News Articles

It's among the most ancient of questions in history, covering metaphysics, chemistry, biology and theology: What are the origins of life on Earth?

New surveys find that older adults who play video games report higher levels of emotional well-being.
Scholars asked 140 people aged 63 and older how often they played video games, if at all. The participants then took a series of psychological assessment tests to determine their emotional and social well-being. 61 percent of study participants played video games at least occasionally, with 35 percent of participants saying they played at least once per week.
The survey found that participants who played video games, including those who only played occasionally, reported higher levels of well-being. Those who did not play video games reported that they felt more negative emotions and had a tendency toward feeling higher levels of depression.

The timber industry, including pulp and paper producers, are among Canada's most important industries  - but they are also one of the largest producers of wastewater and greenhouse gas emissions in wastewater is a concern. 
Until now, greenhouse gas emission estimates have been limited by the mathematical models used to predict them. Researchers have recently developed a new dynamic method to better predict the emission content of these gases.   

A new paper says that flocks of birds, schools of fish, and groups of any other living organisms might have a mathematical function in common - body sizes are distributed according to the same mathematical expression, where the only unknown is the average size of the species in an ecosystem. 

Doctors have used drugs to induce general anesthesia in patients undergoing surgery since a medical doctor became a legitimate profession in the mid-1800s.  But little has been known about how these drugs create such a profound loss of consciousness. We don't understand why aspirin works either, but it does.  Yet the search for answers about the brain is ongoing. 

When a marathon runner approaches the finish line of race but suddenly collapses, it's reasonable to assume it is because of a muscle issue. It might also be a braking mechanism in the brain which swings into effect and makes us people tired to continue. What may be occurring is what is referred to as 'central fatigue'.

A survey analysis finds both that the public is supportive of government action to curb obesity, diabetes, and other noncommunicable diseases - but don't like interventions that appear intrusive or coercive.
The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) analysis also found that support was higher for interventions that help people make more healthful choices, such as menu labeling requirements, than for interventions that penalize certain choices or health conditions, such as charging higher insurance premiums for obese individuals.

If your children stump you with 'cite your data' claims on why they need to eat leafy green vegetables, even though we got to the top of the food chain so we wouldn't have to do that, here is good news; a new study found that that an immune cell population essential for intestinal health could be controlled by leafy greens in your diet.

Though staunchly opposed to nuclear power in some respects, like the controversial decision to scuttle the Yucca Mountain project, the Obama administration said in 2012 that it was "jumpstarting" the nuclear industry.

While America moves toward an egalitarian approach to medical care, another study has found that the quality of cares matters in things like advanced head and neck cancers.
The paper in Cancer says that patients who were treated at hospitals that saw a high number of head and neck cancers were 15 percent less likely to die of their disease as compared to patients who were treated at hospitals that saw a relatively low number. The study also found that such patients were 12 percent less likely to die of their disease when treated at a National Cancer Institute -designated cancer center.
 

There is evidence of an ancient micro-continent buried beneath the Indian Ocean. The ancient continent is a thousand miles in length and extends from the Seychelles to the island of Mauritius. It contains rocks up to 2 billion years old - much older than the Indian Ocean itself, which has formed only in the last 165 million years. 
The research team believe that this micro-continent, which they have named Mauritia, was split off from Madagascar and India between 61 and 83 million years ago as one single land mass rifted apart to form the continents around the Indian Ocean that we know today.
Much of it was then smothered by thick lava deposits as a result of volcanic activity and submerged beneath the waves.

Why didn't the Earth warm as much as estimates and numerical models projected would happen between 2000 and 2010? A new paper says now thinks the culprits are hiding in plain sight; they are dozens of volcanoes spewing sulfur dioxide.