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Thursday, December 24, 2015

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Curbing Premature Birth May Hinge on a Single Molecule

Blocking a molecule in the uterus could delay or even halt premature birth, the leading cause of death and disability of newborns worldwide, according to a new study in rodents. As many as 3 percent are born quite prematurely, after less than 31 weeks of pregnancy, said study co-senior author Dr. David Cornfield, a pediatric pulmonary medicine physician and scientist at Stanford University in California. Premature birth can lead to major problems because many organs, including the brain, lungs, and liver, need the final weeks of pregnancy to fully develop.

US Twin Birthrate Hits All-Time High

The country's twin birthrate hit 33.9 twins per 1,000 births in 2014, up from 33.7 twins per 1,000 births in 2013, according to the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The "twinning rate" has nearly doubled since 1980, when the rate was 18.9 twins per 1,000 births, the researchers wrote in their report, published today (Dec. 23) by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. However, the birthrates of triplets and higher-order births declined in 2014, from 119.5 per 100,000 in 2013 to 113.5 per 100,000 in 2014 — the lowest rate in 20 years and down more than 40 percent from the peak in 1998, when the birth rate of triplets and higher-order births reached a record 193.5 per 100,000, according to the report.

Stem Cells May Save Northern White Rhinos

At a meeting in Vienna from Dec. 3 to Dec. 6, researchers developed a plan to use stem cells to create fertilized rhino embryos, which will be carried by surrogate southern white rhino females. This past year has been a sad one for northern white rhinos, a rapidly disappearing subspecies destroyed by habitat loss and poaching. An infection claimed Nola, a 41-year-old female at the San Diego Zoo, in November.

Gilman, 1994 Nobel Prize-winning scientist in Texas, dies

DALLAS (AP) — Dr. Alfred Gilman, a 1994 Nobel Prize-winning scientist and former dean of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, has died after a lengthy illness. He was 74.

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Wednesday, December 23, 2015

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Toddler Tech Pros? 2-Year-Olds Adept at Touch Screens

Kim Kardashian recently blamed her 2-year-old daughter, North, for posting a photo to Kardashian's Instagram account — but can toddlers really use touch screens? In the study, 91 percent of parents with touch-screen devices, such as smartphones or tablets, reported that their toddlers were able to swipe on the devices. "Children as young as 12 months of age are able to use [touch-screen] devices, and by 24 months have developed an array of skills allowing them to interact purposefully with a touch screen," the researchers wrote.

Hail the Hydra, an Animal That May Be Immortal

A new study finds that hydra — spindly, freshwater polyps — can live seemingly forever, without aging. Unlike most multicellular species, hydra don't show any signs of deteriorating with age, according to the new research, published Dec. 7 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "I started my original experiment wanting to prove that hydra could not have escaped aging," study researcher Daniel Martinez, a Pomona College biologist, said in a statement.

2 'Extinct' Sea Snakes Discovered Off Australian Coast

Two species of venomous sea snakes that were thought to be extinct have been discovered slithering off the coast of western Australia. The brownish-purple leaf-scaled sea snake (Aipysurus foliosquama) and the yellowish-brown short-nosed sea snake (Aipysurus apraefrontalis) once lived among the Ashmore and Hibernia reefs in the Timor Sea, but disappeared between 1998 and 2002, the researchers said. After that, both species were listed as critically endangered, first by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2010, and next by Australia's threatened species legislation in 2011, and many scientists presumed they were extinct.

Evil-Thwarting 'Rattles' Found in Prehistoric Infant's Grave

Tiny figurines that may have been used as rattling toys or charms to ward off evil spirits were discovered in the grave of an infant dating back 4,500 years, archaeologists say. The infant's remains, which were found in what appears to be a birchbark cradle, suggest he or she was less than a year old at death. On the infant's chest, archaeologists found "eight miniature horn figurines representing humanlike characters and heads of birds, elk, boar and a carnivore,"wrote archaeologists Andrey Polyakov and Yury Esin, in an article published recently in the journal Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia.

Oh, Rats: Pet Rodent's Bite Gives Teen Rare Fever

A teenage girl who was scratched when breaking up a scuffle among her three pet rats wound up in the hospital with an extremely rare case of rat-bite fever. The infection, which is caused by a bacterium found in rat saliva, generally causes fever, joint pain and rash, and is fatal in up to 13 percent of cases, according to the report of the young woman's case. Rat-bite fever, which was described in writings dating back 2,300 years, is rare: Only about 200 cases of the disease have been reported in the past 150 years, the authors wrote in their report, published today (Dec. 22) in the journal BMJ Case Reports.

Skin-to-Skin 'Kangaroo-Style' Care May Benefit Newborns' Health

Babies born with a low birth weight who are regularly held by their mothers skin-to-skin — or "kangaroo style" — may have a lower risk of dying prematurely, according to a new analysis of previous research. In the analysis, researchers looked at 124 studies that examined the relationship between so-called kangaroo mother care and health outcomes in newborns. Newborns born at a low birth weight — less than 4.4 lbs. (2 kilograms) — who received kangaroo mother care had a 36 percent lower chance of dying prematurely, compared with low-birth-weight newborns who did not receive such care, the researchers found.

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Tuesday, December 22, 2015

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Penguin Candid Camera: Little Birds Reveal Hunting Secrets

Wearing video cameras, the world's smallest penguins have revealed their hunting secrets: The little blue-hued birds swim together to stalk groups of prey, but when it comes to catching and killing their meals, it's every penguin for itself. Researchers wanted to learn more about why these birds formed groups when foraging, such as whether doing so gives them a better chance at capturing anchovies, krill, jellyfish and other prey. The video cameras faced forward to give a penguin's-eye view.

