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The Nearby Supernova Factory (SNfactory), an international collaboration based at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, today announced that it had discovered 34 supernovae during the first year of the prototype system's operation -- all but two of them in the last four months alone. The announcement was made at the 201st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle. "This is the best performance ever for a 'rookie' supernova search," said Greg Aldering of Berkeley Lab's Physics Division, principal investigator of the SNfactory. "We have shown we can discover supernovae at the rate of nine a month, a rate other searches have reached only after years of trying."
Researchers in Santa Cruz, CA have found that industrial emissions in Asia are a major source of mercury in rainwater that falls along the California coast. Their findings are reported in a paper published online today by the Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres. The mercury in rainwater is not in itself a health threat, but mercury pollution is a significant problem in San Francisco Bay and other California waters because the toxic element builds up in the food chain. State regulatory agencies are looking for ways to reduce the amount of mercury entering the state's waters from various sources.
Candian astronomers say that detecting microscopic meteors from other solar systems could provide clues about the formation of planets like Earth. Dust streams from our sun's stellar neighbours consist of tiny grains of pulverized rock ejected from a disk of dust and debris that commonly surrounds young stars, says Joseph Weingartner, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto's Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics. According to Professor Norman Murray, associate director of CITA and co-author of the study, "if we can detect these grains and trace them back to the star system that they came from, we'd have very good evidence of planet formation going on in that system." Weingartner presented the study Jan. 6 at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle, Wash.
The longest X-ray look yet at the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way's center has given astronomers unprecedented access to its life and times. The new data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory revealed that our galaxy's central black hole is a frequent bad actor, prone to numerous outbursts and occasional large explosions.
The world's best planet-hunting machine, the Keck High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer, will be getting even better this year with an advanced imaging array that will improve efforts to detect extra-solar planets, examine distant quasars, measure extragalactic stars and do other research requiring very precise wavelength measurements of thousands of color channels with one exposure. HIRES, a visible-wavelength spectrometer responsible for 20 percent of the science on the Keck I telescope, will be getting an advanced new detector that will increase photon detection rates at ultraviolet wavelengths by a factor of 8 (at 3200 ?), expand single-exposure wavelength coverage, provide finer sampling of spectral features, and allow faster readout rates to provide higher-quality science in less time.
An analysis of all available studies that examine the possible impact of stimulant treatment for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on future substance abuse supports the safety of stimulant treatment. Using a statistical technique called meta-analysis, the researchers found that medication treatment for children with ADHD resulted in an almost two-fold reduction in the risk of future substance abuse. "We know that untreated individuals with ADHD are at a significantly increased risk for substance abuse. And we understand why parents often ask whether stimulant medications might lead to future substance abuse among their children," says Timothy Wilens, MD, MGH director of Substance Abuse Services in Pediatric Psychopharmacology, the paper's lead author. "Now we can reassure parents and other practitioners that treating ADHD actually protects children against alcohol and drug abuse as well as other future problems."
A new study suggests that the use of combination hormone therapy is associated with a modest increase in breast density, which is a known risk factor for breast cancer. The findings appear in the Jan. 1 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The degree of breast-cancer risk that is associated with breast density is greater than that associated with almost all other known breast-cancer risk factors. A previous analysis of data from the Postmenopausal Estrogen/Progestin Interventions (PEPI) Trial, a randomized trial looking at the effects of postmenopausal hormone therapy (estrogen alone or estrogen plus three different progestin regimens) on breast density, showed that some women who used combination estrogen/progestin therapy experienced an increase in breast density. However, the analysis did not look at the magnitude of that increase.
Race, gender and other social factors may explain why some parents allow their children to play with toy guns, while others shudder at the thought, according to a report in the January issue of Pediatrics. Almost 70 percent of parents surveyed felt it was "never OK" for a parent to let a child play with toy guns. The parents who allowed their children to play with toy guns were more likely to be male, with male children, and Caucasian. Families with younger children and mothers were more likely to limit toy gun play. In general, researchers found the gender and age of the child, gender of the parent, and race of the family factored significantly into parents' attitudes about allowing their children to play with toy guns.
Past studies have shown that various medications including beta blockers and aspirin can help manage heart disease. Yet a new study from Stanford University Medical Center indicates physicians continue to underprescribe these key treatments. The study appears in the Jan. 1 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. It focuses on the outpatient use of the drug warfarin for atrial fibrillation (or irregular heartbeat), beta blockers and aspirin for coronary artery disease, and ACE inhibitors for congestive heart failure - all medications that have been shown to benefit patients in past clinical trials and population studies.
New research results strongly suggest that cocaine bites the hand that feeds it, in essence, by harming or even killing the very brain cells that trigger the "high" that cocaine users feel. This most comprehensive description yet of cocaine-induced damage to key cells in the human brain's dopamine "pleasure center" may help explain many aspects of cocaine addiction, and perhaps aid the development of anti-addiction drugs. It also could help scientists understand other disorders involving the same brain cells, including depression.
A beer a day may help keep heart attacks away, according to a group of Israeli researchers. In preliminary clinical studies of a group of men with coronary artery disease, the researchers showed that drinking one beer (12 ounces) a day for a month produced changes in blood chemistry that are associated with a reduced risk of heart attack.
Their study adds to growing evidence that moderate alcohol consumption may reduce the risk of heart disease, the number one killer in the United States.
Despite advances in neurosurgery and radiation techniques, the prognosis for patients with intracranial glioma remains devastating. Now, researchers have identified a possible new treatment strategy for this common type of malignant brain tumor. Two studies funded in part by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) show that, in a mouse model, neural stem cells (NSCs) can be used to deliver therapeutic agents capable of killing glioma cells and their migrating tumor cells.
Scientists have long recognized that, despite physical differences, all human populations are genetically similar to one another. But a new study in the journal Science concludes that populations from different parts of the world share even more genetic similarities than had previously been assumed. At the same time, researchers found that tiny differences in DNA can provide enough information to identify the geographic ancestry of individual men and women.
Trimming the waistline may not be the only reason to cut calories after the New Year: Doing so also may protect the brain from aging. In the first study to look specifically at the effects of life-long calorie-restricted diets on brain cells, University of Florida researchers determined certain proteins linked to cell death that naturally increase with age were significantly reduced in the brains of rats whose calories were limited. More important, they found the levels of a beneficial protein known to provide potent protection against neuron death were twice as high in older rats whose calories were restricted by 40 percent.
A year?s worth of counseling and medication relieved some symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder among a group of children, but only children receiving additional biofeedback therapy managed to hold on to these healthy gains after going off the medication, according to a new study. Half of the 100 children in the study received EEG biofeedback therapy, a treatment in which individuals are taught to retrain electrical activity in their brains. The biofeedback group also experienced significant changes in these ?brain wave? patterns associated with attention-deficit disorder.
