A Blog Around The Clock

Children’s Sleep Difficulties: Reports Differ From Children To Parents:

Elementary-school-aged children commonly experience sleep problems, but little research has addressed the reasons behind this phenomenon. A new study finds that children of this age say they have sleep difficulties much more often than their parents report such problems.

Sleep Apnea Patients At Higher Risk For Deadly Heart Disease; Arrhythmia Found To Increase During REM:

People with sleep apnea could also be at risk for a particular kind of deadly heart arrhythmia, finds Saint Louis University researchers. They presented the findings this week at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions meeting in Chicago.

Sleep Apnea Treatment Curbs Aggression In Sex Offenders:

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) affects up to 20% of men in western cultures, 5% of whom experience significant physical symptoms. A study published in Journal of Forensic Sciences finds that sex offenders who suffer from OSA experience more harmful psychological symptoms than do sex offenders with normal sleep patterns.

Does Natural Selection Drive The Evolution Of Cancer?:

The dynamics of evolution are fully in play within the environment of a tumor, just as they are in forests and meadows, oceans and streams. This is the view of researchers in an emerging cross-disciplinary field that brings the thinking of ecologists and evolutionary biologists to bear on cancer biology.

Pressured By Predators, Lizards See Rapid Shift In Natural Selection:

Countering the widespread view of evolution as a process played out over the course of eons, evolutionary biologists have shown that natural selection can turn on a dime — within months — as a population’s needs change. In a study of island lizards exposed to a new predator, the scientists found that natural selection dramatically changed direction over a very short time, within a single generation, favoring first longer and then shorter hind legs.

Money: It’s More Than An Incentive According To University Of Minnesota Researcher:

Why are some people more self-sufficient than others? Why are some people more willing to volunteer or help out than others? What makes some people seem stand-offish, while others move right in and help?

Young Children Don’t Believe Everything They Hear:

Childhood is a time when young minds receive a vast amount of new information. Until now, it’s been thought that children believe most of what they hear. New research sheds light on children’s abilities to distinguish between fantasy and reality.

Scientists Regenerate Wing In Chick Embryo:

Chop off a salamander’s leg and a brand new one will sprout in no time. But most animals have lost the ability to replace missing limbs. Now, a research team at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has been able to regenerate a wing in a chick embryo — a species not known to be able to regrow limbs – suggesting that the potential for such regeneration exists innately in all vertebrates, including humans.

* Monkeys using perfume? Study investigates:
Some wild spider monkeys dab on a chewed-leaf paste that may act as a sort of cologne, researchers say.
* Red wine ingredient found to boost endurance:
A substance earlier linked to long life in animals, also “re-programs” muscle to double endurance, a mouse study indicates.
* Neanderthal DNA partially sequenced:
Scientists have preliminarily mapped out when the stocky human cousins diverged from our species.
* ‘Dark energy’ an age-old phenomenon, study finds:
A weird force pushing our universe outward has existed since near the beginning, astrophysicists report
* Exotic new particles reported found:
Scientists have reported discovering two new subatomic particles, rare but important relatives of the common­place proton and neutron.