With their long necks and tails, sauropod dinosaurs—famous as the Sinclair gasoline logo and Fred Flintstone’s gravel pit tractor—are easy to recognize, in part because they all seem to look alike.

The largest animals known to have walked the earth, sauropods were common in North America during the middle of the dinosaur era but were thought to have been pushed to extinction by more specialized plant-eaters at the end of that era. New discoveries, however, are showing that on

Tall people are more prepared to take risks than small people, women are more careful than men, and the willingness to take risks markedly decreases with age: these are the findings arrived at by researchers from the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), the University of Bonn and the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin. For their study they evaluated more than 20,000 interviews with people from all over Germany and additionally confirmed the findings by experiment. What

Even the subtlest hints of anger or hostility in their environment sets physically abused children on prolonged ’alert’, even if a conflict has nothing to do with them.

The tendency to stay attentive of nearby discord is probably a natural form of self-preservation in children who routinely face aggression. But it may also explain why abused children are often so distracted at school, write researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the journal Child Developme

In a study of adult monkeys who were exposed to moderate amounts of alcohol in utero, scientists have found that prenatal exposure to alcohol – even in small doses – has pronounced effects on the development and function later in life of the brain’s dopamine system, a critical component of the central nervous system that regulates many regions of the brain.

Writing in the current issue (Sept. 15, 2005) of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, a team of re

Researchers say marital problems affect men and women equally

Spouses in a poor marriage are more likely to be stressed during the workday, a finding that could mean a greater likelihood of strokes and heart disease for both husband and wife, according to researchers at Brandeis University and University College in London.
In a study published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, the researchers also found that a bad marriage impacts stress levels of men and women equall

A respiratory disorder that causes thoroughbred racehorses to hemorrhage during competition may seriously hamper some horses’ chances of winning a race.

A new study in Australia found that horses with more severe forms of this disorder, called exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage (EIPH) trailed the winner by an average of 14 feet (4.36 meters). EIPH causes blood to leak from the pulmonary artery into the bronchial tubes and windpipe during intense exercise, making it harder

With rising concern over the cost of the new Medicare prescription drug benefit program – going into effect January, 2006 and estimated to cost $593 billion over the next decade – a new UCSF study reveals that a key cost-cutting strategy employed by HMOs for 15 years is simply not working.

Health insurance companies have increasingly sought to limit the amount of expensive drugs doctors prescribe to patients in order to keep drug costs form spiraling, according to the study autho

Drugs already in development to target the genetic pathway

In a new study, scientists at The Hospital for Sick Children and Princess Margaret Hospital have shown that two genes called Notch1 and Jagged1 are linked to more aggressive breast cancers and that patients are less likely to survive the disease when these two genes are highly expressed.

The study is published in the September 15th issue of the journal Cancer Research, a publication of the American Association f

Scientists have discovered a new and potent anti-cancer compound in everyday food. The collaborative study led by UCL (University College London) shows that the compound – inositol pentakisphosphate – found in beans, nuts and cereals inhibits a key enzyme (phosphoinositide 3-kinase) involved in tumour growth. The findings, published in the latest issue of Cancer Research, suggest that a diet enriched in such foods could help prevent cancer, while the inhibitor offers a new tool for anti-cancer

A new study to detect an elevated rate of mutations in a gene on the X chromosome holds promise for developing a test that could identify individuals at risk for developing cancer. In the study, led by David J. Araten, M.D., Assistant Professor in the Department of Hematology at NYU School of Medicine, the rate of mutations in the gene, called PIG-A, was significantly higher in individuals born with defects in the cellular machinery to repair DNA compared to people without these genetic cond

Radio amateurs worldwide are being asked to help collect data from the student-built SSETI Express satellite, due to be placed in orbit on 27 September. To encourage them, ESA’s Education department has organised two competitions and is supplying free downloadable software.

“We will be happy to receive all the help we can, particularly during the early operations phase,” says SSETI Express Project Manager, Neil Melville. “If a radio amateur receives a signal from SSETI Express

Men who slide down the social ladder during their lifetime take the blow much harder than women in the same position, a new study shows.

Women were twice as likely to be downwardly mobile but generally avoided the depression and poor psychological wellbeing that researchers found in men in the same position.

Men who experienced a downward social shift were four times more likely to experience depression than men who improved their social status, whereas there was no

How you interact with your children when they’re just starting kindergarten helps determine their behavior by the time they finish fourth grade, according to a study published in the September/October 2005 issue of the journal Child Development. The study, from researchers at Wichita State University in Kansas, found that early parent-child relationships, including warmth, good communication and parental tracking of child behavior, serve as important building blocks for later monitoring (k

Nature or nurture? It’s the eternal question for so many human interactions and personality traits. Now, it appears, nature may play a larger role than nurture when it comes to family relationships between adolescents and their parents.

Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin and George Washington University in Washington, D.C., used data on 674 families, each with a same-sex adolescent pair, to evaluate the factors that made up the relationships and individual p

Set of known errors is merely tip of the iceberg, UCI researcher says

While forensic scientists have long claimed fingerprint evidence is infallible, the widely publicized error that landed an innocent American behind bars as a suspect in the Madrid train bombing alerted the nation to the potential flaws in the system. Now, UC Irvine criminologist Simon Cole has shown that not only do errors occur, but as many as a thousand incorrect fingerprint “matches” could be made each yea

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine provide direct evidence that two parts of a neuronal system, one that promotes eating and another that suppresses eating, are critical for the acute regulation of eating and body weight, according to a study published online in the September 11 issue of Nature Neuroscience.

The paper makes it clear that the agouti-related peptide-expressing (AgRP) neurons are mandatory for eating. “Previous studies showed that the brain, particularly the hy