New discovery of ancient diet shatters conventional ideas of how agriculture emerged

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Archaeologists have made a discovery in southern subtropical China which could revolutionise thinking about how ancient humans lived in the region.

They have uncovered evidence for the first time that people living in Xincun 5,000 years ago may have practised agriculture –before the arrival of domesticated rice in the region.

World's smallest droplets

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Physicists may have created the smallest drops of liquid ever made in the lab.

That possibility has been raised by the results of a recent experiment conducted by Vanderbilt physicist Julia Velkovska and her colleagues at the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and most powerful particle collider located at the European Laboratory for Nuclear and Particle Physics (CERN) in Switzerland. Evidence of the minuscule droplets was extracted from the results of colliding protons with lead ions at velocities approaching the speed of light.

Physical & emotional impairments common, often untreated in people with cancer

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ATLANTA – May 17, 2013– A new review finds cancer survivors suffer a diverse and complex set of impairments, affecting virtually every organ system. Writing in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, Julie Silver, M.D., associate professor at Harvard Medical School, and colleagues say a majority of cancer survivors will have significant physical and psychological impairments as a result of treatments, and that these often go undetected and/or untreated, resulting in disability.

Control of heart disease risk factors varies among outpatient practices

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Control of heart disease risk factors varies widely among outpatient practices, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2013.

Researchers compared electronic health records of 115,737 patients in 18 primary care and cardiology practices participating in The Guideline Advantage™, a collaboration of the American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association and American Heart Association that aims to reduce risks for chronic diseases. They found:

New malaria test kit gives a boost to elimination efforts worldwide

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A new, highly sensitive blood test that quickly detects even the lowest levels of malaria parasites in the body could make a dramatic difference in efforts to tackle the disease in the UK and across the world, according to new research published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Clinical support for patient self-management is rhetoric rather than reality

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The processes to allow people to self-manage their own illness are not being used appropriately by health professionals to the benefit of their patients, new research suggests.

The genome sequence of Tibetan antelope sheds new light on high-altitude adaptation

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May 17, 2013, Shenzhen, China---- Why Tibetan antelope can live at elevations of 4,000-5,000m on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau? In a collaborative research published in Nature Communications, investigators from Qinghai University, BGI, and other institutes provide evidence that some genetic factors may be associated with the species' adaption to harsh highland environments. The data in this work will also provide implications for studying specific genetic mechanisms and the biology of other ruminant species.

Beer-industry advertising guidelines: Rating panels may help industry assess itself

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• The alcohol industry has developed and regulates its own guidelines regarding advertising.

• A new study has investigated the ability of panels to find consensus around code violations.
• Results indicate that a modified Delphi Technique may enhance the ability of regulatory agencies to monitor the content of alcohol-beverage advertising.

Climate change may have little impact on tropical lizards

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A new Dartmouth College study finds human-caused climate change may have little impact on many species of tropical lizards, contradicting a host of recent studies that predict their widespread extinction in a rapidly warming planet.

The findings, which appear in the journal Global Change Biology, offer new hope for survival of a creature thought to be doomed: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12253/abstract

New X-ray method shows how frog embryos could help thwart disease

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LEMONT, Ill. – An international team of scientists using a new X-ray method recorded the internal structure and cell movement inside a living frog embryo in greater detail than ever before.

This result showcases a new method to advance biological research and the search for new treatments for genetic diseases.