Body

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida State University researchers, along with an international team of scientists, have put together the most complete look to date of the evolutionary family tree of cardiid bivalves, commonly known as cockles and clams.

"As scientists, we're trying to understand the history of life on earth," said Scott Steppan, professor of biological science at Florida State. "That is one of our greatest endeavors. I can't think of anything more innately human than understanding the history of life and where everything came from."

New Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health-led research finds that blood taken from children up to the age of five contains molecular evidence about whether their mothers smoked during pregnancy.

LAWRENCE -- During upheaval in Libya in 2013, a window of opportunity opened for scientists from the University of Kansas to perform research at the Zallah Oasis, a promising site for unearthing fossils from the Oligocene period, roughly 30 million years ago.

From that work, the KU-led team last week published a description of a previously unknown anthropoid primate -- a forerunner of today's monkeys, apes and humans -- in the Journal of Human Evolution. They've dubbed their new find Apidium zuetina.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23, 2015 -- Who doesn't drool over a Thanksgiving dinner of mashed potatoes, stuffing and most importantly, turkey? Well, vegetarians, for one. In the future, could Tofurkey and other fake or lab-grown meat products give the world more sustainable (and equally delicious) alternatives to beef, chicken and turkey? In this Thanksgiving-themed Reactions episode, find out how food chemists and other scientists are working to make fake meat taste as good as the real thing.

Expanding publicly funded health insurance to low-income children could have long-term benefits for adult health, according to new research from the University of Maryland School of Public Health. Published in the Journal of Health Economics, the study found that exposure to Medicaid in early childhood, from conception through age 5, is associated with significant improvements in adult health (age 25 to 54).

WORCESTER, MA -- Scientists and clinicians at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) have shown in a clinical trial that a new, vibration-based prevention technology tested in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) reduces apneic events and improves critical clinical parameters in prematurely born infants. The apnea prevention system, initially conceived at UMass Medical School, was developed at the Wyss Institute and tested in a trial conducted at the BIDMC.

EAST LANSING, Mich. - A Michigan State University study has found that too much of a hormone commonly used during in vitro fertility, or IVF, treatments actually decreases a woman's chances of having a baby.

The research, recently published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, is the largest study to analyze more than 650,000 IVF cycles in women nationwide.

By collecting samples from the portal vein--which carries blood from the gastrointestinal tract, including from the pancreas, to the liver--physicians can learn far more about a patient's pancreatic cancer than by relying on peripheral blood from a more easily accessed vein in the arm.

Primary tumors shed cancerous cells, known as circulating tumor cells (CTCs), into the blood. These have been widely studied as prognostic biomarkers for various cancers. Because these cells are often larger, irregularly shaped and tend to cluster together, they get trapped in smaller vessels.

Varying between organisms, the number of chromosomes, the structures of organised and packaged DNA information, are normally a constant amount, thus allowing for the successful reproduction of a species. However, it may vary greatly even within a certain family. In the present study, conducted by Drs.

Patients have difficulty deciphering complex numeric data on healthcare-associated infections used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to help consumers choose hospitals, according to a new study published online today in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA).

The Persian dwarf snake is wrongly classified as one species, scientists say. New research shows it is composed of six different species, a finding which might be important for the conservation of the snake.

The Persian dwarf snake or Eirenis persicus lives in an area stretching from southern Turkey to the northeast of Pakistan. Mahdi Rajabizadeh, a former PhD student of Ghent University professor Dominique Adriaens, decided to investigate its biodiversity.

RNA, once thought to be a mere middleman between DNA and protein, is now recognized as the stage at which a host of regulatory processes can act to allow for flexibility in gene expression and thus the functions of cells and tissues.

Illegal hunting continues to be a challenge for biodiversity conservation in addition to posing a serious threat to some migratory species. The province of Gipuzkoa in northern Spain, a transit area for birds migrating between Africa and Europe, is an example of just how this illegal activity can severely affect these animals.

A report commissioned by the General Medical Council and carried out by the Collaboration for the Advancement of Medical Education and Research (CAMERA) at Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry (PUPSMD) has reviewed the issues around why medics from one demographic group may perform differently from those from another on the same assessment.

Men with prostate cancer run the risk of brittle bones as a side-effect of their treatment. But one hour's football training a few times a week counters many of the negative effects of the treatment, according to University of Copenhagen scientists.

Football training is not just good for the heart and the muscles. Running around the pitch, jumping, accelerating, braking and kicking the ball also strengthen the bones.