QuoteReplyTopic: Science and Nature News Redux Posted: 16-Mar-2012 at 07:35
Cell Phone Use in Pregnancy May Cause Behavioral Disorders in Offspring, Mouse Study Suggests
Exposure to radiation from cell phones during pregnancy affects the brain development of offspring, potentially leading to hyperactivity, a new study suggests.
Exposure to radiation from cell phones during pregnancy affects the brain development of offspring, potentially leading to hyperactivity, Yale School of Medicine researchers have determined.
The results, based on studies in mice, are published in the March 15 issue of Scientific Reports, a Nature publication.
"This is the first experimental evidence that fetal exposure to radiofrequency radiation from cellular telephones does in fact affect adult behavior," said senior author Dr. Hugh S. Taylor, professor and chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences.
Taylor and co-authors exposed pregnant mice to radiation from a muted and silenced cell phone positioned above the cage and placed on an active phone call for the duration of the trial. A control group of mice was kept under the same conditions but with the phone deactivated.
The team measured the brain electrical activity of adult mice that were exposed to radiation as fetuses, and conducted a battery of psychological and behavioral tests. They found that the mice that were exposed to radiation tended to be more hyperactive and had reduced memory capacity. Taylor attributed the behavioral changes to an effect during pregnancy on the development of neurons in the prefrontal cortex region of the brain.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), is a developmental disorder associated with neuropathology localized primarily to the same brain region, and is characterized by inattention and hyperactivity.
"We have shown that behavioral problems in mice that resemble ADHD are caused by cell phone exposure in the womb," said Taylor. "The rise in behavioral disorders in human children may be in part due to fetal cellular telephone irradiation exposure."..........
Researchers Create More Efficient Hydrogen Fuel Cells
UCF Professor Sergey Stolbov.
Hydrogen fuel cells, like those found in some "green" vehicles, have a lot of promise as an alternative fuel source, but making them practical on a large scale requires them to be more efficient and cost effective.
A research team from the University of Central Florida may have found a way around both hurdles.
The majority of hydrogen fuel cells use catalysts made of a rare and expensive metal -- platinum. There are few alternatives because most elements can't endure the fuel cell's highly acidic solvents present in the reaction that converts hydrogen's chemical energy into electrical power. Only four elements can resist the corrosive process -- platinum, iridium, gold and palladium. The first two are rare and expensive, which makes them impractical for large-scale use. The other two don't do well with the chemical reaction.
UCF Professor Sergey Stolbov and postdoctoral research associate Marisol Alcántara Ortigoza focused on making gold and palladium better suited for the reaction.
They created a sandwich-like structure that layers cheaper and more abundant elements with gold and palladium and other elements to make it more effective.
The outer monoatomic layer (the top of the sandwich) is either palladium or gold. Below it is a layer that works to enhance the energy conversion rate but also acts to protect the catalyst from the acidic environment. These two layers reside on the bottom slice of the sandwich -- an inexpensive substrate (tungsten), which also plays a role in the stability of the catalyst.
"We are very encouraged by our first attempts that suggest that we can create two cost-effective and highly active palladium- and gold-based catalysts -for hydrogen fuel cells, a clean and renewable energy source," Stolbov said.........
A giant squid found at Ranheim in Trondheim 2 October 1954 is being measured by the Professors Erling Sivertsen and Svein Haftorn. The specimen was measured to a total length of 9.2 meters.
Giant and colossal squids have eyes as big as basketballs, and a Duke scientist thinks he knows why. "They're most likely using their huge eyes to spot and escape their predators, sperm whales," said Duke biologist Sonke Johnsen.
Johnsen collaborated with a group of biologists to model, both physically and biologically, how and why a squid uses such a big eye. The team found that the design and size of the eye give squids the ability to see approaching sperm whales as they disturb bioluminescent organisms. The study appears in the March 15Current Biology.
Big squids come in two types -- giant and colossal. They can grow to weights of five adult men put together, which is comparable to a large swordfish. But swordfish eyes are about the size of softballs, about 3 inches in diameter.
"It doesn't make sense a giant squid and swordfish are similar in size but the squid's eyes are proportionally much larger, three times the diameter and 27 times the volume," Johnsen said. "The question is why. Why do giant squid need such large eyes?"
