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Wednesday, December 7, 2011

ScienceDaily: Top News

ScienceDaily: Top News


Reusing pacemakers from deceased patients is safe and effective, study finds

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 09:13 PM PST

Many heart patients in India are too poor to afford pacemakers. But a new study has found that removing pacemakers from deceased Americans, re-sterilizing the devices and implanting them in Indian patients "is very safe and effective."

Solar storms could sandblast the moon

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 09:08 PM PST

Solar storms and associated Coronal Mass Ejections can significantly erode the lunar surface according to a new set of computer simulations by NASA scientists. In addition to removing a surprisingly large amount of material from the lunar surface, this could be a major method of atmospheric loss for planets like Mars that are unprotected by a global magnetic field.

Rotating night shift work linked to increased risk of Type 2 diabetes in women, study finds

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 09:08 PM PST

Women who work a rotating (irregular) schedule that includes three or more night shifts per month, in addition to day and evening working hours in that month, may have an increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes when compared with women who only worked days or evenings, according to a new study.

New tick-borne disease discovered in Sweden

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 10:14 AM PST

Researchers have discovered a brand new tick-borne infection. Since the discovery, eight cases have been described around the world, three of them in Sweden.

Genetic markers help feds enforce seafood regulations

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 08:52 AM PST

New discoveries in "marine forensics" will allow federal seafood agents to genetically test blue marlin to quickly and accurately determine their ocean of origin. The test is needed to ensure that the blue marlin sold in US seafood markets were not taken from the Atlantic Ocean. Regulation of Atlantic blues reflects overfishing and a troubling drop in population.

New horned dinosaur announced nearly 100 years after discovery

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 08:50 AM PST

A new species of horned dinosaur was just announced by an international team of scientists, nearly 100 years after the initial discovery of the fossil. The animal, named Spinops sternbergorum, lived approximately 76 million years ago in southern Alberta, Canada. Spinops was a plant-eater that weighed around two tons when alive, a smaller cousin of Triceratops.

Inbreeding in bed bugs: One key to massive increases in infestations

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 08:50 AM PST

New research on the bed bug's ability to withstand the genetic bottleneck of inbreeding provides new clues to explain the rapidly growing problem of bed bugs across the United States and globally. After mostly disappearing in the US in the 1950s, the common bed bug has reappeared with a vengeance over the past decade.

Sandeels with a full stomach swim for a longer time

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 08:42 AM PST

Researchers have shed light on the peculiar behavior of the commercially and ecologically valuable sandeel.

Ancient meat-loving predators survived for 35 million years

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 07:14 AM PST

A species of ancient predator with saw-like teeth, sleek bodies and a voracious appetite for meat survived a major extinction at a time when the distant relatives of mammals ruled the earth.

New insights into how the nervous system becomes wired during early development

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 06:56 AM PST

Thanks to a new study of the retina, scientists have developed a greater understanding of how the nervous system becomes wired during early development.

Promising multiple sclerosis treatment targets immune cells to increase neuroprotection, study shows

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 05:29 AM PST

Laquinimod is an orally available synthetic compound that has been successfully evaluated in phase II/III clinical studies for the treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. The mechanism of action of laquinimod has not been fully elucidated, but a new study suggests that laquinimod triggers immune cells within the central nervous system to produce and release brain-derived neurotrophic factor, contributing to the repair or survival of neurons and thus limiting brain damage.

New NASA Dawn visuals show Vesta's 'color palette'

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 05:27 AM PST

Vesta appears in a splendid rainbow-colored palette in new images obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. The colors, assigned by scientists to show different rock or mineral types, reveal Vesta to be a world of many varied, well-separated layers and ingredients. Vesta is unique among asteroids visited by spacecraft to date in having such wide variation, supporting the notion that it is transitional between the terrestrial planets -- like Earth, Mercury, Mars and Venus -- and its asteroid siblings.

Global sea surface temperature data provides new measure of climate sensitivity over the last half million years

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 05:27 AM PST

Scientists have developed important new insight into the sensitivity of global temperature to changes in Earth's radiation balance over the last half million years.

New all-sky map shows the magnetic fields of the Milky Way with the highest precision

Posted: 06 Dec 2011 05:25 AM PST

With a unique new all-sky map, scientists have made significant progress toward measuring the magnetic field structure of the Milky Way in unprecedented detail. Specifically, the map is of a quantity known as Faraday depth, which among other things, depends strongly on the magnetic fields along a particular line of sight. To produce the map, data were combined from more than 41,000 individual measurements using a novel image reconstruction technique. The new map not only reveals the structure of the galactic magnetic field on large scales, but also small-scale features that provide information about turbulence in the galactic gas.

Oxidative stress: Less harmful than suspected?

Posted: 05 Dec 2011 07:26 AM PST

Oxidative stress is considered to be involved in a multitude of pathogenic processes and is also implicated in the process of aging. For the first time, scientists have been able to directly observe oxidative changes in a living organism. Their findings in fruit flies raise doubts about the validity of some widely held hypotheses: The research team has found no evidence that the life span is limited by the production of harmful oxidants.

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