News Articles

Women who consume higher amounts of calcium and vitamin D may have a lower risk of developing premenopausal breast cancer.
Data from animal studies have linked calcium and vitamin D to breast cancer prevention, according to background information in the article. However, epidemiologic studies on humans have been less conclusive.

Researchers at Ohio University have found that after primates evolved the ability to see red, they began to develop red and orange skin and hair.
Humans, apes and Old World monkeys, such as macaques and leaf monkeys, all have trichromatic vision, which allow them to distinguish between blue, green and red colors. Primatologists have disagreed about whether this type of color vision initially evolved to help early primates forage for ripe fruit and young, red leaves among green foliage or evolved to help them select mates. 

Mice genetically engineered to lack a single enzyme in their brains are more adept at learning than their normal cousins, and are quicker to figure out that their environment has changed, a team led by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center has found.

A CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) is a solar body slam to our high-tech civilization. CMEs begin when the sun launches a billion tons of electrically conducting gas (plasma) into space at millions of miles per hour. A CME cloud is laced with magnetic fields, and CMEs directed our way smash into Earth's magnetic field. If the CME magnetic fields have the correct orientation, they dump energy into Earth's magnetic field, causing magnetic storms. These storms can cause widespread blackouts by overloading power line equipment with extra electric current. But wait; there's more.

Substituting soy nuts for other protein sources in a healthy diet appears to lower blood pressure in postmenopausal women, and also may reduce cholesterol levels in women with high blood pressure.
The American Heart Association estimates that high blood pressure (hypertension) affects approximately 50 million Americans and 1 billion individuals worldwide. The most common-and deadly-result is coronary heart disease, according to background information in the article. Women with high blood pressure have four times the risk of heart disease as women with normal blood pressure.

People whose blood shows signs of inflammation are more likely to later develop Alzheimer's disease than people with no signs of inflammation, according to a new study.
The study, which is part of the larger Framingham Heart Study, involved 691 healthy people with an average age of 79. Blood tests determined whether the participants had signs of inflammation. Then the participants were followed for an average of seven years. During that time, 44 of the participants developed Alzheimer's disease.

Communication ability among children who are intellectually disabled or have communication limitations (such as autism, down syndrome, or cerebral palsy) may soon be improved thanks to a research group of the University of Granada.

No matter where we are on the political spectrum, we all have the same underlying goals and behaviors: The pursuit of happiness, the American dream etc. This is, at the very least, the way psychologists had viewed political ideology for quite some time. However, new research may have identified the characteristics that lead us to lean ideologically to the left or right and it may be genetic.

For the first time anywhere, a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has succeeded in observing in vivo the generation of neurons in the brain of a mammal.

Magnified photo shows division of neuron in vivo. Credit: (Hebrew University of Jerusalem photo)

Early-stage research has found that a new gene therapy can nearly eliminate arthritis pain, and significantly reduce long-term damage to the affected joints, according to a study published today in the journal Arthritis and Rheumatism.
While the study was done in mice, they are the first genetically engineered to develop osteoarthritis like humans, with the same genetic predisposition that makes some more likely to develop the disease, the authors said. If all goes well with a follow-up study currently underway, researchers will apply to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for permission to begin human trials next year.

Certain army ants in the rainforests of Central and South America conduct spectacular predatory raids containing up to 200,000 foraging ants. Remarkably, some ants use their bodies to plug potholes in the trail leading back to the nest, making a flatter surface so that prey can be delivered to the developing young at maximum speed.

Specialization by a minority can help the greater good. Photo by Scott Powell

Rains are back, and we hardly remember how dry it was a couple of weeks ago. Usually, we do not associate moist tropical forests with drought, but during the ‘verano' it gets astonishingly dry in most Panamanian lowland forests, just as in many tropical forests worldwide: Plants suffer from drought, they grow slower, wilt and even die.

credit: STRI