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	(Sponsor this newsletter) Unusual 'sail-backed' dinosaur roamed Spain 125 million years ago By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Along a lush river delta in what is now northeastern Spain, a herd of dinosaurs munched on ferns and conifers similar to modern-day cypresses 125 million years ago. Scientists announced on Wednesday the discovery near the town of Morella in Spain's Castellón Province of the fossil remains of a medium-sized dinosaur they named Morelladon, a four-legged herbivore that measured 6 metres (20 feet) long. "The sail could help in heat exchange - thermoregulation - focused on releasing excess body heat into the environment, like the ears of the modern-day elephants, or as a storage place for fat to be used during periods of low food supply," said paleontologist Fernando Escaso of the National University of Distance Education's Evolutionary Biology Group in Spain. Read More » Unusual 'sail-backed' dinosaur roamed Spain 125 million years ago By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Along a lush river delta in what is now northeastern Spain, a herd of dinosaurs munched on ferns and conifers similar to modern-day cypresses 125 million years ago. Scientists announced on Wednesday the discovery near the town of Morella in Spain's Castellón Province of the fossil remains of a medium-sized dinosaur they named Morelladon, a four-legged herbivore that measured 6 meters (20 feet) long. "The sail could help in heat exchange - thermoregulation - focused on releasing excess body heat into the environment, like the ears of the modern-day elephants, or as a storage place for fat to be used during periods of low food supply," said paleontologist Fernando Escaso of the National University of Distance Education's Evolutionary Biology Group in Spain. Read More » Men with moustaches outnumber women in top U.S. academic medical jobs: researchers By Alex Whiting LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Men sporting moustaches are more likely than women to head medical departments in 50 leading U.S. medical schools, highlighting a need to redress the balance of sexes, researchers said on Wednesday. Women accounted for 13 percent of department leaders in the top U.S. medical schools funded by the National Institutes of Health, while mustachioed men made up 19 percent, the U.S. team of researchers said in a study published in The BMJ. "We want to increase the representation of women in academic medical leadership by drawing attention to sex disparities," they said. Read More » Crews remove equipment from contested Hawaii telescope site Construction crews for what would be one of the world's largest telescopes have removed equipment from the dormant volcano in Hawaii where it was set to be built after the state Supreme Court revoked its permit, project officials said on Wednesday. The move by TMT International Observatory signals the project faces a potentially significant delay if the team behind it ever applies to state officials for a new permit to build at the Mauna Kea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island. The Hawaii Supreme Court found on Dec. 2 that the permit for the project issued by state officials in 2013 was invalid because at that time, a public hearing to air objections to the plan had not been held. Read More » Lawmakers call for British trials of genetically modified insects By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Britain should challenge "woefully inadequate" European regulations and launch field trials of genetically modified insects that are designed to wipe out disease-carrying bugs that harm crops and people, lawmakers said on Thursday. An influential committee of parliament's upper house said GM insects, such as mosquitoes altered to be sterile or "self-limiting" diamondback moths, had powerful potential against diseases like malaria and dengue, and in controlling crop pests that cost billions in lost production. "But the development of GM insect technologies has come to a screeching halt because the EU (European Union) regulatory system is woefully inadequate," the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee said in a report. Read More » Hairy Situation: More Mustaches, Fewer Women in Top Medical Spots Even if you count only the men who have mustaches, you'll find a group that holds more leadership positions in medicine than women, a new study finds. Women hold 13 percent of department leader positions at U.S. medical schools, whereas men with mustaches hold 19 percent of these positions, according to the study, published today (Dec. 16) in the annual Christmas issue of the BMJ, which is a tongue-in-cheek edition of the medical journal that normally publishes serious research. For the study, the researchers looked at photos of department heads in 19 specialties at the top 50 NIH-funded medical schools in the U.S. They chose to compare the number of women heading departments to the number of men with mustaches heading departments because mustaches are rare, according to the study. Read More » US Ebola Survivors Suffering Health Problems, Report Finds The small number of people in the U.S. who contracted Ebola have all experienced complications from the disease after they recovered, including hair loss, joint pain and eye problems, according to a new report. Five survivors said they had eye problems, including pain, discomfort or blurriness, and two patients — Dr. Ian Crozier and Dr. Richard Sacra — required treatment for eye inflammation. The findings suggest that Ebola survivors may benefit from evaluation for eye, muscle, bone and nerve problems, the researchers said. Read More » The Truth about Pre-Workout Supplements Everyone wants to get the most out of the time they spend exercising, and "preworkout" supplements claim to help you do exactly that. It might be tempting to try one of these supplements before hitting the gym or heading out for a run, in hopes of increasing your energy levels, muscle power or endurance during your workout. Preworkout supplements often contain a mystery blend of ingredients ranging from caffeine to guarana to creatine. Read More » Marijuana's THC May Increase 'Noise' in Your Brain Marijuana's main psychoactive compound, THC, may increase random neural activity — or neural noise — in the brain, according to a new study. In the study, researchers gave THC to study participants through an IV, and found that the participants showed increased levels of random neural noise after the compound was administered. "At doses roughly equivalent to half or a single joint, [THC] produced psychosis-like effects and increased neural noise in humans," senior study author Dr. Deepak Cyril D'Souza, a professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, said in a statement. Read More » Zombie Alert! Medical Journal 'Warns' of Walking Dead In horror movies, "the way most zombie outbreaks happen is through an infection," Smith told Live Science. That's why Smith wrote the tongue-in-cheek piece for the BMJ's traditionally goofy Christmas issue. "We spread zombie science around the country," Smith said. Read More » Arctic Temperatures Rising at Breakneck Speed Last year was the warmest on record for the Arctic, and sea ice extent was at an all-time low since record keeping began in 1979. "Warming is happening more than twice as fast in the Arctic than anywhere else in the world," said Rick Spinrad, the chief scientific officer a the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), here in a press briefing at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. In addition, the sea ice extent during those months was the lowest since 1979, when record keeping began. Read More » Ancient Mouse-Size Creature Uproots Mammal Family Tree Three-dimensional computer models of fossils from a tiny mouse-size creature that lived about 210 million years ago in what is now Greenland clear up a long-standing mammal mystery. The high-tech analysis of the fossils suggests that mammals originated more than 30 million years more recently than previously suggested, the researchers say. Paleontologists analyzed fossils of haramiyids, extinct relatives of modern mammals that lived about 210 million years ago. Read More » Got Calcium? Wild Parrots Use Tools During Snack Time The black-feathered greater vasa parrot has a new skill to add to its resume — the use of tools to grind shells to create calcium powder, which it then proceeds to lick up with its pink tongue, a new study finds. The vasa parrot is now the only known species besides humans to use tools for grinding, the researchers said. The finding was an "entirely fortuitous discovery," said study lead author Megan Lambert, a doctoral student of psychology at the University of York. Read More »
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