COLUMBUS, Ohio – The remaining ice fields atop famed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania could be gone within two decades and perhaps even sooner, based on the latest survey of the ice fields remaining on the mountain .
The findings indicate a major cause of this ice loss is very likely to be the rise in global temperatures. Although changes in cloudiness and precipitation may also play a role, they appear less important, particularly in recent decades.
Researchers have developed an improved version of an enzyme that degrades the dense scar tissue that forms when the central nervous system is damaged. By digesting the tissue that blocks re-growth of damaged nerves, the improved enzyme – and new system for delivering it – could facilitate recovery from serious central nervous system injuries.
University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine researchers have identified the important role a protein plays in the body's first line of defense in directing immune cells called neutrophils toward the site of infection or injury.
Their results are described online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Deep-sea ecosystems occupying 60% of the Earth's surface could be vulnerable to the effects of global warming warn scientists writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Global-scale models are now estimating that climate change will affect the supply of organic matter from surface waters upon which most deep-sea ecosystems depend," says co-author Dr Henry Ruhl of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton.
About half of 36 fish stocks in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean, many of them commercially valuable species, have been shifting northward over the last four decades, with some stocks nearly disappearing from U.S. waters as they move farther offshore, according to a new study by NOAA researchers.
Their findings, published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, show the impact of changing coastal and ocean temperatures on fisheries from Cape Hatteras, N.C., to the Canadian border.
Cardiac complications around the time of noncardiac surgery are relatively common and can be serious. The American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) today release a Focused Update to the Practice Guidelines based on new clinical trial data that summarizes and sheds light on the risks and benefits of using beta blockers to reduce cardiac events during noncardiac surgeries, and provides specific recommendations about which patients will likely benefit and in which patients there is not enough evidence to recommend their use.
PITTSBURGH, Nov. 2 – A drug currently under development by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine may help bone fractures heal more quickly after radiation exposure, according to a study by Pitt researchers. The study's results will be presented at 1 p.m. today during the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) annual meeting in Chicago.
Golfers who undergo treatment for sleep apnea may improve their golf game as well as their overall health, shows new research. A new study presented at CHEST 2009, the 75th annual international scientific assembly of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), found that golfers with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) who received nasal positive airway pressure (NPAP) for their disorder improved their daytime sleepiness scores and lowered their golf handicap by as much as three strokes.
There is a high prevalence of nocturnal teeth grinding, or bruxism, in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), particularly in Caucasians. New research presented at CHEST 2009, the 75th annual international scientific assembly of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), found that nearly 1 in 4 patients with OSA suffers from nighttime teeth grinding; this seems to be especially more prevalent in men and in Caucasians compared with other ethnic groups.
Obesity, not the amount of radiation given, is the greatest factor in whether early-stage lung cancer patients develop chest wall pain after receiving stereotactic body radiation therapy to the chest wall, with obese patients being more than twice as likely to develop chronic pain compared to those who have less body weight, according to a first-of-its-kind study presented Tuesday, November 3, 2009, at the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).
The genome of the cucumber has been sequenced by an international consortium lead by Chinese and U.S. institutions. The annotated genome is published online Nov. 1 by the journal Nature Genetics.
The cucumber genome will give insight into the genetics of the whole cucurbit family, which includes pumpkins and squash, melon and watermelon, and be a platform for research in plant biology, said William Lucas, professor and chair of the Department of Plant Biology at the University of California, Davis. Lucas helped with the development and management of the project.
In all the world, there are about 200 types of zeolite, a compound of silicon, aluminum and oxygen that gives civilization such things as laundry detergent, kitty litter and gasoline. But thanks to computations by Rice University professor Michael Deem and his colleagues, it appears there are -- or could be -- more types of zeolites than once thought.
A lot more.
Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC (November 2, 2009) – More than 25 years after myths about gifted education were first explored, they are all still with us and new ones have been added, according to research published in the current Gifted Child Quarterly (GCQ), the official journal of National Association for Gifted Children.
PHILADELPHIA –- Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a theoretical model that informs the understanding of evolution and determines how quickly an organism will evolve using a catalogue of "evolutionary speed limits." The model provides quantitative predictions for the speed of evolution on various "fitness landscapes," the dynamic and varied conditions under which bacteria, viruses and even humans adapt.