Peter Calamai, the founder, along with Penny Park (who died last month) of the Science Media Centre of Canada, died yesterday morning at his home in Stratford. Peter was a journalist’s journalist: curmudgeonly, dogged, determined, demanding. He was an old-fashioned, ink-stained newshound. He began as a dashing young foreign correspondent for the old Southam News in […]
Standard medication for newborns exposed to opioids during pregnancy may be least effective 
JAMA Pediatrics Published January 22, 2019 11:00 ET (News release from JAMA Pediatrics) The number of newborns born addicted to opioids because of exposure in the womb tripled in Canada between 2003 and 2014. This study analyzed results from 18 clinical trials to treat newborns for opioid withdrawal, a condition called newborn abstinence syndrome. Researchers found […]
SMCC Heads Up | January 22, 2019
Baby addiction | New child-cancer test | Dopamine & music | SMCC Heads Up | January 22, 2019. Embargoed and recently published research with a Canadian focus, curated by SMCC for science journalists. Read more>
Dopamine directly affects how much we enjoy music
PNAS Published January 21 Dopamine directly increases our enjoyment of listening, singing, or playing to music, which confer no known survival advantage. This double blind within-subject study directly manipulated healthy participants’ dopamine levels while they listened to music. The results indicate how an individual’s ability to absorb dopamine may play different, unforeseen roles in the […]
Antibiotics still routinely prescribed for infants with viral lung infections
Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society Published January 17, 2019 00:15 ET (News release from Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society) Despite recommendations issued more than a decade ago, antibiotics are still routinely prescribed in U.S. emergency rooms for infants with bronchiolitis, an acute viral infection of the lower respiratory tract. The American Academy of Pediatrics 2006 guidelines […]
Burgess Shale: Mysterious agnostids find a family
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Published January 16, 2019 (Brief from the Royal Society) Newly discovered 508-million-year-old fossils from the Burgess Shale preserving the soft tissues of mysterious, extinct arthropods called agnostids reveal appendages and internal organs for the first time in adult individuals. Based on this new information, researchers conclude that agnostids are […]
Burgess Shale: Trace fossils found on ancient soft-tissue shells
Royal Society Open Science Published January 16, 2019 (Brief from the Royal Society) For more than a century, British Columbia’s 508-million-year-old Burgess Shale deposits were thought to be mostly devoid of trace fossils – the tracks, trails and burrows produced by animals. However, in this study, researchers used a novel, modelling approach to show that some fossil […]
Immediate fossil fuel infrastructure phase-out may keep global warming below 1.5° C
Nature Communications Published January 15, 2019 11:00 ET (News release from Nature Research Press) Immediately starting to phase out fossil fuel infrastructure as it reaches the end of its expected lifetime may result in a 64 per cent chance that global mean temperature rise will remain below 1.5° C relative to pre-industrial levels. The research suggests […]
SMCC Heads Up | January 15, 2019
Phase out fossil fuels | Stem-cell fix for MS | Burgess Shale | SMCC Heads Up | January 15, 2019. Embargoed and recently published research with a Canadian focus, curated by SMCC for science journalists. Read more>
How sports-related concussions or fractures affect adolescents’ quality of life
Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics Published January 15, 2019 00:00 ET (News release from Journal of Neurosurgery Publishing Group) In a study of health-related quality of life in young athletes who had experienced a sports-related concussion or sports-related extremity fracture, researchers found that adolescents can experience decreased quality of life after injury. However, the deficits generally do not […]
Nesting latitude resets tree swallows’ migration cycle
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Published January 9, 2019 17:01 ET (Brief from the Royal Society) Tracking 133 migratory tree swallows from Alaska to North Carolina, researchers showed how the latitude at which each bird breeds has lasting, cumulative effects on timing of the bird’s migration and arrival and departure from stopover sites. However, […]
First observed evidence shows evolving white dwarfs cool more slowly than thought
Nature Published January 9, 2019 13:00 ET White dwarfs are stellar embers depleted of nuclear energy sources that cool over billions of years. For the first time, researchers have observed evolving white dwarf stars that cool more slowly than had been previously thought. Their observations and subsequent modelling support the theory that processes within a white […]
Second repeating fast radio burst detected from far reaches of universe
Nature: 2 articles here> and here> Published January 9, 2019 13:00 ET The international research team using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope, in Penticton, B.C., reports a repeating fast radio burst, only the second to be recorded, and one of 13 newly detected bursts. At least seven of these bursts were recorded at 400 […]
Heads Up | January 8, 2019
Swallow migration timing | Universe calling (by radio) | Not-quite-so-cool white dwarfs | SMCC Heads Up. Embargoed and recently published research with a Canadian focus, curated by SMCC for science journalists. Read more>
Critter confirms early branching on vertebrates’ fins-to-limbs family tree
Royal Society Open Science Published December 19, 2018 17:01 ET (Brief from the Royal Society) Aïstopods are a highly specialized group of eel-like legless early tetrapods, four-legged vertebrates, and diverged from the tetrapod family tree early on. This study reports a jaw believed to belong to an aïstopod that lived some 310 million years ago – […]
Blood stem-cell transplant to delay MS progression
JAMA: preliminary communication; original investigation; editorial Published January 15, 2019 11:00 ET (News release from JAMA) Researchers compared the effect of a stem cell transplant using a lower-dose, short course of more tolerable immune-specific chemotherapy and antibodies to suppress the immune system versus continuing disease-modifying therapy in 110 patients with relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis. The stem cell transplant performed better than continued drug therapy for patients […]