news 2012

Scientists have discovered a rare fossil called Kulindroplax , the missing link between two mollusc groups, which is revealed in a 3D computer model, in research published today in the journal Nature . The researchers have unearthed the worm-like partly shelled Kulindroplax , which they have modelled in a 3D computer animation.

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have found that regulations introduced to reduce children's exposure to junk food advertising have not had a significant impact. Emma Boyland , from the Institute of Psychology, Health and Society , compared food adverts broadcast on the 13 UK TV channels most popular with children in February 2008, with those from the same period in 2010.

A simple blood test could one day be a more accurate way to test for the early signs of breast cancer than using mammograms to spot a lump say researchers today, as Breast Cancer Awareness Month gets underway. They also hope the blood test could improve treatment by detecting whether breast cancer patients are likely to relapse and what drugs their particular type of tumour will respond to.

Look hard enough, string theory says, and at a scale so small that atoms loom as large as entire continents do to us you would see that every particle in the universe is just the product of vibrating strings. It's a powerful idea that could help to explain everything from black holes to hidden dimensions, and lead to a new understanding of gravity.

University of Leeds-led research has used tree rings from eight cedar trees in Bolivia to unlock a 100-year history of rainfall across the Amazon basin, that contains the world's largest river system. The new study shows that the rings in lowland tropical cedar trees provide a natural archive of data closely related to historic rainfall.

In the natural world, searching for food is a high-stakes game in which animals risk starving to death or being killed by a predator. New research from the University of Bristol shows that to stay alive in a changing environment, animals must carefully time when they go out looking for food and when they hide from predators.

Nasa's Curiosity rover has captured photographs of rounded pebbles which suggest the past existence of an ancient riverbed on the surface of Mars. Since landing in Gale Crater on 5 August, the six-wheeled mobile laboratory has sent high resolution images of the Martian landscape back to the control team in Pasadena, California, who are looking for evidence of habitability.

Physicists have directly imaged Landau Levels - the quantum levels that determine electron behaviour in a strong magnetic field - for the first time since they were theoretically conceived of by Nobel prize winner Lev Landau in 1930. Using scanning tunnelling spectroscopy - a spatially resolved probe that interacts directly with the electrons - scientists at institutions including the University of Warwick and Tohoku University have revealed the internal ring-like structure of these Landau Levels at the surface of a semiconductor.

The mystery surrounding how an electrically charged solar wind can be unleashed from around the Sun's equator - an area where strong magnetic fields should strap it to the surface - has been solved by an international team of researchers. Using data from the Hinode telescope, researchers have been studying the 'slow' solar wind, which comes from the aptly named 'equatorial belt' of the Sun where the magnetic field is strapped to the surface of our local star.

Breakthrough in understanding lung cancer vulnerabilities points the way to new targeted therapy More effective treatments for one of the deadliest forms of cancer are one step closer thanks to groundbreaking research from an international collaborative study. Scientists from the Universities of Sheffield and Cologne have identified the dependencies of multiple Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC) types - paving the way for clinical trials of new targeted treatments which could revolutionise the current approach.

Providing therapy over the phone will not only help individuals gain much-needed access to mental health treatment, it will provide a more cost effective way of providing these services at a time when we have to be innovative and efficient." —Professor Peter Jones A new study reveals that cognitive therapy over the phone is just as effective as meeting face-to-face.

Trying to keep an image we've just seen in memory can leave us blind to things we are 'looking' at, according to the results of a study by researchers at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. It's been known for some time that when our brains are focused on a task, we can fail to see other things that are in plain sight.

Our brains are better at hearing new and approaching sounds than detecting when a sound disappears, according to a study by researchers at the UCL Institute. The findings could explain why parents often fail to notice the sudden quiet from the playroom that usually accompanies the onset of mischief.

Measuring progesterone levels in women with pain or bleeding during early pregnancy is a useful way to help to discriminate between a viable and a non-viable pregnancy, according to research by University of Birmingham researchers published on bmj.com today The results suggest that a low level of progesterone in these women can rule out a viable pregnancy in the vast majority of cases.

Researchers at King's College London, Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital have identified for the first time a key factor responsible for declining muscle repair during ageing, and discovered how to halt the process in mice with a common drug. Although an early study, the finding provides clues as to how muscles lose mass with age, which can result in weakness that affects mobility and may cause falls.

The relocation of the Herbarium's one million pressed and dried plants to their new home in the University's state-of-the-art Sainsbury Laboratory is turning up hundreds of unique specimens never seen since their collection centuries ago. It is vital to unlock this information as quickly as possible, as historic collections of this nature have the potential to be of equal importance to new botanical studies in the field." —Christine Bartram "I was going through a box labelled in 1950 'to be sorted'.

An Evolutionary Biologist at The University of Manchester, working with scientists in the United States, has found compelling evidence that parts of the brain can evolve independently from each other. It's hoped the findings will significantly advance our understanding of the brain. The unique 15 year study with researchers at the University of Tennessee and Harvard Medical School also identified several genetic loci that control the size of different brain parts.

The relocation of the Herbarium's one million pressed and dried plants to their new home in the University's state-of-the-art Sainsbury Laboratory is turning up hundreds of unique specimens never seen since their collection centuries ago. It is vital to unlock this information as quickly as possible, as historic collections of this nature have the potential to be of equal importance to new botanical studies in the field." —Christine Bartram "I was going through a box labelled in 1950 'to be sorted'.

Targeted health support is necessary for people with lower IQs according to new research which shows that they are unhappier and more likely to have poorer health than people with higher IQs. The study, published in the journal Psychological Medicine, is the first to demonstrate the role of socio-economic and clinical factors, providing new insight into the relationship between IQ and happiness.

Research on MDMA, the pure form of the drug ecstasy, will be the focus of a two-part programme called Drugs Live: The Ecstasy Trial to be shown on Channel 4 tonight and tomorrow night. The study examines how the resting brain responds to MDMA and is led by David Nutt, Edmond J Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, and Professor Val Curran from University College London.