Posts

By Eugenie Samuel Reich of Nature magazinePremature birth is the biggest cause of infant mortality worldwide, yet most of those deaths could be readily prevented, according to a 2 May report from the World Health Organization (WHO) and child-health advocacy groups. The report summarizes the results of a comprehensive survey of the problem, and says that pre-term births are on the rise –a worrying trend – but that low-income countries could reduce deaths among these infants by introducing a few affordable key health-care practices....

Key concepts Brain Laterality Handedness Sidedness Left/right dominance Introduction If you write with your right hand, you might also prefer to draw a picture, throw a ball or eat food with the same hand. But have you ever wondered if your right foot is also more dominant than your left foot? What about your right eye and ear—do you prefer to use them more than your left ones? In this activity you’ll get to find out whether people have a sidedness—that is, whether they generally prefer to do most activities with one side of their body—and which side that is....

For the first time astronomers have detected stars in an enormous stream of gas shed by the Magellanic Clouds, the two brightest galaxies that orbit our own. Sought for decades, the newfound stars are young, which means they formed recently, while the Magellanic gas collided with gas in the Milky Way. The newborn stars offer insight into processes that occurred in the ancient universe, when small, gas-rich galaxies smashed together to give rise to giants like the Milky Way....

WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court struck down a Texas law on Monday that imposes tough regulations on the state’s abortion clinics, setting the stage for a new wave of lawsuits that could overturn similar state laws across the country. In a 5-3 decision, the court ruled that the Texas law imposes an “undue burden” on women seeking abortions because its regulations have forced too many clinics to shut down. The law could have left as few as 10 clinics in the entire state if it were allowed to take full effect, down from 20 now, according to abortion law experts....

We are late bloomers, cosmologically speaking. The first stars formed as early as a tenth of a billion years after the big bang. The sun formed 9.1 billion years later, merely 4.6 billion years ago, when the universe already matured to two thirds of its current age. The late birth of the sun marked the tail end of the star formation history of the universe. At present, the Earth-sun system is a common occurrence....

Consider the life of a nematode: Caenorhabditis elegans, a diminutive, soil-dwelling, hermaphroditic worm that has had its entire genetic code (all base pairs) mapped. Coupled with its reproductive potential, this creature makes a perfect lab specimen. Each worm can expect to live for only a few weeks—unless it is lucky enough to reside in an atmosphere laced with small quantities of hydrogen sulfide. At concentrations of just 50 parts per million, the toxic gas can extend worm longevity by as much as 10 days....

When knitters want to make tubes without seams, they sometimes use circular knitting needles, in which two points are connected by a flexible wire. A few years ago sarah-marie belcastro tied her circular knitting needles in a knot to see what would happen. She knitted along the knotted needles and ended up with a knitted trefoil knot, the simplest knot you can tie. Belcastro, a mathematician as well as a skilled knitter, was delighted....

Michael Coates, associate professor in the department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago and co-editor of Evolution & Development, explains. The condition of having no more than five fingers or toes–in this context, ‘most species’ means a subgroup of jawed vertebrates–probably evolved before the evolutionary divergence of amphibians (frogs, toads, salamanders and caecilians) and amniotes (birds, mammals, and reptiles in the loosest sense of the term). This event dates to approximately 340 million years ago in the Lower Carboniferous Period....

This week 13 people will begin a nine-month mission inside a small, remote station largely cut off from the world. Outside their habitat there is little air, extremely cold temperatures and no sunlight. The crew must eat only what they’ve stockpiled and recycle their precious water for reuse. Despite appearances, however, these people are not going to space, but to the next best thing: Antarctica. The European Concordia Research Station is set to begin its 10th winter season on the southernmost continent, where the sun will not rise for more than three months starting around May....

More than half a billion people carry a genetic mutation that incapacitates the enzyme responsible for clearing alcohol from the body. The deficiency is responsible for an alcohol flush reaction, colloquially known as the “Asian glow” because the vast majority of carriers are descendants of the Han Chinese. Now research published last September in Science Translational Medicine suggests that the mutation might also compromise carriers’ pain tolerance. The finding points to a new target for pharmaceutical pain relief and implies that drinking alcohol might exacerbate inflammatory conditions such as arthritis....

