A Blog Around The Clock

Effects Of New Sleep Medication Appear Unlikely To Have Potential For Abuse Or Cognitive Impairment:

In a study of 14 adults with histories of sedative abuse, the newly approved sleep medication ramelteon does not appear to have effects that indicate potential for abuse or motor or cognitive impairment, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Mathematics Provides Answer To Airport Security Puzzle:

High flyers will enjoy faster and safer travel in the future, thanks to mathematicians at the University of Manchester and airport security specialists Rapiscan Systems.

Women Infected With Toxoplasmosis Are More Likely To Have Boys Than Girls:

Women infected with dormant toxoplasmosis are more likely to give birth to boys than women who are Toxoplasma negative, according to research published in Springer’s journal Naturwissenschaften this week. S. Kankova and colleagues from Charles University in the Czech Republic found that the presence of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii in the mothers’ blood increased the likelihood that these women would give birth to a boy.

Internet Of Long-term Benefit For Depression:

Mental health researchers at the Australian National University have found that brief Internet-based interventions for depression are not only immediately effective, but have a significant positive long-term benefit that may be as effective as active psychotherapies.

Astronomers First To Measure Night And Day On Extrasolar Planet:

University of Central Florida Astronomy professor Joseph Harrington and University of California at Los Angeles professor Brad M. Hansen and their team have made the first direct observation of distinct day and night temperatures on a planet orbiting another star. UCF Professor Joseph Harrington says that studying planetary atmospheres under such exotic conditions puts terrestrial and solar-system meteorology into a universal context, which aids in our understanding of weather on all planets.

Was it summer or winter, and what was the duration of the day and what was the photoperiod/thermoperiod?
Early Family Experience Can Reverse The Effects Of Genes, Psychologists Report:

Early family experience can reverse the effect of a genetic variant linked to depression, UCLA researchers report in the current issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry.

As for the title…what’s new?
Rising Ocean Temperatures, Pollution Have Oysters In Hot Water:

Oysters exposed to high water temperatures and a common heavy metal are unable to obtain sufficient oxygen and convert it to cellular energy, according to a new study presented at the American Physiological Society conference, “Comparative Physiology 2006.” The study showed how cadmium reduces the oyster’s tolerance of warmer water temperatures and makes it more vulnerable during the summer when water temperatures rise.

Really cool stuff today:
Pheromone From Mother’s Milk May Rapidly Promote Learning In Newborn Mammals:

By studying the ability of newborn rabbit pups to learn the significance of new odors, researchers have found that a mammary pheromone secreted in mother’s milk may act as a chemical booster that facilitates the ability of pups to quickly associate environmental odors with the opportunity to nurse.

Vegetables, Like People, Urged To Live Up To Potential:

A major stress in a carrot’s life — like the slash of a kitchen knife — and the tapered tuber kicks in the juice and pumps up its phytochemicals. That’s the finding of Dr. Luis Cisneros, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station food scientist. He calls it abiotic stress — pushing the button, so to speak, on a crop after it has been harvested.

Seals Protect Brain, Conserve Oxygen By Turning Off Shivering Response On Icy Dives:

Seals shiver when exposed to cold air but not when diving in chilly water, a finding that researchers believe allows the diving seal to conserve oxygen and minimize brain damage that could result from long dives. This research into hypothermia and hypoxia is important to treating people who are hypothermic or who have suffered hypoxia following cardiac arrest, stroke, etc. Research was presented at the American Physiological Society conference, ” Comparative Physiology 2006: Integrating Diversity.”

Evolutionary Harmony For Stinkbugs And Their Gut Bacteria: A Perfect Match:

Evidence of host-symbiont cospeciation in an insect gut symbiont suggests that long-term vertical transmission and population structure are central forces driving the genomic changes characteristic of insect nutritional symbionts, according to a study published in PLoS Biology.

Evolutionary First: Parasite Reaches Beyond Host To Play Havoc With Others’ Sex Lives:

Scientists revealed today that a prolific parasite is helping shape the destiny of a species it does not even infect. The complex relationship between the parasite, its host and the unconnected species is the first known example of evolutionary pressure from such a remote source.

Stroke Symptoms Common Among General Population:

As many as 18 percent of adults who have no history of stroke report having had at least one symptom of stroke, according to results of a large national study published in the October 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Tiny genome may be melting away, study suggests:

Researchers have identified the smallest known genome, and say it may suffer a strange fate.

For ants, one playbook fits many situations:

Scientists are interested in the “algorithms,” or step-by-step rules, by which organisms make decisions.

Fitness, childhood IQ may affect old-age brain function:

Mental function in old age depends more on fitness than on childhood IQ, a study has found.

Strongest evidence yet that planets form from ‘disks’:

The philosopher Emmanuel Kant got it right 200 years ago, researchers proclaim.

