Greece has experienced more wildfire activity this August than other European countries have over the last decade, according to data from ESA satellites. The country is currently battling an outbreak of blazes, which began last Thursday, that have spread across the country killing more than 60 people.

Natural selection favors reproduction rather than survival. Males of ungulate species subjected to intense male-male competition in order to mate have shorter lives than females. Males are born already with smaller molars relative to their body size, which means the teeth won't last as long. These findings provide insight into how natural and sexual selection design our bodies.

It has been in the news for years about how secondhand smoke is a health threat to nonsmokers. Secondhand smoke is attributed with killing thousands of adult nonsmokers annually. If smoking is that harmful to human beings, it would make sense that secondhand smoke would have an adverse effect on pets that live in the homes of smokers. Researchers note that, "one reason cats are so susceptible to...

Football fever is upon the nation once again. The soaring of the pigskin signals the start of the "busy" season for cheerleaders, marching bands, and inevitably, sports medicine physicians. Prevention is the primary goal of everyone involved in the sport, but when large, highly charged males engage in bodily contact, injuries are inevitable. Knee and ankle sprains are the most common injuries...

A team of scientists has developed a novel methodological approach in evolutionary studies. Using the method they named 'genomic phylostratigraphy', its authors shed new and unexpected light on some of the long standing macroevolutionary issues, which have been puzzling evolutionary biologists since Darwin.

Psychologists have been assessing how well various study strategies produce long-term learning, and it appears that some strategies really do work much better than others. Surprisingly "massing" all the study on a single topic into a single session reduces long-term retention. It's better to leave it alone for a while and then return to it.

As technology gets smaller and smaller, the computer industry is facing the complex challenge of finding ways to manufacture the minuscule components necessary. Now scientists have demonstrated a technique for producing conductive nano-wires on silicon chips. While the new process could provide the solution for computer manufacturers looking for ways of increasing the speed and storage capacity of...

Scientists have discovered that pancreatic cancer attracts regulatory T cells, which suppress the activity of immune cells. In this way, the tumor might escape its destruction by the immune system. The ability to discriminate between friend and foe or between "self" and "foreign" is vital for a functioning immune system. There are numerous protective mechanisms at work to save the body's own...

The diverse and complex female endocrine disorder polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which affects 1 in 15 women worldwide, is a major economic health burden that is likely to expand together with obesity, conclude authors of a recent article. Many body systems are affected in PCOS, resulting in several health complications, including menstrual dysfunction, infertility, hirsutism (excessive body...

A switch from predominantly undersea volcanoes to a mix of undersea and terrestrial ones shifted the Earth's atmosphere from devoid of oxygen to one with free oxygen, according to geologists. Before 2.5 billion years ago, the Earth's atmosphere lacked oxygen. However, biomarkers in rocks 200 million years older than that period, show oxygen-producing cyanobacteria released oxygen at the same...

Calcium supplementation alone, or in combination with vitamin D supplementation, reduces the risk of fractures in people aged over 50 by 12 percent, conclude authors of a recent article. They found that where the compliance rate was high (i.e. patients were sticking to the dosing regimen correctly), there was a 24% fracture risk reduction.

Neurophysiology researchers commonly use crustaceans to try to gain basic understanding of the nervous systems of creatures in general, and, wherever possible, for extrapolating what they find to a basic understanding of the much more complex human brain. All animals, from single-celled amoebas to humans, use similar cellular processes to interpret their olfactory environment.

A new study shows that an important drug used in the treatment of malignant melanoma has little effect on the melanoma cells themselves. Instead, it activates immune-system cells to fight the disease. The drug, called interferon alpha, is used to clean up microscopic tumor cells that may remain in the body following surgery for the disease. It is the only drug approved for this purpose.

A common molecular pathway could help physicians predict which lung cancer patients will benefit from chemotherapy drugs, according to new research. Known as the retinoblastoma (RB) tumor suppressor, this fundamental molecule regulates cell proliferation in the body. Research has shown that the RB pathway is either entirely inactive or altered in most human cancers. Scientists are beginning to use...

Scientists reveal a surprising new role for tDNAs and RNA polymerase III-associated proteins in sister chromatid cohesion. Sister chromatid cohesion (the binding together of the two identical copies of each chromosome that are formed during replication) helps to ensure that chromosomes are accurately segregated during the anaphase of the cell cycle. Sister chromatid cohesion is mediated by a...

Cell phone use after bedtime is surprisingly prevalent among adolescents, and its use is related to increased levels of tiredness after one year. According to the results, only 38 percent of the subjects never used their cell phones after bedtime. Using the cell phone after bedtime about once a week increased the odds of being "very tired" by 3.3, and those who used it more than once a week were...

Giving transplant patients NO gas boosts post-surgical liver function. The colorless gas improves post-surgical liver function by minimizing reperfusion injury, an unwanted side effect of restoring blood flow swiftly to a donor organ moments after transplantation into the recipient, the study authors said. NO can be toxic to humans if breathed at high doses without medical supervision.

The first investigation of developmental sleep duration patterns throughout childhood shows that children just beginning school and who get little sleep are more likely to have behavioral and cognitive problems in the classroom, according to a new study. The research also suggests that language acquisition and the consolidation of new words into memory could be significantly impeded by chronically...

The past decade has witnessed an explosion of information regarding the role of the central nervous system in the development of obesity and the influence of peripheral, hormonal signals that regulate CNS function to regulate food intake and metabolism.

Environmental activists have long criticized pharmaceutical use by hog farmers and veterinarians in treating swine disease, saying pharmaceuticals are being overused and errantly contaminating the environment. But new research suggests that environmental contamination from antibiotics does not pose appreciable risks to soil and aquatic organisms. The scientists have determined that pharmaceuticals...

"A hard rain's a-gonna fall," Dylan sang. But when rain and storm surges fall on lands protected by weak levees, this means trouble...big trouble. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita were devastating reminders of this frightening fact. How then can we limit trouble when a levee breaches or, better yet, prevent such a break from ever happening again? There's another issue at play here besides horrendous...

Images in contemporary consumer culture may be seen as an emergent form of writing. Researchers argue that mass communications technology has created a "cultural classroom" in which the world's first democratic pictography has developed. They support this argument with a series of experiments that demonstrate contemporary consumers' ability to read pictures -- even abstract images -- as statements...

Sorghum-related biofuels research is taking a localized approach, with the aim of making possible the effective production of ethanol in the farmer's own field. Sweet sorghum can be grown throughout temperate climate zones of the United States and elsewhere. It provides high biomass yield with low irrigation and fertilizer requirements. Corn ethanol, in contrast, requires significant amounts of...

Thousands of interesting new compounds have been discovered inside the bodies of marine sponges. Over half of the bodyweight of living sea sponges -- including the sort that we use in our baths -- is made up of the many different bacteria that live inside them, in the same way that we all have bacteria living in our guts which help us to digest our food. As well as their attempt to produce useful...