News Articles

Drinking fewer sugar-sweetened beverages may lower blood pressure, according to research published in Circulation.The study potentially has important public health implications, because even small reductions in blood pressure are projected to have substantial health benefits on a population level, according to the authors. The researchers also say further study – particularly randomized controlled trials to establish any cause and effect relationship – is warranted.

A previously unknown function that regulates how stem cells produce different types of cells in different parts of the nervous system has been discovered.  The results improve our understanding of how stem cells work, crucial for our ability to use stem cells to treat and repair organs. 

A group of bioelectronics researchers say they have made a major step toward being able to regulate nerve cells externally.  Their breakthrough is based on an ion transistor of plastic that can transport ions and charged biomolecules and thereby address and regulate cells. Previously, use has been made of nano-canals and nano-pores to actively control the concentration and transport of ions but those components are difficult to produce and function poorly when the salt content is high, obviously something that would be an issue in interaction with biological systems.

Is the Sun going to enter a million-degree galactic cloud of interstellar gas?A group of scientists are suggesting that the Ribbon of enhanced emissions of Energetic Neutral Atoms(ENA) discovered last year by the NASA Small Explorer satellite IBEX could be explained by a geometric effect coming up because of approach of the Sun to the boundary between the Local Cloud of interstellar gas and another cloud of a very hot gas called the Local Bubble.If their hypothesis is correct, IBEX is catching matter from a hot neighboring interstellar cloud, which the Sun might enter in a hundred years.

The International Institute for Species Exploration  has announced their top 10 new species described in 2009.Making the cut are a minnow with fangs, golden orb spider and carnivorous sponge.

Using a super-sensitive camera/spectrometer on the Herschel Space Observatory, astronomers have mapped the skies as they appeared 10 billion years ago, giving them a better look at the bright galaxies in the distant universe that appear to be forming stars at phenomenal rates. They found that these glistening galaxies preferentially occupy regions of the universe containing more dark matter and that collisions probably caused the abundant star production. Results of the research were published in Astronomy&Astrophysics.

Scientists analyzing the temperature and salt levels of the Western Mediterranean Sea between 1943 and 2000 have found that the deep water has become progressively hotter and saltier, and that, since the 1990s, this process has speeded up.Each year the temperature of the deep layer of the Western Mediterranean increases by 0.002ºC, and its salt levels increase by 0.001 units of salinity. These changes, although minimal from year to year, have been continuously and constantly occurring at a faster pace since the 1990s.The results are consistent, "but to confirm this accelerating trend, we need to monitor it over the years to come", said Manuel Vargas-Yáñez, researcher at the Oceanic Centre of Malaga of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO).

Scientists have long wondered what is happening at the cellular and molecular level to bring about the amazing coordination that occurs when birds migrate or fish gather in schools.A team of researchers writing in Science has found evidence that this collective behavior can arise in cells that initially may not be moving at all, but are prodded into action by an external agent such as a chemical. Their study has shown that food-deprived amoebae are prodded into their coordinated clumping by the chemical cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), effectively changing the parameters of the cell environment.

Too often, scientists do an inadequate job of communicating information to the public in a factual, non-technical, credible and neutral format.The authors of a new analysis of science communication in PNAS  say they have developed an effective communication strategy that could help experts connect with the public."More effective communication is badly needed at almost every level of science," said Kirsten Grorud-Colvert, a research associate in the Department of Zoology at Oregon State University. "It doesn't have to be expensive, but we have to get out of the ivory tower, away from our scientific jargon and work more closely with our various audiences."

Peer Review is universally used to ensure the quality of scientific research, but the process may not be as reliable as people assume. A new study in PLoS One suggests that the recommendations reviewers may not be much more reliable than a coin toss."Peer review provides an important filtering function with the goal of insuring that only the highest quality research is published," said William Tierney, M.D., a Regenstrief Institute investigator and study co-author. "Yet the results of our analysis suggest that reviewers agree on the disposition of manuscripts – accept or reject – at a rate barely exceeding what would be expected by chance. Nevertheless, editors' decisions appear to be significantly influenced by reviewer recommendations."

Henry Ford Hospital researchers say it is time for a nationwide public smoking ban. Such a measure would reduce public health care costs by $90 million and significantly reduce hospitalization due to heart attack each year. Their study was presented today at the American Heart Association's annual Quality of Care and Outcomes Research conference in Washington.After analyzing data from the 13 states that don't have a law banning smoking in public places, researchers concluded that more than 18,596 fewer hospitalizations for heart attack could be realized from a smoking ban in all 50 states after the first year of implementation, resulting in more than $92 million in savings in hospitals costs for caring for those patients.

Parents who have books in the home increase the level of education their children will attain, according to a 20-year study conducted by sociologists from the University of Nevada, Reno and UCLA.For years, educators have thought the strongest predictor of attaining high levels of education was having parents who were highly educated. But, strikingly, this massive study showed that the difference between being raised in a bookless home compared to being raised in a home with a 500-book library has as great an effect on the level of education a child will attain as having parents who are barely literate (3 years of education) compared to having parents who have a university education (15 or 16 years of education).