WAS 1600s Yorkshire a good place to be a witch? A history researcher at the University of Huddersfield has been finding out, and her investigations have resulted in a new online article.
In England as a whole there were 2,000 arraignments for witchcraft between 1560 and 1706. But many were acquitted and just 300 were executed, meaning that the country escaped the full frenzy of the witch hunts that took place in other parts of Europe.
A team of researchers belonging to the Prehistory Area of the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country has published the results of its recent investigations in the San Cristóbal Rock-shelter (Sierra de Cantabria. Laguardia. Álava, Basque Country). This is the first time that empirical data have been presented and which demonstrate the use of rock-shelters as enclosures (for sheep/goats) by agropastoral communities from the early Chacolithic onwards (about 5,000 years ago) in the area of the Basque Country and throughout the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula.
A new study from Rigshospitalet and EDMaRC finds a strong association between late onset of puberty and subsequent semen quality. This is the first study of its kind to investigate the influence of pubertal timing on male reproductive health. 1068 healthy young Danish men participated in the study and provided information on the timing of puberty. This suggests that timing of pubertal onset may be a fundamental marker of male reproductive health.
As part of the Deep Reef Observation Project (DROP), initiated by the Smithsonian Institution, a new goby fish species was discovered in the southern Caribbean. Living at depths greater than conventional SCUBA divers can access, yet too shallow to be of interest for deep-diving submersibles, the fish will now be known under the common name of the Godzilla goby.
Its discoverers Drs Luke Tornabene, Ross Robertson and Carole C. Baldwin, all affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, have described the species in the open access journal ZooKeys.
New research shows that bearded dragons are able to partition colour change to specific body parts, depending on whether they are responding to temperature or communicating with other lizards.
The study revealed that colour change in the neck area was only linked to social interactions with other bearded dragons, but by changing their backs to a darker colour in cool weather, the lizards were predicted to save approximately 85 hours of basking time during the energy-intensive breeding season.
Sperm with specific 'looks' are selected to fertilise bird eggs, say scientists from the University of Sheffield.
Fewer than one per cent of inseminated sperm reach the egg and a new study has discovered that successful sperm have certain characteristics which are preferred by the female bird.
In the research examining zebra finches, scientists found that these 'super swimmers' tend to have shorter heads with longer tails and are more similar to each other than other inseminated sperm.
Vaccines have saved countless lives since their first use more than 200 years ago. But treatments for infections once they take hold can be hard to come by. Now scientists could be onto a new approach to developing antiviral therapies. In ACS' The Journal of Physical Chemistry B, scientists report that DNA may "scrunch" like a worm to get inside viral shells. This deeper understanding could help lead to novel ways to fight pathogens.
In the annals of cancer research, a protein known as KRas has become notorious. Part of a family of proteins implicated in 30 percent of cancers, KRas is considered a highly desirable but defiant drug target. Scientists have resuscitated efforts to crack its structure and find drugs to disable it. The cover story of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, reports on the latest efforts to fight KRas.
WASHINGTON - The emerging science of gene drives has the potential to address environmental and public health challenges, but gene-drive modified organisms are not ready to be released into the environment and require more research in laboratories and highly controlled field trials, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
BAR HARBOR, MAINE - Scientists have long known that many diseases have a strong genetic component, but they are only recently paying more attention to the role played by the relationship between genetics and the environment.
Researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich have shown that circadian oscillations in the influx of immune cells into the damaged tissue play a crucial role in exacerbating the effects of an acute heart attack in the early morning hours.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Researchers at the University of Michigan have identified a promising new compound for targeting one of the most aggressive types of breast cancer.
The compound, currently called UM-164, goes after a kinase known to play a role in the growth and spread of triple-negative breast cancer. UM-164 blocks the kinase c-Src and inhibits another pathway, p38, involved in this subtype. The researchers also found that the compound had very few side effects in mice.
In treating diseases with drugs, dosing is critical; too little is ineffective, while too much can be lethal. Colorado State University's Brad Reisfeld takes a mathematical approach to achieving optimal dosing for various drugs.
Publishing earlier this week in the American Society for Microbiology's Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Reisfeld, associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and a faculty member in the School of Biomedical Engineering, has described a new computational model for optimizing dosing for the drug Rifapentine.
In an effort to identify a simple, reliable way to track the course of nasal polyps in chronic sinus disease, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers say they've linked rising levels of immune system white blood cells, called eosinophils, with regrowth of polyps removed by surgery.
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Lung cancer patients with oliogometastases, defined as three or fewer sites of metastasis, may benefit from aggressive local therapy, surgery or radiation, after standard chemotherapy, according to research led by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. If validated in larger studies, the findings could represent a dramatic shift in clinical care for thousands of lung cancer patients.