To explain the squids' eye size, Johnsen and his collaborators first measured giant and colossal squid eyes using photos and captured animals. They also found data on the water clarity and amount of light at the ocean depths where the squid live -- typically 300 to 1000 meters. Using this information, the scientists began to mathematically model how the creatures' eyes would work and what they could see.
The team found that the squids' large eyes collect more light compared to animals of similar size but with smaller eyes. The extra light intake improves the squid's ability to detect small contrast differences under the dim conditions of the deep ocean, they argue. Johnsen said this ability doesn't matter much to the majority of deep-sea animals, which are looking at small objects that become too small to see before they fade away..........
Researchers led by Evgeny Katz, the Milton Kerker Chaired Professor of Colloid Science at Clarkson University, have implanted a biofuel cell in a living snail. This is the first incidence of an implanted biofuel cell continuously operating in a snail and producing electrical power over a long period of time using the snail’s physiologically produced glucose as a fuel.
Researchers led by Evgeny Katz, the Milton Kerker Chaired Professor of Colloid Science at Clarkson University, have implanted a biofuel cell in a living snail.
This is the first incidence of an implanted biofuel cell continuously operating in a snail and producing electrical power over a long period of time using the snail's physiologically produced glucose as a fuel.
The electrified snail, being a biotechnological living device, was able to regenerate glucose consumed by biocatalytic electrodes, upon appropriate feeding and relaxing, and then produce a new portion of electrical energy.
The snail with the implanted biofuel cell will be able to operate in a natural environment, producing sustainable electrical micropower for activating various bioelectronic devices.
Implantable biofuel cells have been suggested as sustainable micropower sources operating in living organisms, but such bioelectronic systems are still exotic and very challenging to design.
Research like this by Katz and other scientists is working toward a goal of creating insect cyborgs, an idea that has been funded by the U.S. Department of Defense.
Very few examples of abiotic and enzyme-based biofuel cells operating in living animals have been reported. Implantation of biocatalytic electrodes and extraction of electrical power from small living creatures is even more difficult and has not been achieved to date.
Sex-Deprived Fruit Flies Turn to Alcohol, Perhaps to Fulfill a Physiological Demand for a Reward
Male fruit fly (Drosophila Melanogaster). After being deprived of sex, male fruit flies may turn to alcohol to fulfill a physiological demand for a reward.
After being deprived of sex, male fruit flies, known asDrosophila melanogaster, may turn to alcohol to fulfill a physiological demand for a reward, according to a study recently published in the journalScience. Troy Zars, an associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri and neurobiology expert, said that understanding why rejected male flies find solace in ethanol could help treat human addictions.
"Identifying the molecular and genetic mechanisms controlling the demand for reward in fruit flies could potentially influence our understanding of drug and alcohol abuse in humans, since previous studies have detailed similarities between signaling pathways in fruit flies and mammals," Zars said.
In the study, male fruit flies that had mated repeatedly for several days showed no preference for alcohol-spiked food. On the other hand, spurned males and those denied access to females strongly preferred food mixed with 15 percent alcohol. The researchers believed the alcohol may have satisfied the flies' desire for physical reward.
Zars said the new discovery could lead to greater understanding of the relationship between the social and physical causes of substance abuse in humans.
"The authors provide new insights into a neural circuit that links a rewarding social interaction with a lasting change in behavior preference," Zars said.
Zars has been a faculty member at MU since 2002. He leads investigations of the molecular and systems level mechanisms of behavioral genetics in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. He is well known for his experiments identifying molecular mechanisms and neural circuits that support behaviors in the relatively simple fly brain. His work has been published in leading scientific journals such as Science, Nature,Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Current Biology, Learning and Memory, and Neuron.
Graphene Supercapacitor Holds Promise for Portable Electronics
Graphene Supercapacitors. Schematic showing the structure of laser scribed graphene supercapacitors.
