Body

VANCOUVER, B.C. -- Indiana University's Filippo Menczer has shown how to "out" political astroturfers through his complex networks laboratory's study of information diffusion on Twitter. The research team went on to learn that while retweet networks are politically segregated between left- and right-leaners, Twitter "mentions" actually create a communication bridge between the two partisan groups.

Vicious, winner-take-all competition in nature is an essential pillar of evolutionary theory, but it frequently describes the mindset people have about how, or whether, to teach the subject. Religious students sometimes come to class thinking that science and religion are in deliberate opposition, like two lionesses fighting over a kill. When Brown University biologist and practicing Catholic Kenneth Miller teaches evolution, he also teaches that such a zero-sum mindset just isn't warranted.

Vancouver, B.C. (Wednesday, February 15, 2012) – There are lots of new ideas out there for giving you extra protection against chronic diseases through the food you eat. But many good ideas may never make it to market.

Researchers at the University of Guelph, led by Brian McBride, have found a way to enrich milk with docosahexaeonic acid (DHA)—an essential nutrient that many people are lacking. Researchers at the University of Manitoba, led by Rotimi Aluko, discovered that certain protein fragments from yellow field pea seeds can lower blood pressure.

An international team from the Nippon Foundation-University of British Columbia Nereus program has unveiled the first global model of life in the world's oceans, allowing scientists and policymakers to predict – and show through 3D visualizations – the state of life in the oceans of the future.

European-based speakers representing the fields of nuclear energy, genetically modified organisms, and harm reduction science in tobacco made the plea on 18 February at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held in Vancouver, Canada. The panelists, each with pertinent experience of real-life scientific support to policy-making, offered first-hand advice on best practices and pitfalls when architecting science policy on both sides of the Atlantic.

New international agreements are required to ensure nations benefit equally from medicines, foods and biofuels derived from the ocean's untapped genetic riches, according to a panel of University of British Columbia and European researchers presenting at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver on Feb. 17.

"Prediction" is only part of what is needed to realize the promise of personalized medicine: It is perhaps more critical to detect the early onset of disease in real time, when it is most likely to be successfully treated. Dr. Larry Gold, CEO of SomaLogic and Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, will present a breakthrough technology that promises to provide such sensitive and early detection, and ultimately transform the practice of medicine.

What if we could engineer a liver or kidney from a patient's own stem cells? How about helping regenerate tissue damaged by diseases such as osteoporosis and arthritis? A new UCLA study bring scientists a little closer to these possibilities by providing a better understanding how tissue is formed and organized in the body.

If you develop pregnancy-related hypertensive disorders or diabetes, you may have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease later in life, according to research in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

"We wanted to learn about possible explanations as to why women with pregnancy complications tend to have more heart disease later in life," said Abigail Fraser, M.P.H., Ph.D., School of Social and Community Medicine at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- University at Buffalo researchers are expressing concern about a new, under-recognized, much more potent variant of a common bacterium that has surfaced in the U.S.

Simon Fraser University statistician Rick Routledge will share his knowledge of what layers of charcoal in lake-bottom sediment can tell us about an area's forest fire history, at the world's largest science fair in Vancouver.

Routledge is speaking at Forest Fires in Canada: Impacts of Climate Change and Fire Smoke, a three-hour seminar at the 2012 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference. The international event runs Feb. 16 to 20 at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

The seminar featuring Routledge is Sunday, Feb. 19, 8:30 to 11:30 a.m.

Noroviruses are believed to make up half of all food-borne disease outbreaks in the United States, causing incapacitating (and often violent) stomach flu. These notorious human pathogens are responsible for 90 percent of epidemic nonbacterial outbreaks of gastroenteritis around the world.

Athens, Ga. – Six thousand workers die on the job in the U.S. each year, and millions more are injured. According to a recent University of Georgia study, a worker's perception of safety in the workplace and the work-life balance established by businesses has a significant effect on on-the-job injury.

A North Carolina State University chemist has found a way to give DNA-based computing better control over logic operations. His work could lead to interfacing DNA-based computing with traditional silicon-based computing.

We are all used to logging into networks where we have a unique identity, verified by the network server and associated with our account for other members of the network to see. Such an identity-based network system is useful because it is relatively simple. However, there are three major drawbacks including loss of anonymity of communicating users, misplaced trust and identity theft.

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have devised a new type of network that allows users to be authenticated without relying on unique identities.