Science news

• DNA confirms amazing Australian isle insect not extinct after all

  05-10-2017 22:32
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When black rats invaded Lord Howe Island after the 1918 wreck of the steamship Makambo, they wiped out numerous native species on the small Australian isle in the Tasman Sea including a big, flightless insect that resembled a stick.
  
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• New atomic clock is most precise yet

  05-10-2017 22:15
  
  This next-gen atomic clock ticks at a steady beat, but time will tell just how well it tells time.
  
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• Smartphone-controlled smart bandage for better, faster healing

  05-10-2017 22:11
  Wireless microcontrollers release precise amounts of antibiotics, painkillers, growth factors or other medications. The bandage, which remains several years from market, could improve treatment of chronic skin wounds related to diabetes.
  
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• New research to combat pancreatic cancer

  05-10-2017 22:11
  New research is underway that could help scientists combat the most lethal of cancers: pancreatic cancer. In a recent study, scientists demonstrated that bacteria in pancreatic tumors degrade a chemotherapy drug -- Gemcitabine -- most commonly used to treat patients who have pancreatic cancer.
  
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• Bariatric surgery lowers cancer risk for severely obese patients

  05-10-2017 22:11
  Bariatric surgery lowers the risk of cancer for severely obese patients. The risks drop most for postmenopausal breast cancer, endometrial cancer, pancreatic cancer and colon cancer.
  
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• The remains of St. Nicholas, the real-life inspiration for Santa Claus, may be under a church in Turkey

  05-10-2017 22:02 via cbc.ca
  The bones of St. Nicholas may not be in Italy, as previously believed, but instead buried below a Turkish church.
  
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• Mike Pence wants to see astronauts return to the Moon

  05-10-2017 21:24 via bbc.co.uk
  The US vice-president expresses the intention for America to send humans back to the lunar surface.
  
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• Pesticides linked to bee deaths found in most honey samples

  05-10-2017 21:16 via bbc.co.uk
  A new study finds traces of neonicotinoid chemicals in 75% of honey samples from across the world.
  
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• Multiple research approaches are key to pandemic preparedness

  05-10-2017 21:11
  Preparedness in the face of major disease outbreaks can save thousands of lives. A new article examines the multifaceted nature of effective preparedness and the role that biomedical research plays. Specifically, the article examines three approaches to pandemic preparedness: pathogen-specific work, platform-based technologies, and prototype-pathogen efforts.
  
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• What Earth's climate system and topological insulators have in common

  05-10-2017 20:18
  New research shows that equatorial waves -- pulses of warm ocean water that play a role in regulating Earth's climate -- are driven by the same dynamics as the exotic materials known as topological insulators.
  
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• Simulating a brain-cooling treatment that could one day ease epilepsy

  05-10-2017 20:18
  Using computer simulation techniques, scientists have gained new insights into the mechanism by which lowering the temperature of specific brain regions could potentially treat epileptic seizures.
  
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• Molecule created that could 'kick and kill' HIV

  05-10-2017 20:18
  Researchers have been looking for ways to eliminate the 'reservoirs' where the virus hides, and researchers may have developed a solution. Their approach involves sending an agent to 'wake up' the dormant virus, which causes it to begin replicating so that either the immune system or the virus itself would kill the cell harboring HIV.
  
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• Low serum calcium may increase risk of sudden cardiac arrest

  05-10-2017 20:18
  In a new study, researchers found that individuals with lower levels of calcium in the blood, which is easily monitored, are more likely to experience SCA than those with higher calcium levels.
  
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• Decision to rescind Waters of the United States rule (WOTUS) based on flawed analysis

  05-10-2017 20:18
  New evidence suggests that the Trump Administration's proposal to rescind the 2015 Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule that would limit the scope of the Clean Water Act inappropriately overlooks wetlands-related values.
  
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• Cost-effectiveness of guinea worm disease eradication

  05-10-2017 20:18
  Eradication of guinea worm disease (dracunculiaisis), targeted by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the year 2015, is finally within reach, with only 25 reported human transmissions in 2016. Now, researchers have re-asserted the cost-effectiveness of the global Guinea Worm Eradication Programme (GWEP), some 30 years after it started.
  