Electrochemical capacitors (ECs), also known as supercapacitors or ultracapacitors, differ from regular capacitors that you would find in your TV or computer in that they store sustantially higher amounts of charges. They have garnered attention as energy storage devices as they charge and discharge faster than batteries, yet they are still limited by low energy densities, only a fraction of the energy density of batteries. An EC that combines the power performance of capacitors with the high energy density of batteries would represent a significant advance in energy storage technology. This requires new electrodes that not only maintain high conductivity but also provide higher and more accessible surface area than conventional ECs that use activated carbon electrodes.
Now researchers at UCLA have used a standard LightScribe DVD optical drive to produce such electrodes. The electrodes are composed of an expanded network of graphene -- a one-atom-thick layer of graphitic carbon -- that shows excellent mechanical and electrical properties as well as exceptionally high surface area.
UCLA researchers from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and the California NanoSystems Institute demonstrate high-performance graphene-based electrochemical capacitors that maintain excellent electrochemical attributes under high mechanical stress. The paper is published in the journal Science.
The process is based on coating a DVD disc with a film of graphite oxide that is then laser treated inside a LightScribe DVD drive to produce graphene electrodes. Typically, the performance of energy storage devices is evaluated by two main figures, the energy density and power density. Suppose we are using the device to run an electric car -- the energy density tells us how far the car can go a single charge whereas the power density tells us how fast the car can go. Here, devices made with Laser Scribed Graphene (LSG) electrodes exhibit ultrahigh energy density values in different electrolytes while maintaining the high power density and excellent cycle stability of ECs. Moreover, these ECs maintain excellent electrochemical attributes under high mechanical stress and thus hold promise for high power, flexible electronics.
"Our study demonstrates that our new graphene-based supercapacitors store as much charge as conventional batteries, but can be charged and discharged a hundred to a thousand times faster," said Richard B. Kaner, professor of chemistry & materials science and engineering.........
Process Makes Polymers Truly Plastic, Changing Textures On Demand
Various stages of polymer changes
Just as a chameleon changes its color to blend in with its environment, Duke University engineers have demonstrated for the first time that they can alter the texture of plastics on demand, for example, switching back and forth between a rough surface and a smooth one.
By applying specific voltages, the team has also shown that it can achieve this control over large and curved surface areas.
"By changing the voltage applied to the polymer, we can alter the surface from bumpy to smooth and back again," said Xuanhe Zhao, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. "There are many instances, for example, when you'd want to be able to change at will a surface from one that is rough to slippery and back again."
Scientists have long been able to create different patterns or textures on plastics through a process known as electrostatic lithography, in which patterns are "etched" onto a surface from an electrode located above the polymer. However, once the patterns have been created by this method, they are set permanently.
"We invented a method which is capable of dynamically generating a rich variety of patterns with various shapes and sizes on large areas of soft plastics or polymers," Zhao said. The results were published online in the journal Advanced Materials.
"This new approach can dynamically switch polymer surfaces among various patterns ranging from dots, segments, lines to circles," said Qiming Wang, a student in Zhao's laboratory and the first author of the paper. "The switching is also very fast, within milliseconds, and the pattern sizes can be tuned from millimeter to sub-micrometer."........
Neanderthals at the cave site of Trou Al'Wesse in Belgium, clinging on as climate deteriorated.
According to a paper published in Science, models of how animal and plant distributions are affected by climate change may also explain aspects of human evolution.
The approach takes existing knowledge of the geographical spread of other species through the warming and cooling of the ice ages to provide a model that can be applied to human origins.
"No one has applied this knowledge to humans before," said Dr John Stewart, lead author on the paper and researcher at Bournemouth University.
"We have tried to explain much of what we know about humans, including the evolution and extinction of Neanderthals and the Denisovans (a newly discovered group from Siberia), as well as how they interbred with the earliest modern populations who had just left Africa. All these phenomena have been put into the context of how animals and plants react to climate change. We're thinking about humans from the perspective of what we know about other species."
Climate is believed to be the driving force behind most of these evolutionary processes, including geographical range change. It dictates which species are where at what time, driving their geographical spread or contraction.
Dr Stewart continued: "Ultimately, this model explains whyHomo sapiens as a species are here and the archaic humans are not."
The research also leads to interesting conclusions as to how and why Neanderthals, and indeed the Denisovans, evolved in the first place.
