Body

BUENOS AIRES—Poinsettias can be a lucrative crop for ornamental plant growers, particularly during the Christmas season. In the temperate regions of the southern hemisphere, where poinsettias are grown for both export and local markets, high-demand time for holiday sales occurs during the summer, when warm temperatures and stronger light can accelerate plant growth, often resulting in unmarketable plants.

Scientists are reporting development of a nano-size capsule that boosts the body's uptake of curcumin, an ingredient in yellow curry now being evaluated in clinical trials for treatment of several diseases. Their study is in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication.

Tyrannosaurus rex and related large carnivorous dinosaurs together form the family Tyrannosauridae. A long forgotten fossil skull in the collections of the Natural History Museum in London has now provided crucial clues to the early stages of the lengthy evolutionary history of these fearsome predators. Almost a century after its discovery, the specimen, named Proceratosaurus, has now been recognized as the oldest known relative of the Tyrannosauridae. With the help of an ultramodern imaging technique, a team of researchers led by Dr. Oliver Rauhut from LMU Munich and Dr.

It's no bigger than a stamp packet but it has the potential to allow rapid development of a new generation of drugs and genetic engineering organisms, and to better control in-vitro fertilization.

TRURO, NOVA SCOTIA—Research scientists at Nova Scotia Agricultural College have been working steadily to find effective organic methods to control weeds in cultivated blueberry crops. One resulting study, published in a recent issue of the ASHS journal HortScience, reported on the efficacy of three organic mulches used on highbush blueberry (HBB) produced under organic production practices.

TUCSON, AZ—The apple trees of yesteryear are slowly disappearing. Many apple varieties common in the United States a century ago can no longer be found in today's orchards and nurseries. But some historic apple trees still survive in abandoned farmsteads and historic orchards throughout the U.S. Now, scientists interested in conserving these horticultural treasures have set out to identify and catalogue them, working to discover if the last remnants of historical trees may still be alive in American landscapes.

St. Louis, MO, November 4, 2009 – Americans continue to get heavier. Most weight control methods short of bariatric surgery are generally considered ineffective in preventing obesity or reducing weight. The term energy gap was coined to estimate the change in energy balance (intake and expenditure) behaviors required to achieve and sustain reduced body weight outcomes in individuals and populations.

Using portable 3D laser technology, scientists have electronically preserved a rare 110 million-year-old fossilized dinosaur footprint that was previously excavated and built into the wall of a bandstand at a Texas courthouse in the 1930s.

The laser image preserves a "type specimen" footprint — an original track used to describe a species of dinosaur identified in the 1930s as ichnospecies Eubrontes glenrosensis, says paleontologist Thomas L. Adams at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

The hormones, called androgens, are important in the development of masculine characteristics such as aggression and strength. It is also thought that prenatal androgens affect finger length during development in the womb. High levels of androgens, such as testosterone, increase the length of the fourth finger in comparison to the second finger. Scientists used finger ratios as an indicator of the levels of exposure to the hormone and compared this data with social behaviour in primate groups.

BETHLEHEM, P.A. – November 4, 2009 – An article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science written by a team of ecologists, including Robert Booth, assistant professor of earth and environmental science at Lehigh University, examines some of the potential problems with current prediction methods and calls for the use of a range of approaches when predicting the impact of climate change on organisms.

A University of Adelaide study may have shed light on the rise in childhood asthma in developed countries like Australia in recent decades.

Researchers from the University's Robinson Institute have identified a link between folic acid supplements taken in late pregnancy and allergic asthma in children aged between 3 and 5 years, suggesting that the timing of supplementation in pregnancy is important.

A team of researchers at Queen's University Belfast's Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) is working to develop futuristic communications systems that could help protect frontline troops.

Building on work completed recently for the UK Ministry of Defence, the project is aimed at investigating the use of arrays of highly specialised antennas that could be worn by combat troops to provide covert short-range person-to-person battleground communications.

Searching for a needle in a haystack may seem futile, but it's worth it if the needle is a hard-to-detect protein that may identify a person at high risk of a heart attack circulating within a haystack of human serum (liquid component of blood).

(Boston) – Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Boston Medical Center found that yoga may be more effective than standard treatment for reducing chronic low back pain in minority populations. This study appears in the November issue of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine.

A world first study by Monash University researchers into the health of families who drink rainwater has found that it is safe to drink.

The research was led by Associate Professor Karin Leder from the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine in conjunction with Water Quality Research Australia (previously the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Quality and Treatment).