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Do peppers reduce risk of Parkinson’s?

By Guest PostJune 15, 2013Healthbotanical family, cognitive problems, controlling movement, dementia, dietary source, eating peppers, gary franklin, hand tremors, harvey checkoway, initial symptoms, limb rigidity, luc viatour, neurologically normal people, nicotine, parkinsons disease, peppers, phillip swanson, plant, problems walking, reduce, risk of parkinsons, solanaceae family, susan searles nielsen, tobacco, toxic chemical, united states, w t longstreth

Eating peppers — which are in the same botanical family as tobacco — may reduce the risk of Parkinson’s disease. The findings are reported in the May 9 edition of the Annals of Neurology, a journal of the American Neurological Association and Child Neurology Society.

Nearly one million people in the United States are living with Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder that results from the loss of dopamine-producing brain cells. In early stages, Parkinson’s is characterized by difficulties in controlling movement. Initial symptoms include hand tremors, limb rigidity, and problems walking. As the disease progresses, cognitive problems may develop and advance into dementia. (more…)

Warm Ocean Causing Most Antarctic Ice Shelf Mass Loss

By Guest PostJune 15, 2013Environmentantarctic coastal waters, antarctic coastline, antarctic ice sheet, antarctic ice shelf, basal melt, bedrock, columbia university, east antarctica, eric rignot, filchner, glacier system, glaciers, global model, icebergs, mass loss, NASA, ocean circulation, operation icebridge, pole, rate, ronne, ross, stan jacobs, warm ocean, warming climate

PASADENA, Calif. — Ocean waters melting the undersides of Antarctic ice shelves are responsible for most of the continent’s ice shelf mass loss, a new study by NASA and university researchers has found.

Scientists have studied the rates of basal melt, or the melting of the ice shelves from underneath, of individual ice shelves, the floating extensions of glaciers that empty into the sea. But this is the first comprehensive survey of all Antarctic ice shelves. The study found basal melt accounted for 55 percent of all Antarctic ice shelf mass loss from 2003 to 2008, an amount much higher than previously thought. (more…)

Amount of dust blown across the West is increasing, says CU-Boulder study

By Guest PostJune 14, 2013Environmentdrought cycle, dust emission, dust erosion, dust measurement, dust storm, land use pattern

The amount of dust being blown across the landscape has increased over the last 17 years in large swaths of the West, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder. (more…)

Artificial Forest for Solar Water-Splitting

By Guest PostJune 14, 2013Environmentartificial forest, artificial leaf, artificial photosynthesis

Berkeley Lab Researchers Report First Fully Integrated Artificial Photosynthesis Nanosystem

In the wake of the sobering news that atmospheric carbon dioxide is now at its highest level in at least three million years, an important advance in the race to develop carbon-neutral renewable energy sources has been achieved. Scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have reported the first fully integrated nanosystem for artificial photosynthesis. While “artificial leaf” is the popular term for such a system, the key to this success was an “artificial forest.” (more…)

Do songbirds hold key to stuttering?

By Guest PostJune 14, 2013Natureaustralian songbird, behavior, brain, california based, grammy awards, grammy foundation, j devin mcauley, jennifer lampen, juli wade, key to stuttering, language skills, laura dilley, michigan state university, million americans, process rhythm, recording academy, scientists, songbirds, soo eun chang, speech production, zebra finch

A tiny Australian songbird may hold the answer to discovering the biological source of stuttering, which affects 3 million Americans and is notoriously difficult to treat.

A team of Michigan State University scientists will investigate the brain and behavior of the zebra finch in the first in-depth study of whether stuttering stems from a lack of rhythm. (more…)

UCLA’s undergraduate researchers: ‘We’re going to have an impact on the future’

By Guest PostJune 14, 2013Education, Scienceafrican american studies, amy stuyvesant, arthritis, australia, bouts of depression, change, chronic condition, diabetes, disability, England, fibromyalgia, financial assistance, forest, future, green vegetation, health issues, hurricane activity, influx, invisible disabilities, los angeles, mental illnesses, microbial communities, patricia turner, paul von blum, post concussion syndrome, puerto rican forests, puerto rico, serena lee, skype, ucla, undergraduate researchers, undergraduate scholars program, wasserman, wasserman program

Serena Lee aspires to increase our understanding of people living with “invisible disabilities.” Amy Stuyvesant wants to figure out how changes in hurricane activity are helping or hindering the forests of Puerto Rico.

Although their subjects of their research are unrelated, these two graduating seniors share a key distinction. Thanks to the Wasserman Undergraduate Scholars Program, they are pursuing high-level research that they expect to have an impact far beyond UCLA. (more…)

Life underground

By Guest PostJune 14, 2013Environmentactive bacteria, beneath, bioinformatician, carbon, deep biosphere, ecosystem, Environment, fungi, genetic material, heavy pressure, jennifer biddle, life underground, messenger rna, metatranscriptome, microbes, microscopic organisms, million year old, mrna, nucleus containing cells, nutrient sources, ocean, ocean drilling program, oxygen, seafloor, sediment, teresa messmore, university of delaware, virginia edgcomb, volcano, whoi, william orsi

Active microbes discovered far beneath seafloor in ancient ocean sediment

Microbes are living more than 500 feet beneath the seafloor in 5 million-year-old sediment, according to new findings by researchers at the University of Delaware and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

Genetic material in mud from the bottom of the ocean — called the deep biosphere —revealed an ecosystem of active bacteria, fungi and other microscopic organisms at depths deeper than a skyscraper is high. The findings were published in Nature on June 12. (more…)

Brainwaves reflect ability to beat built-in bias

By Guest PostJune 13, 2013Scienceactivity, behavior, brain science, brainwaves, brown institute, brown university, cognitive control, eeg scalp monitors, genetic, humans, ian eisenberg, james cavanagh, marc guitart masip, michael frank, neurological roots, obsessive compulsive disorder, pavlovian bias, prefrontal cortex, psychological factors, quentin huys, situational factors, specific brain activity, symbols, university college london, university of zurich, vertebrates

Many animals, including humans, harbor ingrained biases to act when they can obtain rewards and to remain inactive to avoid punishment. Sometimes, however those biases can steer us wrong. A new study finds that theta brainwave activity in the prefrontal cortex predicts how well people can overcome these biases when a better choice are available.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Vertebrates are predisposed to act to gain rewards and to lie low to avoid punishment. Try to teach chickens to back away from food in order to obtain it, and you’ll fail, as researchers did in 1986. But humans are better thinkers than chickens. In the May 8 edition of the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers show that the level of theta brainwave activity in the prefrontal cortex predicts whether people will be able to overcome these ingrained biases when doing so is required to achieve a goal. (more…)

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