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• Carbon feedback from forest soils to accelerate global warming

  05-10-2017 20:18
  After 26 years, the world's longest-running experiment to discover how warming temperatures affect forest soils has revealed a surprising, cyclical response: Soil warming stimulates periods of abundant carbon release from the soil to the atmosphere alternating with periods of no detectable loss in soil carbon stores. The study indicates that in a warming world, a self-reinforcing and perhaps uncontrollable carbon feedback will occur between forest soils and the climate system, accelerating globa
  
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• 3-D quantum gas atomic clock offers new dimensions in measurement

  05-10-2017 20:18
  Physicists have created an entirely new design for an atomic clock, in which strontium atoms are packed into a tiny three-dimensional cube at 1,000 times the density of previous one-dimensional clocks. In doing so, they are the first to harness the ultra-controlled behavior of a so-called 'quantum gas' to make a practical measurement device.
  
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• Why lab researchers should talk with industry counterparts

  05-10-2017 20:17
  A research team has found both obstacles and lessons from the process of getting a novel membrane for chemical processing out of the lab into the commercial world.
  
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• Something universal occurs in the brain when it processes stories, regardless of language

  05-10-2017 20:17
  New brain research shows that reading stories generates activity in the same regions of the brain for speakers of three different languages.
  
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• Scientists solve 3-D structure of key defense protein against Parkinson's disease

  05-10-2017 20:17
  Scientists have identified the structure of a key enzyme that protects the brain against Parkinson's disease. The result of a decade of work, the research team said that solving the 3-D structure and inner workings of the PINK1 enzyme represented a major breakthrough.
  
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• Prehistoric humans are likely to have formed mating networks to avoid inbreeding

  05-10-2017 20:17
  Early humans seem to have recognized the dangers of inbreeding at least 34,000 years ago, and developed surprisingly sophisticated social and mating networks to avoid it, new research has found.
  
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• Predicting when a sound will occur relies on the brain's motor system

  05-10-2017 20:17
  Whether it is dancing or just tapping one foot to the beat, we all experience how auditory signals like music can induce movement. Now new research suggests that motor signals in the brain actually sharpen sound perception, and this effect is increased when we move in rhythm with the sound.
  
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• Planning for the future

  05-10-2017 20:17
  Over the past decade, increasing temperatures across much of Africa and decreasing rainfall across East Africa have come to represent an alarming climate trend. Chief among concerns is the impact such conditions have on human health.
  
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• Key plant species may be important for supporting wildflower pollinators

  05-10-2017 20:17
  Increased agricultural production has likely led to loss, fragmentation, and degradation of flower-rich habitats for pollinators. To counteract these negative effects of modern agricultural practices, efforts to maintain and restore diverse plants in agricultural landscapes -- called agri-environmental schemes -- have been implemented in numerous European countries.
  
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• Heart: No evidence for piezoelectricity or ferroelectricity in the aorta

  05-10-2017 20:17
  While some studies have supported the idea that the walls of the aorta are piezoelectric or ferroelectric, the most recent research finds no evidence of these properties. Researchers investigated by testing samples of pig aorta using a traditional setup, known as Sawyer-Tower, to detect ferroelectricity. Their experiments suggest the aorta has no special properties, and instead acts as a standard dielectric material that does not conduct current.
  
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• Faster Salmonella test boosts food safety for humans and animals

  05-10-2017 20:17
  A new test allows accurate, rapid testing for Salmonella, a bacteria that is one of the leading causes of food-borne illness across all regions of the world.
  
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• Better genetic decoding of neurodevelopmental disorders

  05-10-2017 20:17
  New research into improving the genetic decoding of neurodevelopmental disorders promises to help future diagnosis of children with such conditions, including intellectual disability, autism or schizophrenia.
  
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• Attack of the clones: Sperm-stealing Prussian carp threaten to overwhelm Alberta waterways

  05-10-2017 20:12 via cbc.ca
  Schools of Prussian carp — a sperm-stealing fish capable of cloning itself — are invading Alberta waterways.
  
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• Much of the world’s honey now contains bee-harming pesticides

  05-10-2017 20:06
  
  A controversial group of chemicals called neonicotinoids has a global impact, tests of honey samples show.
  
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• Proton size still perplexes despite a new measurement

  05-10-2017 20:00
  
  Study of hydrogen atoms supports the case for a smaller proton.
  
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• Ancient humans avoided inbreeding by networking

  05-10-2017 20:00
  
  Ancient DNA expands foragers’ social, mating networks.
  
