News Articles

It's well known that young girls are very self-conscious about their bodies, but it may not be because of the unrealistically thin Disney characters they see on TV, as is often assumed. A new study featured in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology suggests that while the media's portrayal of beauty does influence how young girls see themselves, they aren't likely to suffer short-term consequences from watching Cinderella, a conclusion in sharp contrast to earlier studies which suggest that the self-esteem of older girls and women suffers after short-term exposure to thin, beautiful models on television and in the movies.

The recent financial meltdown was perhaps the biggest economic crisis since the great depression, and a team of economists says that current macroeconomic models used to diagnose and treat the causes of the ongoing recession are woefully inadequate.Their study, appearing in the November issue of Strategic Organization, argues that macroeconomics is not equipped to offer full solutions to this crisis. Its basic assumption is that factors of production, firms, and industries in the economy are homogeneous and interchangeable. Research in strategic management has consistently shown that the assumption that the economy is made up of homogeneous or interchangeable factors of production is incorrect.

The first large black holes in the universe likely grew deep inside gigantic, starlike cocoons that smothered their powerful x-ray radiation and prevented surrounding gases from being blown away, says a new study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Ignoring all of the likely reasons why Africa may see more civil wars in the future, a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that global warming could increase the likelihood of civil war in sub-Saharan Africa by over 50 percent within the next two decades. The study, conducted by researchers at UC Berkeley as well as at Stanford University, New York University and Harvard University, provides the first "quantitative" evidence linking climate change and the risk of civil conflict, the authors claim. They conclude by urging accelerated support by African governments and foreign aid donors for new and/or expanded policies to assist with African adaptation to climate change.

A new study published in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology suggests that the volcanic super-eruption of Toba on the island of Sumatra about 73,000 years ago deforested much of central India, some 3,000 miles from the epicenter. The volcano ejected an estimated 800 cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere, leaving a crater (now the world's largest volcanic lake) that is 100 kilometers long and 35 kilometers wide. Ash from the event has been found in India, the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea.

While surveying monkeys in the Magombera Forest in Tanzania, environmental scientists this week unexpectedly discovered a new species of chameleon called Kinyongia magomberae, or the Magombera chameleon. The researchers distinguished the new specimen by collecting, testing and comparing it to two others found in the same area of the Udzungwa Mountains National Park. Their results are documented in the African Journal of Herpetology."Discovering a new species is a rare event so to be involved in the identification and naming of this animal is very exciting, said co-discoverer Dr Andrew Marshall.

The capacity of oceans and terrestrial ecosystems such as forests and grasslands to store carbon emissions is considered one of the primary ways the effects of climate change can be mitigated. Unfortunately, such natural carbon sinks may not be much help to Europe thanks to the continent's intensive land management practices, according to a new published online in Nature Geoscience.

Short of a global economic collapse or the construction of a new nuclear power plant everyday, stabilizing or reducing greenhouse gas emissions is impossible, says University of Utah atmospheric scientist Tim Garrett. In his new Climatic Change study – which is based on the concept that physics can be used to characterize the evolution of civilization – Garrett argues that energy conservation or efficiency doesn't really save energy, but instead spurs economic growth and accelerates energy consumption.

While most of the proposals put forth to address climate change so far have called on governments to play a more active role in society, perhaps one of the best things they could do is promote free trade and then get out of the way.  According to research conducted by an economists at Oregon State University, wealthier countries with competitive crop production and few trade barriers would fare the best if climate change, weather events or other factors cause yields of grain and oilseed crops to become more volatile. By these criteria, the United States is poised to do well, but France would come out on top, according to the study of 21 countries conducted by economists at Oregon State University.

Researchers at the City College of New York say they have developed a new way to generate power for planes and automobiles using piezoelectrics.  Piezoelectrics convert the kinetic energy of motion into electricity. The researchers will present their concept later this month at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society's (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics.

According to a recent GENETICS study, a family of genes (1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase, or ACS genes) are responsible for production of ethylene and since this gas affects many aspects of plant development, it could lay the foundation for future genetic manipulation that could make plants disease resistant, able to survive and thrive in difficult terrain, increase yields, and other useful agronomical outcomes.The discovery was made with the weed Arabidopsis thaliana but is applicable to plants used in agriculture, they say.

A key riddle surrounding the origin of biological molecules like RNA and DNA is how they first came together billions of years ago from simple precursors but a study appearing in the Journal of Biological Chemistry says researchers in Italy have reconstructed one of the earliest evolutionary steps yet; generating long chains of RNA from individual subunits using nothing but warm water. Many researchers believe that RNA was one of the first biological molecules present, before DNA and proteins, but there has been little success in recreating the formation on RNA from simple "prebiotic" molecules that likely were present on primordial earth billions of years ago.