everyONE – the PLoS ONE community blog

In this week’s PLoS ONE media digest: amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s may be beneficital, beer makes people attractive to malarial mosquitoes, declining death rates from cancer, a new fossil crocodile, and more.

The Alzheimer’s Disease-Associated Amyloid β-Protein Is an Antimicrobial Peptide by Soscia et al, was covered by New York Times Health Feed, Business Week, Suite101, Scientist Live, Alzheimer’s Reading Room and Neurophilosophy.

Beer Consumption Increases Human Attractiveness to Malaria Mosquitoes by Lefèvre et al, was covered by DNA India, Birmingham Science News Examiner, Smithsonian.com, Discoblog, Scientificblogging.com and Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Declining Death Rates Reflect Progress against Cancer by Jemal, Ward and Thun was reported in Xinhuanet, U.S. News & World Report, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, Ars Technica and Fight Aging.

A New Horned Crocodile from the Plio-Pleistocene Hominid Sites at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania by Brochu, Njau, Blumenschine and Densmore was covered by Discovery News and Newswise.

Open space loss and land inequality in United States’ cities, 1990–2000 by McDonald, Forman and Karieva was written up in the Conservation magazine, Global Change and Conservation Maven

Network Analytical Tool for Monitoring Global Food Safety Highlights China by Nepusz, Petróczi and Naughton, was covered by Food Safety News, bjhc & im and Flesh & Stone.

A Demonstration of the Transition from Ready-to-Hand to Unready-to-Hand by Dotov, Nie and Chemero, a rare scientific article that cites philosopher Martin Heidegger, was covered by Wired Science and Softpedia.

Winter Active Bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) Achieve High Foraging Rates in Urban Britain by Stelzer, Chittka, Carlton and Ings was described in PlanetEarth and DNA India.

Is it easy to be urban? Convergent success in urban habitats among lineages of a widespread native ant by Menke, Booth, Dunn, Schal, Vargo and Silverman was covered by Science News

Using Imputation to Provide Location Information for Nongeocoded Addresses by Curriero, Kulldorff, Boscoe and Klassen was described at HealthCanal.

Gut Microbiota in Human Adults with Type 2 Diabetes Differs from Non-Diabetic Adults by Larsen et al. was covered by FoodConsumer.org, PRLog and Health Freedom Alliance

pH-Dependent Metal Ion Toxicity Influences the Antibacterial Activity of Two Natural Mineral Mixtures by Cunningham, Jennifer, Summers and Haydel was covered by R&D Magazine and Green Agenda.

Female Scent Signals Enhance the Resistance of Male Mice to Influenza by Litvinova et al, was explained by Ed Yong of Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Female Field Crickets Incur Increased Parasitism Risk When Near Preferred Song by Martin and Wagner was explained by Phased.

Some of our older articles received additional coverage recently:

Could Work Be a Source of Behavioural Disorders? A Study in Horses by Hausberger et al, was presented in TheHorse.com

Altruism in Forest Chimpanzees: The Case of Adoption by Boesch et al was discussed at Big Think.

Athlete Atypicity on the Edge of Human Achievement: Performances Stagnate after the Last Peak, in 1988 by Berthelot et al was discussed in Finding Dulcinea.

Neural substrates of spontaneous musical performance: an FMRI study of jazz improvisation by Limb and Braun was discussed on The Posit Science Blog.

Persistent Cell Motion in the Absence of External Signals: A Search Strategy for Eukaryotic Cells by Li et al was described by BenjaminTseng

In this week’s PLoS ONE media digest: feathered dinosaurs, living next to highways is bad for your blood vessels, removing badgers does not remove cattle tuberculosis, and bats can drink and fly.

The Extent of the Preserved Feathers on the Four-Winged Dinosaur Microraptor gui under Ultraviolet Light by David Hone, Helmut Tischlinger, Xing Xu and Fucheng Zhang was published yesterday and is already garnering great press. David Hone, the lead author of the article, has written a blog post on Archosaur Musings blog about the findings. So did Andrew Farke, the academic editor who handled this manuscript, on The Open Source Paleontologist. You can read the interview with David Hone on Dinochick Blogs, and additional coverage on Smithsonian’s Dinosaur Tracking and Dracovenator.

Ambient Air Pollution and the Progression of Atherosclerosis in Adults by Künzli and colleagues is the first study to demonstrate an association with air polution and the development of atherosclerosis in humans. The study was broadly covered in the media, including in Los Angeles Times, Orange County Register, CBS
ABC, CNET News and Times of India.

Study by Jenkins, Woodroffe and Donnelly, The Duration of the Effects of Repeated Widespread Badger Culling on Cattle Tuberculosis Following the Cessation of Culling shows that eradication of badgers has only a temporary effect on the spread of tuberulosis in cows in the British Isles. The study was covered by BBC, The Guardian, TreeHugger, Science Insider, FarmersWeekly and Scotsman, among others.

