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168,130 articles from ScienceDaily

Primates' brains make visual maps using triangular grids

Scientists have identified grid cells, neurons that fire in repeating triangular patterns as the eyes explore visual scenes, in the brains of rhesus monkeys. This is the first time grid cells have been detected directly in primates. The finding has implications for understanding how humans form and remember mental maps of the world, as well as how neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's...

Uncertainty of future South Pacific Island rainfall explained

With greenhouse warming, rainfall in the South Pacific islands will depend on two competing effects -- an increase due to overall warming and a decrease due to changes in atmospheric water transport -- according to a new study. In the South Pacific these two effects sometimes cancel each other out, resulting in highly uncertain rainfall...

Yeast model offers clues to possible drug targets for Lou Gehrig's disease, study shows

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also called Lou Gehrig's disease, is a devastatingly cruel neurodegenerative disorder that robs sufferers of the ability to move, speak and, finally, breathe. Now researchers have used baker's yeast -- a tiny, one-celled organism -- to identify a chink in the armor of the currently incurable disease that may eventually lead to new therapies for human...

Key discovered to how chemotherapy drug causes heart failure

Doxorubicin, a 50-year-old chemotherapy drug still in widespread use against a variety of cancers, has long been known to destroy heart tissue, as well as tumors, in some patients. Scientists have now identified an unexpected mechanism via the enzyme Top2b that drives the drug's attack on heart muscle, providing a new approach for identifying patients who can safely tolerate doxorubicin and for...

Pushing genome data analysis one step forward

Due to the exponential increase in sequencing capacity, efficient tools for data analysis are becoming essential to process the vast amount of biological data. Scientists have now developed a tool for the interpretation of genomic data that is several times faster and much more accurate than other tools currently being...

NASA satellites see Sandy expand as storm intensifies

Hurricane Sandy is a Category 1 hurricane on Oct. 28, according to the National Hurricane Center. Sandy has drawn energy from a cold front to become a huge storm covering a large area of the eastern United States. NASA satellite imagery provided a look at Sandy's 2,000-mile...

SpaceX Dragon returns from space station with NASA cargo

A Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Dragon spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 2:22 p.m. CDT Sunday a few hundred miles west of Baja California, Mexico. The splashdown successfully ended the first contracted cargo delivery flight contracted by NASA to resupply the International Space...

Microgravity research coming of age on the International Space Station

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, so when humans decided to build and inhabit a laboratory in the harsh environment of space, it was only natural that innovations would follow. The creators of these developments sought patents to protect their intellectual property, giving a way to gauge microgravity advancements. A recently published paper looks back at the more than 818 patents...


SATURDAY 27. OCTOBER 2012


Sandy to erode many Atlantic beaches

Nearly three quarters of the coast along the Delmarva Peninsula is very likely to experience beach and dune erosion as Hurricane Sandy makes landfall, while overwash is expected along nearly half of the shoreline.

Hubble sees violent star formation episodes in dwarf galaxies

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has imaged the faint irregular galaxy NGC 3738, a starburst galaxy. The galaxy is in the midst of a violent episode of star formation, during which it is converting reservoirs of hydrogen gas located in the galaxy's center into stars. Hubble spots this gas glowing red around NGC 3738, one of the most distinctive signs of ongoing star...

NASA satellites see Sandy become a hurricane again and strong winds expand

Sandy weakened to a Tropical Storm and strengthened back into a hurricane early on Saturday (Oct. 27), and its pressure was dropping, meaning that the storm is intensifying as it becomes an extra-tropical storm. NASA's TRMM satellite identified heavy rain falling within the system and NOAA's GOES satellites provided a picture of Sandy's massive...


FRIDAY 26. OCTOBER 2012


Identifying at-risk patients for adverse smoking outcomes: Models developed from cancer screening trial may help

Risk prediction models developed from an ancillary study of the Prostate Lung Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial may be useful in the public health sector for identifying individuals who are at risk for adverse smoking outcomes, such as relapse among former smokers and continued smoking among current smokers, and those who may benefit from relapse prevention and smoking cessation...

Inhaled anesthesia affects children's brains more than intravenous anesthetic, study shows

Researchers have found that children's brains are more affected by an inhaled anesthetic than an intravenous anesthetic with increased levels of brain lactate. Lactate increases brain activation and may lead to metabolic changes associated with anxiety and delirium. The findings provide new clues to metabolic changes within the brains of children undergoing anesthesia and could help researchers...