological anthropologist from Appalachian State University working with an undergraduate student from Appalachian, an evolutionary biologist from UNC Greensboro, and a team of archaeologists from Deccan College (Pune, India) recently reported analysis of a 4000-year-old skeleton from India bearing evidence of leprosy. This skeleton represents both the earliest archaeological evidence for human infection with Mycobacterium leprae in the world and the first evidence for the disease in prehistoric India. http://www.physorg.com/news162625865.html Other Sciences Wed, 27 May 2009 06:51:47 EST news162625865 The Atlantic cod has, for many centuries, sustained major fisheries on both sides of the Atlantic. However, the North American fisheries have now largely collapsed. A new paper in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE from scientists at the University of Iceland and Marine Research Institute in Reykjavik provides insights into possible mechanisms of the collapse of fisheries, due to fisheries-induced evolution. http://www.physorg.com/news162625581.html Biology Wed, 27 May 2009 06:46:53 EST news162625581 A study of venomous snails on remote Pacific islands reveals genetic underpinnings of an ecological phenomenon that has fascinated scientists since Darwin. http://www.physorg.com/news162057692.html Biology Wed, 20 May 2009 17:02:17 EST news162057692 New combinations of agents based on the oldest synthetic malaria drug, the methylene blue stain, can curb the spread of malaria parasites and make a significant contribution to the long-term eradication called for by the international "Roll Back Malaria Initiative." In a study on 160 children with malaria in Burkina Faso, specialists in tropical medicine from the Heidelberg University Hospital have shown that in combination with newer malaria drugs, methylene blue prevents the malaria pathogen in infected persons from being re-ingested by mosquitoes and then transmitted to others and is thus twice as effective as the standard therapy. The results of the study were published in May 2009 in the online journal PLoS One. http://www.physorg.com/news162034412.html Medicine & Health Wed, 20 May 2009 10:33:57 EST news162034412 Subordinate individuals living within a group of vertebrates sometimes assist a more dominant pair by helping to raise the dominant pair's offspring and this has been shown to occur among subordinate female cichlids. Reporting in the online, open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, Dik Heg and colleagues at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and the Ohio State University, suggest that rather than engaging in an act of reciprocal altruism, these subordinate females actually benefit from the care-giving they offer as the more helpful subordinates are more likely to reproduce. http://www.physorg.com/news161606460.html Biology Fri, 15 May 2009 11:41:49 EST news161606460 Improving the environment in which rats are reared can significantly strengthen the physiological process of wound healing, according to a report in the online, open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE. http://www.physorg.com/news161412752.html Medicine & Health Wed, 13 May 2009 05:52:59 EST news161412752 DNA analysis shows that Indonesian zebu cattle have a unique origin with banteng (Bos javanicus) as part of their ancestry. http://www.physorg.com/news161410438.html Biology Wed, 13 May 2009 05:24:01 EST news161410438 (PhysOrg.com) -- UCLA scientists report for the first time on the only known frog species that can communicate using purely ultrasonic calls, whose frequencies are too high to be heard by humans. Known as Huia cavitympanum, the frog lives only on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo. http://www.physorg.com/news161256967.html Biology Mon, 11 May 2009 10:36:36 EST news161256967 (PhysOrg.com) -- Upgrading sewage treatment in the southeastern Baltic Sea states to Swedish standards may suffice to reduce algal blooms in the Baltic to levels of the 1950s. This is shown in a study performed by Andreas Bryhn at Uppsala University that is published in the journal PLoS ONE. http://www.physorg.com/news160931482.html Space & Earth Thu, 07 May 2009 16:11:45 EST news160931482 Sharks, barracuda and other large predatory fishes disappear on Caribbean coral reefs as human populations rise, endangering the region's marine food web and ultimately its reefs and fisheries, according to a sweeping study by researcher Chris Stallings of The Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory. http://www.physorg.com/news160804763.html Biology Wed, 06 May 2009 05:00:03 EST news160804763 Pharmacy researchers at Oregon State University today announced the discovery of a genetic regulator that is expressed at higher levels in the most aggressive types of head and neck cancers, in work that may help to identify them earlier or even offer a new therapy at some point in the future. http://www.physorg.com/news160152592.html Medicine & Health Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:50:44 EST news160152592 Flu vaccine delivered through skin patches containing microneedles has proven just as effective at preventing influenza in mice as intramuscular, hypodermic flu immunization. A team of researchers at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology believes the new microneedle skin patch method of delivering flu vaccine could improve overall seasonal vaccination coverage in people because of decreased pain, increased convenience, lower cost and simpler logistics over conventional hypodermic immunization. http://www.physorg.com/news160072120.html Medicine & Health Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:29:04 EST news160072120 Most people are expert readers, but it is something of an enigma that our brain can achieve expertise in such a recent cultural invention, which lies at the interface between vision and language. Given that the first alphabetic scripts are thought to have been invented only around four to five thousand years it is unlikely that enough time has elapsed to allow the evolution of specialized parts of the brain for reading. While neuroimaging techniques have made some progress in understanding the neural underpinning of this essentially cultural skill, the exact unfolding of brain activity has remained elusive. http://www.physorg.com/news160048496.html Medicine & Health Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:55:29 EST news160048496 Researchers with the University of Hawaii Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit have examined the impact of unregulated planting of biofuel crops for their potential invasiveness and raised concerns about their impacts on Hawaii's environment. Their findings, published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE, conclude that biofuel crops proposed for use in the Hawaiian Islands are two to four times more likely to establish wild populations or be invasive in Hawaii and in other tropical areas when compared to a random sample of other introduced plants. http://www.physorg.com/news159648113.html Biology Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:42:54 EST news159648113 Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences have assembled high quality, contamination-free draft genomes of uncultured biodegrading microorganisms using a novel single cell genome sequencing approach. This proof of principle study, published in the April 23 edition of the journal PLoS One, offers researchers a new method to access and decipher the information embedded in genomes of interest with only minute quantities of DNA. http://www.physorg.com/news159623533.html Biology Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:52:33 EST news159623533 Utah and Texas researchers have learned how quiet sounds are magnified by bundles of tiny, hair-like tubes atop "hair cells" in the ear: when the tubes dance back and forth, they act as "flexoelectric motors" that amplify sound mechanically. http://www.physorg.com/news159599814.html Biology Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:17:23 EST news159599814 The powerful Habsburg dynasty ruled Spain and its empire from 1516 to 1700 but when King Charles II died in 1700 without any children from his two marriages, the male line died out and the French Bourbon dynasty came to power in Spain. Reporting in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, April 15, Gonzalo Alvarez and colleagues at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, provide genetic evidence to support the historical evidence that the high frequency of inbreeding (mating between closely related individuals) within the dynasty was a major cause for the extinction of its male line. http://www.physorg.com/news158994852.html Biology Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:14:33 EST news158994852 The Neanderthals inhabited a vast geographical area extending from Europe to western Asia and the Middle East 30,000 to 100,000 years ago. Now, a group of researchers are questioning whether or not the Neanderthals constituted a homogenous group or separate sub-groups (between which slight differences could be observed). A new study published April 15 in the online, open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE may provide some answers. http://www.physorg.com/news158992826.html Biology Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:47:34 EST news158992826