News Articles

A survey on the experience of auditory hallucinations, commonly referred to as hearing voices, found that the majority of voice-hearers hear multiple voices with distinct character-like qualities, with many also experiencing physical effects on their bodies.In other words,voices in people's heads may be more varied and complex than previously thought. Or they are so subjective as to defy science.Auditory hallucinations are a common feature of many psychiatric disorders, such as psychosis, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but are sometimes experienced by people without a diagnosed psychiatric condition. It is estimated by social scientists that five percent of adults may experience auditory hallucinations during their lifetimes. 

Ritalin, Adderall and their ilk are Schedule II controlled substances - the same as cocaine and methamphetamine - but they are widely available on college campuses, thanks to the ADHD diagnosis craze that made prescriptions easy to get and prevalent starting in the 1990s.As a result, a lot of students are abusing the drugs. How many? 17 percent of all college students, according to a recent literature review. 

It's that time of year - the NCAA tournament, called "March Madness", when office pools all across the United States have people researching teams and reading predictions to try and optimize their chances of winning money by predicting basketball games.They are, sadly, doomed to fail.Last year, Warren Buffett offered $1 billion for a perfect winning bracket, but the highest scoring bracket among ESPN.com subscribers was still 18 games off - and those people pay to know sports.

More and more animal shelters and zoos have begun playing human music, the kind of fad that people who anthropomorphize animal behavior say works even though there is no evidence.Now a new study by animal behaviorists has gone beyond that and says while they don't think human music works, music created especially for animals does.Finally, programming for cats is not just in movies.From the immortal classic, "Scrooged".

Rosacea is estimated to affect up to 16 million people in the United States alone, with symptoms typically including redness, visible blood vessels, and pimple-like sores on the skin of the central face. Because rosacea affects facial appearance, it can also have a psychological impact on those who suffer from it, according to surveys by the National Rosacea Society.

A new injectable polymer 
called PolySTAT
strengthens blood clots and that means that  soldiers who might otherwise die from uncontrolled bleeding before reaching a surgical hospital could be saved. Likewise for civilian traumas.A tourniquet won't stop bleeding from a chest wound, and clotting treatments that require refrigerated or frozen blood products aren't always available in the field. 

Red lead is familiar to us due to rustproof paint but artists have treasured the brilliant color for its durability since ancient times. Yet it has limits and now scientists are learning more about why.  A combination of X-ray diffraction mapping and tomography experiments at the DESY synchrotron light source PETRA III has shown an additional step in the light-induced degradation of lead red. Key was identification of the very rare lead carbonate mineral plumbonacrite in a painting by Van Gogh.

A new system called BASIC could give synthetic biology a boost by creating artificial DNA that is faster, more accurate and more flexible than existing methods. To engineer new organisms, scientists build artificial genes from individual molecules and then put these together to create larger genetic constructs which, when inserted into a cell, will create the required product. Various attempts have been made to standardisz the design and assembly process but, until now, none have been completely successful. 

A study has found new evidence linking genetic factors associated with autism to better cognitive ability in people who do not have the condition - which means like many things in genetics it could be a small variation that separates a benefit from a detriment.Autism is a disability often marked by significant language and speech difficulties but there is no firm relationship between autism and intelligence. Up to 70 percent of individuals with autism do have an intellectual disability but some people with the disorder have well-preserved, or even higher than average, non-verbal intelligence. Non-verbal intelligence is how people solve complex problems using visual and hands-on reasoning skills with little or no use of language.   

Researchers have detected about 20 rotating dust and gas discs in two clusters hosting exceptionally large and hot stars. The science mystery is how the rotating discs are able to withstand evaporation under such extreme conditions - if there is a Hell, this must certainly be it.The center of the Milky Way is a nursery for young stars: In its heart, more young stars are born in dark clouds than in any other place in the Galaxy. These stars form in rich groups such as the 'Quintuplet' and 'Arches' clusters. Both star clusters are only a few million years old and contain stars as massive as 100 times the mass of the Sun. 

Salt-loving, halophilic, microbes could donate proteins to clean up radioactive strontium and caesium ions from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant incident in Japan. The X-ray structure of a beta-lactamase enzyme from one such microbe, the halophile Chromohalobacter sp. 560, shows it has highly selective cesium binding sites.  A 1.8 to 2.9 angstrom resolution structure for this enzyme. Anomalous X-ray diffraction also revealed binding sites in the protein for Sr2+ and Cs+ ions, the team reports.

We are all populated by microbes – helpful or otherwise – which form a community known as a microbiome. Recent research by Ryan Newton and co-workers has shown that sewage-based analysis of the human microbiome can be used to diagnose health issues at a population level.