science newsletter: Science News SciGuru.com

Τρίτη 1 Ιανουαρίου 2013

Science News SciGuru.com

Piranha kin wielded dental weaponry even T. rex would have admired
As climate warms, bark beetles march on high-elevation forests
Paired CT scans catch chemo-killing of liver tumors in real time
Scientists dismiss the link between epilepsy and the flu vaccine

Piranha kin wielded dental weaponry even T. rex would have admired

Posted: 01 Jan 2013 07:17 AM PST

Taking into consideration its size, an ancient relative of piranhas weighing about 20 pounds delivered a bite with a force more fierce than prehistoric whale-eating sharks, the four-ton ocean-dwelling Dunkleosteus terrelli and – even – Tyrannosaurus rex.

As climate warms, bark beetles march on high-elevation forests

Posted: 01 Jan 2013 07:01 AM PST

Trees and the insects that eat them wage constant war. Insects burrow and munch; trees deploy lethal and disruptive defenses in the form of chemicals.

But in a warming world, where temperatures and seasonal change are in flux, the tide of battle may be shifting in some insects' favor, according to a new study.

Paired CT scans catch chemo-killing of liver tumors in real time

Posted: 01 Jan 2013 06:56 AM PST

Using two successive pairs of specialized CT scans, a team of Johns Hopkins and Dutch radiologists has produced real-time images of liver tumors dying from direct injection of anticancer drugs into the tumors and their surrounding blood vessels. Within a minute, the images showed whether the targeted chemotherapy did or did not choke off the tumors' blood supply and saved patients a month of worry about whether the treatment, known as chemoembolization, was working or not, and whether repeat or more powerful treatments were needed.

Scientists dismiss the link between epilepsy and the flu vaccine

Posted: 31 Dec 2012 10:04 AM PST

A new register study from Karolinska Institutet finds no increased risk of epilepsy for the controversial flu vaccine Pandemrix. In the study, which was conducted in three Swedish counties, epileptics were monitored for three months before and three months after they had been vaccinated against the pandemic H1N1 influenza virus, also known as swine flu.