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From a Few Bones, the Most Primitive Snake Emerges

By Guest PostJuly 29, 2012Naturebhart anjan bhullar, bone, coniophis precedens, cretaceous period, dinosaurs, eastern wyoming, floodplain, gila monster, jacques a gauthier, lizard, lucy, marine ancestor, montana, nicholas longrich, pipe snake, primitive snake, protosnake, salamander, serpentine body, snake origin, t rex, triceratops, vertebrae characteristic, yale

Researchers at Yale have identified an ancient slithering creature from the time of T. rex as the most primitive known snake, a finding with implications for the debate over snake origins.

“It’s the missing-link snake,” said Nicholas Longrich, a postdoctoral fellow in Yale’s Department of Geology & Geophysics and the lead author of a paper about the lizard-like snake published July 25 online in the journal Nature. “It’s the ‘Lucy’ of snakes.”

The paper argues that snakes descend from terrestrial rather than marine ancestors, as recently proposed by others, and that snakes emerged once lizards developed long, limbless bodies for burrowing. (more…)

Diamond in The Rough: Half-Century Puzzle Solved

By Guest PostJuly 25, 2012Sciencecold compressed, conduct, Diamond, electricity, experiment, graphite, hard material, high pressure, industrial application, joseph panzik, m carbon, oakland university, optical technique, puzzle, raman spectroscopy, structure, symmetry, synthesize, university, xray diffraction, yale, yuejian wang

A Yale-led team of mineral physicists has for the first time confirmed through high-pressure experiments the structure of cold-compressed graphite, a form of carbon that is comparable in hardness to its cousin, diamond, but only requires pressure to synthesize. The researchers believe their findings could open the way for a super hard material that can withstand great force and can be used — as diamond-based materials are now — for many electronic and industrial applications. The study appears in Scientific Reports, a Nature journal.

Under normal conditions, pure carbon exhibits vastly different physical properties depending on its structure. For example, graphite is soft, but diamond is one of the hardest materials known. Graphite conducts electricity, but diamond is an insulator. (more…)

Q&A: Economic ‘Prophet’ Now Showing Classes How Theory Translates into Practice

By Guest PostMay 3, 2012Economyaleh tsyvinski, american goods, asia, China, economic, economic system, economist, Europe, france, Germany, global economy, globalization, Greece, ireland, italy, jackson institute, japanese economy, jeff garten, lessons of japan, macro debate, macroeconomics, michael marsland, minister of finance, morgan stanley asia, portugal, practice, prognosis, prophet, rick levin, school of management, som, spain, stephen roach, the next china, theory, united states, Wall Street, world economy, xiang huaicheng, yale

Stephen Roach is a respected authority on Asia — China in particular — and an often-cited and widely recognized prophet on the global economy.

Until recently chair of Morgan Stanley Asia and long the firm’s chief economist, Roach came to Yale in 2010 as a senior fellow in the newly inaugurated Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, with a joint appointment at the School of Management (SOM). This spring Roach announced he would be retiring from Morgan Stanley after 30 years with the firm to teach full time at Yale.

YaleNews recently met with the economist in his office to discuss his new career as a teacher and to get his prognosis on the future of the world economy. (more…)

Non-cancerous Brain Tumors Linked to Frequent Dental X-rays

By Guest PostApril 11, 2012Healthbrain tumor, california, central nervous system, connecticut, dental xrays, elizabeth claus, joellen schildkraut, joseph wiemels, lisa calvocoressi, margaret wrensch, massachusetts, melissa bondy, meninges, meningioma, motor control, non cancerous, north Carolina, panorex dental exam, texas, yale

People who received frequent dental X-rays in the past, before dosages were lowered, have an increased risk of developing a meningioma, the most common and potentially debilitating type of non-cancerous brain tumor, a new study led by the Yale School of Public Health has found. The study is published online in Cancer, a journal of the American Cancer Society.

Meningioma is listed as a rare disease by the National Institutes of Health. The estimated incidence is up to 8 out of 100,000 people, and it occurs more frequently among women than men. Although it is the most frequently diagnosed type of brain tumor, meningioma is listed as a rare disease by the National Institutes of Health. Tumors develop in a membrane that envelops the brain and the central nervous system known as the meninges. They can grow undetected for years and eventually reach the size of a baseball or larger. While they are not cancerous, they can cause debilitating side effects such as headaches, vision problems, and loss of speech and motor control. (more…)

Evolution of Earliest Horses Driven by Climate Change

By Guest PostFebruary 24, 2012Environment, Nature, Scienceaaron wood, atmosphere, bighorn basin, body size, cabin fork area, carbon, carbon dioxide, cause and effect, climate model, clydesdale, concentration, doug boyer, dwarfing phenomenon, earliest horse, evolution, florida museum of natural history, fossil, geochemical analysis, global temperature, h richard lane, horse teeth, industrial revolution, jonathan bloch, mammal, national science foundation, natural selection, North America, nsf, ocean, ornithologist, oxygen levels, paleocene-eocene thermal maximum, petm, prediction, ross secord, sifrhippus sandae, stephen chester, temperature, university of florida, university of nebraska lincoln, worland, yale

*The hotter it gets, the smaller the animal?*

When Sifrhippus sandae, the earliest known horse, first appeared in the forests of North America more than 50 million years ago, it would not have been mistaken for a Clydesdale.

It weighed in at around 12 pounds–and it was destined to get much smaller over the ensuing millennia.

Sifrhippus lived during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a 175,000-year interval of time some 56 million years ago in which average global temperatures rose by about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. (more…)

Q&A: Yale Library Aims Both To Serve And Preserve, Says Gibbons

By Guest PostJanuary 17, 2012Education, Generalanthropologist, atmosphere, beinecke, freshman, kianti roman, knowledge, nancy foster, North America, river campus, sterling, sterling memorial library, susan gibbons, university librarian, university of rochester, yale, yale library

Susan Gibbons began a five-year term as University librarian in July 2011. In that role, she oversees one of the largest university libraries in North America, which includes over 12.5 million volumes housed in 18 different libraries.

Before coming to Yale, Gibbons worked at the University of Rochester, where she began as digital initiatives librarian in 2000. In 2008, she was appointed vice provost and dean of the River Campus Libraries.

Gibbons took time out of her hectic schedule to meet with YaleNews. The following is an edited transcript of that conversation. (more…)

Watching the Nervous System Being Wired in Real Time

By Guest PostDecember 2, 2011Sciencebill hathaway, daniel colon ramos, imaging technology, living organism, migration of cells, nervous system, neurodevelopmental atlas, new diseases, single cell, worm, yale, yale cell biologist, yale university

Thanks to a new imaging technology developed at Yale, the National Institutes of Health and Sloan-Kettering, scientists can now see for the first time the development of a living organism at the level of a single cell.

One of the developers, Yale cell biologist Daniel Colon-Ramos, illustrates the power of the new technology in this video that shows the migration of cells that will form the nervous system in a developing worm. (more…)

Women See Naked Men Differently Too

By Guest PostNovember 12, 2011Culture, Scienceability, amount of skin shown, bedroom, benevolent sexism, career advancement, factors, feminist theory, inanimate object, kinds of mind view, kurt gray, men and women, mind, negative effects, northeastern university, people with bare skin, perception, psychologist, revealing attire, self control, sexes, united states, university of maryland, yale

COLLEGE PARK, Md – For both men and women, wearing revealing attire causes them to be seen as more sensitive but less competent, says a new study by University of Maryland psychologist Kurt Gray and colleagues from Yale and Northeastern University. (more…)

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