"One of the models we've formulated is that the adoption of a new refugium (an area of refuge from the harsh climatic conditions of the Ice Age) by a subgroup of a species may lead to important evolutionary changes, ultimately leading to the origins of a new species. In fact this could apply to all continental species, whether animals or plants" said Dr Stewart.
Co-author Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum, London, said: "These ideas may well explain how new human species such as Homo antecessor and Homo neanderthalensis evolved in Eurasia. The concept of refugia may also explain why the hypothesised interbreeding events between modern humans and Neanderthals and Denisovans occurred in the south of Eurasia rather than further north."
Plants 'Remember' Drought, Change Responses to Survive
Arabidopsis. Plants subjected to a previous period of drought learn to deal with the stress thanks to their memories of the experience, new research has found. The findings could lead to development of crops better able to withstand drought.
Plants subjected to a previous period of drought learn to deal with the stress thanks to their memories of the experience, new research has found. The findings could lead to development of crops better able to withstand drought.
The research also confirms for the first time the scientific basis for what home gardeners and nursery professionals have often learned through hard experience: Transplants do better when water is withheld for a few days to drought harden them before the move.
"This phenomenon of drought hardening is in the common literature but not really in the academic literature," said Michael Fromm, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln plant scientist who was part of the research team. "The mechanisms involved in this process seem to be what we found."
Working with Arabidopsis, a member of the mustard family considered an excellent model for plant research, the team of Fromm, plant molecular biologist Zoya Avramova and post-doctoral fellow Yong Ding compared the reaction of plants that had been previously stressed by withholding water to those not previously stressed.
The pre-stressed plants bounced back more quickly the next time they were dehydrated. Specifically, the nontrained plants wilted faster than trained plants and their leaves lost water at a faster rate than trained plants.
"The plants 'remember' dehydration stress. It will condition them to survive future drought stress and transplanting," Fromm said.
The team found that the trained plants responded to subsequent dehydration by increasing transcription of a certain subset of genes. During recovery periods when water is available, transcription of these genes returns to normal levels, but following subsequent drought periods the plants remember their transcriptional response to stress and induce these genes to higher levels in this subsequent drought stress..........
Believing the Impossible: No Evidence for Existence of Psychic Ability Found
A new study fails to find evidence for the existence of psychic ability, contradicting an earlier controversial study that claimed to demonstrate precognition.
Research failing to find evidence for the existence of psychic ability has been published, following a year of industry debate. The report is a response by a group of independent researchers to the 2011 study from social psychologist Daryl Bem, purporting the existence of precognition -- an ability to perceive future events.
Professor Chris French (Goldsmiths, University of London), Stuart Ritchie (University of Edinburgh) and Professor Richard Wiseman (University of Hertfordshire) collaborated to accurately replicate Bem's final experiment, and found no evidence for precognition. Their negative results have now been published by open access journalPLoS ONE.
Their report was rejected by theJournal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP), which originally published Bem's findings along with his appeal to independent researchers to attempt replications.
"Our submission was rejected without being sent for peer review on the basis that the journal has a policy of not publishing replications," said Professor Chris French. "Our paper has opened up the debate on the proper place of replication in the scientific literature."
In Bem's experiment, after completing a memory test on a list of words, participants were then shown a random selection of half the words from the original list. Results showed that participants were better at remembering the words they were about to be shown, indicating they had reached forward in time to 'practice' those words in the future.
Within parapsychology, there is a tendency to accept any positive replications but to dismiss failures to replicate if the procedures followed have not been exactly duplicated.
"We went to great pains to ensure we followed the same procedures as Bem," said Stuart Ritchie. "Using Bem's own computer programme and stats methods, we replicated his experiment three times, at each of our respective campuses, with the same number of participants as the original study."
"By having our paper published, we hope academic journals and popular media alike will offer the same weight to negative results as given to eye-catching positive results," said Professor Richard Wiseman.
Evidence Builds That Meditation Strengthens the Brain
Cortical Surface Shown is the lateral view of the right cortical surface. The red circle indicates where the maximum effect occurred. Top: Larger gyrification in 50 long-term meditators compared to 50 well-matched controls. Bottom: Positive correlations between gyrification and the number of meditation years within the 50 meditators.
