Recent Southern Research Station (SRS) research demonstrates how models can be used to forecast future forest conditions in areas of rapid development. In a report published this last fall in Ecology and Society, FS Southern Research Station (SRS) researchers David Wear, John Pye, and Kurt Riitters provide a visual forecast of the effects of population and economic growth on interior forest habitat in the Southeast over the next 40 years.
“Almost 90 percent of the land in the sout
I got rhythm,
I got music.
I got my guy,
Who could ask for anything more?
George Gershwin/Ira Gershwin
North American adults have problems perceiving and reproducing irregular rhythms. That’s what past studies have shown, and some new research has addressed the question of whether our seeming inability to dance to a different tune should be chalked up to nature or culture. New findings point to a harmonious blend of both.
Music has a communal quality
An international team of physicists that includes a Texas A&M University professor has announced discovery of a new spintronic effect in semiconductor chips, the intrinsic spin Hall effect, which puts a new twist on future technology and the possibility for novel circuits with low energy consumption.
The team is formed by physicists Dr. Jörg Wunderlich and Dr. Bernd Kaestner from the Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory, U.K.; Prof. Tomás Jungwirth from the Institute of Physics of the Aca
Findings could lead to new treatment based on individual genetic profiles
Children who suffer from acute asthma attacks share a genetic profile that appears to be unique to these children, according to a new study by researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. The discovery opens the door to the possibility of designing treatments specifically tailored to children who suffer from the severest forms of asthma. The findings appear in the Feb. 10 issue of
The opportunity to annotate the genome of the glow-in-the-dark bacterium, Vibrio fischeri, which lives in symbiotic harmony within the light organ of the bobtail squid, has helped a Virginia Tech microbiologist advance her research on quorum sensing, or how cells communicate and function as a community.
Researchers studying the newly sequenced genome of the marine bacterium V. fischeri, described this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), have so f
Penn State’s Alex Wolszczan, the discoverer in 1992 of the first planets ever found outside our solar system, now has discovered with Caltech’s Maciej Konacki the smallest planet yet detected,in that same far-away planetary system. Immersed in an extended cloud of ionized gas, the new planet orbits a rapidly spinning neutron star called a pulsar. The discovery, to be announced during a press conference at a meeting concerning planetary formation and detection in Aspen, Colorado, on 7 F
Researchers report this week that older adults who have higher proportions of four periodontal-disease-causing bacteria inhabiting their mouths also tend to have thicker carotid arteries, a strong predictor of stroke and heart attack. The study, published in the current issue of the journal Circulation, was supported by four agencies of the National Institutes of Health.
According to the authors, these data mark the first report of a direct association between cardiovascular dise
While nothing can undo the devastation from the massive tsunami that recently struck in Southeast Asia, lives can be saved in the future if scientists can rapidly characterize the earthquakes that cause tsunami. The quick response of the Global Seismographic Network to the 26 December 2004 Sumatra- Andaman earthquake offers clear opportunities to reduce the amount of time before an emergency response and assistance could be dispatched to a similarly afflicted area in the future.
Findings press need for early treatment to help prevent strokes
A UC Irvine Stroke Center study reveals how plaque in the main neck artery plays a critical role in creating blood clots that greatly increase the risk of stroke.
Dr. Mark Fisher, director of the UCI Stroke Center, and colleagues found that in the carotid artery, the primary source of blood to the brain, plaques form lesions that support the growth of the stroke-causing blood clots, which can either block t
St. Jude study shows the level of this DNA in the blood appears to directly reflect the ability of the transplant recipient’s thymus gland to process donated stem cells and turn them into effective T cells
Measuring the quantity of a certain type of immune cell DNA in the blood could help physicians predict whether a bone marrow stem cell transplant will successfully restore a population of infection-fighting cells called T lymphocytes in a child. This research, by investigators
Project A.L.S. funds breakthrough research
A significant proportion of patients suffering from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease or motor neuron disease, have a marker of retrovirus activity in their blood, reports the February 8 issue of the medical journal Neurology. The study was led by Dr. Jeremy A. Garson of University College London, UK and Dr. Ammar Al-Chalabi of King’s College London, UK, and was funded in full by Project A.L.S.
New findings, made by researchers studying the outcome of a decades-long fox-breeding experiment, suggest that some aspects of social intelligence in animals are correlated with genetically selected “tame” behavior–for example, fearlessness and non-aggression toward humans. Understanding how intelligence evolved in humans and other animals remains one of the central evolutionary questions yet to be answered by behavioral scientists. Of particular interest is how social problem solving evolves; m
With new model, researchers fish for answers
Researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have found an important clue about the origins of the deadly skin cancer melanoma. Using black-and-white-striped zebrafish to model human melanoma, they showed that a specific mutation in a gene called BRAF is critical to the development of moles, and when combined with a separate mutation, leads to cancer. Their findings appear in the February 8th issu
Columbia University Medical Center research illustrates connection between periodontal disease and atherosclerosis
A new study by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center provides the most direct evidence to date that preventing gum disease could significantly improve your chances of avoiding vascular problems.
The study, which appears in the February 8 edition of the American Heart Association’s publication Circulation, shows that people with gum disease ar
A new study of the popular injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera shows that teenagers’ bone density recovers after they stop using the drug. Several previous studies have linked Depo-Provera to bone loss, raising concerns about its use among teens, a population in their peak bone-building years.
“These findings are reassuring for those concerned about future risk of fractures,” said Delia Scholes, PhD, senior investigator at Group Health Cooperative’s Center for Healt
Regulating metabolism of fat is an important challenge for any animal, from nematodes to humans. Central players in the regulatory network are the nuclear hormone receptors (NHRs), which are transcription factors that turn on or off a set of target genes when bound by specific lipid molecules. In the premier open-access journal PLoS Biology, Keith Yamamoto and colleagues show that the nuclear hormone receptor nhr-49 controls two different aspects of fat metabolism, which interact to form a f
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