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• Visualizing the function and fate of neutrophils in sterile injury and repair

  05-10-2017 19:33
  Neutrophils have been implicated as harmful cells in a variety of inappropriate inflammatory conditions where they injure the host, leading to the death of the neutrophils and their subsequent phagocytosis by monocytes and macrophages. Here we show that in a fully repairing sterile thermal hepatic injury, neutrophils also penetrate the injury site and perform the critical tasks of dismantling injured vessels and creating channels for new vascular regrowth. Upon completion of these tasks, they ne
  
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• Trispecific broadly neutralizing HIV antibodies mediate potent SHIV protection in macaques

  05-10-2017 19:33
  The development of an effective AIDS vaccine has been challenging because of viral genetic diversity and the difficulty of generating broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs). We engineered trispecific antibodies (Abs) that allow a single molecule to interact with three independent HIV-1 envelope determinants: the CD4 binding site, the membrane-proximal external region (MPER), and the V1V2 glycan site. Trispecific Abs exhibited higher potency and breadth than any previously described single bnAb,
  
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• The Rydberg constant and proton size from atomic hydrogen

  05-10-2017 19:33
  At the core of the "proton radius puzzle" is a four–standard deviation discrepancy between the proton root-mean-square charge radii (rp) determined from the regular hydrogen (H) and the muonic hydrogen (µp) atoms. Using a cryogenic beam of H atoms, we measured the 2S-4P transition frequency in H, yielding the values of the Rydberg constant R = 10973731.568076(96) per meterand rp = 0.8335(95) femtometer. Our rp value is 3.3 combined standard deviations smaller than the previous H worl
  
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• The promise of spatial transcriptomics for neuroscience in the era of molecular cell typing

  05-10-2017 19:33
  The stereotyped spatial architecture of the brain is both beautiful and fundamentally related to its function, extending from gross morphology to individual neuron types, where soma position, dendritic architecture, and axonal projections determine their roles in functional circuitry. Our understanding of the cell types that make up the brain is rapidly accelerating, driven in particular by recent advances in single-cell transcriptomics. However, understanding brain function, development, and di
  
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• Spatiotemporal mode-locking in multimode fiber lasers

  05-10-2017 19:33
  A laser is based on the electromagnetic modes of its resonator, which provides the feedback required for oscillation. Enormous progress has been made toward controlling the interactions of longitudinal modes in lasers with a single transverse mode. For example, the field of ultrafast science has been built on lasers that lock many longitudinal modes together to form ultrashort light pulses. However, coherent superposition of longitudinal and transverse modes in a laser has received little attent
  
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• Single-cell transcriptomics to explore the immune system in health and disease

  05-10-2017 19:33
  The immune system varies in cell types, states, and locations. The complex networks, interactions, and responses of immune cells produce diverse cellular ecosystems composed of multiple cell types, accompanied by genetic diversity in antigen receptors. Within this ecosystem, innate and adaptive immune cells maintain and protect tissue function, integrity, and homeostasis upon changes in functional demands and diverse insults. Characterizing this inherent complexity requires studies at single-cel
  
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• Single-cell epigenomics: Recording the past and predicting the future

  05-10-2017 19:33
  Single-cell multi-omics has recently emerged as a powerful technology by which different layers of genomic output—and hence cell identity and function—can be recorded simultaneously. Integrating various components of the epigenome into multi-omics measurements allows for studying cellular heterogeneity at different time scales and for discovering new layers of molecular connectivity between the genome and its functional output. Measurements that are increasingly available range from
  
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• Segregation-induced ordered superstructures at general grain boundaries in a nickel-bismuth alloy

  05-10-2017 19:33
  The properties of materials change, sometimes catastrophically, as alloying elements and impurities accumulate preferentially at grain boundaries. Studies of bicrystals show that regular atomic patterns often arise as a result of this solute segregation at high-symmetry boundaries, but it is not known whether superstructures exist at general grain boundaries in polycrystals. In bismuth-doped polycrystalline nickel, we found that ordered, segregation-induced grain boundary superstructures occur a
  
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• Mitotic transcription and waves of gene reactivation during mitotic exit

  05-10-2017 19:33
  Although the genome is generally thought to be transcriptionally silent during mitosis, technical limitations have prevented sensitive mapping of transcription during mitosis and mitotic exit. Thus, the means by which the interphase expression pattern is transduced to daughter cells have been unclear. We used 5-ethynyluridine to pulse-label transcripts during mitosis and mitotic exit and found that many genes exhibit transcription during mitosis, as confirmed with fluorescein isothiocyanate&ndas
  
