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The world’s greatest plant diversity for the Paleogene
Turbulent Relationship among Massive Stars
New stroke treatments becoming a reality
Switching the state of matter
Toddlers Object When People Break the Rules
Medical Team Recommends Preventive Antibiotic for COPD Sufferers
New Study Associates Excess Maternal Iodine Supplementation with Congenital Hypothyroidism in Newborns
Some harmful effects of light at night can be reversed, study finds
Largest ever Cherenkov telescope sees first light

The world’s greatest plant diversity for the Paleogene

Posted: 27 Jul 2012 05:56 AM PDT

Scientists from the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt have investigated the extensive collection of fruits and seeds from the Messel pit. They found 140 different plant species, 65 of which were previously unknown. The results were published today in the series "Abhandlungen der Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung“. They show that Messel had one of the world’s most diverse floras of the Paleogene – the era between about 65 and 23 million years ago.

Turbulent Relationship among Massive Stars

Posted: 27 Jul 2012 05:08 AM PDT

The most massive stars in the universe have paths that are not as calm as previously thought; they come very close to neighboring stars and suck material from their companions much like a vampire does or they melt together to become even more massive. These are the most recent findings of an international team of researchers involving the University of Bonn. The results have now been published in the renowned scientific journal “Science“.

New stroke treatments becoming a reality

Posted: 26 Jul 2012 10:12 AM PDT

Scientists led by the President of The University of Manchester have demonstrated a drug which can dramatically limit the amount of brain damage in stroke patients. Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, Professor Stuart Allan and their team have spent the last 20 years investigating how to reduce damage to the brain following a stroke.

Switching the state of matter

Posted: 26 Jul 2012 10:03 AM PDT

Sixty years after the transistor began a technological revolution that transformed nearly every aspect of our daily lives, a new transistor brings innovations that may help to do so again. Developed at RIKEN, the device uses the electrostatic accumulation of electrical charge on the surface of a strongly-correlated material to trigger bulk switching of electronic state.

Toddlers Object When People Break the Rules

Posted: 26 Jul 2012 09:52 AM PDT

We all know that, for the most part, it’s wrong to kill other people, it’s inappropriate to wear jeans to bed, and we shouldn’t ignore people when they are talking to us. We know these things because we’re bonded to others through social norms – we tend to do things the same way people around us do them and, most importantly, the way in which they expect us to do them.

Social norms act as the glue that helps to govern social institutions and hold humans societies together, but how do we acquire these norms in the first place?

Medical Team Recommends Preventive Antibiotic for COPD Sufferers

Posted: 26 Jul 2012 09:31 AM PDT

Patients suffering from the chronic lung condition COPD, which is the third-leading cause of death and disability in the United States, may benefit greatly from a three-times-a-week dose of an antibiotic, according to a study by Virginia Commonwealth University physicians published in today’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

New Study Associates Excess Maternal Iodine Supplementation with Congenital Hypothyroidism in Newborns

Posted: 26 Jul 2012 07:59 AM PDT

Congenital hypothyroidism is thyroid hormone deficiency at birth that, if left untreated, can lead to neurocognitive impairments in infants and children. Although the World Health Organization recommends 200-300 µg of iodine daily during pregnancy for normal fetal thyroid hormone production and neurocognitive development, the US Institute of Medicine considers 1,100 µg to be the safe upper limit for daily ingestion. A case series scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics describes three infants who developed congenital hypothyroidism as a re

Some harmful effects of light at night can be reversed, study finds

Posted: 26 Jul 2012 07:56 AM PDT

Chronic exposure to dim light at night can lead to depressive symptoms in rodents - but these negative effects can be reversed simply by returning to a standard light-dark cycle, a new study suggests.

While hamsters exposed to light at night for four weeks showed evidence of depressive symptoms, those symptoms essentially disappeared after about two weeks if they returned to normal lighting conditions.

Even changes in the brain that occurred after hamsters lived with chronic light at night reversed themselves after returning to a more normal light cycle.

Largest ever Cherenkov telescope sees first light

Posted: 26 Jul 2012 07:21 AM PDT

On 26 July 2012, the H.E.S.S. II telescope started operation in Namibia. Dedicated to observing the most violent and extreme phenomena of the Universe in very high energy gamma-rays, H.E.S.S. II is the largest Cherenkov telescope ever built, with its 28-meter-sized mirror. Together with the four smaller (12 meter) telescopes already in operation since 2004, the H.E.S.S.