More men than women develop Parkinson’s disease and new work presented at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies says that it is do to sex differences in how brain cells change. Parkinson’s disease affects about 9 million people and becomes increasingly prevalent with age.
There's no question "Gone With The Wind" is the most successful movie of all time, when you count tickets sold, but it's not the most influential. Nor is "Star Wars." A network analysis instead shows that title goes to "The Wizard Oz", the definitive Judy Garland film. released in the same year as "Gone With The Wind."
In 8,000 B.C., when there were only about 10 million people on the entire planet, the boom and bust of famine and feast and wondering when the next meal would be was already a cultural concern. And so agriculture was created. Mankind set out to do genetic engineering, doing RNA Interference (RNAi) cereals, legumes, roots and tubers. They not only scientifically selected for larger fruits, uniform ripening and taste, they even turned dangerous natural foods into healthy ones.
Do Drosophila, commonly called fruit flies, have culture?Culture, lasting changes in a group that cannot be ascribed to genetic or ecological variation, is obviously a human quality, and it may be found in other vertebrates like some other primates and birds. A new computer simulation says it may be in fruit flies also.Fruit flies can learn and copy the sexual preferences of their conspecifics after observing them copulating. For a behavioral pattern to be deemed culturally transmitted, there are considered:1) the behavior must be learned socially, which is to say by observing conspecifics, 2) be copied from older individuals, 3) be memorized over the long term,
A new paper in Health, Risk&Society reports that women concerned about breast cancer often go to "Dr. Google" first but how much they trust it varies - more educated women, for example, trust it more, while less educated women would rather see a doctor.
Oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere is necessary for complex forms of life, which use it during aerobic respiration to make energy. The levels of oxygen dramatically rose in the atmosphere around 2.4 billion years ago, and speculation is that is when organisms called cyanobacteria, which perform the same type of organic photosynthesis that all plants do today, first evolved, and could perform oxygen-producing (oxygenic) photosynthesis. Perhaps cyanobacteria could have evolved before 2.4 billion years ago but something prevented oxygen from accumulating in the air.
A polio vaccine that doesn't require refrigeration could be used all over the world, and that would bring an end to the devastating disease.With just 22 reported cases worldwide in 2017, the highly infectious disease, which causes lifelong paralysis and disability mostly in young children, is on the brink of complete eradication. Yet in Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Syria and Pakistan, countries where vaccination rates are spotty, young children remain at risk.
A biosynthetic pathway in bacteria includes a a carboxylase enzyme which adds CO2 to a precursor molecule, producing a highly unusual antibiotic called malonomycin.Unchecked antibiotic resistance could result in an estimated 10 million deaths every year by 2050, while guesses on cost to the global economy go as high as $70 trillion in lost productivity. The researchers found that CO2 was introduced into the malonomycin structure, by a carboxylase enzyme that has never been characterized in bacteria before. Malonomycin carboxylase is most similar to a carboxylase enzyme in human cells which uses vitamin K to add CO2 to proteins in our bodies, triggering essential physiological responses including blood coagulation.
What factors sustain the diversity of life on our planet? You might be surprised to learn one answer is sexual harassment.
After 32 people were infected with the outbreak strain of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157:H7 in 11 states between October 8th to October 31st, the CDC is now warning people about Romaine lettuce. All of it, whole heads of romaine, hearts of romaine, and bags and boxes of precut lettuce and salad mixes that contain romaine, including baby romaine, spring mix, and Caesar salad, because no common grower, supplier, distributor, or brand of romaine lettuce has been identified.
Though anaphylaxis is rare, you are more likely to be murdered this Thanksgiving than die from a food allergy, companies and schools are increasingly buying epinephrine auto-injectors (EpiPens), which has led to shortages (government approval policies make it difficult for competitors to enter the market) and thus high costs. Though rare, the consequences of anaphylaxis are high, much more severe than using it when it might not be necessary.
If you are one of the millions of people in the U.S. who now carries an epinephrine auto injector (EAI) you probably wondered if it will still work if it freezes this winter. It will, according to new research being presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting.
A pilot study in Development and Psychopathology concluded that teenage girls who engage in self-harm like cutting often have brain features like adults with borderline personality disorder. Often is relative, since this was only 40 individuals.Cutting and other forms of self-harm are warning signs for suicide, which data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say increased 300 percent among 10- to 14-year-old girls from 1999 to 2014, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During that same time, along with a 53 percent increase in suicide in older teen girls and young women.
A new study in Nature Communications suggests that climate change could pose a threat to male fertility by increasing the number and severity of heat waves which damage sperm.The authors contend that climate change is already having an impact on species populations, including climate-related extinctions in recent years. The authors suggest that sperm function is an especially sensitive trait. Sperm function is essential for reproduction and population viability, and so they sound a warning that biodiversity is already collapsing.
