When frogs hit the road, many croak. Researchers found more than 65 animal species killed along a short stretch of roads and nearly 95 percent of the total dead were frogs and other amphibians, suggesting that road-related death, or road-kill, possibly contributes to their worldwide decline.
Cataracts, which can have devastating effects on the eye, affect 42 percent of the population between the ages of 70 and 80, and 68 percent of the population over the age of 80, according to the National Eye Institute. Now, a professor has identified an important step in how cataracts form. This discovery could lead to a better treatment or cure for cataracts in the future.
The pathogen responsible for Sudden Oak Death, a disease that has felled millions of oaks and tanoaks along the Pacific Coast, is evolving, suggesting that movement of infected plants between different quarantined regions should be restricted. The study also revealed that the pathogen got its first toehold in California's forests outside a nursery in Santa Cruz and at Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County.
Behold the full moon. Ancient craters and frozen lava seas lie motionless under an airless sky of profound quiet. It's a serene, slow-motion world where even a human footprint may last millions of years. Nothing ever seems to happen there, right? Wrong. Scientists have realized that something happens every month when the moon gets a lashing from Earth's magnetic tail.
Researchers are conducting trials to evaluate a method to prevent allergic reactions to food. They are feeding allergic people increasing doses of egg and peanut protein to see if they can induce the participants' immune systems to tolerate the food.
Good things come in small packages -- like the Nabisco 100 Calorie Pack. But do these portion-controlled offerings help dieters lose weight? Yes, according to new research. Dividing food into smaller portions creates a "partitioning effect;" a phenomenon where segmenting a resource, such as food or money, can dramatically affect consumption.
There's safety in numbers -- especially when those numbers are random. That's the lesson learned from new research that is already helping to beef up security at LAX airport in Los Angeles. Soon it may be used across the country to both predict and minimize risk.
When too many blood platelets stick together in the bloodstream, they form dangerous clots that can clog blood vessels and cause a heart attack. If a clot doesn't get dissolved or rapidly removed, it can cause permanent damage or even death. But new research suggests that it should be possible to create a clot-busting pill that targets a receptor on the blood cells' surface, something that high-risk patients could take at the first sign of chest pain.
Scientists have, for the first time, convincingly demonstrated a genomic locus linked to migraine susceptibility in two diverse populations. Migraine is the most common cause of episodic headache, and by far the most common neurological cause of a doctor's visit. It affects some 15% of the population, including some 41 million people in Europe, and places a considerable burden on healthcare in both the developed and the developing world.
In a discovery that may be useful for maintaining remission in chemo-resistant ovarian cancer, Yale scientists report that pre-clinical studies have shown the drug compound NV-128 can induce the death of ovarian cancer cells by halting the activation of a protein pathway called mTOR.
An ambitious plan to drill into a Japanese earthquake zone yields its first results, generating 3D fault images. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 21 Apr 2008 | 12:47 pm
Proposals to build one of Europe's biggest onshore wind farms are turned down by the Scottish Government. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 21 Apr 2008 | 12:14 pm
STAR CITY, Russia (Reuters) - South Korea's first astronaut said on Monday she was scared at the sight of flames licking the outside of her Russian re-entry capsule while she and two crewmates made a bumpy return to Earth.
The annual mass spawning of corals on the Palau archipelago in the western Pacific occurs right on cue. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 21 Apr 2008 | 10:48 am
Professor Colin Blakemore describes his experiences as a hate figure for animal rights protestors. Plus, we reveal why McEnroe's tantrums may have been justified after all Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 21 Apr 2008 | 9:22 am
Professor Colin Blakemore, former chief executive of the Medical Research Council, discusses animal rights, religion, and the scientific challenges facing the UK in the coming decades Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 21 Apr 2008 | 9:21 am
Government considers clampdown on industry, providing safety information in salons and limiting children's access Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 20 Apr 2008 | 11:04 pm
Cloned animals and their offspring have been declared safe to eat; in a matter of months their meat will be on sale in the US. Ed Pilkington reports on a PR timebomb that's about to blow Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 20 Apr 2008 | 11:03 pm
Letter: When it comes to coastal erosion (Waves of destruction, G2, April 17), unlike most other European countries we don't have a solidarity fund to compensate people for such natural disasters Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 20 Apr 2008 | 11:02 pm
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers creating a map of human metabolism around the world have found compounds in urine that point to some surprising differences affecting blood pressure, based not on genes but on what people eat and their gut bacteria.
