News Articles

What 'separates us from the animals'. as the saying goes?
Not a lot. We're all animals, of course, but among primates there is an easy-to-spot difference: Humans tend to walk in lateral sequences, a foot down and then a hand on the same side and then moved in the same sequence on the other side, while apes and other non-human primates walk in a diagonal sequence, in which they put down a foot on one side and then a hand on the other side, continuing that pattern as they move along. 
What does that mean? It means quadripedalism, such as among the five Turkish siblings profiled in the 2006 BBC2 documentary "The Family That Walks on All Fours", does not mean anyone is devolving or evolving backwards.

A new survey analysis finds that in just about about any field where there are academics and field work, there is going to be sexual harassment and even assault.
Yes, surveys, the bane of the scientific method. The authors analyzed survey results of 666 people (142 men, 516 women) with field experience in anthropology, archeology and more, and found that many respondents claimed to have suffered or witnessed sexual harassment or even sexual assault while at work in the field.

Paleontologists have discovered the exquisitely preserved brain in the fossil of one of the world's first known predators that lived in the Lower Cambrian, about 520 million years ago. The discovery revealed a brain that is surprisingly simple and less complex than those known from fossils of some of the animal's prey. 

As sea ice begins to melt back toward its late September minimum, it is being watched by researchers who have put sensors on and under ice in the Beaufort Sea. 
The international effort hopes to figure out the physics of the ice edge in order to better understand and predict open water in Arctic seas.
"This has never been done at this level, over such a large area and for such a long period of time," said principal investigator Craig Lee, an oceanographer at the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory. "We're really trying to resolve the physics over the course of an entire melt season."

Is it true that you can discern how someone votes based on their Google search history related to science and health issues? It seems to be so, in a majority of cases.
Republicans search for information about the weather, climate change and global warming during extremely hot or cold spells while Democrats search those terms when they experience changes in the average temperatures.
Corey Lang of the University of Rhode Island tracked how the temperature fluctuations and rainfall that Americans experience daily in their own cities make them scour the Internet in search of information about climate change and global warming.
To do so, he used data from Google Trends, local weather stations and election results.

An abdominal aortic aneurysm is a potentially life-threatening condition: If the body's major blood vessel ruptures, it can prove deadly.
Abdominal aortic aneurysms are a bulge in the aorta, which is the body's largest artery and is located in the abdomen above the belly button. The greatest risk is that the aneurysm will rupture.
That's scary but who should be watched?
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recently updated its recommendations on screening and Mayo Clinic vascular surgeon Peter Gloviczki, M.D., outlines how people are diagnosed and how surgery, which now includes a less invasive endovascular option, is improving survival rates

The 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico was, to-date, the largest accidental release of oil into the ocean. 210 million gallons issued from the blown-out well.
In an attempt to prevent vast quantities of oil from fouling beaches and marshes, BP applied 1.84 million gallons of the dispersant compound DOSS to oil released in the subsurface and to oil slicks at the sea surface. DOSS rapidly degrades in the environment but a new study by scientists at Haverford College and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) found that though DOSS does decrease the size of oil droplets and hampers the formation of large oil slicks, it can persist in the environment for up to four years.

Cases of the highly contagious drug-resistant bacteria carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae  (CRE), have increased fivefold in community hospitals in the Southeastern United States, according to a new study in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.

A new raptorial dinosaur fossil with exceptionally long feathers, including a long feathered tail, has led the authors to believe they were instrumental for decreasing descent speed and assuring safe landings. Changyuraptor yangi is a 125-million-year-old dinosaur found in the Liaoning Province of northeastern China. The location has seen a surge of discoveries in feathered dinosaurs over the last decade. The newly discovered, remarkably preserved dinosaur sports a full set of feathers cloaking its entire body, including the extra-long tail feathers.

A new research paper analyzed how cooperative attitudes evolve in different age ranges. 

A new paper has found that drug paraphernalia triggers the reward areas of the brain differently in dependent and non-dependent marijuana users.
The 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug in the United States. According to a 2013 survey from the Pew Research Center, 48 percent of Americans ages 18 and older have tried marijuana. The National Institute on Drug Abuse states that 9 percent of daily users will become dependent on marijuana.

The Magnetometer instrument that will fly on NOAA's GOES-R satellite when it is launched in early 2016 has completed the development and testing phase and is ready to be integrated with the spacecraft. 
The GOES-R series will be more advanced than the current GOES fleet. The satellites are expected to more than double the clarity of today's GOES imagery and provide more atmospheric observations than current capabilities with more frequent images.