Results from a recent survey conducted by a University of Missouri professor reveal that the U.S. public prefers to act locally and nationally on environmental issues and that may be why appeals to global warming are not more successful.

“The survey’s core result is that people care about their communities and express the desire to see government action taken toward local and national issues,” said David Konisky, a policy research scholar with the Institute of Public Policy. “People are hesitant to support efforts concerning global issues even though they believe that environmental quality is poorer at the global level than at the local and national level. This is surprising given the media attention that global warming has recently received and reflects the division of opinion about the severity of climate change.”

NASA's Cassini spacecraft tasted and sampled a surprising organic brew erupting in geyser-like fashion from Saturn's moon Enceladus during a close flyby on March 12. Scientists are amazed that this tiny moon is so active, "hot" and brimming with water vapor and organic chemicals.

New heat maps of the surface show higher temperatures than previously known in the south polar region, with hot tracks running the length of giant fissures. Additionally, scientists say the organics "taste and smell" like some of those found in a comet. The jets themselves harmlessly peppered Cassini, exerting measurable torque on the spacecraft, and providing an indirect measure of the plume density.

Tiny prehistoric bones found on an Australian farm have been directly linked to a strange and secretive little animal that lives today in the southern rainforests of South America.

The mystery? They are separated by an ocean and millions of years.

The fossilised ankle and ear bones are those of Australia's earliest known marsupial, Djarthia, a primitive mouse-like creature that lived 55 million years ago. It is a kind of Australian Eve, possibly the mother of all the continent's unusual pouched mammals, such as kangaroos, koalas, possums and wombats.

But a new study has confirmed that Djarthia is also a primitive relative of the small marsupial known as the Monito del Monte – or "little mountain monkey" – from the dense humid forests of Chile and Argentina.

A new study reviewing 75 group-randomized cancer trials over a five-year stretch shows that fewer than half of those studies used appropriate statistical methods to analyze the results. The review suggests that some trials may have reported that interventions to prevent disease or reduce cancer risks were effective when in fact they might not have been.

More than a third of the trials contained statistical analyses that the reviewers considered inappropriate to assess the effects of an intervention being studied. And 88 percent of those studies reported statistically significant intervention effects that, because of analysis flaws, could be misleading to scientists and policymakers, the review authors say.

Everyone experiences anxiety from time to time – something specific, like going down into a dark cellar where you know the Book of the Dead is waiting,or, in a more general sense, trepidation about what the future holds. Some people are gripped by powerful fears when confronted by quite normal everyday situations. For example, sufferers of agoraphobia frequently have panic attacks when caught up in a crowd.

Their blood 'curdles' or 'freezes in their veins' in a very real way, saya a Bonn-based research team, and it leads to increased risk of thrombosis or heart attack

The symptoms can be dramatic: palpitations, sweating, shaking, blind panic or fainting – even leading to death. Another anxiety disorder frequently encountered can be described as social phobia. Those affected fear above all situations in which they become the centre of attention in a group. They begin to stutter or turn red. In order not to avoid embarrassment, social phobia sufferers may become recluses, shying away from human contact and staying at home.

Roughly a half-millimeter in size and commonly observed under microscopes in high-school biology classes, bdelloid rotifers are highly unusual in several regards: They appear to be exclusively asexual, have relatively few transposable genes, and can survive and reproduce after complete desiccation at any stage of their life cycle.

Scientists at Harvard University hypothesize that this last property explains something new about bdelloids - their apparently unique resistance to radiation.

One day soon patients may spit in a cup, instead of bracing for a needle prick, when being tested for cancer, heart disease or diabetes.

A major step in that direction is the cataloguing of the “complete” salivary proteome, a set of proteins in human ductal saliva, identified by a consortium of three research teams, according to an article published today in the Journal of Proteome Research. Replacing blood draws with saliva tests promises to make disease diagnosis, as well as the tracking of treatment efficacy, less invasive and costly.

Saliva proteomics and diagnostics is part of a nationwide effort to create the first map of every human protein and every protein interaction, as they contribute to health and disease and as they act as markers for disease states. Following instructions encoded by genes, protein “machines” make up the body’s organs and regulate its cellular processes.

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for peri- and postmenopausal symptoms increases disease recurrence in breast cancer survivors, according to an article published online March 25 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Previous studies have shown that HRT increases breast cancer incidence in healthy women, but its impact on breast cancer survivors has remained obscure. Observational studies and one small randomized trial had suggested that HRT had no effect or even might reduce recurrence. However, two-year follow-up data from the randomized HABITS (Hormonal Replacement After Breast Cancer —Is It Safe?) trial indicated that survivors who took HRT were more likely to suffer disease recurrence than those who did not take HRT.