Body

In October 2004, excavation of fragmentary skeletal remains from the island of Flores in Indonesia yielded what was called "the most important find in human evolution for 100 years." Its discoverers dubbed the find Homo floresiensis, a name suggesting a previously unknown species of human.

Fairfax, Va., August 4, 2014—Standardizing prescribing practices for single-fraction radiation therapy (SFRT) for palliation of bone metastases could lead to cost savings and improvement in patients' quality of life, according to a study published in the August 1, 2014 edition of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics (Red Journal), the official scientific journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).

There's a new wave of sound on the horizon carrying with it a broad scope of tantalizing potential applications, including advanced ultrasonic imaging and therapy, acoustic cloaking, and levitation and particle manipulation. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a technique for generating acoustic bottles in open air that can bend the paths of sound waves along prescribed convex trajectories.

SAN ANTONIO (August 4, 2014) — A calculator to help men and their doctors assess their risk of prostate cancer, developed at the UT Health Science Center, has had a major upgrade to enhance how men and their physicians better understand a man's risk of prostate cancer. A description of the update's needs and benefits is described by the Health Science Center authors in a viewpoint published online Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Whale sharks (Rhincodon typus)—which grow more than 30 feet long—are the largest fish in the world's ocean, but little is known about their movements on a daily basis or over years. A newly discovered juvenile whale shark aggregation off Saudi Arabia is giving researchers a rare glimpse into the lives of these gentle giants.

Horses are sensitive to the facial expressions and attention of other horses, including the direction of the eyes and ears. The findings, reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on August 4, are a reminder for us humans to look beyond our own limitations and recognize that other species may communicate in ways that we can't, the researchers say. After all, human ears aren't mobile.

Scientists in the middle of the status hierarchy, not those at the top or the bottom, are the first to work with easy-to-use commercial products. They are also the most prone to imitate their prior collaborators' use of such commercial kits. These are among the findings of a study of scientists-as-customers appearing in Marketing Science, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).

To help protect public health, researchers from North Carolina State University have developed guidelines on how to use social media to communicate effectively about food safety.

FRANKFURT. Despite improved therapy, only one out of every two adult patients survive acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). The mean survival time for this disease, which predominantly occurs in the elderly, is less than a year for patients over 65 years. It is assumed that leukaemic stem cells, which cannot be completely eliminated during treatment, are the origin of relapse.

A mother who sings to her preterm infant while providing 'kangaroo care,' or holding with direct skin-to-skin contact, may see improvements in both her child's and her own health. The finding comes from an Acta Paediatrica study of 86 mother-infant pairs in a neonatal intensive care unit in Meir Hospital in Israel.

More than 90% of gay and bisexual men in the United States have used lubricants to enhance a wide range of sexual activities, including but not limited to anal intercourse, researchers report in a Journal of Sexual Medicine study.

By minimizing potential skin tears, lubricants may help reduce the likelihood of HIV transmission between partners.

(Boston)-- Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) report that two rare variants in the AKAP9 gene significantly increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in African-Americans.

This previously unknown association furthers the understanding of the role of genetic factors in the development of AD, according to the researchers, whose findings appear in Alzheimer's & Dementia.

Researchers at Rice University and the University of Kansas Medical Center are making genetic circuits that can perform more complex tasks by swapping protein building blocks.

The modular genetic circuits engineered from parts of otherwise unrelated bacterial genomes can be set up to handle multiple chemical inputs simultaneously with a minimum of interference from their neighbors.

There are more than 7,000 known species of amphibians that can be found in nearly every type of ecosystem on six continents. But there have been few attempts to understand exactly when and how frogs, toads, salamanders and caecilians have moved across the planet throughout time.

Armed with DNA sequence data, Alex Pyron, an assistant professor of biology at the George Washington University, sought to accurately piece together the 300-million-year storyline of their journey.

In the largest study on the genetics of whale sharks conducted to date, researchers found that the world's biggest fish likely exist in 2 distinct populations with minimal connectivity between the Indo-Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean. The findings suggest that mixing of whale sharks between the Indian and Atlantic was and is rare.