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• Long-term pattern and magnitude of soil carbon feedback to the climate system in a warming world

  05-10-2017 19:33
  In a 26-year soil warming experiment in a mid-latitude hardwood forest, we documented changes in soil carbon cycling to investigate the potential consequences for the climate system. We found that soil warming results in a four-phase pattern of soil organic matter decay and carbon dioxide fluxes to the atmosphere, with phases of substantial soil carbon loss alternating with phases of no detectable loss. Several factors combine to affect the timing, magnitude, and thermal acclimation of soil carb
  
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• Interactions between brain and spinal cord mediate value effects in nocebo hyperalgesia

  05-10-2017 19:33
  Value information about a drug, such as the price tag, can strongly affect its therapeutic effect. We discovered that value information influences adverse treatment outcomes in humans even in the absence of an active substance. Labeling an inert treatment as expensive medication led to stronger nocebo hyperalgesia than labeling it as cheap medication. This effect was mediated by neural interactions between cortex, brainstem, and spinal cord. In particular, activity in the prefrontal cortex media
  
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• Fibril structure of amyloid-{beta}(1-42) by cryo-electron microscopy

  05-10-2017 19:33
  Amyloids are implicated in neurodegenerative diseases. Fibrillar aggregates of the amyloid-β protein (Aβ) are the main component of the senile plaques found in brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients. We present the structure of an Aβ(1–42) fibril composed of two intertwined protofilaments determined by cryo–electron microscopy (cryo-EM) to 4.0-angstrom resolution, complemented by solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance experiments. The backbone of all 42 residues
  
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• A worldwide survey of neonicotinoids in honey

  05-10-2017 19:33
  Growing evidence for global pollinator decline is causing concern for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services maintenance. Neonicotinoid pesticides have been identified or suspected as a key factor responsible for this decline. We assessed the global exposure of pollinators to neonicotinoids by analyzing 198 honey samples from across the world. We found at least one of five tested compounds (acetamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, thiacloprid, and thiamethoxam) in 75% of all samples, 4
  
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• A Fermi-degenerate three-dimensional optical lattice clock

  05-10-2017 19:33
  Strontium optical lattice clocks have the potential to simultaneously interrogate millions of atoms with a high spectroscopic quality factor of 4 x 1017. Previously, atomic interactions have forced a compromise between clock stability, which benefits from a large number of atoms, and accuracy, which suffers from density-dependent frequency shifts. Here we demonstrate a scalable solution that takes advantage of the high, correlated density of a degenerate Fermi gas in a three-dimensional (3D) opt
  
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• Fake teeth make speaking Klingon easier: Calgary-born actor dishes on Star Trek role

  05-10-2017 19:02 via cbc.ca
  Calgary-born actor Clare McConnell — who runs one of the Klingon houses in Star Trek: Discovery — says fake teeth that help her transform into her character in the new Star Trek series actually make it easier to speak the Klingon language.
  
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• Genetic drivers of most common form of lymphoma identified

  05-10-2017 18:50
  An international research effort has been working to better understand the genetic underpinnings of the most prevalent form of lymphoma -- diffuse large B cell lymphoma -- and how those genes might play a role in patients' responses to therapies.
  
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• 12,000 years ago, Florida hurricanes heated up despite chilly seas

  05-10-2017 18:50
  Category 5 hurricanes may have slammed Florida repeatedly during the chilly Younger Dryas, 12,000 years ago. The cause? Hurricane-suppressing effects of cooler sea surface were out-weighed by side effects of slowed ocean circulation.
  
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• Once declared extinct, Lord Howe Island stick insects really do live

  05-10-2017 18:11
  Lord Howe Island stick insects were once numerous on the tiny crescent-shaped island off the coast of Australia for which they are named. Now, biologists who have analyzed the DNA of living and dead Lord Howe Island stick insects have some good news: those rediscovered on Ball's Pyramid, which are now being bred at the Melbourne Zoo and elsewhere, really are Lord Howe Island stick insects.
  
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• More traits associated with your Neanderthal DNA

  05-10-2017 18:11
  After humans and Neanderthals met many thousands of years ago, the two species began interbreeding. Recent studies have shown that some of those Neanderthal genes have contributed to human immunity and modern diseases. Now researchers have found that our Neanderthal inheritance has contributed to other characteristics, too, including skin tone, hair color, sleep patterns, mood, and even a person's smoking status.
  
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