Using mathematics and a computer model of brain activity, scientists have shown a direct link between activity in the cortex and the microscopic structure of this neuronal network. Building on the existing body of research, the new work indicates that the spontaneous activity of small neuronal networks in the cortex consists of highly structured patterns rather than random "noise," shedding light on previous speculations. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 May 2008 | 3:00 am
Researchers have developed geographic risk models, which indicate that as many as 3.2 million Burmese are estimated to be affected by the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis. Using Geographic Information Systems, the researchers calculated the likely distribution of the population of Burma (also known as Myanmar) and developed maps of the regions at greatest risk from the storm's effects. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 May 2008 | 3:00 am
While 30 to 50 percent of people with Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome are also affected with obsessive compulsive disorder, both illnesses might have a distinct neurocognitive profile, according to a new study in the journal Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 May 2008 | 3:00 am
Move over "Longface", "Spooktacular" and "Trickster" -- there's a new face in the pumpkin patch. Researchers recently introduced "Orange Bulldog," a new variety of the familiar fall fruit that may soon be available to consumers and wholesale pumpkin growers. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 May 2008 | 3:00 am
Knowing that soils are a potential climate change time-bomb is nothing new -- but now, for the first time, a group of international scientists have found a way to distinguish just how much of these ancient carbon stores are being lost to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. This means that in the future they may be able to accurately forecast how loss of soil carbon will impact on climate change. Globally, soils contain over 300 times the amount of carbon released each year due to the burning of fossil fuels, and this carbon has until now, been safely locked up below ground. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 May 2008 | 3:00 am
Neuroscientists have discovered a fundamental component of the process that regulates memory formation. The discovery explains, for the first time, how new nerve cells form in an area of the brain associated with learning and memory -- which is known to deteriorate in people with stroke and dementia. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 May 2008 | 3:00 am
It’s a paradox that has confounded evolutionary biologists since Charles Darwin: Since parasites depend on their hosts for survival, why do they harm them? A new study of monarch butterflies and the microscopic parasites that hitch a ride on them finds that the parasites strike a middle ground between the benefits gained by reproducing rapidly and the costs to their hosts. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 May 2008 | 12:00 am
Exposure during development either in the womb or during infancy to chemicals used to make products such as baby bottles, the lining of food tins and some plastic food wraps and containers, may contribute to the development of obesity, according to new research presented at the European Congress on Obesity. One of the chemicals under scrutiny is Bisphenol A. While eating too much and exercising too little are still considered the major cause of obesity, scientists have recently started investigating whether chemicals known as endocrine disruptors, which mimic or alter the effects of hormones in the body, could also play a role in making people fat. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 May 2008 | 12:00 am
Fruit flies are dramatically different from humans not in their number of genes, but in the number of protein interactions in their bodies, according to scientists who have developed a new way of estimating the total number of interactions between proteins in any organism. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 May 2008 | 12:00 am
Doctors have fine-tuned the dosage and timing for administering clot-busting tissue plasminogen activator to patients with strokes caused by bleeding within the brain. The treatment dramatically increases survival for the deadly condition. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 16 May 2008 | 12:00 am
Like swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano except with a longer interval the zeppelins are returning to California. Source: LiveScience.com | 15 May 2008 | 3:15 pm
Some represented monumental firsts and some lost their lives for it, but all of these "Iron Ladies" showed that women can indeed run a country, even decades at a time. Source: LiveScience.com | 15 May 2008 | 3:15 pm
Environmental groups said polar bears still unprotected against their biggest threat: global warming. Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 15 May 2008 | 2:26 pm
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A baby supernova, just over a century old, has been found in the middle of our own Milky Way galaxy and provides an unprecedented opportunity to watch a star dying, astronomers said on Wednesday.
The wheels continue to turn on Europe's billion-euro project to put a robotic rover on the surface of the Red Planet. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 15 May 2008 | 10:50 am
Prince Charles says halting logging in the rainforest is the single greatest solution to climate change. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 15 May 2008 | 8:19 am
The US lists the polar bear as a threatened species but says the decision will not affect climate change policies. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 15 May 2008 | 1:18 am
90% of environmental damage around the world explained by rising temperatures driven by human activity Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 14 May 2008 | 11:44 pm
Isis is helping scientists understand everything from oil pipe blockages to the lungs of newborns Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 14 May 2008 | 11:43 pm
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - The government on Wednesday declared the evacuated Chilean town of Chaiten off-limits for three months until it is no longer threatened by a cloud of hot ash from an erupting volcano.
Polar bears were declared a threatened species by the US government today, ending a court battle over protecting the animals from melting sea ice caused by climate change Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 14 May 2008 | 8:41 pm
Scientists today reported the discovery of the youngest supernova in the Milky Way, ending a 50-year search Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 14 May 2008 | 8:03 pm
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican's chief astronomer says there is no conflict between believing in God and in the possibility of "extraterrestrial brothers" perhaps more evolved than humans.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia and Europe are teaming up to build a spaceship which will fly astronauts to the moon, Russia said on Wednesday, although the European Space Agency struck a more cautious note.
LONDON (Reuters) - Governments need to stockpile different sorts of flu drugs -- not just Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu -- to counter the danger of resistance in a pandemic triggered by bird flu, British experts said on Wednesday.
The way super-fast pilot whales hunt their prey has brought comparisons with the fleet-footed land predator, the cheetah. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 14 May 2008 | 5:24 pm
A survey concludes that shifts in the Earth's physical and biological systems are driven by global warming. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 14 May 2008 | 5:18 pm
GENEVA (Reuters) - Exposure in the womb to common chemicals used to make everything from plastic bottles to pizza box liners may program a person to become obese later in life, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.
