pSYDNEY (Reuters) - Some 100,000 feral camels have been culled from the Australian outback, a key step towards controlling the troublesome animals that have destroyed infrastructure, contaminated water holes and ruined sacred Australian Aboriginal sites./ppCamels were first introduced to Australia during the 19th century and used as transport for exploration and to assist construction of rail and telegraph lines./ppTens of thousands were released in the 1930s when vehicle transport became more common and the wild population had soared to an estimated half a million by 2004./ppOver 100,000 feral camels have been removed from the Australian landscape through the project and the current rate of feral camel removal is around 75,000 per year, which is reducing the overall population and lowering their density around priority environmental sites, said Jan Ferguson, who is managing the project./ppThe Australian feral camel is capable of covering 70 km in a day. a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=australia-feral-camel-cull-over-the[More]/a
pBy Amy Maxmen of Nature magazine/p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=birds-sound-the-alarm-on-west-nile-virus[More]/a
pFrom Nature magazine/p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=trio-genome-sequencing-studies-offer-broader-view-lung-cancer[More]/a
pFrom Nature magazine/p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=trio-genome-sequencing-studies-offer-broader-view-lung-cancer[More]/a
pBy Virginia Gewin of Nature magazine/p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=human-embryonic-stem-cells-restore-gerbil-hearing[More]/a
pThere#8217;s no such thing as objective science journalism, any more than there is objective science. Some journalists are just more overt about their biases./pp Gary Taubes has been ferociously attacking conventional dietary wisdom for more than a decade. Conventional wisdom holds that consuming more calories than you burn off makes you fat. Wrong, Taubes insists: It#8217;s not the calories, per se, but the kind of calories that matters. The chief culprit in obesity, he says, is carbohydrates. You can lose weight and keep it off, Taubes contends, on a diet with lots of fat and protein as long as you minimize your carbs./p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=journalist-gary-taubes-raises-bucks-to-disprove-his-diet-theory[More]/a
p class=wp-caption-textENCODE (Image: Ed Yong)/p pThe recent dustup over the ENCODE project and its confusing finding that #8220;80% of DNA is functional#8221; surprises me greatly. What surprises me especially is that people are surprised by junk DNA. Unfortunately this time the scientists are also culpable since, while the publicity surrounding ENCODE has been a media disaster, the 80% claim originated in the scientific papers themselves. There is no doubt that the project itself #8211; which represents a triumph of teamwork, dogged pursuit, technological mastery and first-rate science #8211; has produced enormously useful data, and there is no doubt it will continue to do so. What is in doubt is how long it will take for the public damage to be repaired./p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=three-reasons-to-like-junk-dna[More]/a
pBy Carey Gillam/ppKANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - Hot and dry conditions continued to plague large parts of the U.S. a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=drought-area-expands-in-us-now-most[More]/a
p class=wp-caption-textGot Low T?/p pIn one sense, it is refreshing to see men being the target of pharma, after all these years of women being the focus of relentless and misleading advertising. On the other, we re seeing the start of yet another pharma campaign to dupe the public by the unnecessary medicalization of symptoms to create new drug markets. I used to be a fairly enthusiastic pharma fan, but over recent years have become increasingly disillusioned. The hype over testosterone is the latest example of why. With so many pressing problems in the world, I wish pharma would focus their attention on doing something more useful with their energies./p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=drugs-in-search-of-a-disease-mens-edition[More]/a
pWhen a human body calls it quits, it can take as few as 30 seconds for blowflies to begin feasting on it. For the next several hours to days, a carnival of blowflies, other flies and beetles make the departed their personal bed-and-breakfasts. A determination of that succession of insects is one of the tools that crime-scene investigators (CSIs) use to estimate the postmortem interval (PMI), or the time elapsed since death./p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=forensic-entomologist-upends-conventional-theory-on-order-of-bugs-that-feast-on-corpses[More]/a
pWhen a human body calls it quits, it can take as few as 30 seconds for blowflies to begin feasting on it. For the next several hours to days, a carnival of blowflies, other flies and beetles make the departed their personal bed-and-breakfasts. A determination of that succession of insects is one of the tools that crime-scene investigators (CSIs) use to estimate the postmortem interval (PMI), or the time elapsed since death./p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=forensic-entomologist-upends-conventional-theory-on-order-of-bugs-that-feast-on-corpses[More]/a
Scientists in the Philippines say their recent discovery of a gene that boosts phosphorous levels in rice could have a profound impact on developing nations affected by climate change and poor soil.
pMADISON, Wis.ndash;Trey Mackey expertly baits his fishing hook with a live worm, sits down on a folding chair and casts a line into the waters of Monona Bay. Hersquo;s driven up from Chicago for a day of fishing that could provide a fresh, tasty dinner of blue gill./p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=contaminated-fish-warning-fail-to-reach-people-most-at-risk[More]/a
p Key concepts a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bring-science-home-milk-plastic[More]/a
p Dear EarthTalk: Which are the most ecofriendly and nontoxic (to people, cats and sanitation systems) cat litters? --Sam Barnes, Macon, Ga. /p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=green-friendly-cat-litter-options[More]/a
pWe have been hearing for years that high-density lipoprotein (HDL)--the ldquo;good cholesterolrdquo;--may not be all itapos;s cracked up to be. Now a new study shows that a certain subclass of HDL may actually be ldquo;bad,rdquo; increasing the risk of coronary heart disease./ppA small protein may be to blame. HDL with a small proinflammatory protein called apolipoprotein C-III (apoC-III) on its surface may nearly double the risk of heart disease in healthy men and women, according to Frank Sacks, professor of cardiovascular disease prevention at the Harvard School of Public Health and senior author on a paper in the April Journal of the American Heart Association . Conversely, Sacksapos;s study found, HDL without apoC-III may be especially heart-protective. A number of studies have shown that LDL (low-density lipoprotein)--the ldquo;bad cholesterolrdquo;--with apoC-III on its surface is particularly harmful, leading to higher incidence of plaque buildup in artery walls. Yet, Sacks says, this is the first large-scale prospective study with healthy subjects to show that apoC-III on HDL may have similar effects./p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=researchers-move-closer-understanding-which-cholesterol-hurts-us[More]/a
p In 1964, the US enacted the civil rights act, the Vietnam War was heating up, and the battle against cancer was being waged. That year, Dr. Jerome Horwitz published what was, by all accounts, a failure. Horwitz had synthesized and tested a throng of new compounds, one of which happened to be azidothymidine or AZT. In an era when cancer research consisted of the stifling pursuit of throwing random compounds at leukemic mice, Horwitz was doing something different. He was pursuing original, innovative strategies. A chemistry professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, he developed a unique class of compounds he hoped would be able to stop the growth of cancer cells. While AZT was an utter failure at treating cancer, two decades later the drug would find new life as the first effective agent in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. The passing of Dr. Horwitz on September 6 th , 2012, is the loss of a brilliant member of the scientific community. His story carries a key lesson for scientists today./ppHorwitz postulated that if you can t directly target the cancer, you can modify what the cancer needs: the cell. He designed a new family of compounds all designed to trick the cell machinery. The idea here was to imitate the building blocks of life, the nucleotides that form DNA. These trick molecules would look just like the real thing but, when incorporated into a growing chain of DNA, they would hinder normal DNA creation and impair the growth of runaway cancer cells that simply can t stop making DNA chains./p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=remembering-dr-jerome-horwitz-and-azt[More]/a
pWe have been hearing for years that high-density lipoprotein (HDL)--the ldquo;good cholesterolrdquo;--may not be all it#39;s cracked up to be. Now a new study shows that a certain subclass of HDL may actually be ldquo;bad,rdquo; increasing the risk of coronary heart disease./p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=researchers-move-closer-understanding-which-cholesterol-hurts-us[More]/a
pAs a prospective client searches for a psychotherapist, numerous questions may spring to mind. How experienced is the therapist? Has he helped people with problems like mine? Is she someone I can relate to? Yet it may not occur to clients to ask another one: What type of therapy does the clinician deliver? People often assume that the brand of therapy offered is irrelevant to the effectiveness of treatment. Is this assumption correct?/p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=are-all-psychotherapies-created-equal[More]/a
