ScienceDaily: Top News

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• New models predict drastically greener Arctic in coming decades
• Researchers find immunity protein that ramps up inflammation, and agents that can block it
• Congestion in Earth's mantle: Mineralogists explain why plate tectonics stagnates in some places
• New clues about how amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) develops
• NASA's Swift sizes up comet ISON
• Splendid Skadar Lake (Montenegro and Albania) surprises with new species of snails
• Light may recast copper as chemical industry 'holy grail'
• Discovery opens door to efficiently storing and reusing renewable energy
• Mindfulness from meditation associated with lower stress hormone
• Heart failure medications highly cost-effective, study finds
• Protective prion keeps yeast cells from going it alone
• Mixed signals: Combinations of estrogen-mimicking chemicals strongly distort hormone action
• Children of deployed parents at higher risk for alcohol, drug use
• Surgical menopause may prime brain for stroke, Alzheimer's
• Parkinson's disease protein gums up garbage disposal system in cells

New models predict drastically greener Arctic in coming decades Posted: 31 Mar 2013 01:56 PM PDT New research predicts that rising temperatures will lead to a massive "greening," or increase in plant cover, in the Arctic. In a new paper, scientists reveal new models projecting that wooded areas in the Arctic could increase by as much as 50 percent over the next few decades. The researchers also show that this dramatic greening will accelerate climate warming at a rate greater than previously expected.

Researchers find immunity protein that ramps up inflammation, and agents that can block it Posted: 31 Mar 2013 01:56 PM PDT Scientists have discovered a new biological pathway of innate immunity that ramps up inflammation and then identified agents that can block it, leading to increased survival and improved lung function in animal models of pneumonia.

Congestion in Earth's mantle: Mineralogists explain why plate tectonics stagnates in some places Posted: 31 Mar 2013 01:55 PM PDT Seismic measurements show that in some regions of the Earth's mantle, plate tectonics stagnates. The causes of the 'congestion' of the subducted plate are still unknown. In a new study, mineralogists from Germany explain the phenomenon for the first time.

New clues about how amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) develops Posted: 31 Mar 2013 01:50 PM PDT Scientists say they have evidence from animal studies that a type of central nervous system cell other than motor neurons plays a fundamental role in the development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal degenerative disease. The discovery holds promise, they say, for identifying new targets for interrupting the disease's progress.

NASA's Swift sizes up comet ISON Posted: 29 Mar 2013 09:51 AM PDT Astronomers have used NASA's Swift satellite to check out comet C/2012 S1 (ISON), which may become one of the most dazzling in decades when it rounds the sun later this year.

Splendid Skadar Lake (Montenegro and Albania) surprises with new species of snails Posted: 29 Mar 2013 09:51 AM PDT The Skadar Lake system at the border of Montenegro and Albania is a well-known hotspot of freshwater biodiversity and harbors a highly diverse mollusc fauna. As in many of the Balkan lakes, the endemic species of Skadar Lake are still poorly known and continue to yield unexpected discoveries. A new freshwater snail species has recently been found.

Light may recast copper as chemical industry 'holy grail' Posted: 28 Mar 2013 11:23 AM PDT Wouldn't it be convenient if you could reverse the rusting of your car by shining a bright light on it? It turns out that this concept works for undoing oxidation on copper nanoparticles, and it could lead to an environmentally friendly production process for an important industrial chemical, engineers have discovered.

Discovery opens door to efficiently storing and reusing renewable energy Posted: 28 Mar 2013 11:23 AM PDT Researchers have developed a ground-breaking way to make new affordable and efficient catalysts for converting electricity into chemical energy. Their technology opens the door to homeowners and energy companies being able to easily store and reuse solar and wind power. Such energy is clean and renewable, but it's available only when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing.

Mindfulness from meditation associated with lower stress hormone Posted: 28 Mar 2013 11:23 AM PDT Focusing on the present rather than letting the mind drift may help to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, suggests new research from the Shamatha Project at the University of California, Davis.

Heart failure medications highly cost-effective, study finds Posted: 28 Mar 2013 11:21 AM PDT A new study shows that heart failure medications recommended by national guidelines are highly cost effective in saving lives and may also provide savings to the health care system.

Protective prion keeps yeast cells from going it alone Posted: 28 Mar 2013 11:21 AM PDT A team of scientists has added markedly to the job description of prions as agents of change, identifying a prion capable of triggering a transition in yeast from its conventional single-celled form to a cooperative, multicellular structure. This change, which appears to improve yeast's chances for survival in the face of hostile environmental conditions, is an epigenetic phenomenon -- a heritable alteration brought about without any change to the organism's underlying genome.

Mixed signals: Combinations of estrogen-mimicking chemicals strongly distort hormone action Posted: 28 Mar 2013 09:53 AM PDT What happens when -- as in the real world -- an individual is exposed to multiple estrogen-mimicking chemicals at the same time? Researchers have used new techniques to study exposure to low doses of multiple xenoestrogens, and they've come to some disturbing conclusions.

Children of deployed parents at higher risk for alcohol, drug use Posted: 28 Mar 2013 09:53 AM PDT A statewide survey of sixth-, eighth-, and 11th-grade Iowa students found that children of deployed or recently returned military parents had an increased risk for alcohol use, binge drinking, and using marijuana, compared to children in non-military families. The study also found that when parental deployment resulted in a child not living with a parent or relative, the risk of binge drinking and marijuana use was even higher.

Surgical menopause may prime brain for stroke, Alzheimer's Posted: 28 Mar 2013 09:53 AM PDT Removing the ovaries before menopause, appears to leave more of the brain vulnerable to stroke and increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease, researchers report.

Parkinson's disease protein gums up garbage disposal system in cells Posted: 28 Mar 2013 09:52 AM PDT With a new neuron model system of Parkinson's disease pathologies, researchers have demonstrated that these aberrant clumps in cells resist degradation as well as impair the function of the macroautophagy system, one of the major garbage disposal systems within the cell.

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