Science news

• Scientists pinpoint Ebola's weak spots

  08-08-2016 23:22
  Scientists have now have a high-resolution view of exactly how the experimental therapy ZMapp targets Ebola virus. The new study is also the first to show how an antibody in the ZMapp 'drug cocktail' targets a second Ebola virus protein, called sGP, whose vulnerable spots had previously been unknown.
  
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• Needle biopsies for noninvasive breast cancer: Routine analysis wastes millions

  08-08-2016 23:22
  For patients with the most common type of noninvasive breast cancer, routine testing for estrogen and progesterone receptors in tissue taken at the first 'needle' biopsy is both unnecessary and wasteful, according to results of a study.
  
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• Mechanism tied to plant height discovered

  08-08-2016 23:22
  Dwarfed plants add color and a diversity of architectures to landscapes and gardens, and a university undergraduate class discovered a key mechanism that leads to their small stature.
  
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• How Cape Breton helped revive the U.S. bald eagle population

  08-08-2016 23:21 via cbc.ca
  
  Any Americans tempted by the website Cape Breton if Donald Trump Wins will be heartened to learn the Nova Scotia island has a long history of restoring symbols of American pride.
  
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• Bottom quarks misbehave in LHC experiment

  08-08-2016 23:03
  
  Bottom quarks fly off at an angle more often than expected in new data from the LHC.
  
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• Dirty Stone Age tools show what was on the menu 250,000 years ago

  08-08-2016 22:51 via cbc.ca
  
  About 250,000 years ago, prehistoric human relatives butchered meat with stone tools and didn't wash up afterwards. Now, a Canadian-led team has analyzed the gunk crusted to the tools and figured out what was on the menu.
  
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• New study confirms adage that with age comes wisdom

  08-08-2016 22:39
  Older adults are better at interpreting the correct slope of a hill than young adults, which researchers believe is because of greater life experience.
  
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• Researchers turn to policy to tackle health disparities in an age of personalized medicine

  08-08-2016 22:36
  Genetic research is a valuable tool in understanding diseases and their prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. However, significant obstacles limit the clinical use of this knowledge to all groups. Genetic applications in healthcare must advance in a way that reduces racial and ethnic disparities.
  
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• In sync: Simultaneous prescription refills boosts medication adherence, study shows

  08-08-2016 22:36
  A refill synchronization program -- in which patients were able to receive all refills at the same time -- increased medication adherence by more than 10 percent in some patient subgroups, new research shows.
  
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• Thyroid tumor: It takes two to tango

  08-08-2016 22:34
  Autonomous adenomas are the most common benign tumors of the thyroid gland. Mutations in two genes account for around 70 percent of the cases. Scientists have now discovered another key trigger.
  
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• Scientists discover potential avenue to treating type 2 diabetes at early stages

  08-08-2016 22:34
  Researchers have identified a new potential target for drugs to prevent type 2 diabetes. A new paper shows that blocking a cellular glucose sensor in muscle improves insulin responsiveness.
  
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• For the first time in history, high blood pressure is more common in lower-income countries

  08-08-2016 22:34
  Nearly one-third of the adult population worldwide had hypertension in 2010. For the first time in history, high blood pressure is more common in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries. Three-quarters of the world's adults with hypertension live in low- and middle-income countries and may lack access to proper care. From 2000 to 2010, high blood pressure prevalence decreased in high-income countries while increasing in low- and middle-income countries.
  
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• Flint lead crisis adds up to $395 million in social costs

  08-08-2016 22:34
  The social costs related to lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan, amount to $395 million from April 2014, when the city switched its water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River, to the present day, not counting the $58 million already spent by the state on medical care and water provisions, says a new report.
  
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• Celiacs rejoice! Bug-eating plant enzymes could hold key to gluten digestion

  08-08-2016 22:13 via cbc.ca
  
  Calgary scientists have made a breakthrough that could help celiac patients digest gluten with the help of an enzyme from carnivorous pitcher plants.
  
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• NASA's new Dream Chaser

  08-08-2016 22:06 via cbc.ca
  
  A successor to the shuttle program could take astronauts and cargo into orbit
  
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• Study links global warming to rise in waterborne illnesses

  08-08-2016 21:58
  WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study clearly connects rising temperatures to increases in waterborne food-poisonings and other infections.
  
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• Decline of fishing in Lake Tanganyika 'due to warming'

  08-08-2016 21:48 via bbc.co.uk
  
  New research blames rising temperatures over the last century as the key cause of decline in Lake Tanganyika, one of the world's most important fisheries.
  
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• Giant pouched rats sniff out tuberculosis in Africa

  08-08-2016 21:33 via cbc.ca
  
  At a time when tuberculosis-related death rates worldwide surpass those from AIDS, two African countries are trying a TB test that is faster, cheaper and unorthodox: giant pouched rats.
  
