GoogleTrends: 04/27/15

Monday, April 27, 2015

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Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Celladon says heart treatment fails in trial

Celladon Corp said its heart failure gene therapy Mydicar failed to meet its primary and secondary endpoints in an important trial. "We are surprised and very disappointed that Mydicar failed to meet the endpoints in the CUPID2 trial, and we are rigorously analyzing the data in an attempt to better understand the observed outcome," Celladon's chief executive, Krisztina Zsebo, said in a statement on Sunday. According to the company, the gene therapy failed to show a significant treatment effect when compared to placebo.

Decline in U.S. science spending threatens economy, security: MIT

By Sharon Begley NEW YORK (Reuters) - Warning of an "innovation deficit," scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say declining government spending on basic research is holding back potentially life-saving advances in 15 fields, from robotics and fusion energy to Alzheimer's disease and agriculture. Science funding is "the lowest it has been since the Second World War as a fraction of the federal budget," said MIT physicist Marc Kastner, who led the committee that wrote "The Future Postponed" report, issued on Monday. Federal spending on research as a share of total government outlays has fallen from nearly 10 percent in 1968, during the space program, to 3 percent in 2015.

Lice Shouldn't Keep Kids from School, Doctors Say

Head lice are annoying, but they don't actually make people sick, and children with the condition should not be kept away from school, according to new guidelines from a leading group of pediatricians. The guidelines, from the American Academy of Pediatrics, say that although head lice can cause itching, they are not known to spread disease, and the insects are not very likely to spread from one child to another within a classroom. For this reason, "no healthy child should be excluded from school or allowed to miss school time because of head lice or nits," the guidelines say. In addition, screening kids at schools for head lice does not reduce the occurrence of the condition in classrooms over time, so routine screenings at schools should be discouraged, the AAP says.

Air Pollution May Shrink the Brain, Study Suggests

Breathing polluted air every day may change a person's brain in ways that end up leading to cognitive impairment, according to a new study. The investigators used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to look at the participants' brain structures, and compared the images with the air pollution levels in the places where the participants lived. The researchers found that an increase of 2 micrograms per cubic meter in fine-particle pollution — a range that can be observed across an average city — was linked to a 0.32 percent reduction in brain volume. That amount of change in brain volume "is equivalent to about one year of brain aging," said study author Elissa H. Wilker, a researcher in the cardiovascular epidemiology research unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Exercise Won't Fix the Obesity Epidemic, Researchers Argue

The food industry has helped push the belief that people's sedentary lifestyles are solely to blame for widespread obesity, three researchers argue in a new editorial. And by doing so, the industry has deflected attention from the role that sugary drinks and junk food play in making people fat, said Dr. Aseem Malhotra and his colleagues. Malhotra is an honorary consultant cardiologist at Frimley Park Hospital in the United Kingdom and science director of the advocacy group Action on Sugar. "The public health messaging around diet and exercise, and their relationship to the epidemics of type 2 diabetes and obesity, has been corrupted by vested interests," the researchers write in their editorial, published today (April 22) in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Scientist Hawking tells upset fans Malik may be in parallel One Direction

(Reuters) - What is the cosmological effect of singer Zayn Malik leaving the best-selling boy band One Direction and consequently disappointing millions of teenage girls around the world? The advice of British cosmologist Stephen Hawking to heartbroken fans is to follow theoretical physics, because Malik may well still be a member of the pop group in another universe. "My advice to any heartbroken young girl is to pay attention to the study of theoretical physics because, one day, there may well be proof of multiple universes.

Scientist Hawking tells upset fans Malik may be in parallel One Direction

Big Butts Can Lie: Bootylicious Baboons May Not Be Most Fertile

The swollen red bottom of a female baboon has long been thought to be an irresistible come-hither signal for males. "Our study suggests that, at least in part, males follow a rule along the lines of 'later is better,' rather than 'bigger is better,'" Courtney Fitzpatrick, a postdoctoral scientist at Duke University's National Evolutionary Synthesis Center and one of the researchers on the new study, said in a statement.

Man-Made Earthquakes Rising in US, New Maps Show

New earthquake hazard maps signal a watershed moment: They show that fracking's byproducts are clearly to blame for swarms of earthquakes plaguing several states. The maps highlight 17 hotspots where communities face a significantly increased risk of earthquakes, and the accompanying report links the earthquakes to wastewater injection wells. Previous maps did not include earthquakes that are induced by human activities. "We consider induced seismicity to be primarily triggered by the disposal of wastewater into deep wells," said Mark Petersen, chief of the National Seismic Hazard Project for the U.S. Geological Survey, which released the maps on April 23.

