RIVERSIDE, Calif. – A new study shows that the desert tortoise, thought to be one species for the past 150 years, now includes two separate and distinct species, based on DNA evidence and biological and geographical distinctions.
This genetic evidence confirms previous suspicions, based on life history analysis, that tortoises west and east of the Colorado River are two separate species. (more…)
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida researchers received a rare 25-foot-long, deep-water giant squid Monday, the only one of its kind in the collections of the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Recovered by recreational fishermen who found the creature floating on the surface about 12 miles offshore from Jensen Beach Sunday, museum scientists collected the specimen from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Tequesta Field Laboratory in Palm Beach County and returned to the Gainesville campus late Monday. (more…)
There is a 17% greater risk of dying after a heart attack if you are treated in a hospital located in a U.S. territory-i.e. the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and Northern Mariana Islands-rather than in a hospital in the mainland United States, according to new findings published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The study by Yale School of Medicine researchers shows that many U.S. citizens who call the U.S. territories home, are at a major healthcare disadvantage. (more…)
*World-class collaboration tools are now available for businesses large and small.*
NEW YORK — June 28, 2011 — Today, at media events around the world, Microsoft Corp. announced the availability of Microsoft Office 365, the company’s newest cloud service. Office 365 is now available in 40 markets, and it brings together Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft Lync Online in an always-up-to-date cloud service, at a predictable monthly subscription.
The service was introduced in beta last year with enthusiastic response and, in a few months, more than 200,000 organizations signed up and began testing it. Businesses using Office 365 are already reporting impressive results and reducing IT costs by up to an estimated 50 percent while boosting productivity. (more…)
COLUMBUS, Ohio – More than half of the women in a recently published survey reported that near the end of their pregnancies, they took it upon themselves to try to induce labor, mostly by walking, having sex, eating spicy food or stimulating their nipples. (more…)
*By comparing theory with data from STAR, Berkeley Lab scientists and their colleagues map phase changes in the quark-gluon plasma*
In its infancy, when the universe was a few millionths of a second old, the elemental constituents of matter moved freely in a hot, dense soup of quarks and gluons. As the universe expanded, this quark–gluon plasma quickly cooled, and protons and neutrons and other forms of normal matter “froze out”: the quarks became bound together by the exchange of gluons, the carriers of the color force.
“The theory that describes the color force is called quantum chromodynamics, or QCD,” says Nu Xu of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), the spokesperson for the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. “QCD has been extremely successful at explaining interactions of quarks and gluons at short distances, such as high-energy proton and antiproton collisions at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. But in bulk collections of matter – including the quark-gluon plasma – at longer distances or smaller momentum transfer, an approach called lattice gauge theory has to be used.” (more…)
Rhythms in the brain that are associated with learning become stronger as the body moves faster, UCLA neurophysicists report in a new study.
The research team, led by professor Mayank Mehta, used specialized microelectrodes to monitor an electrical signal known as the gamma rhythm in the brains of mice. This signal is typically produced in a brain region called the hippocampus, which is critical for learning and memory, during periods of concentration and learning. (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Peer influence and low self-control appear to be the major factors fueling juvenile cybercrime such as computer hacking and online bullying, according to a new study led by a Michigan State University criminologist.
Thomas Holt, assistant professor of criminal justice, said the findings reinforce the need for parents to be more aware of their children’s friends and Internet activities.
“It’s important to know what your kids are doing when they’re online and who they are associating with both online and offline,” Holt said. (more…)