'Heavy Metal' Bee Is a Headbanging Pollinator (Video)

Australia's blue-banded bee is a successful pollinator because it uses its head — literally, scientists have found. Like a heavy-metal fan headbanging to Iron Maiden, this species of blue-banded bee (Amegilla murrayensis) vibrates its head rapidly when visiting flowers. Native to Australia, blue-banded bees are solitary, with females building individual burrows in soil or clay.

Bigger Earthquakes May Be Coming to Nepal

The terrifying magnitude-7.8 Gorkha earthquake that rattled Nepal in April is nothing compared to the temblors scientists predict could happen in the future. The shaking observed was "unusually gentle" given the magnitude of the earthquake, leading to far fewer landslides and glacial lake overflows than could have been seen, researchers said here today (Dec. 16) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. "The situation could have been far, far worse," said Jeffrey Kargel, who was a co-author on one of two related papers published today in the journal Science and presented at the meeting.

Fearing pollution, Chinese families build 'bubbles' at home

By Alexandra Harney SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Liu Nanfeng has five air purifiers, two air quality monitors and a water purification system in his Beijing apartment. "It feels hopeless." China's persistent pollution and regular product safety scandals are driving an increasing number of consumers to build bubbles of clean air, purified water and safe products at home and in their cars. Beijing's city government has twice this month issued pollution "red alerts", the first time it has triggered its most severe smog warning.

Flu Season Will Likely Peak in February, Forecast Suggests

This flu season will likely peak in February and could be a mild one, according to a new model that aims to forecast the flu in the United States this winter. The model uses information from past flu seasons, along with a mathematical representation of how influenza spreads through a population and the latest data on the current flu season, to predict how seasonal flu will pan out in the coming months. According to the new model, there's a less than 1 percent chance that the flu season will peak before January in most of the country, and a less than 20 percent chance that it will peak in January.

Take a Gander: Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count Begins

Last week marked the start of the National Audubon Society's 116th annual Christmas Bird Count, which means it's the perfect time to unleash your inner birder and take a gander at migratory bird species as they fly south for the winter. Every winter, citizen scientists participate in bird-counting events across North America, from mid-December until early January, to collect data on bird migrations for the National Audubon Society. The Christmas Bird Count is the longest-running wildlife census in the United States.

Flu Season Will Likely Peak in February, Model Suggests

Wild bee populations dwindle in main U.S. crop regions: study

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Wild bees, crucial pollinators for many crops, are on the decline in some of the main agricultural regions of the United States, according to scientists who produced the first national map of bee populations and identified numerous trouble spots. The researchers on Monday cited 139 counties as especially worrisome, with wild bee numbers decreasing while farmland for crops dependent on such pollinators is increasing. The counties included agricultural regions of California such as the Central Valley, the Pacific Northwest, the upper Midwest and Great Plains, west Texas and the southern Mississippi River valley.

SpaceX Falcon rocket blasts off and returns to safe landing

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on Monday with a payload of communications satellites before the reusable main-stage booster turned around, soared back to Cape Canaveral and landed safely near its launch pad in a dramatic spaceflight first. The launch and successful return of the rocket's first stage, followed by deployment of all 11 satellites delivered to orbit for customer ORBCOMM, marked the first SpaceX flight since a June accident that destroyed a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station. ...

Ding dong wobbly and bright

By Jim Drury Christmas bells ringing out are a popular feature of the festive season. Colorful images showing their vibration in unprecedented detail have been released by the University of Leicester's Advanced Structural Dynamics Evaluation Center (ASDEC). Working with John Taylor & Co., a company of local bell founders, the ASDEC team scanned the structural dynamics of two large bells using a robotized 3D laser vibrometry system at approximately 4,000 measurement locations.

Lions Gain New Endangered Species Protections

Two lion subspecies will now be protected by the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced today (Dec. 21). Panthera leo melanochaita, a lion subspecies living in eastern and southern Africa, will be listed as threatened, while Panthera leo leo, a subspecies found in western and central Africa and in India, will receive endangered status, FWS officials said. New genetic data prompted the agency to recognize western and central African lions as subspecies P. leo leo, and spurred their"endangered" classification.

King Tut's Half Sister May Have Nursed Him, Carving Suggests

Egypt's famous "boy king," the pharaoh Tutankhamun, may have suckled at the breast of his half sister during his infancy, new research finds. The announcement comes on the heels of a cleaning and analysis of the tomb of Maia (or Maya), King Tut's wet nurse. Researchers discovered the tomb in 1996 in Saqqara, an ancient burial ground about 19 miles (30 kilometers) south of Cairo, according to a statement posted yesterday (Dec. 20) on the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities' Facebook page.

San Andreas May Be a 'Zipper' Fault

A new explanation for colliding faults could help explain mysterious fault lines that have mystified geologists for decades. The new explanation could explain everything from the quake-prone faults of Southern California to dynamic crust beneath the snow-capped peak of K2 in the Himalayas. The theory is deceptively simple: When two faults collide, instead of one breaking past another, they may just merge, like a zipper zipping up, said John Platt, a geologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

NASA cancels launch of next Mars probe due to instrument leak

A U.S. science satellite slated to launch to Mars in March has been grounded due to a leak in a key research instrument, NASA said on Tuesday, creating uncertainty about the future of a widely anticipated effort to study the interior of the planet. The spacecraft, known as InSight, was designed to help scientists learn more about the formation of rocky planets, including Earth. The cancellation raises questions about the future of the research effort, as it will be another two years before Earth and Mars are favorably aligned for a launch.

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