News Articles

Some Sun-like stars are 'earth-eaters.' During their development they ingest large amounts of the rocky material from which 'terrestrial' planets like Earth, Mars and Venus are made.
Trey Mack, a graduate student in astronomy at Vanderbilt University, has developed a model that estimates the effect that such a diet has on a star's chemical composition and has used it to analyze a pair of twin stars which both have their own planets.

People attempting to quit smoking without professional help are approximately 60% more likely to report succeeding if they use e-cigarettes than if they use willpower alone or over-the-counter nicotine replacement therapies such as patches or gum, according to a large survey of smokers in England.
The results were adjusted for a wide range of factors that might influence success at quitting, including age, nicotine dependence, previous quit attempts, and whether quitting was gradual or abrupt.

A diet that combines unsaturated fats with nitrite-rich vegetables, such as olive oil and lettuce, can protect you from hypertension, suggests a new study led by King's College London. The findings, published in the journal PNAS, help to explain why some previous studies have shown that a Mediterranean diet can reduce blood pressure.
The Mediterranean diet typically includes unsaturated fats found in olive oil, nuts and avocados, along with vegetables like spinach, celery and carrots that are rich in nitrites and nitrates.
When these two food groups are combined, the reaction of unsaturated fatty acids with nitrogen compounds in the vegetables results in the formation of nitro fatty acids.

MISSOULA – A new paper co-written by four University of Montana researchers finds that humans have more than doubled tropical nitrogen inputs.
Benjamin Sullivan, a researcher working with UM College of Forestry and Conservation Professor Cory Cleveland, led the team that looked at the nitrogen cycle in tropical rain forests. Sullivan and his colleagues used a new method to demonstrate that biological nitrogen fixation in tropical rain forests may be less than a quarter of previous estimates.

Between 1889 and 2012, the Greenland sheet saw large-scale surface melting, according to the best available evidence. But claims that the melt events were driven by warming alone are incorrect, according to a new study. Ash from  northern hemisphere forest fires contributed to an extent not previously recognized.
Continued climate change could result in nearly annual widespread melting of the ice sheet's surface by the year 2100 and a positive feedback mechanism may be set in motion. Melting in the dry snow region does not contribute to sea level rise; instead, the meltwater percolates into the snowpack and refreezes, causing lower albedo and leaving the ice sheet surface even more susceptible to future melting. Albedo is the surface's ability to reflect sunlight.

Individuals are more genetically similar to their spouses than they are to randomly selected individuals from the same population, claims a new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
This is much different than sociological factors - it is no surprised that people tend to marry others who have similar characteristics, like religion, age, race, income and education. 

An international team has discovered what happens on a molecular basis to insects that evolved resistance to genetically modified cotton plants. 
Their findings shed light on how the global caterpillar pest called pink bollworm overcomes biotech cotton, which was designed to make the organic insect-killing bacterial protein called Bt toxin. The results could have major impacts for managing pest resistance to Bt crops. 

ATS 2014, SAN DIEGO ─ A large study of intensive care patients in California found that public reporting of patient outcomes did not reduce mortality, but did result in reduced admission of the sickest patients to the ICU and increased transfer of critically ill patients to other hospitals.
"Public reporting is designed to reduce mortality by steering patients towards high-quality hospitals and creating incentives for hospitals to adopt quality improvement programs," said Lora Reineck, MD, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Pittsburgh. "But the reality does not necessarily meet the expectation."

Overweight political candidates have gotten fewer votes than thinner opponents, finds a new study co-authored by a Michigan State University weight bias expert.
Of course, discrimination is everywhere, it is the favored position of the humanities in trying to quantify culture. In 2008, Democrats discriminated against Senator Hillary Clinton because she was a woman while Republicans were against Senator Obama in the general election because he was black. No one ever just acknowledged he was the best candidate, even in winning we were told it was despite his race.
So political parties should be picking the thinnest candidates? That explains why Pres. Obama beat Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012. He had a smaller waist.

A new study demonstrates the importance of considering developmental differences when creating programs for cochlear implants in infants.
Cochlear implants, which are surgically placed in the inner ear, provide the ability to hear for some people with severe to profound hearing loss. Because of technological and biological limitations, people with cochlear implants hear differently than those with normal hearing.

In recent court cases involving affirmative action for university admissions, the obvious question became 'when should it ever end?' and how is that not discrimination? Supporters of race-based admissions argued that ending discrimination would mean favoritism.
Favoritism is something less understood than as a form of discrimination, the oft-repeated belief is that discrimination is a hostile act, but a new paper in American Psychologist argues it is even worse than believed. It's a review of other psychology papers, which are overrun with stereotype threats and Implicit Association tests, so the results are not a surprise.

Images of Saturn's auroras as the planet's magnetic field is battered by charged particles from the Sun have led a team to claim decisive evidence for the hypothesis that Saturn's auroral displays are often caused by the dramatic collapse of its "magnetic tail".
Just like comets, planets such as Saturn and the Earth have a "tail" – known as the magnetotail – that is made up of electrified gas from the Sun and flows out in the planet's wake.
When a particularly strong burst of particles from the Sun hits Saturn, it can cause the magnetotail to collapse, with the ensuing disturbance of the planet's magnetic field resulting in spectacular auroral displays. A very similar process happens here on Earth.