Electronic cigarettes are widely promoted and used to help smokers quit traditional cigarettes, but a new analysis from UC San Francisco found that adult smokers who use e-cigarettes are actually 28 percent less likely to stop smoking cigarettes.The study — a systematic review and meta-analysis of published data — is the largest to quantify whether e-cigarettes assist smokers in quitting cigarettes.The findings will be published online January 14 in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.“As currently being used, e-cigarettes are associated with significantly less quitting among smokers,” concluded first author Sara Kalkhoran, MD who was a clinical fellow at the UCSF School of Medicine when the research was conducted. She is now at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Read MoreDeadly amphibian fungus may decline, study finds
A new study offers a glimmer of hope for some amphibian populations decimated by the deadly chytrid fungus: climate change may make environmental conditions for the fungus unsuitable in some regions and potentially stave off the spread of disease in African amphibian populations struggling to adapt to changes brought about by global warming.
Read MoreWhat is 10 miles across, but powers an explosion brighter than the Milky Way?
Right now, astronomers are viewing a ball of hot gas billions of light years away that is radiating the energy of hundreds of billions of suns. At its heart is an object a little larger than 10 miles across. And astronomers are not entirely sure what it is. If, as they suspect, the gas ball is the result of a supernova, then it’s the most powerful supernova ever seen.
Read MoreChimp friendships are based on trust
It almost goes without saying that trust is a defining element of genuine human friendship. Now, a new report suggests that the same holds true among chimpanzee pals. The findings suggest that friendship based on trust goes way, way back, the researchers say.
Read MoreRats pose health threat to poultry, humans
Rats can absorb disease agents from their local environment and spread them, according to a new study. The results also indicate that the threat rats pose to the health of poultry and humans has been underestimated.
Read MoreNatural carbon sinks and their role in climate
Protected areas such as rainforests occupy more than one-tenth of the Earth’s landscape, and provide invaluable ecosystem services, from erosion control to pollination to biodiversity preservation. They also draw heat-trapping carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and store it in plants and soil through photosynthesis, yielding a net cooling effect on the planet.Determining the role protected areas play as carbon sinks — now and in decades to come — is a topic of intense interest to the climate-policy community as it seeks science-based strategies to mitigate climate change. Toward that end, a study in the journal Ambioestimates for the first time the amount of CO2 sequestered by protected areas, both at present and throughout the 21st century as projected under various climate and land-use scenarios.
Read MoreChanging climate and reforestation
For the past six years, researchers at the Universitat Politènica de València (Polytechnic Univeristy of Valencia, UPV) have been studying the performance of twelve Aleppo pine varieties native to different regions of Spain in reforestation campaigns across three national forest areas. Different varieties or genotypes have different levels of resistance to cold and drought, which influence how well they perform in a given geographical region, and researchers wanted to find out which varieties worked best and where.To do so, the different national varieties or genotypes were used to repopulate forest areas in La Hunde, Valencia (as the control region), in the drier Granja d'Escarp, Lleida, to the north and further inland in Tramacastiel, Teruel, where the climate is much cooler.”The varieties from Inland Levante and La Mancha performed the best overall, while those from further south seem to be perfect for reforestation efforts in regions already affected by climate change,” observes Antonio del Campo, researcher at the UPV's Institute of Water and Environmental Engineering (IIAMA).
Read MoreQuiet quasar has apparently eaten its fill
Astronomers have announced that a distant quasar ran out of gas. Their conclusions clarify why quasar SDSS J1011+5442 changed so dramatically in the handful of years between observations.
Read MoreProbing nuclear reactions in stars
Thanks to a new experimental technique, scientists have now measured a crucial fusion reaction, involving hydrogen and a rare isotope of oxygen, that occurs inside stars.
Read MoreNASA’s Great Observatories weigh massive young galaxy cluster
Astronomers have made the most detailed study yet of an extremely massive young galaxy cluster using three of NASA’s Great Observatories. This multiwavelength image shows this galaxy cluster, called IDCS J1426.5+3508, in X-rays recorded by Chandra in blue, visible light observed by Hubble in green, and infrared light detected by Spitzer in red. is so far away that the light detected is from when the universe was roughly a quarter of its current age. This is the most massive galaxy cluster detected at such an early age.
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