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News | Archive (12 May 2009)
Warriors do not always get the girl
— 11:48 GMT | HealthAggressive, vengeful behaviour of individuals in some South American groups has been considered the means for men to obtain more wives and more children, but an international team of anthropologists working in Ecuador among the Waorani show that sometimes the macho guy does not do better…
Islands top a global list of places to protect
— 11:47 GMT | EnvironmentRare and unique ecological communities will be lost if oceanic islands aren't adequately considered in a global conservation plan, a new study has found. Although islands tend to harbour fewer species than continental lands of similar size, plants and animals found on islands often live only there, making protection of their isolated habitats our sole chance to preserve them…
UNC study identifies genetic cause of most common form of breast cancer
— 11:44 GMT | HealthThe discovery of tumour-suppressor genes has been key to unlocking the molecular and cellular mechanisms leading to uncontrolled cell proliferation - the hallmark of cancer. Often, these genes will work in concert with others in a complex biochemical system that keeps our cells growing and dividing, disease free…
Do electronic health records help or hinder medical education?
— 11:41 GMT | HealthMany countries worldwide are digitising patients' medical records. In the US, for example, the recent economic stimulus package signed into law by President Obama includes $US17 billion in incentives for health providers to switch to electronic health records (EHRs) and $US2 billion for the development of EHR standards and best-practice guidelines. What impact will the rise of EHRs have upon medical education? A debate in this week's PLoS Medicine examines both the threats and opportunities…
Providing free drug samples to patients risks harm to public health
— 11:38 GMT | HealthThe tradition of American physicians handing out free drug samples to their patients 'has many serious disadvantages and is as anachronistic as bloodletting and high colonic irrigations,' say two academics in an essay in this week's PLoS Medicine…
Pliable proteins keep photosynthesis on the light path
— 11:35 GMT | BiologyPhotosynthesis is a remarkable biological process that supports life on earth. Plants and photosynthetic microbes do so by harvesting light to produce their food, and in the process, also provide vital oxygen for animals and people…
Biological diversity: Islands beat mainland nine to one
— 11:32 GMT | BiologyThe islands located in the oceans are around nine times as valuable as an equally large piece of mainland for maintaining global biological diversity. Researchers at the University of Bonn have come to this conclusion in a recent joint project carried out with colleagues from the University of California San Diego and the University of Applied Sciences Eberswalde. For this they compiled the largest collection of data on the global occurrence of plant and vertebrate animal species. On this basis they calculated an index reflecting the number of species and their rarity. They have presented the results in the form of world maps. The study will be published in the next edition of the renowned US journal PNAS…
River delta areas can provide clue to environmental changes
— 11:29 GMT | EnvironmentSediments released by many of the world's largest river deltas to the global oceans have been changed drastically in the last 50 years, largely as a result of human activity, says a Texas A and M University researcher who emphasises that the historical information that can be gathered from sediment cores collected in and around these large deltaic regions is critical for a better understanding of environmental changes in the 21st century…
Scientists discover how smallpox may derail human immune system
— 11:26 GMT | HealthUniversity of Florida researchers have learned more about how smallpox conducts its deadly business - discoveries that may reveal as much about the human immune system as they do about one of the world's most feared pathogens…
NOAA researchers: Blue whales re-establishing former migration patterns
— 11:23 GMT | EnvironmentScientists have documented the first known migration of blue whales from the coast of California to areas off British Columbia and the Gulf of Alaska since the end of commercial whaling in 1965…
Plastics that are ten times more stretchable
Phoenix's robotic arm camera sees possible ice