One year in to a project to save one of the UK's top sites for pondlife, amazing new species are being revealed for the first time.
Scientists from Queen Mary, University of London working with Dorset Wildlife Trust have discovered an astonishing variety of minute aquatic organisms, so small as to be invisible to the naked eye.
Forests in northern areas are stunted, verging on the edge of survival. It has been anticipated that climate change improves their growth conditions. A study published last week in Forest Ecology and Management journal shows that due to their genetic characteristics trees are unable to properly benefit from the lengthening growing season. Furthermore, the researchers were surprised to find that the mortality of established trees considerably promotes the adaptation of forests to the changing environment.
RENO, Nev. – Butterfly populations in California are declining and, in some cases, moving to higher elevations in the Sierra Nevada due to climate change and loss of habitat, according to a study authored by biologist Matthew Forister, a University of Nevada, Reno assistant professor in the College of Science.
An orchid researcher based on the island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean and collaborating with researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew) has used motion sensitive night cameras to capture the first known occurrence of a cricket functioning as a pollinator of flowering plants. Not only is this the first time this behaviour has been documented in a member of the Orthoptera order of insects – who are better known for eating plants – but the 'raspy cricket' is also entirely new to science.
Cancer of the gullet, or oesophagus, is one of the ten most common cancers in the Western world, and there have been recent alarming increases in the number of cases each year in the US and UK. There is no good treatment, and sufferers frequently face a short, painful battle which ends all too quickly in death. Many of the cancers diagnosed are in people with a long history of heartburn.
(Jan. 12, 2009) – HOBOKEN, NJ – According to the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse, about half of the U.S. population will have hemorrhoids by the age of 50. While the most common prescription to treat hemorrhoids is over-the-counter remedies, most patients do not report symptoms of acute hemorrhoidal attacks to their doctor until they are in severe distress, including bleeding.
A new study finds that methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) –responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections including blood poisoning and pneumonia and a particular problem in hospitals – occurs in distinct geographical clusters across Europe, indicating that MRSA is being diffused by patients moving between hospitals rather than spreading freely in the community. The study, published in this week's PLoS Medicine, used an interactive Web tool to map different strains of the Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) bacterium across the continent.
HOUSTON - A growth factor that is a common target of cancer drugs also plays an important role in the heart's response to stress, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report online this week in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
The genome of a model plant related to peach, cherry and cultivated strawberry has been sequenced by a consortium of international researchers that includes scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS).
The scientists announced the sequencing of the genome of woodland strawberry over the weekend at the Plant and Animal Genome Conference in San Diego, Ca. The project was funded by Roche Diagnostics.
California butterflies are reeling from a one-two punch of climate change and land development, says an unprecedented analysis led by UC Davis butterfly expert Arthur Shapiro.
The new analysis, scheduled to be published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, gives insights on how a major and much-studied group of organisms is reacting to the Earth's warming climate.
Immobilizing the spines of shooting and stabbing victims before they are taken to the hospital — standard procedure in Maryland and some other parts of the country — appears to double the risk of death compared to transporting patients to a trauma center without this time-consuming, on-scene medical intervention, according to a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers.
Analyzing physicians' practice patterns may hold valuable clues about how to curb the nation's rising health care costs, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
According to a Johns Hopkins study published in the January edition of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the practice patterns of physicians participating in a workers' compensation system had a profound impact on the ultimate cost of claims.
Bifocal glasses may be effective in slowing the progression of myopia (nearsightedness) in children with high rates of progression, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and colleagues have identified the first genetic variant associated with aggressive prostate cancer, proving the concept that genetic information may one day be used in combination with other factors to guide treatment decisions.
The research will be reported online next week (Jan. 11-15) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers are a step closer to developing new antimalarial drugs after discovering the normal function of a set of proteins related to the malaria parasite protein, which causes resistance to the front-line drug chloroquine. The findings also provide a novel tool for studying the malarial chloroquine-resistance factor.