News Articles

Boulder, Colo., USA - Seismic, deformation, and gas activity (unrest) typically precedes volcanic eruptions. Tracking the changes of this activity with monitoring data makes it increasingly possible to successfully forecast eruptions from stratovolcanoes. However, this is not the case for monogenetic volcanoes (usually the result of a single magmatic pulse). Eruptions from these volcanoes tend to be small but are particularly difficult to anticipate since they occur at unexpected locations, and there is very limited instrumental monitoring data.

A new paper finds that China's new efforts to price carbon could lower the country's carbon dioxide emissions significantly without impeding economic development over the next three decades.

Over the past decade, there has been increasing interest in being able to understand what the future will look like when it comes to scientific and technological emergences.

Sociology scholars say the stereotype that Native Americans are genetically or psychologically predisposed to alcoholism are all smoke and no firewater. 
Instead, Native Americans were more likely to abstain from alcohol use than Caucasian Americans and there was no difference in Native Americans' binge and heavy drinking rates, according to surveys.

Australian researchers have found biochemical changes occurring in the blood, in the rare inherited form of Alzheimer's disease. Changes in these fat-like substances, may suggest a method to diagnose all forms of Alzheimer's disease before significant damage to the brain occurs.
In an article published today in the Journal of Alzheimer's disease, the Australian team led by Professor Ralph Martins from the CRC for Mental Health and Edith Cowan University, examined the lipid profiles of 20 people who carry a mutation responsible for the rare inherited form of Alzheimer's, known as familial Alzheimer's disease.

Rather than the treeless, limestone expanse we know today, the Plain was flush with gum and eucalyptus trees, banksias and other flowering plants now confined to Australia's east coast.
Scientists at the University of Melbourne used new techniques to date fossilised pollen and reveal the Plain's 'big wet' - a dramatic transformation in climate that occurred around five million years ago.
The finding sheds new light on the environmental history of the Nullarbor, a former seabed that was lifted above the sea 14 million years ago.

New evidence published today highlights benefits and harms of using artificial mesh when compared with tissue repair in the surgical treatment of vaginal prolapse. Slightly better repair with mesh needs to be weighed carefully against increased risk of harms.
A new Cochrane systematic review published today summarizes evidence that addresses a long-standing controversy in the surgical repair of vaginal prolapse. It will help women and surgeons to make better informed choices about surgical treatment and reinforces the need for careful consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of grafting artificial material compared with using tissue to repair the anatomy of the vagina.

Corn seedlings are especially susceptible to hungry insect herbivores, such as caterpillars and aphids, because they lack woody stems and tough leaves. So what's a tender, young corn plant to do?
A recent study by Professor Georg Jander's group at the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI), finds that corn plants may make serious trade-offs when defending themselves against multiple types of insects. Some corn varieties make themselves more vulnerable to aphids after generating defensive compounds against nibbling caterpillars. The results, which appear in the journal Molecular Ecology, may lead to the development of corn plants that are naturally more resistant to certain insects.

After more than 300 years of looking, scientists have figured out how bacteria "see" their world. And they do it in a remarkably similar way to us.
A team of British and German researchers reveal in the journal eLife how bacterial cells act as the equivalent of a microscopic eyeball or the world's oldest and smallest camera eye.
"The idea that bacteria can see their world in basically the same way that we do is pretty exciting," says lead researcher Conrad Mullineaux, Professor of Microbiology from QMUL's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL).

CHICAGO -- An international team of scientists have discovered two new plankton-eating fossil fish species of the genus called Rhinconichthys (Rink-O-nik-thees) from the oceans of the Cretaceous Period, about 92 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the planet.

Baltimore, Md., Feb. 8, 2015 -A multi-disciplinary group of researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) have for the first time determined the genetic makeup of various strains of E. coli, which every year kills hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
The paper, which appears in a recent issue of Nature Microbiology, analyzed the DNA of Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC), which are the strains of the bacteria that cause diarrhea.

For more than 30 years, Mississippi and West Virginia were the only states in the country that disallowed nonmedical exemptions to mandatory school vaccination laws for religious or philosophical reasons, until they were joined by California last year. These exemption laws have provoked debate over the rights of parents versus the responsibility of government to protect public health. Researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, led by James Colgrove, PhD, professor of Sociomedical Sciences, conducted a review of vaccination policies through legislative rulings and accounts by health officials. They found policy changes remain controversial and alternatives exist to eliminating nonmedical exemptions entirely.