Author Archives: Guest Post

If It’s Summer, It’s Also Scorpion Season

When stung by a scorpion, call 1-800-222-1222 and tell UA poison specialists about your symptoms.

Summer in Southern Arizona brings out the shiny auto sunshades, the supersized water bottles – and the scorpions.

The Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center, located at the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy in Tucson, reminds citizens of the desert that venomous scorpions share our habitat, and that sometimes we come closer to one another than we want. Since Jan. 1, the poison center has recorded more than 1,000 scorpion stings in its service area, which includes all counties in the state except Maricopa. (more…)

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iPad Defies Skeptics, User Satisfaction Still Increasing, MU Survey Finds

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Since its launch in April last year, Apple’s iPad tablet has defied skeptics and set a high bar for manufacturers that are now introducing their own tablets. An internationally recognized authority on media tablets and e-readers from the University of Missouri, has found that iPad owners are reporting exceptionally high levels of satisfaction and that user satisfaction appears to be increasing the longer they use the device.

Roger Fidler, program director for digital publishing at the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri, has been conducting surveys of iPad users since last fall to gain insights into how iPad owners use the devices in their daily lives and how the iPad may influence journalism and news consumption. Fidler says he is surprised by the high levels of user satisfaction. (more…)

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Red Knots and Horseshoe Crabs Knotted Together

*Research Bolsters Importance of Horseshoe Crab Spawning for Migrating Shorebirds*

LAUREL, Md. – Speculation that the welfare of a small, at-risk shorebird is directly tied to horseshoe crab populations is in part supported by new scientific research, according to a U.S. Geological Survey- led study published in Ecosphere, a journal of the Ecological Society of America.

Population health of the red knot, a shorebird species whose population has plummeted over the last 15 years, has been directly tied to the number of egg-laying horseshoe crabs in Delaware Bay — between Delaware and New Jersey — during the red knot’s northward migration each spring. (more…)

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The Universe may have been Born Spinning, according to New Findings on the Symmetry of the Cosmos

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Physicists and astronomers have long believed that the universe has mirror symmetry, like a basketball. But recent findings from the University of Michigan suggest that the shape of the Big Bang might be more complicated than previously thought, and that the early universe spun on an axis. (more…)

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Evaluation of Climate Policy Rocketing But in an Undeveloped and Unsystematic Way

*New research led by the University of East Anglia and the VU University Amsterdam shines new light on the little studied but politically vital practices of climate policy evaluation in Europe.*

Published in the international journal Policy Sciences, a meta-analysis by a team of researchers from across Europe offers the very first systematic cataloging of the emerging patterns of policy evaluation undertaken in different parts of the European Union.

In the last decade or so the politics surrounding the development of new policies has attracted unprecedented attention. Many new targets and policies have been adopted. But a lot less is known about what is being done to check that the resulting policies are actually delivering on their promises. (more…)

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When Viruses Infect Bacteria

*Looking in vivo at virus-bacterium associations sets stage for better understanding of such interactions in human health*

Viruses are the most abundant parasites on Earth. Well known viruses, such as the flu virus, attack human hosts, while viruses such as the tobacco mosaic virus infect plant hosts.

More common, but less understood, are cases of viruses infecting bacteria known as bacteriophages, or phages. In part, this is due to the difficulty of culturing bacteria and viruses that have been cut off from their usual biological surroundings in a process called in vitro. (more…)

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‘Combining Therapies Appears Safe, May Benefit Patients with Advanced Liver Cancer’

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Few treatments exist for patients with advanced primary liver cancer, but University of Florida researchers have found a new way to broaden the range of options and potentially improve health outcomes by combining two treatments.

In the first study of its kind, the researchers combined sorafenib, the only Food and Drug Administration-approved pill for treating advanced liver cancer, with another routinely used therapy known as transarterial chemoembolization, which works by cutting off the blood supply to tumors. No unexpected toxic effects were seen, and the combo appears to have the potential to improve survival for certain groups of patients. (more…)

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