Stargazer Enjoys Venus View from Giant's Causeway in Ireland (Photo)

A stargazer enjoys a dazzling view of the planet Venus in this spectacular photo taken above the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. Astrophotographer Miguel Claro took this image between the Giant's Causeway, near Bushmills, in northeast coast of Northen Ireland on March 20. In the image, one can see Venus and a visible corona phenomenon. Venus is surrounded by a water droplet diffraction corona.

Having an 'Invisible' Body Could Reduce Social Anxiety

"We're still at a very early stage, but it's not impossible that, in a decade or two, we might be able to cloak macroscopic objects, like a human limb or [an entire] human," said Dr. Arvid Guterstam, a neuroscientist at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and co-author of the study, published today (April 23) in the journal Scientific Reports.

Women Who Sit Too Much Have Higher Breast Cancer Risk

Too much time spent sitting at work and during off hours may increase women's risk of breast and endometrial cancer, a new study from Sweden suggests. Researchers analyzed information from more than 29,000 Swedish women ages 25 to 64 who did not have cancer at the study's start. Study subjects were divided into three groups: those who had a sedentary job (such as working in an office) and did not participant in recreational sports, those who had a sedentary job but did participate in sports (such as running and handball), and those who had a physically active jobs that required more standing up (such as being a teacher) and also participated in recreational sports. Women who were not active at their work or in their leisure time were 2.4 times more likely to be diagnosed with endometrial cancer (a cancer of the uterus lining), and also 2.4 times more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer before menopause, compared with those who were active at their jobs and in their leisure time.

Prostate Cancer Risk Linked to Baldness

Men who are losing their hair due to male pattern baldness may be at increased risk of dying from prostate cancer, a new study suggests. What's more, those with moderate balding were 83 percent more likely to die from prostate cancer, compared to those with no balding. The findings support the hypothesis that a shared biological process influences both balding and prostate cancer, the researchers said. Men with male pattern baldness have been found to have higher levels of male hormones, and these hormones also fuel the growth of prostate cancer cells.

Study blames global warming for 75 percent of very hot days

WASHINGTON (AP) — If you find yourself sweating out a day that is monstrously hot, chances are you can blame humanity. A new report links three out of four such days to man's effects on climate.

Global warming to blame for most heat extremes - study

By Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - Global warming is to blame for most extreme hot days and almost a fifth of heavy downpours, according to a scientific study on Monday that gives new evidence of how rising man-made greenhouse gases are skewing the weather. "Already today 75 percent of the moderate hot extremes and about 18 percent of the moderate precipitation extremes occurring worldwide are attributable to warming," the climate scientists, at the Swiss university ETH Zurich, wrote. In Britain, for instance, that is 33.2 degrees Celsius (92 F) in south-east England or 27 degrees further north in Edinburgh, according to the UK Met Office Hadley Centre. The scientists, Erich Fischer and Reto Knutti, noted that a U.N. study last year found that it was at least 95 percent probable that most warming since the mid-20th century was man-made.

Bizarre Cousin of T. Rex Was a Vegetarian

The new species is a member of the theropod group, which consists of mostly carnivorous dinosaurs and includes not only T. rex but also the fearsome Velociraptor. "When I saw all the fragmented bones laying on the table, I thought all of them belonged to different dinosaur lineages," said the study's lead researcher, Fernando Novas, a researcher at the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Elephant Contraception? How a Vaccine is Replacing Sharpshooters (Op-Ed)

Karen Lange is senior content creator at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). For 15 years, researcher Audrey Delsink has observed the elephants in South Africa's Greater Private Makalali Game Reserve. As she's watched them, recording the effects of a contraceptive vaccine called PZP, she's seen something that's beyond the scope of her research: evidence of awareness.

Not Just a Band-Aid: How 'Smart Bandages' Will Change Medicine (Video)

Charlie Heck, multimedia news editor at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. The new devices, known collectively as flexible bioelectronics, will do much more than deliver medicine. Reza Abdi, associate professor in medicine at Harvard, is part of this research team. NSF: What are flexible bioelectronics?

Songbirds Emerge for Spring, But Is the Timing Off? (Essay)

Naomi Eide is a master's student in the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's guide, many say the golden-crowned sparrow's whistles sound like a phrase, such as "I'm so tired" or "Oh, dear me." The air is bustling with the songs of flirting birds, yet sleeping houses remain blissfully unaware that nature's instinct has taken over with the change in day length. Climate change has disturbed the delicate choreography that synchronizes the bloom of trees and flowers with the emergence of new wildlife and native bees. "Birds are being activated to sing by virtue of the sunlight right now," said Douglas Gill, professor emeritus in the biology department at the University of Maryland.

