science

UC DAVIS (US) — Unexplained increases in a company’s auditor fees may foreshadow a future drop in stock prices, according to a new study.

“A rise in audit fees acts to deliver a precursory message about trouble within the company,” says one of the study’s authors, Paul Griffin, a professor at the University of California, Davis.

PURDUE (US) — The driving bass rhythm of rap can be used to power a new miniature medical sensor designed to be implanted in the body.

Acoustic waves from music, particularly rap, were found to effectively recharge the pressure sensor. Such a device might ultimately help to treat people stricken with aneurisms or incontinence due to paralysis.

MICHIGAN STATE (US) — According to a new study, the Big Three automakers in the US overlooked basic accounting practices that could have guarded against long-term damage.

The researchers identify a culture of emphasizing short-term gain over long-term brand stability at General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., and Chrysler Group LLC.

YALE (US) — A new study has uncovered how targeted suppression of the immune system may prevent type 1 diabetes or induce sustained remission.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease—the immune system goes into overdrive and attacks the body’s normal cells instead of foreign invaders. In type 1 diabetes, the immune system targets and eventually destroys the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas, leading to increased levels of blood sugars.

UC BERKELEY (US) — Gossip can have positive outcomes such as helping us police bad behavior, prevent exploitation, and lower stress, say researchers.

“Gossip gets a bad rap, but we’re finding evidence that it plays a critical role in the maintenance of social order,” says University of California, Berkeley social psychologist Robb Willer, a coauthor of a study published in this month’s online issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

U. SHEFFIELD (UK) — Thanks to microbubble technology, harvesting algae for use as a biofuel could become easier and more affordable.

The technique, developed at the University of Sheffield, builds on previous research in which microbubbles were used to improve the way algae is cultivated. Previously, there has been no cost-effective method of harvesting and removing the water from the algae for it to be processed effectively.

PRINCETON (US) — Survivors of Hurricane Katrina have struggled with poor mental health for years, according to a new study of low-income mothers in the New Orleans area.

The researchers were able to collect data on the participants before Katrina and nearly five years after the August 2005 storm, finding a persistence of poor mental health and gaining insights into how different types of hurricane-related stressors affect mental health.

NORTHWESTERN (US) — Men and women may have a false sense of security about their chances of having a heart attack or stroke based on the current practice of calculating a patient’s risk 10 years into the future.

As reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, the research shows a young or middle-aged adult who is at low risk in the short term may be at very high risk in the long term—if he or she has just one or two risk factors such as higher than optimal cholesterol or blood pressure levels.

UC BERKELEY (US) — Even after a century of restoration efforts, some wetlands are never able to return to their original natural state.

“Once you degrade a wetland, it doesn’t recover its normal assemblage of plants or its rich stores of organic soil  carbon, which both affect natural cycles of water and  nutrients, for many years,” says David Moreno-Mateos, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. “Even after 100 years, the restored wetland is still different from what was there before, and it may never recover.”

U. TEXAS-AUSTIN (US) — Mechanical property changes in cells may be responsible for the progression of cancer—a discovery that could pave the way for new ways to predict, treat, and prevent the disease.

To present a unique physics-based perspective, researchers devised a 3-D cancer model that shows that softening of cells and changes in cell binding cause cancerous behavior. These mechanical property changes cause cells to divide uncontrollably—making them less likely to die and resulting in malignant tumor growth.

STANFORD (US) — Tween girls who spend endless hours multitasking on digital devices tend to be less successful with social and emotional development, say researchers.

But these unwanted effects might be warded off with something as simple as face-to-face conversations with other people, a new study shows.

U. SHEFFIELD (UK) — Researchers have fitted a robotic rat with a monkey brain model in order to increase the machine’s perception.

By fitting the monkey brain model into an existing robotic rat, which the University of Sheffield researchers had already developed, it was able to feel different textured surfaces, such as rough and smooth carpets, as it scuttled across them with its rat-like whiskers.

As reported in the journal Interface, the machine also made better decisions with its whiskers than any previous method tested.

U. ARIZONA (US) — An ancient dog skull, preserved in a cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia for 33,000 years, presents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication, say researchers.

Together with equally ancient dog remains from a cave in Belgium, the finding indicates domestication of dogs may have occurred repeatedly in different geographic locations rather than with a single domestication event.

PENN STATE (US) — Higher than normal levels of lead in the blood may double a smoker’s risk of developing kidney cancer, new research shows.

“Past studies (in cadavers) have shown that, compared with kidneys from individuals without cancer, kidneys from individuals with cancer have higher lead levels,” says Emily B. Southard, medical student at Penn State College of Medicine.

UNC-CHAPEL HILL (US) — Eating a high fiber diet does not lower the risk of developing a disease of the large intestine, according to a new study that finds the opposite appears to be true.

Diverticulosis—in which pouches develop in the colon wall—affects about one-third of adults over age 60 in the United States. Although most cases are asymptomatic, when complications develop they can be severe, resulting in infections, bleeding, intestinal perforations, and even death. Health care associated with such complications costs an estimated $2.5 billion per year.

U. NOTTINGHAM (UK) — By altering root growth, scientists believe they are a step closer to breeding hardier crops that are more adaptable to environmental conditions and better able to fend off parasites.

Plant root biology is essential for healthy plant growth and, while the so-called hidden half of the plant has often been overlooked, its importance is becoming increasingly recognized by scientists.

U. LEEDS (UK) — Countries with high incomes and high carbon emissions do not achieve higher life expectancies than those with moderate incomes and lower carbon emissions, a new study finds.

The finding challenges the assumption that human well-being requires growth in both economic activity and carbon emissions.

WASHINGTON U.-ST. LOUIS (US) — Children with autism tend to spend their “screen time” alone, as opposed to using social media.

“We found a very high rate of use of solitary screen-based media such as video games and television with a markedly lower rate of use of social interactive media, including email,” says Paul Shattuck, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

UC DAVIS (US) — A new therapy uses stem cells to deliver therapy that specifically targets the genetic abnormality found in Huntington’s disease.

A hereditary brain disorder that causes uncontrolled movement, dementia, and death, Huntington’s disease can be managed with medications, but currently there are no treatments for the physical, mental, and behavioral decline of its victims.

MICHIGAN STATE (US) — Group conflict over the ages may have helped shape the way men and women respond to prejudice.

A new study finds prejudice is linked to aggression for men and fear for women, responses also seen in humans’ closest relative, the chimpanzee.