Body

Karl Bates and his colleagues in the palaeontology and biomechanics research group have reconstructed the bodies of five dinosaurs, two T. rex (Stan at the Manchester Museum and the Museum of the Rockies cast MOR555), an Acrocanthosaurus atokensis, a Strutiomimum sedens and an Edmontosaurus annectens.

Montreal, February 20, 2009 – Following trends is a lifesaving instinct, at least for birds, and provides clues that can be applied across the animal kingdom. New research from Université de Montréal published in Biology Letters, shows that Herring and Ring-billed gulls not only watch their neighbours – they mimic their behaviour to assure their survival. Contrary to previous beliefs, this study suggests that animals don't necessarily act independently and that they cue on reactions from other members of their group.

Try the following experiment with two young children. To one child, hold a toy out just beyond their grasp and watch them bounce all over the place trying to reach it. With the second child, just hand the toy over to them. Is the first child likely to find the toy more interesting than the other child? When we are pursuing a goal, we need to carefully consider the best ways of achieving it. If we come across something very difficult, how will that affect our ability to meet our goal? University of Chicago psychologists Aparna A.

Researchers may be able to "freeze" water into a solid, not by cooling but by confining it to narrow spaces less than one-millionth of a millimeter wide, according to new results from an interdisciplinary team of scientists and engineers.

It's more than a neat trick -- a deeper understanding of how thin films of water behave in nanometer-sized spaces may help advance numerous scientific endeavors, including the development of new energy sources, pharmaceuticals and self-cleaning surfaces.

Researchers at Uppsala University can now show that what is good for one sex is not always good for the other sex. In fact, evolutionary conflicts between the two sexes cause characteristics and behaviors that are downright injurious to the opposite sex. The findings are being published in the scientific journal Current Biology.

Low-back pain continues to impose a huge burden on industrialized societies, in terms of symptoms, medical costs, productivity, and work absence. Annual costs related to back pain in the United States alone may run as high as $100 billion per year.

Cincinnati, OH, February 20, 2009 -- For many children, a trip to the doctor or dentist is a stressful experience. The sensory environment (i.e., the sounds, smells, and lights associated with the clinical setting) can cause a child's anxiety levels to rise. This is especially true in children with developmental disabilities who may have difficulty understanding the unfamiliar clinical environment. A new study soon to be published in The Journal of Pediatrics explores the relationship between the sensory environment and anxiety levels in children.

New York, NY, February 20, 2009 – Although widespread Prostate-Specific-Antigen (PSA) testing has undoubtedly decreased prostate cancer mortality, is there a point of diminishing returns? In a study published in the April 2009 issue of The Journal of Urology, researchers found that in a subgroup of elderly men, among those who were 75 years old or older and had a PSA below 3 ng/ml (nanograms per milliliter), none subsequently died of prostate cancer.

Certain men age 75 to 80 are unlikely to benefit from routine prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing, according to a Johns Hopkins study published in the April 2009 issue of The Journal of Urology.

The researchers found that men in this age group with PSA levels less than 3 nanograms per milliliter are unlikely to die of or experience aggressive prostate cancer during their remaining life, suggesting that the use of PSA testing in many older men may no longer be needed.

New research shows that individual exacerbations in chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD) themselves increase the likelihood of repeat exacerbations, even after five days of full, asymptomatic recovery—bad news for patients with COPD, where each exacerbation can drive the progression of the disease.

High summer temperatures, pushed higher by global climate change, may bring with them a spike in hospitalizations for respiratory problems, according to an analysis of data from twelve European cities, from Dublin to Valencia. The data comes from the "Assessment and Prevention of Acute Health Effects of Weather Conditions in Europe" (PHEWE), a multi-center, three-year collaboration between epidemiologists, meteorologists and experts in public health collaboration that investigated the short-term effects of weather in Europe.

There may be a new way to predict mortality in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a devastating disease that slowly petrifies the lungs. Most patients live only three years after diagnosis on average; however, some remain stable for many years, while for others, the disease progresses more rapidly.

The recent salmonella outbreak linked to 575 illnesses and eight deaths across 43 states was shown to come from a dirty peanut processing plant in Georgia. And while it is essential for food processing plants to be clean and sanitary, Temple public health professor Jennifer Ibrahim, Ph.D., says officials need to consider other possible sources of illness.

"Right now, all of the focus is on the state of the peanut processing plant, but no one is really looking at the bigger picture — where else can illness be passed along to the food?" she said.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Washington have determined two molecules that enable Escherichia coli (E. coli), the bacteria that cause many urinary tract infections (UTIs), to survive and reproduce, thereby providing possible new targets for antibiotic therapy. These molecules, called siderophores, are discussed in a study published February 20th in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens.