Futurity.org » University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

No protocol ready for Deepwater oil spill

Sonia Fernandez-UCSB — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:52:13 +0000

UC SANTA BARBARA / UNC-CHAPEL HILL (US) — Scientists have created the first complete conceptual model for understanding the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and any similar disasters in the future.

On the second anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform blowout, a national panel of researchers is providing new insight into what happened in the disaster, as well as a guide for how to deal with such events in the future, and why existing tools were inadequate to predict what lay before them.

The study, produced by the Gulf Oil Spill Ecotox Working Group at University of California, Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), is published in the May issue of the journal Bioscience.

Teens’ takes on lifespan predict earnings

Linda Kastleman-UNC — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:46:38 +0000

UNC-CHAPEL HILL (US) — Adolescents’ expectations of an early death can predict their economic futures more than a decade later, according to a new study.

Individuals who did not expect to live to age 35 had lower levels of educational attainment and lower personal earnings as young adults when compared to individuals who expected to live longer, report the researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill‘s Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Even after controlling for characteristics such as violence involvement, drug use, parental education, and neighborhood poverty, those who perceived a short life expectancy were 73 percent more likely to have only a high school education than those who expected long lives.

Is diet soda healthy? Depends on what you eat

Patric Lane-UNC — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 18:35:59 +0000

UNC-CHAPEL HILL (US) — New research sheds light on how zero-calorie sodas may affect health, especially in the context of a person’s overall dietary habits.

A number of studies have implicated drinking diet beverages as a cause of cardiovascular disease. Others have suggested such drinks may be a viable tactic for people who are trying to lose or control weight.

Coral reefs need global fix, survey says

Patric Lane-UNC — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:01:10 +0000

UNC-CHAPEL HILL (US) — Saving coral reefs from rising temperatures will require more than fishing bans in protected areas, a new study shows.

Special conservation zones known as marine protected areas provide many direct benefits to fisheries and coral reefs. However, such zones appear to offer limited help to corals in their battle against global warming, the study shows.

Hallucinogen plant targets pain receptor

Leslie Lang-UNC — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 18:45:54 +0000

UNC-CHAPEL HILL (US) — The discovery of how the hallucinogen Salvia affects the brain could lead to new avenues for treating drug addiction, chronic pain, and depression.

At the molecular level, drugs like salvinorin A (the active ingredient of the hallucinogenic plant Salvia divinorum) work by activating specific proteins, known as receptors, in the brain and body.

Salvinorin A, the most potent naturally occurring hallucinogen, is unusual in that it interacts with only one receptor in the human brain—the kappa opioid receptor (KOR). Scientists know of four distinct types of opioid receptors, but until now the structure of the ‘salvia receptor’, and the details about how salvinorin A and other drugs interact with it, was a mystery.

Stoic response to racism may depress men

Patric Lane-UNC — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 15:51:00 +0000

UNC-CHAPEL HILL (US) — African-American men who believe that they should respond to racial discrimination with emotional control may experience more depression symptoms.

“We know that traditional role expectations are that men will restrict their emotions—or ‘take stress like a man’,” says study author Wizdom Powell Hammond, assistant professor of health behavior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “However, the more tightly some men cling to these traditional role norms, the more likely they are to be depressed.

Cancer drug forces HIV out of hiding

Lisa Chensvold-UNC — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:13:34 +0000

UNC-CHAPEL HILL (US) — Researchers have successfully flushed latent HIV infection from hiding with a drug used to treat certain types of lymphoma.

Tackling latent HIV in the immune system is critical to finding a cure for AIDS.

Warm-up pushes migrating birds to earlier ETAs

Patric Lane-UNC — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:10:33 +0000

UNC-CHAPEL HILL (US) — Rising temperatures are causing birds in eastern North America to pick up the pace along their yearly migratory paths.

Pushing migration earlier in the year could negatively affect birds over the long term, says Allen Hurlbert, assistant professor of biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Timing of bird migration is something critical for the overall health of bird species.”

Protein complex prods cells to crawl

Ellen de Graffenreid-UNC — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:03:01 +0000

UNC-CHAPEL HILL (US) — Scientists have explained for the first time how a protein complex affects cell migration and how external cues affect a cell’s ability to travel.

Cell migration is one of life’s basic processes, from development in the womb to immune system response, to learning and brain development, wound healing, and—when it goes wrong—in cancer.

Aspirin may lower stroke risk from trans fat

Patric Lane-UNC — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 19:55:25 +0000

UNC-CHAPEL HILL (US) — Older women who eat a substantial amount of trans fats are more likely to suffer an ischemic stroke.

However, the risk of stroke associated with trans fat intake was lower among women taking aspirin, according to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers, who report their findings in the journal Annals of Neurology.