Is the Country Ready for a Manhattan Project National Historical Park?
Unfortunately, the University of Chicago would not be included in the park (via National Parks Traveler)
In Cancer-Ridden Rats, Loneliness Can Kill: Isolation and Stress Identified as Contributing to Breast Cancer Risk
Social isolation and related stress could contribute to human breast cancer susceptibility, research from a rat model designed at the University of Chicago to identify environmental mechanisms contributing to cancer risk shows. The researchers found that isolation and stress result in a 3.3-fold increase in the risk of developing cancer among rats with naturally occurring mammary tumors.
The research establishes, for the first time, that isolation and stress could be a factor in human breast cancer risk, said Martha McClintock, a psychologist at the University of Chicago and an author of a paper in current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers at the University have been studying social isolation in the context of breast cancer development after having found that that many women living in high-crime neighborhoods must deal with a variety of stressors, including social isolation. In particular, African American women have been noted to have an earlier onset of breast cancer, although total incidence is similar to women from other ancestries…. (continues @ ScienceDaily)
…and I thought Martha only published on pheromones
Library graffiti at the University of Chicago (via Laura/Oppie/L’opps, LA Times)
Sands of Gobi Desert Yield New Species of Nut-Cracking Dinosaur (via UChicago)
Plants or meat: That’s about all that fossils ever tell paleontologists about a dinosaur’s diet. But the skull characteristics of a new species of parrot-beaked dinosaur and its associated gizzard stones indicate that the animal fed on nuts and/or seeds. These characteristics present the first solid evidence of nut-eating in any dinosaur.
“The parallels in the skull to that in parrots, the descendants of dinosaurs most famous for their nut-cracking habits, is remarkable,” said Paul Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. Sereno and two colleagues from the People’s Republic of China announce their discovery June 17 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
The paleontologists discovered the new dinosaur, which they’ve named Psittacosaurus gobiensis, in the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia in 2001, and spent years preparing and studying the specimen. The dinosaur is approximately 110 million years old, dating to the mid-Cretaceous Period.
The quantity and size of gizzard stones in birds correlates with dietary preference. Larger, more numerous gizzard stones point to a diet of harder food, such as nuts and seeds. “The psittacosaur at hand has a huge pile of stomach stones, more than 50, to grind away at whatever it eats, and this is totally out of proportion to its three-foot body length,” Sereno explained…. (continues @ UChicago News)
Latpeep-Bunnahtash Debate (via laurao, University of Chicago Magazine)
Dollar milkshakes at the Peep Shop (via laurao, University of Chicago Magazine)
