ScienceDaily: Top News

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• Common anesthetic procedure dramatically improves well being of veterans with PTSD
• Helping Japanese fishermen fight off crown-of-thorns starfish
• No single explanation for biodiversity in Madagascar
• Parental misconceptions about concussions could hinder treatment, recovery
• Some adolescents adept at media multitasking, Research by high school students reveals
• Study shows incorrect use of splints causes skin injuries, poor healing in children
• Neural stem cell overgrowth, autism-like behavior linked, mice study suggests
• Space-based methane maps find largest U.S. signal in Southwest
• Low birth rates can actually pay off: Having fewer children can boost a country's standard of living, experts say
• Genomic diversity of individual lung tumors revealed
• Wild tomato species focus of antioxidant study
• Cold exposure prompts body to convert white fat to calorie-burning beige fat
• Endocrine-disrupting chemicals alter thyroid hormone activity during pregnancy, affect thyroid hormone activity

Common anesthetic procedure dramatically improves well being of veterans with PTSD Posted: 11 Oct 2014 02:20 PM PDT A single application of a common anesthetic procedure could be the answer to alleviating anxiety, depression and psychological pain in those suffering from chronic, extreme post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to research.

Helping Japanese fishermen fight off crown-of-thorns starfish Posted: 11 Oct 2014 07:52 AM PDT The long term population dynamics of the Crown-of-Thorns starfish, Acanthaster planci, has been the focus of recent study. This is one of the most long term and extensive surveys of its kind, with data spanning over 24 years through cooperation with the Japanese fishing population of Onna Village in Okinawa. With fisherman providing a great deal of logistics support and data, researchers have been able to plot with a high degree of accuracy the movement and population size over time of A. planci.

No single explanation for biodiversity in Madagascar Posted: 10 Oct 2014 12:52 PM PDT No single 'one-size-fits-all' model can explain how biodiversity hotspots come to be, finds a study of more than 700 species of reptiles and amphibians in Madagascar. By analyzing the distribution of Madagascar's lizards, snakes, frogs and tortoises, researchers find that each group responded differently to environmental fluctuations on the island over time. The results are important because they suggest that climate change and deforestation in Madagascar will have varying effects on different species.

Parental misconceptions about concussions could hinder treatment, recovery Posted: 10 Oct 2014 12:50 PM PDT With football season in full swing, there's no shortage of talk about young players -- from high school down to the pee wee levels -- suffering from concussions. Yet many parents may lack knowledge about this mild traumatic brain injury, according to two studies.

Some adolescents adept at media multitasking, Research by high school students reveals Posted: 10 Oct 2014 12:50 PM PDT Telling youths who are juggling multiple electronic devices to 'focus on the task at hand' may not always be good advice, according to research. Contrary to popular belief that multitasking leads to poor performance, researchers found the opposite is true for adolescents who spend a lot of time switching between media devices and tasks. "Maybe practice really does make perfect," one investigator said.

Study shows incorrect use of splints causes skin injuries, poor healing in children Posted: 10 Oct 2014 12:49 PM PDT More than 90 percent of potential pediatric fractures are splinted improperly in emergency rooms and urgent care centers, which can lead to swelling and skin injuries, according to a study.

Neural stem cell overgrowth, autism-like behavior linked, mice study suggests Posted: 10 Oct 2014 12:49 PM PDT A new study shows how, in pregnant mice, inflammation, a first line defense of the immune system, can trigger an excessive division of neural stem cells that can cause "overgrowth" in the offspring's brain, and, ultimately, autistic behavior.

Space-based methane maps find largest U.S. signal in Southwest Posted: 09 Oct 2014 01:38 PM PDT An unexpectedly high amount of the climate-changing gas methane, the main component of natural gas, is escaping from the Four Corners region in the US Southwest, according to a new study. Four Corners sits on North America's most productive coalbed methane basin. Coalbed methane is a variety of the gas that's stuck to the surface of coal. It is dangerous to miners (not to mention canaries), but in recent decades, it's been tapped as a resource.

Low birth rates can actually pay off: Having fewer children can boost a country's standard of living, experts say Posted: 09 Oct 2014 12:40 PM PDT As birth rates decline in countries that include parts of Europe and East Asia, threatening the economic slowdown associated with aging populations, a global study suggests that in much of the world, it actually pays to have fewer children. The results challenge previous assumptions about population growth.

Genomic diversity of individual lung tumors revealed Posted: 09 Oct 2014 12:38 PM PDT The challenge of what scientists call genomic heterogeneity, the presence of many different variations that drive tumor formation, growth and progression, has now been addressed by scientists. The researchers conducted whole exome sequencing on 48 tumor regions from 11 surgically removed localized lung adenocarcinomas, cancers that form in the epithelial tissue that lines the lung. Surgery for these non-small cell lung cancers is potentially curative.

Wild tomato species focus of antioxidant study Posted: 09 Oct 2014 11:16 AM PDT Researchers analyzed antioxidant and agronomic traits of three wild tomato species accessions and compared them with the same traits in cultivated tomato. The wild species significantly exceeded domestic tomato for all three antioxidant traits, with one exception. The Solanum peruvianum population was found to be best for improvement of vitamin C content, with three-fold variation for the trait and individuals -- twice as much vitamin C as cultivated tomato.

Cold exposure prompts body to convert white fat to calorie-burning beige fat Posted: 09 Oct 2014 11:14 AM PDT Exposure to cold temperatures can convert white fat tissue from the thighs and belly to beige fat that burns calories for heat, but this biological response is hampered in obese people, according to a new study.

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals alter thyroid hormone activity during pregnancy, affect thyroid hormone activity Posted: 09 Oct 2014 11:14 AM PDT A new study in human placenta provides the strongest evidence to date that Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) can interfere with thyroid hormone action in pregnant women. The implication is that flame retardant chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) can infiltrate the placenta during pregnancy and affect thyroid hormone activity at the cellular level, according to a new study.

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