A finch’s beak evolves according to the size and shape of available seeds. That conventional wisdom is one of the most accepted facts in science—it has been proved again and again in research that began in the Galápagos Islands, and stretches from Charles Darwin in the 1830s through to the modern work of evolutionary biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant. Case closed—right? Not necessarily. Two new studies, led by Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute ornithologist Russell Greenberg, strengthen a budding theory that beak size may also be an adaptation to regulate temperature and conserve water....

Oil companies, automakers and alternative fuel producers are all finding something to like in proposed changes to California’s low-carbon fuel standard. The California Air Resources Board (ARB) is preparing to extend the program through 2030, with additional emissions cuts aimed at ultimately reducing the carbon intensity of fuels sold in-state by 20 percent. The low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) program, in place since 2011, sets an average carbon content for fuels that declines annually....

Europe is about to shake up the global trade network—all in the name of climate change. The European Union is scheduled this week to release its plan for a carbon border adjustment—basically a fee on planet-warming carbon embedded in goods produced outside the 27-member bloc. The E.U. border tax—which would be the first of its kind in the world—is part of a package of 13 different climate policies set to be unveiled tomorrow....

Teeth have a story to tell, and sometimes that story has a surprising twist. Researchers have long studied the arrangement and condition of teeth to determine an animal’s age, diet, health and even technological capabilities—including tool use in early human species. Now a study published in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology offers new insight into the diet and behavior of a world-famous macaque monkey troop. When Ian Towle, a researcher at the University of Otago in New Zealand, and his colleagues inspected the teeth of a deceased macaque on Koshima Island in Japan, they were startled to discover long, uniform scratches running down the front of the monkey’s incisors....

As adults, ocellated lizards (Timon lepidus) sport a convoluted pattern of black and green on their backs. Colour patterns aren’t rare in animals, but the ocellated lizard develops its labyrinthine palette in an unusual way. Researchers found that some scales on the lizard’s back change colour during the transformation from juvenile to adult after detecting the colour of neighbouring scales. The team described these scales as decision-making units in a study published on April 12 in Nature....

Most of us are aware that our cars, our coal-generated electric power and even our cement factories adversely affect the environment. Until recently, however, the foods we eat had gotten a pass in the discussion. Yet according to a 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), our diets and, specifically, the meat in them cause more greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide, and the like to spew into the atmosphere than either transportation or industry....

A Florida biologist has linked a vicious coral-killing pathogen in the Caribbean and Florida Keys to human sewage that leaks into the ocean from improperly treated wastewater. The Caribbean Elkhorn coral was at one time the most common coral in the Caribbean, but has declined by 90 percent over the last 15 years and is now an endangered species. Among the many factors contributing to its decline is a disease known as white pox, caused by Serratio marcescens, a common fecal intestinal bacteria found in the guts of many humans and other animals, including seagulls, Key deer and cats....

ITALY New analysis suggests a fragment of ancient glass may have formed from a Herculaneum inhabitant’s brain, heated by the A.D. 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius. CAMEROON Bones of children buried 3,000 and 8,000 years ago in Cameroon grasslands provided the first ancient human DNA from this region. The discovery illuminates early genetic diversity and at least one long-gone population. FINLAND Aurora chasers in Finland helped to identify a new feature in the Northern Lights....

Hyperactivity can be a frustrating experience for children as well as for their parents, teachers and other caregivers. The state typically is viewed simply as abnormal behavior, with little understanding of its causes. Now, research with mice points to an unlikely source: a defective inner ear. The physiological link between hyperactivity and the inner ear lies within a mutation in a gene called Slc12a2. Normally, the gene encodes an SLC12A2 protein important in maintaining proper ionic balance and cell volume....

The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has riveted international attention on the threat of nuclear weapons. Kim was widely reported to have been pursuing nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles to deliver them, and he presided over a pair of nuclear bomb blast tests (confirmed by seismograph). No one outside North Korea knows whether the secretive, totalitarian nation possesses an actual warhead. And no one is quite sure where Kim’s youngest son and presumed successor Kim Jong-un stands on the goal of assembling a competitive nuclear arsenal....