Culture
A team of addiction researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) report in Psychopharmacology that oxytocin, a hormone produced naturally in the hypothalamus, has significant gender differences when used as a treatment for cocaine-addicted individuals with a history of childhood trauma.
The MUSC team was led by Jane E. Joseph, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Neuroscience, and Kathleen T. Brady, M.D., Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and MUSC vice president for research.
AUSTIN, Texas -- Although they have no way of identifying their biological fathers, male chimpanzees form intimate bonds with them, a finding that questions the idea of fatherhood in some of humanity's closest relatives, according to a study of wild chimpanzees in Uganda.
Our modern lifestyle would be immensely different without rechargeable batteries. Owing to their low-cost, recyclable technology, these batteries are used in most portable electronic devices, electric and hybrid vehicles, and renewable power generation systems. And why shouldn't they be? They offer an elegant solution to the world's growing energy demands. Moreover, rechargeable batteries are an essential tool in systems that harvest renewable energy, such as the wind and sunlight, because these sources can fluctuate greatly with the weather.
Warm, cold, just right? Physicists at the University of California, Davis are taking the temperature of dark matter, the mysterious substance that makes up about a quarter of our universe.
We have very little idea of what dark matter is and physicists have yet to detect a dark matter particle. But we do know that the gravity of clumps of dark matter can distort light from distant objects. Chris Fassnacht, a physics professor at UC Davis and colleagues are using this distortion, called gravitational lensing, to learn more about the properties of dark matter.
Québec, January 15 2020 -- Atrazine is one of the most widely used pesticides in North America. Researchers at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) have developed a new method to degrade it that combines a new nanostructured material and sunlight.
Atrazine is found throughout the environment, even in the drinking water of millions of people across the country. Conventional water treatments are not effective in degrading this pesticide. Newer processes are more effective, but use chemicals that can leave toxic by-products in the environment.
A new paper in Nutrition Reviews finds that intake of the flavonoid quercetin can greatly reduce high blood pressure in patients suffering from cardiovascular disease.
Researchers here consulted multiple studies that assessed the impact of quercetin on blood pressure and glucose levels. Quercetin is a plant pigment commonly found in many plants and foods, such as onions, teas, apples and red wine. Each study utilized here assessed blood glucose, total cholesterol, and/or insulin. 17 studies with a total of 886 participants were included.
AUSTIN, Texas--A new study by the Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TxPEP) finds that approximately seven percent of patients seeking abortion at Texas clinics had tried to end their current pregnancy on their own before coming to the clinic. This is higher than the national rate of 2.2 percent. The article was recently published in BMC Women's Health.
When you expect a really bad experience to happen and then it doesn't, it's a distinctly positive feeling. A new study of fear extinction training in mice may suggest why: The findings not only identify the exact population of brain cells that are key for learning not to feel afraid anymore, but also show these neurons are the same ones that help encode feelings of reward.
SAN DIEGO, Calif.--A new species of feathered dinosaur has been discovered in China, and described by American and Chinese authors and published today in the journal, The Anatomical Record.
The one-of-a-kind specimen offers a window into what the earth was like 120 million years ago. The fossil preserves feathers and bones that provide new information about how dinosaurs grew and how they differed from birds.
People in the United States could see tens of thousands of extra violent crimes every year--because of climate change alone.
"Depending on how quickly temperatures rise, we could see two to three million more violent crimes between now and the end of the century than there would be in a non-warming world," said Ryan Harp, researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder and lead author of a new study published today in Environmental Research Letters.
Six in every 10 Americans have a chronic health condition. These conditions, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes or stroke, are the leading causes of death and disability in the United States and contribute greatly to the nation's annual health care costs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Exposure to chemicals in drinking water associated with 5% of annual bladder cancer burden in Europe
Each year, more than 6,500 cases of bladder cancer--nearly 5% of all cases in Europe-- can be attributed to exposure to trihalomethanes (THMs) in drinking water. This is one of the conclusions of a large-scale study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by "la Caixa", that analysed for the first time the presence of these chemical compounds in the tap water of 26 European Union countries.
Phosphorus, present in our DNA and cell membranes, is an essential element for life as we know it. But how it arrived on the early Earth is something of a mystery. Astronomers have now traced the journey of phosphorus from star-forming regions to comets using the combined powers of ALMA and the European Space Agency's probe Rosetta. Their research shows, for the first time, where molecules containing phosphorus form, how this element is carried in comets, and how a particular molecule may have played a crucial role in starting life on our planet.
The future potential of early stage startups can be assessed by their existing professional relationships, research led by a team at Queen Mary University of London suggests.
Using available online data from 41,380 companies collected over 25 years, the research team created a visual network to show connections between companies and their employees.
They found that young startups who quickly acquire a central position within the network are more likely to show signs of long-term economic success.
(New York, NY - January 15, 2020) - Many liver cancer tumors contain a highly diverse set of cells, a phenomenon known as intra-tumor heterogeneity that can significantly affect the rate at which the cancer grows, Mount Sinai researchers report. The immune system's contribution to this heterogeneity can have major clinical implications.