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• Still No Sign of 'Sterile Neutrino' Particle, Candidate for Dark Matter

  08-08-2016 21:16
  
  The submerged instrument, called the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, is pioneering the field of particle astrophysics — that is, detecting particles (other than light) that come from cosmic events such as star explosions. Because the instrument was built to detect particles called neutrinos, it has also provided some insight into the nature of these mysterious particles. Today, the IceCube team announced the publication of a new paper showing that the detector found no sign of a theoretical
  
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• Jupiter's Effect Will Make Perseid Meteor Shower One to Remember

  08-08-2016 21:16
  
  The Perseids, the most widely observed and dependable of the annual meteor displays, will peak during the overnight hours of Thursday, Aug. 11 into the morning of Friday, Aug. 12, and this year has all the earmarks of being a spectacular show. The Perseids intersect the orbit of Earth more or less directly, but on their way in toward the sun, they also pass other planets.
  
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• Apollo 11 Lunar Sample Bag Lands at Center of Lawsuits

  08-08-2016 21:16
  
  A small white bag that was once used by Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong to hold the first-ever lunar samples to be collected from the surface of the moon is now at the center of not one, but two lawsuits over who owns it today. The zippered cloth pouch, which was labeled in bold black letters "Lunar Sample Return," was used on July 20, 1969 as the "outer decontamination bag" to hold the moon rocks for their trip back to Earth with Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Instead, it is evi
  
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• Zoo releases last summer batch of threatened butterflies

  08-08-2016 21:14
  PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Zoo has released the last batch of its zoo-raised Oregon silverspot butterflies into the wild as it winds up a summer program aimed at boosting the numbers of the once-common yellow-and-black butterfly in coastal habitats.
  
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• Dormant copies of HIV mostly defective, new study shows

  08-08-2016 21:05
  After fully sequencing the latent HIV 'provirus' genomes from 19 people being treated for HIV, scientists report that even in patients who start treatment very early, the only widely available method to measure the reservoir of dormant HIV in patients is mostly counting defective viruses that won't cause harm, rather than those that can spring back into action and keep infections going.
  
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• India’s monsoon winds trace back nearly 13 million years

  08-08-2016 20:54
  
  The intense monsoon winds that carry torrential rain to India each year first started blowing around 12.9 million years ago, new research suggests.
  
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• Two classes of medications linked to similar results in peritoneal dialysis patients

  08-08-2016 20:49
  A new study examined two classes of medications commonly prescribed to prevent cardiovascular events in dialysis patients and found no significant difference in outcomes.
  
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• Scientific serendipity yields new neuron type in mouse retina

  08-08-2016 20:49
  In the retina of mice, a new type of neuron that falls outside century-old classifications has been discovered. The new cell acts like one class of neurons but anatomically resembles another. It is not only a new kind of neuron, but it also exhibits a new way of conveying information within the retina of the eye.
  
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• Researchers have discovered a mechanism that allows cancer to survive without glucose

  08-08-2016 20:48
  New research provides important clues that might help understand the resistance to drugs that 'starve' tumors, and also how cancer cells manage to survive in the center of the tumor mass, where barely any blood vessels can reach.
  
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• Okinawa mozuku: Treasure under the sea

  08-08-2016 20:48
  Scientists have decoded the genome of Okinawa mozuku, a seaweed with healthy properties that plays a key economic and ecological role.
  
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• Mcr-1 gene isolated from human for the first time in Brazil

  08-08-2016 20:48
  For the first time in Brazil, a particular antibiotic resistance mechanism conferring resistance to the important antibiotic, colistin, has been detected in a human. It was in a strain of Escherichia coli that was isolated from a diabetic patient's foot infection. The mechanism, called MCR-1, was incorporated into a plasmid, a short piece of DNA that exists independent of the genome, which can jump from one bacterium to another, spreading the resistance.
  
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• Flu vaccine uptake slightly higher in provinces that allow vaccination by pharmacists

  08-08-2016 20:48
  People who live in provinces with policies that allow pharmacists to administer influenza vaccines are more likely to be vaccinated, according to a new Canadian study.
  
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• Ancient reptiles saw red before turning red

  08-08-2016 19:13
  
  The discovery that birds and turtles share a gene tied to both color vision and red coloration is more evidence that dinosaurs probably saw the color red — and perhaps were even red, too.
  
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• Idaho man finds mammoth tusk while digging on his property

  08-08-2016 18:54
  PRESTON, Idaho (AP) — An Idaho man stumbled upon a rare find while using a backhoe to dig in a gravel pit on his property.
  
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• Low oxygen, high risk: How tumors adapt to become more aggressive

  08-08-2016 18:40
  Scientists have identified a novel mechanism that selectively operates in hypoxic tumors to enable tumor cells to thrive and continue to proliferate despite a low oxygen environment. The research team showed how the activation of this pathway leads to an unfavorable prognosis for patients with gliomas – a type of brain tumor – and how the pathway could be a valuable therapeutic target in cancer.
  
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• New light shed on how neutrinos behave

  08-08-2016 18:38
  Scientists have announced an exciting new result that could improve our understanding of the behavior of neutrinos. Neutrinos have previously been detected in three types, called flavors - muon, tau and electron. They also exist in three mass states, but those states don't necessarily correspond directly to the three flavors.
  
