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.
A recent study in European Journal of Clinical Nutrition finds that picky eaters are healthier. That doesn't mean you shouldn't encourage kids to try new things, but they are not going to end up unhealthy if they sat at the dinner table for an hour and still didn't eat that cabbage. And it debunks claims that picky eaters are at higher risk of being underweight, with poor growth, or being overweight.
The National Nature Reserve of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands is home to the world's biggest colony of king penguins and if satellite images are being interpreted accurately, they have seen a massive 88% reduction in the size of their colony, located on Île aux Cochons, in the Îles Crozet archipelago. If so, the causes of the colony’s collapse remain a mystery but the blame will likely fall on climate change.
Impulse control is associated with larger cognitively advanced animals like humans and other primates, but there are exceptions, like ravens. Now a recent study shows that the great tit, a common European songbird, has a tremendous capacity for self-control - almost the same as chimpanzees. Biologists learned this by placing food in a small translucent cylinder. The great tits that started pecking at the cylinder to get to the food failed the test as the behavior was considered an impulsive act. Those that, on the other hand, moved to an opening in the cylinder and thereby were able to access the food without pecking at the cylinder wall passed the test.
Bt modification in maize does not affect non-target beneficial microorganisms such as endophytes, according to a new study. This debunks some of the more obscure claims made by activists opposed to genetic engineering (suicides in India being the most bizarre.
Though evidence to-date shows we are the first advanced species, at least in our cosmic neighborhood, that doesn't mean it can't happen elsewhere. It is absolutely likely, because according to one estimate there are as many as 700 million trillion terrestrial planets just in the observable universe.
The 2017 hurricane season was one of the most expensive in the Atlantic Ocean region. Hurricane Harvey hit in mid-August 2017, followed just a few weeks later by Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria in September. Each of these storms had winds in excess of 125 mph, with Irma up to 170 mph. Damage from totals for the hurricane season topped $282 billion.
American cities nationwide, riding a wave of populism brought about by media attention, are looking to ban straws, claiming they will save the planet doing so. Companies are naturally following suit - companies always will, because consumers pay the cost and if they are happy paying more while giving marketing departments something to promote it is an easy choice.It is a cultural placebo that will make people feel like they did something important but it is meaningless. Instead, pollution is up because the world is wealthier, rich and relatively poor alike, than ever before.
Democracies have better teeth than dictatorships, according to recent statistical correlation presented at the 96th General Session of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) in London, held in conjunction with the IADR Pan European Regional (PER) Congress.
The effects predicted by Einstein’s general relativity on the motion of a star passing through the extreme gravitational field have been validated near the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way.Obscured by thick clouds of absorbing dust, the closest supermassive black hole to the Earth lies 26 000 light-years away at the centre of the Milky Way. This gravitational monster, which has a mass four million times that of the Sun, is surrounded by a small group of stars orbiting around it at high speed. This extreme environment — the strongest gravitational field in our galaxy — makes it the perfect place to explore gravitational physics, and particularly to test Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) branch of the United Nations has added 24 new sites to the World Network of Biosphere Reserves, bring the total number to 686.Biosphere reserves are sites hoping to couple conservation of biodiversity and human activity by promoting use of natural resources - which is a fuzzy term for fuzzy sustainable development practices. The new biosphere reserves are (in alphabetical order of countries):
While cats are generally regarded as being aloof and uncaring, dogs are called "man's best friend." They are in tune with our emotions, it is said. "Lassie" had a level of connection with her humans that only television could write, but there has always been anecdotal evidence that dogs will do whatever they can to help.A new experiment shows that not only do dogs care if their owner is upset, they will overcome obstacles in a hurry to provide aid. The results in Learning&Behavior showed that dogs with strong bonds to their owners hurried to pushed through a door when they heard their person crying.
The moon is just a big rock in Earth's orbit now but things could have gone a lot differently in the distant past. In fact, there may have been two early windows of habitability for Luna.In a new paper, astrobiologists say conditions on the lunar surface were sufficient to support simple lifeforms shortly after the moon formed from a debris disk 4 billion years ago and again during a peak in lunar volcanic activity around 3.5 billion years ago. During both periods, planetary scientists think the moon was spewing out large quantities of superheated volatile gases, including water vapor, from its interior.
