Previous human and animal studies have shown that chronic alcohol consumption can produce deficits in learning and memory. A new rodent study is the first to show that continuous drinking for as little as eight weeks can produce deficits in learning and memory that last up to 12 weeks after drinking stopped. Both human and animal studies have shown that chronic alcohol consumption can produce deficits in learning and memory. Rodent studies, for example, have shown that
Findings show that ice fracturing occurs in episodes and may be tied to changes evolving over seasons
A multifaceted research effort by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and their international colleagues from the University of Tasmania and the Australian Antarctic Division, has resulted in several important new findings about Antarctica and the changing dynamics of its ice structure.
Scientists have been
The first multinational study to assess patients considered to have diagnostic criteria for Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS), a chronic and disruptive neurological disorder characterized by a compelling urge to move the legs, found that the condition is common, under-diagnosed, and can significantly impact sleep and daily activities. Results of the R.E.S.T. (RLS Epidemiology, Symptoms, and Treatment) General Population Study, a population-based survey completed by telephone and face-to-face interviews
The gene that regulates the body’s main biological clocks also may play a pivotal role in drug addiction, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.
The Clock gene not only controls the body’s circadian rhythms, including sleep and wakefulness, body temperature, hormone levels, blood pressure and heart activity, it may also be a key regulator of the brain’s reward system.
UT Southwestern researchers showed that, in mice, the Clock gene regulat
APL-Built Pluto Mission Spacecraft Shipped to NASA Goddard for Pre-launch Tests
The first spacecraft designed to study Pluto, the solar system’s farthest planet, took the first steps on a long journey today when it was shipped from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md. — where it was designed and built — to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., for its next round of pre-launch tests.
Proposed for launch in Januar
A new system that not only warns drivers of collision risks, but also independently jams on the brakes to minimize an inevitable crash has been developed in a research project at Linköping University. Calculations show that the system reduces the risk of severe and fatal traffic injuries by five percent.
The findings of the project, which has been carried out in collaboration between the Section for Control and Communication at Linköping University and Volvo Car Corporation, are no
“Positron Emission Topography with choline demonstrates greater efficiency in the early diagnosis of relapsed prostate cancer with respect to other imaging techniques”, stated Dr. Macarena Rodríguez, of the Nuclear Medicine Service at the University Hospital of the University of Navarra. She was speaking on receiving the award for the best scientific work at the XXVI National Congress of the Spanish Society for Nuclear Medicine (SEMN), held recently in Maspalomas (the Canary Islands).
The st
Chesapeake Bay Restoration
The Chesapeake Bay has been the focus of one of the most high-profile restoration programs ever undertaken in North America. With some 250 types of fish, crabs, clams, and oysters, the Bay is rich in species and also represents a commercial value of more than $1 billion annually. In “Restoring watersheds project by project: trends in Chesapeake Bay tributary restoration,” Brooke Hassett (University of Maryland, College Park) and colleagues compiled t
The gene that regulates the body’s main biological clocks also may play a pivotal role in drug addiction, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.
The Clock gene not only controls the body’s circadian rhythms, including sleep and wakefulness, body temperature, hormone levels, blood pressure and heart activity, it may also be a key regulator of the brain’s reward system.
UT Southwestern researchers showed that, in mice, the Clock gene regul
Size matters when it comes to meal portions in weight-loss diets, according to researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. And consuming convenient, nutritious frozen dinners may be a way to control portion size.
Research dietitians Sandra M. Hannum and LeaAnn Carson, who work in the laboratory of food science and human nutrition professor John W. Erdman, studied how two diet regimens resulted in weight loss in overweight and obese men. Their findings will appea
The world’s preeminent planet hunters have discovered the most Earth-like extrasolar planet yet: a possibly rocky world about 7.5 times as massive as the Earth.
This hot “super-Earth,” just 15 light years away, travels in a nearly circular orbit only 2 million miles from its parent star, Gliese 876, and has a radius about twice that of Earth. All the nearly 150 extrasolar planets discovered to date that are orbiting normal stars have been larger than Uranus, an ice giant a
A team of researchers from Mexico and the United States has identified a new family of catfish in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. The paper detailing the discovery has been published in Zootaxa, an online scientific journal.
They’ve named the new family Lacantuniidae and named the species Lacantunia enigmatica. It becomes the 37th family of catfishes, a diverse group of fish found around the world.
Discovery of new families of living vertebrates is rare; in ichthyolog
Recycled plastic bottles could one day be used to lubricate your car’s engine, according to researchers at Chevron and the University of Kentucky, who in laboratory experiments converted waste plastic into lubricating oil. These polyethylene-derived oils, they say, could help improve fuel economy and reduce the frequency of oil changes.
The pilot study appears in the July 20 issue of the American Chemical Society’s peer-reviewed journal Energy & Fuels. ACS is the worl
Researchers at the University of Alberta have discovered that chickens raised for meat can choose whether or not they’ll funnel the nutrients they eat towards themselves or their eggs.
That phenomenon of ’reproductive attitude’ is a headache for producers who must figure out how to deal with less productive hens that “partition” nutrients needed for egg production into their own bodies. “They like to be a little bit more selfish with their nutrients, and continue g
Discovery pinpoints the true ’stem cell’
Regenerative medicine scientists at the University of Florida’s McKnight Brain Institute have created a system in rodent models that for the first time duplicates neurogenesis — the process of generating new brain cells — in a dish.
Writing in today’s (June 13) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers describe a cell culture method that holds the promise of producing a limitless supply o
Diabetic retinopathy has been found in nearly 8 percent of pre-diabetic participants in the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), according to a report presented today at the American Diabetes Association’s 65th Annual Scientific Sessions. Diabetic retinopathy, which can lead to vision loss, was also seen in 12 percent of participants with type 2 diabetes who developed diabetes during the DPP. No other long-term study has evaluated retinopathy in a population so carefully examined for the presenc
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