The movement of facial skin and muscles around the mouth plays an important role not only in the way the sounds of speech are made, but also in the way they are heard according to a study by scientists at Haskins Laboratories, a Yale-affiliated research laboratory. 

"How your own face is moving makes a difference in how you 'hear' what you hear," said first author Takayuki Ito, a senior scientist at Haskins Laboratories.

When, Ito and his colleagues used a robotic device to stretch the facial skin of "listeners" in a way that would normally accompany speech production they found it affected the way the subjects heard the speech sounds. 

To prolong the shelf life of foods, manufacturers often add hydrogen to natural oils, a process called hydrogenation. But hydrogenation also results in the production of trans fats, which have adverse health effects such as raising bad cholesterol and increasing the risk for coronary heart diseases.   Trans fats are found in vegetable shortenings, some margarines, crackers, cookies and snacks. Health authorities worldwide recommend that people reduce their consumption of trans fats.

UC Riverside chemists have designed a catalyst  (a substance that accelerates a chemical reaction) that allows hydrogenated oils to be made while minimizing the production of trans fats.

The American Peanut Council continues to work with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate which products may be affected by a manufacturer's recall due to salmonella contamination. It advises consumers that at this time, there is no indication that any jars of peanut butter sold in retail stores are linked to the recall by Georgia-based Peanut Corporation of America (PCA).

While none of this product was sold at retail to the general public, some of the peanut butter and peanut paste manufactured by PCA is used as ingredients in other products.

Manhattan Research, a global healthcare and pharmaceutical market research company, today announced the release of Taking the Pulse(R) Europe v8.0, its European physician study and strategic advisory service. It offers in-depth market data and analysis of how physicians across Western Europe integrate the Internet and technology into their practises. Taking the Pulse(R) Europe also looks at key trends in pharma company/sales rep interactions and electronic detailing.

According to the study, European physicians are more reliant than ever on technology - over 80% who are online reported that the Internet is essential to their practice.

The Conservancy of Southwest Florida has filed a petition with Secretary Salazar of the United States Department of the Interior to provide additional legal protection for the endangered Florida panther to help prevent its extinction.

Only an estimated 90 to 100 Florida panthers remain today, almost all within South Florida. Because of these low numbers, they are considered at extremely high risk of extinction. Although there are provisions to protect the panther provided by the Endangered Species Act (ESA), designation of critical habitat, a key component of the Act, has yet to be undertaken.

The cathedral termite, found in parts of Australia, is capable of creating mounds for the colony well over 10 feet high. Individual cathedral termites are just standard-looking bugs - head, thorax, abdomen, legs, and so on, with a tiny little primitive brain. But when combined with others of its species, the cathedral termite is capable of constructing a huge, complex hive to house the colony. Unlike human building projects, however, there is no foreman, no plan, and it's unlikely that any termite even knows what it is helping to create.

How is this possible?

The answer lies in the fact that sometimes, a system can provide more complexity than the sum of its parts - leading to what scientists call "emergent behavior."

Living with a female mouse can extend the reproductive life of a male mouse by as much as 20 percent, according to a study conducted by Ralph Brinster and a team of other researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and reported in the journal Biology of Reproduction. 

They say this significant implications for the maintenance of male fertility in wildlife and even human populations. 

The researchers hypothesize that the females' effect on the environment of the spermatogonial stem cells likely occurs through the male's endocrine and nervous systems, but other systems are likely involved. The change amounts to a reduction of fertility six months earlier in "lonely" mice as opposed to those who have female companionship.

Using Mini-SAR instrument, a lightweight, synthetic aperture radar, flying aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists are getting their first look inside the moon's coldest, darkest craters. 

The images show the floors of permanently-shadowed polar craters on the moon that aren't visible from Earth. Scientists are using the instrument to map and search the insides of the craters for water ice. 

Even though scientists have successfully sequenced the human genome, they still lack a clear picture of exactly how coding and non-coding DNA sequences function together, or how genomes evolve over time. This has been particularly problematic for scientists who use genetic similarities to characterize evolutionary divergence. Historically, the processes of genetic evolution and genome degradation have been difficult to study due to technological limitations and lack of accurate historical records for species.

Scientists at Penn State University and the Virginia Commonwealth University have discovered a way to produce hydrogen by exposing selected clusters of aluminum atoms to water. The findings are important because they demonstrate that it is the geometries of these aluminum clusters, rather than solely their electronic properties, that govern the proximity of the clusters' exposed active sites. The proximity of the clusters' exposed sites plays an important role in affecting the clusters' reactions with water.