Earlier evidence out of UCLA suggested that meditating for years thickens the brain (in a good way) and strengthens the connections between brain cells. Now a further report by UCLA researchers suggests yet another benefit.
Eileen Luders, an assistant professor at the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, and colleagues, have found that long-term meditators have larger amounts of gyrification ("folding" of the cortex, which may allow the brain to process information faster) than people who do not meditate. Further, a direct correlation was found between the amount of gyrification and the number of meditation years, possibly providing further proof of the brain's neuroplasticity, or ability to adapt to environmental changes.
The article appears in the online edition of the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
The cerebral cortex is the outermost layer of neural tissue. Among other functions, it plays a key role in memory, attention, thought and consciousness. Gyrification or cortical folding is the process by which the surface of the brain undergoes changes to create narrow furrows and folds called sulci and gyri. Their formation may promote and enhance neural processing. Presumably then, the more folding that occurs, the better the brain is at processing information, making decisions, forming memories and so forth.
"Rather than just comparing meditators and non-meditators, we wanted to see if there is a link between the amount of meditation practice and the extent of brain alteration," said Luders. "That is, correlating the number of years of meditation with the degree of folding."
Of the 49 recruited subjects, the researchers took MRI scans of 23 meditators and compared them to 16 control subjects matched for age, handedness and sex. (Ten participants dropped out.) The scans for the controls were obtained from an existing MRI database, while the meditators were recruited from various meditation venues. The meditators had practiced their craft on average for 20 years using a variety of meditation types -- Samatha, Vipassana, Zen and more. The researchers applied a well-established and automated whole-brain approach to measure cortical gyrification at thousands of points across the surface of the brain.......
Scientists Identify Neural Activity Sequences That Help Form Memory, Decision-Making
Using a virtual reality maze and brain imaging system, Princeton researchers have detected a form of neural activity the formation of short-term memories used in decision-making. These panels show the view of the virtual reality maze as seen by the mouse. The top panel shows a cue or sign that indicates to the mouse to turn right to receive a water reward. The middle panel shows a cue telling the mouse to turn left. The bottom panel shows the view at the T-intersection of the maze.
Princeton University researchers have used a novel virtual reality and brain imaging system to detect a form of neural activity underlying how the brain forms short-term memories that are used in making decisions.
By following the brain activity of mice as they navigated a virtual reality maze, the researchers found that populations of neurons fire in distinctive sequences when the brain is holding a memory. Previous research centered on the idea that populations of neurons fire together with similar patterns to each other during the memory period.
The study was performed in the laboratory of David Tank, who is Princeton's Henry L. Hillman Professor in Molecular Biology and co-director of the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. Both Tank and Christopher Harvey, who was first author on the paper and a postdoctoral researcher at the time of the experiments, said they were surprised to discover the sequential firing of neurons. The study was published online on March 14 in the journal Nature.
The findings give insight into what happens in the brain during "working memory," which is used when the mind stores information for short periods of time prior to acting on it or integrating it with other information. Working memory is a central component of reasoning, comprehension and learning. Certain brain disorders such as schizophrenia are thought to involve deficits in working memory.
"Studies such as this one are aimed at understanding the basic principles of neural activity during working memory in the normal brain. However, the work may in the future assist researchers in understanding how activity might be altered in brain disorders that involve deficits in working memory," said Tank.
In the study, the patterns of sequential neuronal firing corresponded to whether the mouse would turn left or right as it navigated a maze in search of a reward. Different patterns corresponded to different decisions made by the mice, the Princeton researchers found.
The sequential neuronal firing patterns spanned the roughly 10-second period that it took for the mouse to form a memory, store it and make a decision about which way to turn. Over this period, distinct subsets of neurons were observed to fire in sequence.........
An artist's reconstruction of fossils from two caves in southwest China have revealed a previously unknown Stone Age people and give a rare glimpse of a recent stage of human evolution with startling implications for the early peopling of Asia. The fossils are of a people with a highly unusual mix of archaic and modern anatomical features and are the youngest of their kind ever found in mainland East Asia. Dated to just 14,500 to 11,500 years old, these people would have shared the landscape with modern-looking people at a time when China's earliest farming cultures were beginning, says an international team of scientists led by associate professor Darren Curnoe, of the University of New South Wales, and professor Ji Xueping of the Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology.