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• How the Vikings started the worldwide distribution of gaited horses

  08-08-2016 18:38
  Some horses have special gaits, which are more comfortable for the rider than walk, trot or gallop. Now, a study by an international research team has revealed that these gaited horses most likely originated in the 9th century medieval England. From there they were brought to Iceland by the Vikings and later spread all over Europe and Asia.
  
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• Archaeology team makes world-first tool discovery

  08-08-2016 18:38
  How smart were human-like species of the Stone Age? New research reveals surprisingly sophisticated adaptations by early humans living 250,000 years ago in a former oasis near Azraq, Jordan.
  
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• Accounting for ozone: Study first to quantify impact of oil and gas emissions on Denver's ozone problem

  08-08-2016 18:38
  A new study is the first to directly quantify how emissions from oil and gas activities influence summertime ozone pollution in the Colorado Front Range confirms that chemical vapors from oil and gas activities are a significant contributor to the region's chronic ozone problem.
  
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• Researchers ask public for old photos of Lake Tahoe algae

  08-08-2016 18:30
  INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. (AP) — With all of their modern scientific equipment and state-of-the-art computer models, researchers trying to better understand the effect of algae growth on Lake Tahoe are using another to aid in their mission — old photo albums.
  
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• Researchers modifying surface properties of materials to obtain specific properties at a lower cost

  08-08-2016 18:12
  Three types of functional coatings have been developed that are resistant to microorganisms and have self-cleaning and anti-reflective properties. By modifying the surface of paints he has managed to vary their properties or their possible applications at a lower cost in comparison with the materials existing on the market.
  
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• Targeting brain cells to alleviate neuropathic pain

  08-08-2016 18:06
  Chronic neuropathic pain -- caused by nerve damage as a result of an injury, surgery or a debilitating disease like diabetes or cancer -- could be greatly reduced in animals when the injury is treated targeting microglia brain cells within a few days, say scientists. This research will help in the quest to help the more than 1 million Americans afflicted with this chronic pain.
  
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• Working, volunteering could reduce disablement in seniors, study finds

  08-08-2016 18:04
  Working or volunteering can reduce the chances of chronic health conditions leading to physical disability in older Americans, according to researchers.
  
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• Thousands of new cancer cases in Ontario each year due to environmental exposures

  08-08-2016 18:04
  The estimated burden of cancer from environmental carcinogens is significant, particularly when compared to other known cancer risk factors. Between 3,540 and 6,510 new cancer cases in Ontario each year result from environmental factors, says a new report.
  
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• Pesticides used to help bees may actually harm them

  08-08-2016 18:04
  Honeybees from chlorothalanil-treated hives showed the greatest change in gut microbiome, a new study has concluded. The discovery is a concern because alterations can affect the gut's ability to metabolize sugars and peptides, processes that are vital for honeybee health. Beekeepers typically apply pesticides to hives to rid them of harmful parasites such as Varroa mites.
  
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• Aesthetic appeal of dormant Zoysiagrass enhanced with colorants

  08-08-2016 18:04
  Scientists quantified the impact of colorants applied in autumn on zoysiagrass in the transition zone. Persistence of green color increased with application volume, but differences among colorants were limited. Compared with tall fescue, colorant-treated zoysiagrass had significantly higher color ratings for 98-112 days at 80 gal/acre, 112-154 days at 160 gal/acre, and 138-154 days at 240 gal/acre. Results showed that duration of acceptable color on zoysiagrass lawns can be enhanced by increasin
  
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• Looking different to your parents can be an evolutionary advantage, at least in plants

  08-08-2016 17:59
  Looking different to your parents can provide species with a way to escape evolutionary dead ends, according to new research.
  
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• New chili pathogens discovered in Australia

  08-08-2016 17:58
  Scientists have identified four new pathogens previously not found in Australian chilies, raising the stakes for the country's quarantine and disease resistance efforts.
  
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• Beneficial role clarified for brain protein associated with mad cow disease

  08-08-2016 17:58
  Scientists have clarified details in understanding the beneficial function of a type of protein normally associated with prion diseases of the brain, such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (commonly known as mad cow disease) and its human counterpart, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
  
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• Texting a million people in India improves diabetes prevention

  08-08-2016 17:56
  A study that sent twice-weekly text messages to a million people in India advising them to exercise, eat less fat and eat more fruits and vegetables increased these health behaviors known to prevent diabetes, reports new research. This effort is the first to use the power of mobile phones to change diabetes risk behaviors in a large number of people from different parts of a vast country. About 40 percent more people improved their health behaviors. In India, about 66 million people have diabete
  
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• New drugs hope to fight neglected tropical diseases

  08-08-2016 17:56
  Scientists say they are a step closer to providing effective treatments for three 'neglected' diseases after making a chemical which can kill the parasites that cause the illnesses.
  
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• Economic burden of undiagnosed sleep apnea in US is nearly $150 billion per year

  08-08-2016 17:56
  A new analysis has been published that reveals the staggering cost of undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea. The new work summarizes the results of an online survey completed by patients currently being treated for obstructive sleep apnea.
  
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