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White Americans' heads are getting bigger. That's according to research by forensic anthropologists at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Lee Jantz, coordinator of UT's Forensic Anthropology Center (FAC); Richard Jantz, professor emeritus and former director of the FAC; and Joanne Devlin, adjunct assistant professor, examined 1,500 skulls dating back to the mid-1800s through the mid-1980s. They noticed U.S. skulls have become larger, taller and narrower as seen from the front and faces have become significantly narrower and higher.

• SMIP-016 is a promising experimental drug that kills chronic leukemia cells.
• The drug targets a protein called CD37, but it wasn't known how this kills leukemia cells.
• This study showed unexpectedly that CD37 helps regulate both cell-death and cell-survival signals, explaining how the drug works and how it might be improved.

New research by the University of Southampton has examined the role of voluntary organisations in promoting pro-environmental behaviour change. It points to evidence of success around small-scale, local initiatives, but questions whether these can be scaled up to reach the wider public.

The research review points to qualitative and quantitative evidence of third sector initiatives that have changed people's practices around recycling, reuse and home energy use.

People make decisions all the time. What sandwich to order, whether to walk through that puddle or around it, what school to go to and so on. However, psychologists disagree on how good we are at making decisions.

"In the literature on human decision-making, there are two almost parallel stories," said Andreas Jarvstad of Cardiff University. "One goes, 'humans are terrible at making choices.' The other goes, 'humans are close to being as good as they possibly can be.'"

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a new standard reference material (SRM) to aid in the detection of two explosive compounds that are known to be used by terrorists. Researchers designed the new test samples to simulate the size and behavior of residues that remain after handling the explosives PETN (pentaerythritol tetranitrate) and TATP (triacetone triperoxide). Instrument developers, academic researchers and government labs can use the SRM to test, refine and validate their new detector designs.

Women in their seventies who exercise and eat healthy amounts of fruits and vegetables have a longer life expectancy, according to research published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Researchers at the University of Michigan and Johns Hopkins University studied 713 women aged 70 to 79 years who took part in the Women's Health and Aging Studies. This study was designed to evaluate the causes and course of physical disability in older women living in the community.

In 2003, New York became the first state requiring cigarettes sold within its borders to pass a fire safety standard based on a test developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to reduce the risk of igniting upholstered furniture and bedding, a major cause of residential fires.

Last year, when Wyoming enacted a law similar to New York's, a milestone with lifesaving consequences was achieved: all 50 states had made the Standard Test Method for Measuring the Ignition Strength of Cigarettes (ASTM E2187) a regulatory requirement.

DETROIT – Henry Ford Hospital dermatologists say skin transplant surgery is safe and effective for restoring skin pigmentation caused by the skin disease vitligo.

In a first study of its kind in the United States, researchers followed 23 patients for up to six months after surgery and found that the treated area regained on average 43 percent of its natural skin color. In eight patients with localized vitiligo, the treated area regained on average68 percent of its natural skin color.

Scientists at Neiker-Tecnalia, the Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development, have evaluated the effect of treatment with antibiotics and vaccination in controlling Q fever in sheep flocks. This disease mainly causes abortions, although it can also lead to premature births, low weight and weakness in newborn lambs. The control of this disease is of great importance in animal production, as it spreads easily among the animals and causes significant economic losses, and mainly because it can be transmitted to people in contact with infected livestock.

In a fjord in Canada scientists have found a landscape similar to one of Jupiter's icy moons: Europa. It consists of a frozen and sulphurous environment, where sulphur associated with Arctic bacteria offer clues for the upcoming missions in the search for traces of life on Europa.

LA JOLLA, CA----A new method for rapidly solving the three-dimensional structures of a special group of proteins, known as integral membrane proteins, may speed drug discovery by providing scientists with precise targets for new therapies, according to a paper published May 20 in Nature Methods.

The technique, developed by scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, provides a shortcut for determining the structure of human integral membrane proteins (hIMPs), molecules found on the surface of cells that serve as the targets for about half of all current drugs.

Until about 140 million years ago, dinosaurs had been munching their way through a uniformly green plant world. What happened then is one of evolution's greatest success stories, heralding a new kind of ecological relationship that would transform the planet: The first flowers appeared, competing for the attention of animals to visit them and distribute their pollen to other flowers to ensure the plant's propagation.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — New research by a University of Illinois expert who studies process management points to the potential role of regulatory oversight in preventing deterioration of operational routines that are used to complete day-to-day tasks in business organizations.

Even in the face of managerial efforts to promote the sustainability of a system, the tendency of operational routines to move toward a state of higher "entropy" is an organizational reality, says Gopesh Anand, a professor of business administration.

There are significant gaps in the information women receive about their future fertility following cancer diagnosis, suggests a new paper published today (30 May) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

Infertility can be a side-effect of cancer treatment and there are increasing numbers of people of reproductive age undergoing such treatment.