A group of paleontologists has discovered a venomous, birdlike raptor that thrived some 128 million years ago in China, and is the first reported venomous ancestor in the lineage that leads to modern birds. The discovery is documented this week  in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The dromaeosaur or raptor, Sinornithosaurus (Chinese-bird-lizard), is a close relative to Velociraptor. It lived in prehistoric forests of northeastern China that were filled with a diverse assemblage of animals including other primitive birds and dinosaurs.

According to an upcoming study in the March Issue of Alcoholism: Clinical&Experimental Research, alcohol and marijuana use may be explained by the same genetic factors, lending support to the notion that there are common mechanisms underlying all addictions, the authors say.

Researchers examined 6,257 individuals (2,761 complete twin pairs and 735 singletons) listed in the Australian Twin Registry, 24 to 36 years of age.  Alcohol and marijuana use histories were gathered in telephone diagnostic interviews and used to derive levels of alcohol consumption, frequency of marijuana use, and DSM-IV alcohol and cannabis dependence symptoms.

Researchers studying climate change during the early Pliocene have concluded that slow changes such as melting ice sheets amplified the initial warming caused by greenhouse gases, and that a relatively small rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels was
associated with substantial global warming about 4.5 million years ago.  The findings are published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

A new study suggests that the increase of MRSA in healthcare settings results from clinicians who prescribe antibiotics more often and more broadly than clinical circumstances and evidence-based guidelines warrant because of medical liability concerns.

So it isn't politicians or insurance companies who are picking your treatment, it is lawyers.  

Nanotechnology is a big buzzword this decade but there are questions about how safe nano-based products are and we are unsure how to even measure,  much less regulate, them.

Anti-odor socks, makeup, makeup remover, sunscreen, anti-graffiti paint, home pregnancy tests, plastic beer bottles, anti-bacterial doorknobs, plastic bags for storing vegetables, and more than 800 other products are already in use so time is critical.

Dark spots on flower petals are common across many angiosperm plant families and occur on some flowers such as lilies, orchids, and considerable research has been done on the physiological and behavioral mechanisms for how these spots attract pollinators, but what these spots are composed of, how they develop, and how they only appear on some but not all of the ray florets has long been a puzzle. 

Dr. Meredith Thomas from the University of Cambridge and associates from England and South Africa focused on the South African endemic beetle daisy Gorteria diffusa (Asteraceae), which has a unique, raised, dark spot at the base of some of its ray florets to help find deeper answers.  The American Journal of Botany published the results of the study.