The fossils revealed a herd of dinosaurs that perished in a catastrophic event 72.5 million years ago. The animals are characterized by a bony frill on the back of the skull ornamented with smaller horns. They also had large bony structures above their nose and eyes which lends them their name: Pachyrhinosaurus (thick-nosed lizard). These structures probably supported horns of keratin.
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The latest figures on the global carbon budget to be released in Washington and Paris indicate a four-fold increase in growth rate of human-generated carbon dioxide emissions since 2000.
"This is a concerning trend in light of global efforts to curb emissions," says Global Carbon Project (GCP) Executive-Director, Dr Pep Canadell, a carbon specialist based at CSIRO in Canberra.
Releasing the 2007 data, Dr Canadell said emissions from the combustion of fossil fuel and land use change almost reached the mark of 10 billion tonnes of carbon in 2007.
October 2, 2008, New York, NY—A new report from The Commonwealth Fund examines key differences and areas of agreement in the health system reform proposals of presidential candidates Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama. In the report, The 2008 Presidential Candidates' Health Reform Proposals: Choices for America, the authors describe how both plans seek to expand health insurance, but Senator McCain would encourage individuals to select their own coverage through the individual insurance market while Senator Obama would strengthen employer coverage and public programs.
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---As computer processor chips grow faster and more complex, they are likely to make it to market with more design bugs. But that may be OK, according to University of Michigan researchers who have devised a system that lets chips work around all functional bugs, even those that haven't been detected.
October 2, 2008 – Our genome contains many genes encoding proteins that are similar to those of other organisms, suggesting evolutionary relationships; however, protein-coding genes account for only a small fraction the genome, and there are many other DNA sequences that are conserved across species. What are these sequences doing, and do we really need them at all?
STANFORD, Calif. — Small stretches of seemingly useless DNA harbor a bigsecret, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.There's one problem: We don't know what it is. Although individuallaboratory animals appear to live happily when these genetic ciphers aredeleted, these snippets have been highly conserved throughout evolution.
Individuals with bipolar disorder are usually treated with 'mood stabilizing' drugs, one of which is lithium — an inhibitor of GSK-3 proteins. As new drugs that are more powerful inhibitors of GSK-3 are under development despite controversial studies suggesting a link between lithium therapy and congenital heart defects, Thomas Force and colleagues, at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, set out to determine whether GSK-3 proteins are important for heart development in mice.
NEW YORK (Oct. 2, 2008) -- As many as one quarter of HIV patients have drug resistance, limiting their treatment options and raising their risk for AIDS and death. Now, maraviroc, the first of a new class of HIV drugs called CCR5 receptor antagonists, has been shown to be effective over 48 weeks for drug-resistant patients with R5 HIV-1, a variation of the virus found in more than half of HIV-infected patients.
COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y. (Wednesday, October 1, 2008) – Biological research has long relied on a small number of model organisms, species chosen because they are amenable to laboratory research and suitable for the study of a range of biological problems.
Researchers at NorthShore University HealthSystem (NorthShore) and Northwestern University have discovered that fiber optic technology can for the very first time effectively measure blood levels in the colonic lining (mucosa) in humans, thus having potential applications for analyzing risk of colon cancer.
The study appears in the October 2008 issue of Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute.
An interdisciplinary group of scientists has obtained the first detailed information about the structure of the most destructive group of plant viruses known: flexible filamentous viruses.
The cost of worldwide crop losses due to plant diseases is estimated at $60 billion annually. Although there are no good estimates of the cost of plant viruses alone, the viruses are generally considered to be the second greatest contributor to those losses (after fungi). The 300-plus species of flexible filamentous viruses are responsible for more than half of all virus damage.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Oct. 1, 2008) – MicroRNAs, the tiny molecules that fine-tune gene expression, were first discovered in 1993. But it turns out they've been around for a billion years.
New research indicates that the most pervasive global strain of HIV began spreading among humans between 1884 and 1924, suggesting that growing urbanization in colonial Africa set the stage for the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
The estimated period of origin, considerably earlier than the previous estimate of 1930, coincides with the establishment and rise of urban centers in west-central Africa where the pandemic HIV strain, HIV-1 group M, emerged. The growth of cities and associated high-risk behaviors may have been the key change that allowed the virus to flourish.
New research indicates that the most pervasive global strain of HIV began spreading among humans between 1884 and 1924, not during the 1930s, as previously reported. The earlier period of origin coincides with the establishment of urban centers in the west-central African region where the epidemic of this particular HIV strain—HIV-1 group M—emerged. This suggests that urbanization and associated high-risk behaviors set the stage for the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
The effect of media violence on behavior is not only an interesting psychological question but is also a relevant public policy and public health issue. Although many studies have been conducted examining the link between violence on TV and aggressive behavior, most of these studies have overlooked several other potentially significant factors, including the dramatic context of the violence and the type of violence depicted as well as the race and ethnicity of the viewers.