Fossils from two caves in south-west China have revealed a previously unknown Stone Age people and give a rare glimpse of a recent stage of human evolution with startling implications for the early peopling of Asia.
The fossils are of a people with a highly unusual mix of archaic and modern anatomical features and are the youngest of their kind ever found in mainland East Asia.
Dated to just 14,500 to 11,500 years old, these people would have shared the landscape with modern-looking people at a time when China's earliest farming cultures were beginning, says an international team of scientists led by Associate Professor Darren Curnoe, of the University of New South Wales, and Professor Ji Xueping of the Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology.
Details of the discovery are published in the journal PLoS ONE. The team has been cautious about classifying the fossils because of their unusual mosaic of features.
"These new fossils might be of a previously unknown species, one that survived until the very end of the Ice Age around 11,000 years ago," says Professor Curnoe.
"Alternatively, they might represent a very early and previously unknown migration of modern humans out of Africa, a population who may not have contributed genetically to living people."
The remains of at least three individuals were found by Chinese archaeologists at Maludong (or Red Deer Cave), near the city of Mengzi in Yunnan Province during 1989. They remained unstudied until research began in 2008, involving scientists from six Chinese and five Australian institutions.
A Chinese geologist found a fourth partial skeleton in 1979 in a cave near the village of Longlin, in neighbouring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It stayed encased in a block of rock until 2009 when the international team removed and reconstructed the fossils.
The skulls and teeth from Maludong and Longlin are very similar to each other and show an unusual mixture of archaic and modern anatomical features, as well as some previously unseen characters.
While Asia today contains more than half of the world's population, scientists still know little about how modern humans evolved there after our ancestors settled Eurasia some 70,000 years ago, notes Professor Curnoe..........
In about an hour I will be driving west towards Lordsburg for a stock show in the morning. I will be looking right at it. Mars will be chasing them, back in the east, high on the skyline
The whole world can see the two bright lights in the west after sunset now, but, for the Northern Hemisphere, mid-March 2012 presents the best time to see a Venus-Jupiter conjunction in the evening for years to come.
Millions of Americans at Risk of Flooding as Sea Levels Rise
Nearly four million Americans, occupying a combined area larger than the state of Maryland, find themselves at risk of severe flooding as sea levels rise in the coming century, new research suggests.
Nearly four million Americans, occupying a combined area larger than the state of Maryland, find themselves at risk of severe flooding as sea levels rise in the coming century, new research suggests. A new study, published today, 14 March, in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters, asserts that around 32,000 km2 of US land lies within one vertical meter of the high tide line, encompassing 2.1 million housing units where 3.9 million people live.
For this study, the researchers created a new model to identify the areas of US mainland that are at risk of flooding and, with a predicted sea level rise of 1 meter or more by the end of the century, suggest that the US Government’s currently designated flood zones should not be considered stable.
A second study, also published today inEnvironmental Research Letters, corroborates evidence of the risk, showing that a majority of US locations, from the 55 studied, will see a substantially higher frequency of storm-driven high water levels by the middle of the century; water levels that have previously been encountered only once-a-century.
Many locations would be expected to experience such high flooding every decade or more often.
Two ways in which global warming is causing sea levels to rise are thermal expansion – the expanding of water as it warms – and the melting of glaciers.
The first study, undertaken by researchers at Climate Central and the University of Arizona, shows that at a state level, areas surrounding the Gulf appear to be the most vulnerable, whilst in terms of population, Florida is the most vulnerable, closely followed by Louisiana, California, New York and New Jersey, illustrating significant exposure on every coast.
The researchers pick out greater Los Angeles as a largely-populated city of great concern, as previous research suggests that flooding may reach rare heights more swiftly in southern California than in any other mainland US area.
The second study examined the effect of heavy storms on past water levels at 55 stations across the US and combined these with estimates of future global sea level rises to predict the frequency and extent of future flooding.
The researchers, from Climate Central, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, liken the type of annual flooding that we may come to expect to the infamous high water levels brought about in New York in 1992, which managed to flood the subway system, as a result of a violent nor’easter (a storm coming in off the Atlantic).
