News Articles

Interested in Michael Jackson now that he is dead?   So are cyber criminals who are exploiting public interest in his death with spam messages that infect computers with a virus able to steal bank account numbers and passwords, according to Gary Warner, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) director of research in computer forensics. Warner and the other researchers at the UAB Spam Data Mine began tracking the celebrity-focused spam early on Tuesday, June 30.“We’ve been tracking the cyber criminals behind this spam and the associated virus for many weeks, but it is just today that they have shifted their strategy by embedding their virus into an e-mail that claims to link you to a Web site that will reveal Michael Jackson’s killer,” Warner said. 

With the increasing popularity of whitening teeth, and some studies showing negative effects of teeth whitening, researchers at the Eastman Institute for Oral Health at the University of Rochester Medical Center set out to learn if there are negative effects on the tooth from using whitening products.Eastman Institute's YanFang Ren, DDS, PhD, and his team determined that the effects of 6 percent hydrogen peroxide, the common ingredient in professional and over-the-counter whitening products, are insignificant compared to acidic fruit juices. Orange juice markedly decreased hardness and increased roughness of tooth enamel.

A team of researchers from the University of Alcalá de Henares (UAH) says that human beings can develop echolocation, the system of acoustic signals used by dolphins and bats to explore their surroundings. Producing certain kinds of tongue clicks helps people to identify objects around them without needing to see them, obviously something that would be useful for the blind, if it's true.The team has started a series of tests, the first of their kind in the world, they say, to make use of human beings' under-exploited echolocation skills.Much cooler than Man-Bat.  ©Marvel Comics Group

There's a reason religious cults do things in groups; peer pressure and mutual awareness keeps them on message.   Likewise, young people are more likely to participate in conservation if their peers do - a tendency that should be exploited when it comes to protecting the environment, according to results of a new study.The research, which focused on a mammoth government initiative called Grain-to-Green that pays Chinese farmers to convert cropland back to forest, is the first to focus on the phenomenon of social norms in the context of China's conservation efforts, said scientist Jianguo "Jack" Liu of Michigan State University (MSU).

The front portion of the brain that handles tasks like decision-making, the left inferior frontal sulcus, also helps decipher different phonetic sounds, according to new Brown University research.  This section of the brain treats different pronunciations of the same speech sound (such as a 'd' sound) the same way, they say, and in determining this they believe they have solved a mystery.

Elsevier today announced the highlights of its journal impact factor performance in 2008. Elsevier overall saw 75% of its journal impact factors (IF) increase from 2007 to 2008. According to the 2008 Journal Citation Report(R) published by ThomsonReuters, Elsevier journals took the #1 position in 51 categories (of 229) across all of the sciences and social sciences.
In addition, 30 Elsevier journals got their first impact factor this year. Cell Stem Cell (http://www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell/home) (16.826) entered the Cell Biology category ranked 6th (of 157 journals), while Cell Host Microbe (http://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/home) (7.436) entered the Microbiology category ranked 10th (of 91 journals).

An international team of researchers has modified chlorophyll from an alga so that it resembles the extremely efficient light antennae of bacteria. The team was then able to determine the structure of these light antennae. This is the first step to converting sunlight into energy using an artificial leaf.Leiden researcher Swapna Ganapathy has obtained her PhD based on this subject, under the supervision of Professor Huub de Groot, one of the initiators of the research. 

Microscopic analysis of scratches on dinosaur teeth may have helped scientists unravel an ancient riddle of what a major group of dinosaurs - the Hadrosaurs - ate and exactly how they did it.A study led by the University of Leicester has found evidence that the duck-billed dinosaurs called  Hadrosaurs had a unique way of eating, unlike any living creature today.  Working with researchers from the Natural History Museum, the study used a new approach to analyze the feeding mechanisms of dinosaurs and understand their place in the ecosystems of tens of millions of years ago.

Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London have discovered that an ingredient in human breast milk called pancreatic secretory trypsin inhibitor, or PSTI, protects and repairs the delicate intestines of newborn babies.PSTI is found at its highest levels in colostrum, the milk produced in the first few days after birth.   The lining of a newborn's gut is particularly vulnerable to damage as it has never been exposed to food or drink. The new study highlights the importance of breastfeeding in the first few days after the birth.The researchers found small amounts of PSTI in all the samples of breast milk they tested but it was seven times more concentrated in colostrum samples. The ingredient was not found in formula milk.

The current H1N1 influenza A swine flu strain has genetic roots in an illness that sickened pigs at the 1918 Cedar Rapids Swine Show in Iowa, report infectious disease experts at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health in the New England Journal of Medicine. Their paper, published online today, describes H1N1's nearly century-long and often convoluted journey, which may include the accidental resurrection of an extinct strain.

The Columbine school shooting in the US and Dawson College in Canada are examples of recent traumatic events that, due to their broad timeframe, allow researchers to examine their residual impact.The Columbine shooting occurred in 1999 and was followed by 60 similar ones, despite increases in gun regulations in the US and Canada, twice as many as the previous decade.   Part of the reason may be 'copycat' attempts at the kind of impact and attention Columbine brought. 

Between the 1932 and 2008 Olympic Games, world record times in the men's 100 meter sprint improved by 0.6 seconds, mostly due to improved training techniques and technological advances.Scientists at the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology in Austria say they can duplicate that improvement with a simple change in diet.  The research presented on 29th June 2009 at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Meeting says they have managed to achieve an equivalent feat in mice fed on a diet high in polyunsaturated fatty acids.