Emperor Penguin Colony Struggling With Iceberg Blockade

The movements of two gigantic Antarctic icebergs appear to have dramatically reduced the number of Emperor penguins living and breeding in a colony at Cape Crozier, according to two researchers who visited the site last month. The colony is one of the first ever visited by human beings early in the 20th century. “It’s certain that the number of breeding birds is way down” from previous years, said Gerald Kooyman, a National Science Foundation-funded researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif.

Magnetic processes in space can accelerate electrons to near light speed

A chance observation of high-energy electrons emanating from a tiny region of space where the sun and Earth’s magnetic fields intertwine provides the first solid evidence that a process called magnetic reconnection accelerates electrons to near the speed of light in the Earth’s magnetosphere and perhaps throughout the universe where magnetic fields entangle.

Go ahead, laugh. It’s good for you.

Go ahead, laugh. In fact, look forward to the upcoming positive event. It does the body good. Even looking forward to a happy, funny event increases endorphins and other relaxation-inducing hormones as well as decreases other detrimental stress hormones, a new study has found.

Adolescent girls who set goals too high may be at risk for anorexia

Perfectionism puts adolescent girls with unhealthy eating habits at risk for becoming anorexic and the body imperfections that go along with it as they grow older, a new study finds. The study also found that girls who showed some bulimic tendencies, such as binge eating and occasional purging, were more likely to develop a full-blown version of the disorder if they reported symptoms of depression.

New Treatment Strategy for Crohn’s Disease Shows Early Promise

A preliminary study reports that enhancing the body’s innate immunity can improve symptoms of Crohn’s disease in 80 percent of patients with moderate to severe forms of the debilitating, inflammatory gastrointestinal disorder. Crohn’s disease is a chronic, lifelong condition, which affects about half a million people in the United States. Until now, the disease has been thought to result from an overactive immune system, and therapies have attempted to suppress, rather than enhance, the immune response. Therapies that suppress immunity improve symptoms in many Crohn’s disease patients, but researchers are looking for alternative treatments to help those who don’t respond.

Aspirin may reduce ovarian cancer growth

Aspirin may reduce ovarian cancer growth, a laboratory study has shown. The study, published in the October issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, demonstrated that aspirin inhibited ovarian tumor cell growth by as much as 68 percent. The higher the dosage of aspirin added to the culture of ovarian cancer cells, the more growth inhibition was observed.

Researchers Propose Devices To Control The Motion Of Magnetic Fields

Researchers say the biological motors that nature uses for intracellular transport and other biological functions inspired them to create a whole new class of micro-devices for controlling magnetic flux quanta in superconductors that could lead to the development of a new generation of medical diagnostic tools. As integrated circuits become smaller and smaller, it becomes increasingly difficult to create the many “guiding channels” that act like wires to move electrons around the circuit components.

Prostate drug stimulates cancer growth molecule

Better off without?Scientists have uncovered a cruel twist of fate in men who have advanced prostate cancer.
Doctors have long known that the medications they use to treat prostate cancer effectively for one to two years inevitably fail, leaving patients with few treatment options as the disease progresses, killing more than 30,000 men in the United States alone every year. Now scientists have discovered that at least one such medication has a completely unexpected side effect: The compound actually turns on a molecule known to cause cancerous cells to grow.

Mole rats look old, are old

Virtually hairless, venerably wrinkled and very nearly blind, naked mole-rats — those homely rodents from underground Africa — remind some zoo-goers of little old men. The resemblance is more than coincidence. They really are really old males — and females, too — biologists report in an article scheduled for November publication in the Journal of Zoology (Vol. 258, Part 3). Many naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber) in laboratory colonies in the United States and South Africa have lived more than 20 years, and some are at least 26 years old, making them by far the oldest small rodents in captivity.

Exercise, even without weight loss, helps cholesterol

For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that exercise — without accompanying weight loss — has a positive impact on improving cholesterol levels. Further, they report that it is the amount of activity, and not necessarily any changes in fitness or intensity of exercise, that is important for cholesterol improvement. In the process of their studies, the researchers also demonstrated that the standard lipid panels used by doctors to measure the so-called “bad” LDL and “good” HDL forms of cholesterol do not necessarily provide the most accurate information in determining one’s risk of developing heart disease.

Mimicking Brain’s ‘All Clear’ Tricks Rats into Not Feeling Scared

You say it's safe down there, but how do I know?Researchers funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have discovered a high tech way to quell panic in rats. They have detected the brain’s equivalent of an “all clear” signal, that, when simulated, turns off fear. The discovery could lead to non-drug, physiological treatments for runaway fear responses seen in anxiety disorders. Rats normally freeze with fear when they hear a tone they have been conditioned to associate with an electric shock. Dr. Gregory Quirk and Mohammed Milad, Ponce School of Medicine, Puerto Rico, have now demonstrated that stimulating a site in the front part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, extinguishes this fear response by mimicking the brain’s own “safety signal.”

Aging Doesn’t Affect Language Processing

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of the brain show that despite the decrease in brain activity that naturally occurs in aging, particularly in the language areas of the left frontal lobe, some types of language processing may be performed more efficiently in older individuals.

Smoking May Make Lymphoma More Lethal

Smoking may play a dual role in the development of a cancer of the lymph glands called follicular lymphoma — first causing it to develop and then transforming it into diffuse large cell lymphoma, an aggressive cancer generally associated with a poor prognosis.