Co-author of both papers, Ben Strauss, researcher at Climate Central, said: "The sea level rise taking place right now is quickly making extreme coastal floods more common, increasing risk for millions of people where they live and work. Sea level rise makes every single coastal storm flood higher. With so many communities concentrated on US coasts, the odds for major damage get bigger every year."
Hiding in Plain Sight, a New Frog Species With a 'Weird' Croak Is Identified in New York City
A yet, unnamed frog species that for the last century scientists thought was a more common leopard frog.
In the wilds of New York City -- or as wild as you can get so close to skyscrapers -- scientists have found a new leopard frog species that for years biologists mistook for a more widespread variety of leopard frog.
While biologists regularly discover new species in remote rain forests, finding this one in the ponds and marshes of Staten Island, mainland New York and New Jersey -- sometimes within view of the Statue of Liberty -- is a big surprise, said the scientists from Rutgers,UCLA,,UC Davis, and The University of Alabama who worked together to make the unexpected discovery.
"For a new species to go unrecognized for all this time in this area is amazing," said UCLA Professor Brad Shaffer, from UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and UCLA's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Shaffer is one of the authors on the paper announcing the discovery.
"Many amphibians are secretive and can be very hard to find, but these frogs are pretty obvious, out-there animals," said Shaffer, who is also the director of the UCLA La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science. "This shows that even in the largest city in the U.S. there are still new and important species waiting to be discovered that could be lost without conservation."
In newly released research available online in the journalMolecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, scientists used DNA data to compare the new frog to all other leopard frog species in the region and determined that it is an entirely new species, soon to be named by the researchers. The unnamed frog joins a crowd of more than a dozen distinct leopard frog species. The newly identified wetland species likely once lived on Manhattan, and though it's now only known to live in a few nearby locations, Yankee Stadium in the Bronx would be the bull's-eye of a target drawn around its current range..........
Astronomers Get Rare Peek at Early Stage of Star Formation
New observations show 'pristine' example of second stage of star formation shown in this graphic. (Images not to scale.)
Using radio and infrared telescopes, astronomers have obtained a first tantalizing look at a crucial early stage in star formation. The new observations promise to help scientists understand the early stages of a sequence of events through which a giant cloud of gas and dust collapses into dense cores that, in turn, form new stars.
The scientists studied a giant cloud about 770 light-years from Earth in the constellation Perseus. They used the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory and the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT) to make detailed observations of a clump, containing nearly 100 times the mass of the Sun, within that cloud.
Stars are formed, astronomers think, when such a cloud of gas and dust collapses gravitationally, first into clumps, then into dense cores, each of which can then begin to further collapse and form a young star. The details of how this happens are not well understood. One difficulty is that most regions where this process is underway already have formed stars nearby. Those stars affect subsequent nearby star formation through their stellar winds and shock waves when they explode as supernovae.
"We have found the first clear case of a clump of potentially star-forming gas that is on the verge of forming dense cores, and is unaffected by any nearby stars," said James Di Francesco, of the University of Victoria, Canada.
"Finding such a 'pristine' clump of gas that may be starting to form dense cores is a key to gaining a fuller understanding of the early stages of star formation," said Sarah Sadavoy, a graduate student also of the University of Victoria. "This is a rare find," she added.
The far-infrared images from the Herschel Space Observatory were obtained as part of the Herschel Gould Belt Survey key program. They revealed previously-unseen substructures within the clump that may be precursors to cores with the potential to form individual stars. The astronomers used the GBT to study the motions and temperatures of molecules, primarily ammonia, within these substructures. These GBT observations indicated that one of the substructures is likely to be gravitationally bound and thus farther along the path to condensing into a core than the others........
H. Pylori Bacteria Linked to Blood Sugar Control in Adult Type II Diabetes
A new study by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center reveals that the presence of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) bacteria is associated with elevated levels of glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), an important biomarker for blood glucose levels and diabetes.
A new study by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center reveals that the presence of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) bacteria is associated with elevated levels of glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), an important biomarker for blood glucose levels and diabetes. The association was even stronger in obese individuals with a higher Body Mass Index (BMI).
