News Articles

The newly discovered gas giant Corot-9b may have an interior that closely resembles those of Jupiter and Saturn in our own Solar System, according to a new paper published today in Nature. Some evidence also suggest that the exoplanet, discovered last Spring, may also be temperate enough to allow the presence of liquid water.  Corot-9b orbits its star every 95.274 days, a little longer than Mercury takes to go round the Sun. It is the first transiting planet to have both a longer period and a near-circular orbit. Its orbit is slightly elliptical but at closest approach to its parent star it reaches a distance of 54 million kilometers.

When men make sexist comments, they insult all women within earshot and negatively influence how they feel towards men in general, say researchers writing in Sex Roles. The University of Connecticut team examined women's reactions to overhearing a catcall remark and, in particular, how observing a specific sexist incident impacts women's feelings and attitudes towards men. They asked 114 undergraduate female students to watch a video and imagine themselves as bystanders to a situation where a man made either a sexist catcall remark ("Hey Kelly, your boobs look great in that shirt!") at another woman or simply greeted her ("Hey Kelly, what's up?").

Blocking the protein Granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) can reduce or prevent cigarette smoke-induced lung inflammation in mice and may lead to new treatments for smoke-related disease, specifically chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The findings appear in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Humans use a wide range of cues, both verbal and non-verbal, to communicate different emotions. But vocalizing some positive emotions may be a socially learned behavior, as opposed to a product of evolution, according to a new study in PNAS that looked at non-verbal emotional vocalizations in two different cultural groups.

Our genes may not be the basis for human individuality, according to new studies in Science and Nature. The key may actually lie in the sequences that surround and control our genes. The interaction of those sequences with a class of proteins, called transcription factors, can vary significantly between two people and are likely to affect our appearance, our development and even our predisposition to certain diseases.The discovery suggests that researchers focusing exclusively on genes to learn what makes people different from one another have been looking in the wrong place.

Butterflies are emerging over 10 days earlier in Spring than they did 65 years ago, and anthropogenic global warming is probably at fault, according to a study in Biology Letters.  The study found that mean emergence date for adults of the Common Brown butterfly (Heteronympha merope) has shifted 1.6 days earlier per decade in Melbourne, Australia. Early emergence is causally linked with a simultaneous increase in air temperatures around Melbourne of approximately 0.14°C per decade, and this warming is known to be human-induced.

Dogs likely originated in the Middle East, according to a new genetic analysis published this week in Nature.The study reports genetic data from more than 900 dogs from 85 breeds and more than 200 wild gray wolves (the ancestor of domestic dogs) worldwide, including populations from North America, Europe, the Middle East and East Asia. Researchers used molecular genetic techniques to analyze more than 48,000 genetic markers. The data include samples from Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran — but they have not pinpointed a specific location in the Middle East where dogs originated.

A 3,000-year record from 52 of the world's oldest Sequoia trees shows that California's western Sierra Nevada was drought-ridden and often on fire from 800 to 1300, according to a new study published in Fire Ecology.During those 500 years, known as the Medieval Warm Period, extensive fires burned through parts of the Giant Forest at intervals of about 3 to 10 years. Any individual tree was probably in a fire about every 10 to 15 years.Knowing how giant sequoia trees responded to a 500-year warm spell in the past is important, the authors say, because climate change will probably subject the trees to such a warm, dry environment again.

New satellite data reveal that the amount of ultraviolet (UV) radiation reaching Earth's surface increased markedly from the period 1979 to 1998 and then stabilized, according to a study recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.  The primary culprit: decreasing levels of stratospheric ozone, a colorless gas that acts as Earth's natural sunscreen by shielding the surface from damaging UV radiation.

A new study in Environmental Science and Technology suggests that controlled burns release substantially less carbon dioxide emissions than wildfires of the same size and could be used to help the United States reduce its contribution to climate change.Drawing on satellite observations and computer models of emissions, the researchers concluded that widespread prescribed burns can reduce fire emissions of carbon dioxide in the Western U.S. by an average of 18 to 25 percent, and by as much as 60 percent in certain forest systems.

Legislation restricting or banning smoking in public places reduces heart attacks, a study in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health suggests.The study examined trends in acute heart attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand following the enactment of legislation which made smoking illegal in all workplaces including bars and restaurants.Three years after a smoking ban in all workplaces was introduced hospital admissions for heart attacks among men and women aged 55-74 fell by 9 per cent. This figure rose to 13 per cent for 55-74 year olds who had never smoked.Overall, the research showed heart attacks among people aged 30 and over fell by an average of 5 per cent in the three years following the ban.

The key to silk's pound-for-pound toughness, which exceeds that of steel, is its beta-sheet crystals, the nano-sized cross-linking domains that hold the material together, say researchers writing in Nature Materials. Using computer models, researchers simulated how the components of beta sheet crystals move and interact with each other. They found that an unusual arrangement of hydrogen bonds--the "glue" that stabilizes the beta-sheet crystals--play an important role in defining the strength of silk.