Anxiety gets a lot of bad press. Dwelling on the negative can lead to chronic stress and anxiety disorders and phobias, but evolutionarily speaking, anxiety holds functional value.

In humans, learning to avoid harm is necessary not only for surviving in the face of basic threats (predators or rotten food), but also for avoiding more complex social or economic threats, like enemies or questionable plans.

A team of psychologists at Stanford University have identified a region of the brain, the anterior insula, which plays a key role in predicting harm and also learning to avoid it. In a new study, Gregory Samanez-Larkin and colleagues scanned the brains of healthy adults while they anticipated losing money.

Preliminary results from DNA analysis of wolverine scat samples collected on the Tahoe National Forest do not match those of historic California wolverine populations, according to U.S. Forest Service scientists.

Geneticists with the agency’s Rocky Mountain Research Station recently began analyzing samples, when wildlife biologists with the Tahoe National Forest and California Department of Fish and Game began sending hair and scat samples they collected from wolverine detection sites on the national forest to a lab in Missoula, Mont.

The interagency effort began in March after an Oregon State University graduate student working on a cooperative project with the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station photographed a wolverine, an animal whose presence has not been confirmed in California since the 1920s.

A biological process taught to every pupil studying science at high school has just become a little more complicated, thanks to a new discovery published today.

Scientists from the University of Bath have found that a protein called RASSF7 is essential for mitosis, the process by which a cell divides in two. In research published in the journal Molecular Biology of the Cell, they show that the protein is essential for building the microtubules that allow the two halves of the cell to slide apart.

“What makes mitosis so interesting is that it is one of the biological processes that everyone remembers from their days at school,” said Dr Andrew Chalmers from the University’s Department of Biology & Biochemistry.

The Sun has a very dynamic atmosphere, with huge fountains of hot gas erupting in the atmosphere, or corona, every few minutes, travelling at tens of thousands of kilometers per hour and reaching great heights.

A team of scientists using the Hinode spacecraft has been searching for the origin and driver of these 'fountains', immense magnetic structures that thread through the solar atmosphere. On Wednesday 2 April at the Royal Astronomical Society National Astronomy Meeting in Belfast (NAM 2008), team leader Dr. Michelle Murray from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL, University College London) presented the latest results from Hinode together with computer simulations that model conditions on the Sun.

Research published in the Institute of Physics' Environmental Research Letters shows how a team from Lancaster and Durham Universities sought a means to prove the correlation between the ionizing cosmic rays and the production of low cloud cover.

Previous research had shown a possible correlation, using the results of the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project, and this had been used to propose that global warming was due to cosmic rays.

The new research shows that change in cloud cover over the Earth does not correlate to changes in cosmic ray intensity. Neither does it show increases and decreases during the sporadic bursts and decreases in the cosmic ray intensity which occur regularly.

A daily dose of caffeine blocks the disruptive effects of high cholesterol that scientists have linked to Alzheimer's disease. A study in the Journal of Neuroinflammation revealed that caffeine equivalent to just one cup of coffee a day could protect the blood-brain barrier (BBB) from damage that occurred with a high-fat diet.

The BBB protects the central nervous system from the rest of the body's circulation, providing the brain with its own regulated microenvironment. Previous studies have shown that high levels of cholesterol break down the BBB which can then no longer protect the central nervous system from the damage caused by blood borne contamination. BBB leakage occurs in a variety of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.

CANBERRA, Australia, April 3 /PRNewswire/ --

- Australia Ranked Among the Top Ten Nations for the Influence of its Scientific Papers in 2007 According to Thomson Scientific Data

Australia's influence on international scientific research was today recognised by Thomson Scientific, a leading provider of information solutions to the worldwide research and business communities, as it gave Citation Awards to ten of the most pre-eminent researchers working in Australia. According to Thomson Scientific data, in 2007 Australia ranked among the top ten nations for the influence of its scientific papers.

MIAMI, April 2 /PRNewswire/ --

Masada Resource Group, a Birmingham, AL provider of waste-to-ethanol technology, was recognized today as one of the top five infrastructure projects for Latin America at the 6th Latin American Leadership Forum in Miami. Masada presented on its Waste-to-ethanol project in the Dominican Republic. Masada teamed with Dominican-based RJ Zapata and Associates, SA last November to form W2E Resources, SA, and its waste-to-ethanol company in the Dominican Republic.

Heavy water is water (H2O) in which oxygen is bound to atoms of the hydrogen isotope deuterium (2H). Heavy water is so named because it is significantly more dense (>1.1 g/cm3) than ordinary ("light") water, 1H2O (1 gm/cm3).

Heavy water is not radioactive and has the same chemical properties as light water; a person could drink a glass of heavy water without harm. However, heavy water is better than light water at moderating (slowing) neutrons, which makes it useful in some nuclear reactor cores.

DETROIT, April 2 /PRNewswire/ --

Carbon Credit Environmental Services (CCES) has committed to offsetting the greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide (GHG, CO2) emissions produced from several upcoming events; The 2008 Olympics in Beijing, The Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix, and The Woodward Dream Cruise as well working with The Detroit River Regatta Association for The APBA Gold Cup Boat Races and Upland Hills Ecological Awareness Center for the Earth Day Expo at Oakland University.

CCES has interest from corporations as far away as Japan, Dubai, China and Europe as well as North America. Officials from CCES consider the threat of global warming a challenge for every individual and corporation, and urge action to secure the future for all generations.