Scientists have reported that an experimental vaccine targeting one of the most common genetic drivers of pancreatic cancer, called mutant KRAS, is safe and generated a durable immune responses aimed at preventing the cancer.
Will fish stop swimming due to global warming?
It's not the craziest mainstream media headline you are likely to read, but researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University say that fish share something in common with people; when it's hot, they just want to lay around.
Researcher Dr. Jacob Johansen noted that fish rely on swimming for almost all activities necessary for survival, including hunting for food and finding mates. "However, global warming may reduce the swimming ability of many fish species, and have major impacts on their ability to grow and reproduce."
A $500
three-dimensional
"nano-camera" that can operate at the speed of light has been developed by researchers in the MIT Media Lab and was presented at Siggraph Asia in Hong Kong. It could be used in medical imaging and collision-avoidance detectors for cars, and to improve the accuracy of motion tracking and gesture-recognition devices used in interactive gaming.
If pharmaceutical companies are unethical, scientists are just tinkerers and doctors are educated by marketing, why would parents sign up their kids for medical research?
Those concepts are perpetuated in both mass and science media so it's no surprise that only 5 percent of parents have ever participated in any kind of medical research, and a large number of those are already ill. The downside that that is that healthcare for kids can't be improved. Animal models can only do so much when everything you eat at Thanksgiving contains a rodent carcinogen.
When a star goes supernova, it shines brightly for a few weeks or months before fading away. Yet the material blasted outward from the explosion glows hundreds or thousands of years later, leaving a picturesque supernova remnant. But how?
Tycho's supernova was witnessed by astronomer Tycho Brahe in 1572. The appearance of this "new star" stunned those who thought the heavens were constant and unchanging. At its brightest, the supernova rivaled Venus before fading from sight a year later. Modern astronomers know that the event Tycho and others observed was a Type Ia supernova, caused by the explosion of a white dwarf star. The explosion spewed elements like silicon and iron into space at speeds of more than 11 million miles per hour (5,000 km/s).
Methane has 30 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide but lacks the press awareness of its greenhouse gas cousin.
And a new study in
Nature Geoscience has found that the seafloor off the coast of Northern Siberia is releasing more than twice the amount of methane as previously estimated - the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is venting at least 17 million tons
(teragrams) of methane into the atmosphere each year.
Can you artificially strengthen a marital bond?
Scientists at the Bonn University Medical Center found that if oxytocin is administered to men and if they are shown pictures of their partner, the bonding hormone stimulates the reward center in the brain, increass the attractiveness of the partner, and strengthens monogamy.
Using chest pain characteristics (CPCs) specific to women in the early diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (AMI, heart attack) in the emergency department does not seem to be supported by the findings of a new study.
While about 90 percent of patients with AMI present with chest pain or discomfort, some patients present without typical chest pain. Sex-specific differences in symptom presentation among women have received increasing attention. But it remains unclear whether identifying sex-specific CPCs is possible to help physicians differentiate women with AMI from women with other causes of chest pain, the authors write in the study background.
Retroviruses are important pathogens capable of crossing species barriers to infect new hosts, but knowledge of their evolutionary history is limited. By mapping endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), retroviruses whose genes have become part of the host organism's genome, researchers at Uppsala University, Sweden, can now provide unique insights into the evolutionary relationships of retroviruses and their host species.
Archaeologists working in Nepal have uncovered evidence of a structure at the birthplace of the Buddha dating to the sixth century B.C., the first archaeological material linking the life of the Buddha and the movement he founded to a specific century.
The Maya Devi Temple at Lumbini, Nepal, has long been considered the birthplace of the Buddha and now excavations have uncovered the remains of a previously unknown sixth-century B.C. timber structure under a series of brick temples. Laid out on the same design as those above it, the timber structure contains an open space in the center that links to the nativity story of the Buddha himself.
Playing violent video games not only increases aggression, it also leads to less self-control and more cheating, according to a paper in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
The psychologists found that teens who played violent video games ate more chocolate and were more likely to steal raffle tickets in a lab experiment than were teens who played nonviolent games. The effects were strongest in those who scored high on a measure of moral disengagement – the ability to convince yourself that ethical standards don't apply to you in a particular situation.
Global warming was set in motion around 1600 AD, it seems.
Because carbon dioxide emissions persist for a long time, even a sudden halt today means the carbon dioxide already in Earth's atmosphere could continue to warm our planet for hundreds of years, according to a numerical model which suggests that it might take a lot less carbon than previously thought to reach the global temperature scientists deem unsafe.
Awe-inspiring moments, like the sight of the Grand Canyon or the Aurora Borealis, might increase our tendency to believe in God and the supernatural, according to a new paper in Psychological Science which suggests that awe-inspiring sights increase our motivation to make sense of the world around us. Learning geology may be too hard to it's easier to default to aliens or religion.