The results, which suggest the bacteria may play a role in the development of diabetes in adults, are available online in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.
There have been several studies evaluating the effect of the presence of H. pylori on diabetes outcomes, but this is the first to examine the effect on HbA1c, an important, objective biomarker for long-term blood sugar levels, explained Yu Chen, PhD, MPH, associate professor of epidemiology at NYU School of Medicine, part of NYU Langone Medical Center.
"The prevalence of obesity and diabetes is growing at a rapid rate, so the more we know about what factors impact these conditions, the better chance we have for doing something about it," Dr. Chen said. Looking at the effects of H. pylori on HbA1c, and whether the association differs according to BMI status, provided what could be a key piece of information for future treatment of diabetes, she explained.
Type II diabetes causes an estimated 3.8 million adult deaths globally. There have been conflicting reports about the association between H. pylori infection and type II diabetes. To better understand the relationship between H. pylori and the disease, Dr. Chen and Martin J. Blaser, MD, the Frederick H. King Professor of Internal Medicine and professor of microbiology, analyzed data from participants in two National Health and Nutrition Surveys (NHANES III and NHANES 1999-2000) to assess the association between H. pylori and levels of HbA1c.
"Obesity is an established risk factor for diabetes and it is known that high BMI is associated with elevated HbA1c. Separately, the presence of H. pylori is also associated with elevated HbA1c," said Dr. Blaser, who has studied the bacteria for more than 20 years. "We hypothesized that having both high BMI and the presence of H. pylori would have a synergistic effect, increasing HbA1c even more than the sum of the individual effect of either risk factor alone. We now know that this is true."..........
Getting a Full Picture of an Elusive Subject: Astronomers Map Dark Matter in 3-D in Galaxy Cluster
Abell 383: A cluster of galaxies located about 2.3 billion light years from Earth. Two teams of astronomers have used data from Chandra and other telescopes to map the distribution of dark matter in three dimensions in the galaxy cluster Abell 383. The dark matter in Abell 383 is stretched out like a gigantic football with the point of the football aligned close to the line of sight. The X-ray data (purple) from Chandra in the composite image show the hot gas, which is by far the dominant type of normal matter in the cluster. Galaxies are shown with the optical data from the Hubble, the Very Large Telescope, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, colored in blue and white. Scale: Image is 7.26 arcmin across. (4.84 million light years across.)
Two teams of astronomers have used data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes to map the distribution of dark matter in a galaxy cluster known as Abell 383, which is located about 2.3 billion light years from Earth. Not only were the researchers able to find where the dark matter lies in the two dimensions across the sky, they were also able to determine how the dark matter is distributed along the line of sight.
Dark matter is invisible material that does not emit or absorb any type of light, but is detectable through its gravitational effects. Several lines of evidence indicate that there is about six times as much dark matter as "normal," or baryonic, matter in the Universe. Understanding the nature of this mysterious matter is one of the outstanding problems in astrophysics.
Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally-bound structures in the universe, and play an important role in research on dark matter and cosmology, the study of the structure and evolution of the universe. The use of clusters as dark matter and cosmological probes hinges on scientists' ability to use objects such as Abell 383 to accurately determine the three-dimensional structures and masses of clusters.
The recent work on Abell 383 provides one of the most detailed 3-D pictures yet taken of dark matter in a galaxy cluster. Both teams have found that the dark matter is stretched out like a gigantic football, rather than being spherical like a basketball, and that the point of the football is aligned close to the line of sight.
The X-ray data (purple) from Chandra in the composite image show the hot gas, which is by far the dominant type of normal matter in the cluster. Galaxies are shown with the optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the Very Large Telescope, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, colored in blue and white.
Both teams combined the X-ray observations of the "normal matter" in the cluster with gravitational lensing information determined from optical data. Gravitational lensing -- an effect predicted by Albert Einstein -- causes the material in the galaxy cluster, both normal and dark matter, to bend and distort the optical light from background galaxies. The distortion is severe in some parts of the image, producing an arc-like appearance for some of the galaxies. In other parts of the image the distortion is subtle and statistical analysis is used to study the distortion effects and probe the dark matter.........
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Topic: Science and Nature News Redux
