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sciencehabit writes:
The U.S. biomedical science system "is on an unsustainable path" and needs major reform, four prominent researchers say. Researchers should "confront the dangers at hand,” the authors write, and “rethink” how academic research is funded, staffed, and organized. Among other issues, the team suggests that the system may be producing too many new researchers and forcing them to compete for a stagnating pool of funding.
58852685
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sciencehabit writes:
Feeling peeved at your partner? You may want to check your blood sugar. A new study suggests that low levels of glucose in the blood may increase anger and aggression between spouses. The researchers say their findings suggest a connection between glucose and self-control, but other experts disagree about the study’s implications.
58811395
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sciencehabit writes:
Future space travelers could more efficiently recycle their own urine to reclaim its water and make a little electrical power to boot. Researchers have found a way to separate the toxic byproducts of urine, leaving behind water that is safe to drink, plus chemicals that can be fed into a battery-like fuel cell. In tests, the amount of electrical power generated is small: Voltages are about 0.2 volts, and currents about 2 milliamps. But the team hopes to improve the power output in its next version of the system.
58696099
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sciencehabit writes:
Get the measles vaccine, and you won’t get the measles—or give it to anyone else. Right? Well, not always. A person fully vaccinated against measles has contracted the disease and passed it on to others. The startling case study contradicts received wisdom about the vaccine and suggests that a recent swell of measles outbreaks in developed nations could mean more illnesses even among the vaccinated.
58696011
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sciencehabit writes:
ITER, the international fusion experiment under construction in Cadarache, France, aims to prove that nuclear fusion is a viable power source by creating a "burning plasma" that produces more energy than the machine itself consumes. Although that goal is at least 20 years away, ITER is already burning through money at a prodigious pace. The United States is only a minor partner in the project, which began construction in 2008. But the U.S. contribution to ITER will total $3.9 billion—roughly four times as much as originally estimated—according to a new cost estimate released yesterday. That is about $1.4 billion higher than a 2011 cost estimate, and the numbers are likely to intensify doubts among some members of Congress about continuing the U.S. involvement in the project.
58695995
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sciencehabit writes:
Smart phones can get you to the bus station, track flight delays, and monitor your sleep. Now, they may help you adjust to new time zones, too. Released yesterday, a new app called Entrain aims to help travelers restore whacked-out rhythms after long trips. The researchers who developed it got the idea while studying the mathematics of circadian rhythms. Their number crunching resulted in specialized adjustment schedules for more than 1000 travel itineraries, they report today in PLOS Computational Biology.
58619147
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sciencehabit writes:
In her first appearance before the press since her claims of an astounding breakthrough in stem cell research started unraveling, Haruko Obokata, of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, apologized for the trouble she has caused her employer, her colleagues, and the scientific community. But she also firmly maintained that STAP cells, the new type of stem cells she claims to have developed, exist, and said she will not retract the two Nature papers reporting her finding.
58619125
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sciencehabit writes:
Entamoeba histolytica is a tiny pathogen that takes a terrible toll. The single-celled parasite—an amoeba about a tenth the size of a dust mite—infects 50 million people worldwide and kills as many as 100,000 each year. Now, a new report reveals how the microbe does its deadly damage: by eating cells alive, piece by piece. The finding offers a potential target for new drugs to treat E. histolytica infections, and it transforms researchers’ understanding of how the parasite works.
58531425
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sciencehabit writes:
A 520-million-year-old shrimp-like creature known as Fuxianhuia protensa has the oldest known cardiovascular system, researchers report. It was both modern and unsophisticated. A simple, tubelike heart was buried in the creature’s belly—or thorax—and shot single blood vessels into the 20 or so segments of its primitive body. In contrast, x-ray scans of the specimen revealed profoundly intricate channels in the head and neck. The brain was well supplied with looping blood vessels, which extended branches into the arthropod’s alienlike eyestalks and antennae and rivaled the complexity of today’s crustaceans. From this Gordian architecture, the researchers can now speculate about the critter’s lifestyle. Its brain required abundant oxygen, so it presumably did a fair amount of thinking.
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sciencehabit writes:
If you know only one thing about violins, it is probably this: A 300-year-old Stradivarius supposedly possesses mysterious tonal qualities unmatched by modern instruments. However, even elite violinists cannot tell a Stradivarius from a top-quality modern violin, a new double-blind study suggests. Like the sound of coughing during the delicate second movement of Beethoven's violin concerto, the finding seems sure to annoy some people, especially dealers who broker the million-dollar sales of rare old Italian fiddles. But it may come as a relief to the many violinists who cannot afford such prices.
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sciencehabit writes:
A new study suggests that the tougher food is to eat, the less we consume—and the fewer pounds we pack on. On two consecutive days, scientists fed 50 healthy 20-somethings a lunch of hamburgers and a side of rice with vegetables. On one of the two days, each participant was served a soft bun and boiled vegetables, while on the other they ate a hard bun and raw vegetables. When they ate the tougher-to-chew lunch, participants consumed about 90 fewer calories on average, a drop of about 13% compared with the softer lunch. What’s more, they ate about the same amount for dinner both days, meaning they didn’t compensate with a larger dinner after a smaller, chewier lunch. The authors say their results suggest that slight changes in food texture could lead people to take in fewer calories in the long term, possibly helping them lose weight. Eating less, it turns out, might be as simple as eating hard.
58394297
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sciencehabit writes:
A scientist who has been trying to reproduce STAP cells--a new type of stem cells--and regularly blogging about his progress has given up. "I don’t think STAP cells exist and it will be a waste of manpower and research funding to carry on with this experiment any further," Kenneth Ka-Ho Lee, an embryologist and stem cell researcher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, wrote on his ResearchGate page yesterday. Though he is giving up, he hopes others will continue to investigate whether the new approach – which has dogged by controversy and claims of research misconduct — can really lead to stem cells.
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sciencehabit writes:
The U.S. Department of Defense’s research arm is making a concerted grasp at biotechnology. On 1 April, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced a new division that will consolidate biology research scattered across its existing six divisions and possibly expand the arsenal of projects. “Researchers should see this move as a recognition of the enormous potential of biological technologies,” Alicia Jackson, deputy director of the new Biological Technologies Office (BTO), told ScienceInsider in an e-mail. Whether the agency will devote a larger chunk of the roughly $2.9 billion in its requested 2015 budget to biotech programs is not yet clear.
58366773
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sciencehabit writes:
Wood is great for building and heating homes, but it’s the bane of biofuels. When converting plants to fuels, engineers must remove a key component of wood, known as lignin, to get to the sugary cellulose that’s fermented into alcohols and other energy-rich compounds. That’s costly because it normally requires high temperatures and caustic chemicals. Now, researchers in the United States and Canada have modified the lignin in poplar trees to self-destruct under mild processing conditions—a trick that could slash the cost of turning plant biomass into biofuels.
58366751
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sciencehabit writes:
In two new studies, researchers have brought us closer to the day when wearable electronics could monitor our health and dispense medication. They could even remotely communicate our vitals to doctors. In the first patch, a small heater automatically warms nanoparticles at the skin-patch interface, causing them to release their drug payloads into the skin. The second study introduces a patch that looks a bit like a jelly donut, with a transparent outer shell of flexible silicone rubber that holds a small amount of silicone fluid similar in consistency to pancake syrup. When the patch stretches with the skin, snakelike wires connecting the components unfurl like origami, allowing the rigid components to glide freely for comfort.
