Eureka! Science News - Popular science news

Hormone important in recognizing familiar faces

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:28:35 -0500

Oxytocin, a hormone involved in child-birth and breast-feeding, helps people recognize familiar faces, according to new research in the January 7 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Study participants who had one dose of an oxytocin nasal spray showed improved recognition memory for faces, but not for inanimate objects.

Milky Way a swifter spinner, more massive, new measurements show

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:56:33 -0500

Fasten your seat belts -- we're faster, heavier, and more likely to collide than we thought. Astronomers making high-precision measurements of the Milky Way say our home Galaxy is rotating about 100,000 miles per hour faster than previously understood.

Deep brain stimulation treatment for advanced Parkinson's disease patients provides benefits

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:35:41 -0500

Patients with advanced Parkinson disease (PD) who received deep brain stimulation treatment had more improvement in movement skills and quality of life after six months than patients who received other medical therapy, but also had a higher risk of a serious adverse events, according to a study in the January 7 issue of JAMA.

Big, old mice spread hantavirus

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:35:10 -0500

University of Utah researchers dusted wild deer mice with fluorescent pink, blue, green, yellow and orange talcum powders to show which rodents most often fought or mated with others and thus were most likely to spread deadly hantavirus. The study identified bigger, older mice as the culprits.

Smoking during pregnancy fosters aggression in children

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:15:49 -0500

Women who smoke during pregnancy risk delivering aggressive kids according to a new Canada-Netherlands study published in the journal Development and Psychopathology. While previous studies have shown that smoking during gestation causes low birth weight, this research shows mothers who light up during pregnancy can predispose their offspring to an additional risk: violent behaviour.

Approved drugs restore sensitivity to appetite suppressant fat hormone

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 12:29:12 -0500

A new study in the January 7th issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication, helps to explain why obese people and animals fail to respond to leptin, a hormone produced by fat that signals the brain to stop eating. What's more, they show that two FDA-approved drugs might restore leptin sensitivity, offering a novel treatment for obesity.

Four, three, two, one . . . pterosaurs have lift off

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:23:26 -0500

Pterosaurs have long suffered an identity crisis. Pop culture heedlessly — and wrongly — lumps these extinct flying lizards in with dinosaurs. Even paleontologists assumed that because the creatures flew, they were birdlike in many ways, such as using only two legs to take flight.

Implantable defibrillators lower risk of death in older heart patients

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:23:33 -0500

Implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) can improve survival in patients with heart damage — even those in their 70s — according to research reported in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

Study helps explain connection between sleep apnea, stroke and death

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:37:14 -0500

BETHESDA, Md. (Jan. 6, 2009) − Obstructive sleep apnea decreases blood flow to the brain, elevates blood pressure within the brain and eventually harms the brain's ability to modulate these changes and prevent damage to itself, according to a new study published by The American Physiological Society. The findings may help explain why people with sleep apnea are more likely to suffer strokes and to die in their sleep.

NYU scientists discover dangerous new method for bacterial toxin transfer

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:15:36 -0500

Scientists have discovered a new way for bacteria to transfer toxic genes to unrelated bacterial species, a finding that raises the unsettling possibility that bacterial swapping of toxins and other disease-aiding factors may be more common than previously imagined.

Cassiopeia A comes alive across time and space

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:36:59 -0500

Two new efforts have taken a famous supernova remnant from the static to the dynamic. A new movie of data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows changes in time never seen before in this type of object. A separate team will also release a dramatic three-dimensional visualization of the same remnant.

Wonderful cheese is all in the culture

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:15:10 -0500

It's an age-old tradition that dates back at least 8,000 years but it seems we still have much to learn about the bacteria responsible for turning milk into cheese.

Childhood trauma associated with chronic fatigue syndrome

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:08:01 -0500

Individuals who experience trauma during childhood appear more likely to develop chronic fatigue syndrome as adults, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. In addition, neuroendocrine dysfunction—or abnormalities in the interaction between the nervous system and endocrine system—appears to be associated with childhood trauma in those with chronic fatigue syndrome, suggesting a biological pathway by which early experiences influence adult vulnerability to illness.

Wii Fit a promising tool for all ages

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:50:31 -0500

While some emerging technologies can create environments that require very little physical effort, one Kansas State University researcher thinks games like Nintendo's Wii Fit can help promote physical rather than sedentary activities for people of all ages.

Health-monitoring technology helps seniors live at home longer, MU researchers find

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:50:27 -0500

Many older adults want to remain active and independent for as long as possible. Seniors want to age in their own homes and avoid moving to institutions or nursing homes. University of Missouri researchers are using sensors, computers and communication systems, along with supportive health care services to monitor the health of older adults who are living at home. According to the researchers, motion sensor networks installed in seniors' homes can detect changes in behavior and physical activity, including walking and sleeping patterns. Early identification of these changes can prompt health care interventions that can delay or prevent serious health events.

Team finds breast cancer gene linked to disease spread

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:56:38 -0500

A team of researchers at Princeton University and The Cancer Institute of New Jersey has identified a long-sought gene that is fatefully switched on in 30 to 40 percent of all breast cancer patients, spreading the disease, resisting traditional chemotherapies and eventually leading to death.

Physical activity may not be key to obesity epidemic

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:49:40 -0500

A recent international study fails to support the common belief that the number of calories burned in physical activity is a key factor in rising rates of obesity.

Volcanoes cool the tropics, say researchers

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:29:48 -0500

Climate researchers have shown that big volcanic eruptions over the past 450 years have temporarily cooled weather in the tropics—but suggest that such effects may have been masked in the 20th century by rising global temperatures. Their paper, which shows that higher latitudes can be even more sensitive to volcanism, appears in the current issue of Nature Geoscience.

Black holes lead galaxy growth, new research shows

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:50:41 -0500

Astronomers may have solved a cosmic chicken-and-egg problem -- the question of which formed first in the early Universe -- galaxies or the supermassive black holes seen at their cores.

'Scrawny' gene keeps stem cells healthy

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:09:50 -0500

Stem cells are the body's primal cells, retaining the youthful ability to develop into more specialized types of cells over many cycles of cell division. How do they do it? Scientists at the Carnegie Institution have identified a gene, named scrawny, that appears to be a key factor in keeping a variety of stem cells in their undifferentiated state. Understanding how stem cells maintain their potency has implications both for our knowledge of basic biology and also for medical applications. The results will be published in the January 9, 2009 print edition of Science.