Learning from Earth's Smallest Ecosystems (Kavli Hangout)

From inside our bodies to under the ocean floor, microbiomes — communities of bacteria and other one-celled organisms — thrive everywhere in nature. The diversity of all the plants and animals — everything that's alive today that you can see with your eyes — that's a drop in the proverbial ocean of diversity contained in the bacterial and microbial world.

From Crisis to Myth: The Packaging Waste Problem (Op-Ed)

He is the editor of The Use Less Stuff Report, a highly respected and widely read newsletter aimed at spreading the benefits of source reduction. Twenty years ago, the late "garbologist" William Rathje of the University of Arizona and I penned an op-ed on enviro-myths, touching on topics from garbage to the health of the planet. Our point: To solve environmental problems, we all need to work with the facts, not feel-good sound bites and myth-perceptions. One particularly stubborn enviro-myth continues to persist: We're burying ourselves in a growing mountain of packaging waste.

Climate Deniers to Pope Francis: 'There Is No Global Warming Crisis'

As Pope Francis prepares a historic document to make environmental issues a priority for Catholics, a group of climate-change deniers is trying to convince the pontiff this week that global warming is nothing to worry about. "Humans are not causing a climate crisis on God's green Earth — in fact, they are fulfilling their biblical duty to protect and use it for the benefit of humanity," Joseph Bast, president of the Heartland Institute, said in a statement. The group is sending a delegation to Rome this week to try to get Pope Francis to pay attention to its position with events Monday (April 27) and Tuesday (April 28).

Global warming to blame for most heat extremes - study

Zebrafish 'inner ear' development wins science video prize

By Ben Gruber Monday April 27, 2015 - This is a video of a lateral line, an organ that allows fish to sense water movement, developing in a zebra fish. Using an imaging technique called Selective Plane Illumination Microscopy, which uses sheets of lights to illuminate sub-cellular activity, Dr. Mariana Muzzopappa and Jim Swoger from the Institute for Research in Biomedicine in Barcelona Spain, claimed top honors in this year's Nikon Small World in Motion Photomicrography Competition. Second place went to Dr. Douglas Clark from San Francisco, California who used polarized light to create a time-lapse movie showing crystals forming on a single drop of a solution saturated with caffeine in water. Third place honors went to Dr. John Hart from the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at the University of Colorado-Boulder for a detailed look at oil floating on the surface of water.

'Jigsaw puzzle' dinosaur Chilesaurus boasted weird mix of traits

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists have unearthed fossils of a strange dinosaur in southern Chile that boasts such an unusual combination of traits that they are comparing it to a platypus, that oddball egg-laying, duckbilled mammal from Australia. Named Chilesaurus diegosuarezi, it is a member of the same dinosaur group as Tyrannosaurus rex, theropods, which includes the largest land meat-eaters in Earth's history, but it ate only plants with a beak and leaf-shaped teeth, scientists said on Monday. "Chilesaurus constitutes one of the most bizarre dinosaurs ever found," said paleontologist Fernando Novas of the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Museum in Buenos Aires, calling the creature an evolutionary "jigsaw puzzle." "The skeletal anatomy of Chilesaurus gathers characteristics of different dinosaur groups, like a floor is composed of mosaics of different shapes and colors. No other dinosaurs exhibit such a combination or mixture of features." Chilesaurus lived in a region crisscrossed by rivers at the Jurassic Period's end, approximately 145 million years ago.

Citizen Scientists Discover Five New Supernovas

More than 40,000 citizen stargazers have helped to classify over 2 million celestial objects and identify five never-before-seen supernovas, in a massive example of citizen science at work. An amateur astronomy project of cosmic proportions, established by scientists at the Australian National University, asked volunteers to look through images taken by the SkyMapper telescope and search for new objects, with a particular focus on finding new supernovas. The project was set up using the Zooniverse platform (run by the University of Oxford), which hosts many other citizen science projects, and which was promoted on the BBC2 TV series "Stargazing Live," from March 18 to March 20. The participants were asked to look at star-filled patches of the night sky, taken by the SkyMapper telescope.

Astronauts in Space Mourn Nepal Earthquake Victims

Astronauts on the International Space Station have the people of Nepal in their thoughts and prayers after a devastating earthquake killed more than 4,000 people in that country on Saturday (April 25). "Looking down on the Himalayas, Kathmandu, and Mt. Everest," Virts wrote on Twitter. "Praying for everyone affected by the #NepalQuake." Virts, who commands the space station's Expedition 43 crew, also posted a Vine video of Nepal from space. Kelly, meanwhile, touched on the disconnect between Earth's beauty from space and the disaster affecting the people of Nepal on the surface.

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