Study Links Extinction Cycles to Changes in Earth’s Orbit and Tilt:

If rodents in Spain are any guide, periodic changes in Earth’s orbit may account for the apparent regularity with which new species of mammals emerge and then go extinct, scientists are reporting today.
It so happens, the paleontologists say, that variations in the course Earth travels around the Sun and in the tilt of its axis are associated with episodes of global cooling. Their new research on the fossil record shows that the cyclical pattern of these phenomena corresponds to species turnover in rodents and probably other mammal groups as well.
In a report appearing today in the journal Nature, Dutch and Spanish scientists led by Jan A. van Dam of Utrecht University in the Netherlands say the “astronomical hypothesis for species turnover provides a crucial missing piece in the puzzle of mammal species- and genus-level evolution.”
In addition, the researchers write, the hypothesis “offers a plausible explanation for the characteristic duration of more or less 2.5 million years of the mean species life span in mammals.”

New type of mouse discovered in Cyprus:

A previously unknown type of mouse has been discovered on the island of Cyprus, apparently the first new terrestrial mammal species discovered in Europe in decades.
The “living fossil” mouse has a bigger head, ears, eyes and teeth than other European mice and is found only on Cyprus, Thomas Cucchi, a research fellow at Durham University in northeast England, said Thursday. Genetic tests confirmed that the new mouse was a new species and it was named Mus cypriacus, or the Cypriot mouse, he said.
His findings appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa, an international journal for animal taxonomists.
The biodiversity of Europe has been combed through so extensively since Victorian times that new mammal species are rarely found there, and few scientists had expected new creatures as large as mice to be discovered on the continent.

No! Not another living fossil!

Hearts Or Tails? Genetics Of Multi-chambered Heart Evolution:

A new paper in the October 1 issue of G&D elucidates the genetics of heart formation in the sea squirt, and lends surprising new insight into the genetic changes that may have driven the evolution of the multi-chambered vertebrate heart.

New Bird Discovered On Unexplored Colombian Mountain:

A new bird to science was recently discovered on an unexplored mountain range in northern Columbia by a team supported by the BP Conservation Programme. It was named “Yariguies Brush-Finch,” with the scientific name Atlapetes latinuchus yariguierum.

More Than Meets The Eye:

With our eyes constantly darting back and forth, the brain is faced with the equivalent of the kind of shaky video stream produced by a hand-held camera. Not only does the brain find a way to compensate for our constantly flickering gaze, but researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have found that it actually turns the tables and relies on eye movements to recognize partially hidden or moving objects.

Robotic Whiskers Can Sense Three-dimensional Environment:

Two Northwestern University engineers have been studying the whisker system of rats to better understand how mechanical information from the whiskers gets transmitted to the brain. Now they have developed arrays of robotic whiskers that sense in two dimensions and that can sense information about both object shape and fluid flow. The arrays could find application on assembly lines, in pipelines or on land-based autonomous rovers or underwater vehicles.

New Study Explores Role Of Theater In Maya Political Organization:

Magnificent stone sculptures of Classic Maya culture (AD 250-900) have long fascinated archaeologists and the general public alike. But what did the scenes depicted in these monuments mean in their society? In an article to appear in the October 2006 issue Current Anthropology, Takeshi Inomata (University of Arizona) argues that these images commonly show acts of public performance conducted by rulers, revealing the prominent role which state theater played in Maya political organization.

New Insights Into Healthful Compounds In Native American Diets:

California’s role as a national “health food” trendsetter goes back farther than most people suspect — way back, in fact, when it comes to consumption of a food especially rich in healthy phytochemicals. In an advance toward understanding the early California Native American diet, food scientists have identified the full range of phytochemicals in tanoak acorns.

First Major Study Of Mammalian ‘Disorderly’ Proteins:

Investigators at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital turned up the heat on “disorderly” proteins and confirmed that most of these unruly molecules perform critical functions in the cell. The St. Jude team completed the first large-scale collection, investigation and classification of these so-called intrinsically unstructured proteins (IUPs), a large group of molecules that play vital roles in the daily activities of cells.

Spider Silk: Could ‘Webicillin’ Beat Infections?:

Could a dose of webicillin beat that stubborn infection? Could a cobweb bandage help soldiers and accident victims with bleeding wounds? Is a wrapping of spider silk the key to preventing the body from rejecting implants? A review of research on spider silk concludes that scientists have largely overlooked such possible medical applications of this extraordinary natural material, which is stronger than steel.

Fisheries Linked To Decline In Galapagos Waved Albatross Population:

Fishermen caught and killed about 1 percent of the world’s waved albatrosses in a year, according to a new study by Wake Forest University biologists. The research shows the waved albatrosses are unintentionally killed when caught in fishing nets or on fishing hooks, but are also intentionally harvested for human consumption.

New Wound Dressing May Lead To Maggot Therapy Without The Maggots:

Scientists in the United Kingdom have developed a new wound dressing that could bring the benefits of maggot therapy to patients without putting live Greenbottle fly (blowfly) larvae into non-healing wounds.

Rearing An Army Of Wasps To Save Wheat:

Montana State University entomologists seek ways to rear parasitic wasps, the natural enemies of the wheat stem sawfly. Sawfly larva tunnel the interior of developing wheat plants.