The article Drinking and Flying: Does Alcohol Consumption Affect the Flight and Echolocation Performance of Phyllostomid Bats? by Orbach et al, which shows that ingestion of ethanol from fermenting fruit does not affect the flying capability and precision in bats, recieved some additional coverage this week, including at Microecos, Calgary Herald, Denim and Tweed and National Geographic.

Some other articles covered in the past week:

Is It Easy to Be Urban? Convergent Success in Urban Habitats among Lineages of a Widespread Native Ant was covered at Phased.

Metformin Induces a Dietary Restriction–Like State and the Oxidative Stress Response to Extend C. elegans Healthspan via AMPK, LKB1, and SKN-1 was written up on Ouroboros

When the Sun Prickles Your Nose: An EEG Study Identifying Neural Bases of Photic Sneezing was covered by Dormivigilia.

In this week’s PLoS ONE media digest: malaria vaccine boosts immunity in kids, invasion of Thoreau’s Woods, bees with keen sense of smell and more.

Article Safety and Immunogenicity of an AMA1 Malaria Vaccine in Malian Children: Results of a Phase 1 Randomized Controlled Trial by Mahamadou A. Thera and collaborators reports on a clinical trial of a novel malaria vaccine showing that it was safe, well-tolerated and effective in small children. The study was reported, among others, by BusinessWeek, Reuters, UPI and AFP

Article by Charles G. Willis and colleagues, Favorable Climate Change Response Explains Non-Native Species’ Success in Thoreau’s Woods, explores the idea that species that adapt to climate change by changing, for example, their seasonal timing of flowering, increase in numbers over time. They analyzed a dataset of species’ populations that was started by Henry David Thoreau 150 years ago in Concord, Massaschusets, and tracked the changes in seasonal responses and in population abundance over time. In this analysis, it turned out that the invasive species are particularly flexible and more readily adapt to climate change, thus threatening the native species. The article was covered, among others, by Boston Globe, Discovery News, Harvard Gazette, The Voltage Gate, Conservation Magazine and Scientific Blogging.

In the article, Honeybees Learn Odour Mixtures via a Selection of Key Odorants, Judith Reinhard and colleagues show that honeybees are capable of recognizing, remebering and responding to complex mixtures of odorants by identifying the key components in each mixture. The study was covered by ABC Online, UQ News and ScienceAlert.

Some other (and older) articles covered during the past week:

A Sequence Polymorphism in MSTN Predicts Sprinting Ability and Racing Stamina in Thoroughbred Horses was covered by Living the Scientific Life.and ScienceNOW.

Mapping Change in Large Networks was recently covered by Alex Holcombe and
Culturing Science

In this week’s PLoS ONE media digest: mapping change in large networks, speed gene in racehorses, Yasuni National Park in Ecuador, smelling cancer in urine, and much more.

Martin Rosvall of Umeå University in Sweden and Carl Bergstrom of the University of Washington devised a new mathematical technique using citations of publications as data to map changes in scientific disciplines, discovering, for example, that neuroscience only came into its own as an independent discipline over the last decade or so. They describe (with wonderful visualisations) their work in the article Mapping Change in Large Networks which was covered, among others, by io9, The Scientist blog and RedOrbit.

Thoroughbred racehorses, all tracing their pedigrees back to only three stallions and 20+ mares a few centuries ago, are highly inbred animals. Yet, some horses become stars on the racetrack, while others tend to finish last. Some individuals win sprints while others do best at longer distances. Now, a group from the University College Dublin identified variants of the MSTN gene encoding myostatin that correlate with preferred racing distances for individual racehorses. It is not a surprise that their article A Sequence Polymorphism in MSTN Predicts Sprinting Ability and Racing Stamina in Thoroughbred Horses was covered by a large number of horse and racing magazines, as well as by BusinessWeek and Irish Times.

Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park is a hotspot of biodiversity. Yet, it also lies on top of large oil reserves. A large multinational group conducted the first comprehensive synthesis of biodiversity data in the Park and discovered that this area is a species richness center for amphibian, bird, mammal, and plant distributions. Their article Global Conservation Significance of Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park was covered by the New York Times’s Dot Earth blog, , Endless Forms, Great Beyond and Mongabay.com among others.

Having lung cancer affects the chemical composition of urine. In the article Urinary Volatile Compounds as Biomarkers for Lung Cancer: A Proof of Principle Study Using Odor Signatures in Mouse Models of Lung Cancer, a multinational group of researchers discovered that laboratory mice can detect, using the sense of smell, these chemical changes. Thus, a bioassay using mice may be a novel diagnostic test for detection of lung cancer. This study was covered in numerous media outlets, including BusinessWeek and Times of India.

The article Drinking and Flying: Does Alcohol Consumption Affect the Flight and Echolocation Performance of Phyllostomid Bats? which demonstrates surprising resistance to the effects of alcohol consumption in bats was covered by the blog Dormivigilia. The study Favorable Climate Change Response Explains Non-Native Species’ Success in Thoreau’s Woods was blogged by the Voltage Gate.