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A new study has found that male humpback whales favor the largest females.

Female humpback whales are usually larger than males to begin with, measuring up to around 50 feet long and weighing approximately 79,000 pounds.

“While obesity is understandably a serious problem in humans, it is interesting to find that in some of the largest animals ever to exist, bigger is indeed better. Thus size does matter!” lead author Adam Pack, an assistant professor of psychology and biology at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, told Discovery News.

Pack, who is also the co-founder and vice president of The Dolphin Institute, and his research team made the determination after studying courting humpback whales for five consecutive years in the waters of the Auau, Kalohi and Pailolo channels off West Maui.

In winter and spring months, the whales assemble on shallow banks and along coastal areas for breeding and calving.

Since females produce a single calf every two to three years on average, and not all females migrate to breeding grounds, males usually far outnumber females at the sites.

Interested males serve as “escorts” for their female of choice, swimming in close proximity to her and, if present, her calf.

The males all gravitated to the largest females, sometimes engaging in dangerous fights to win and maintain the coveted escort position.

“The principal escort’s defensive behaviors include visual displays, such as lunging through the water with ventral throat grooves expanded, making the whale look visually larger, to screens of bubbles expelled from the blowhole or mouth, to chases and physical strikes, sometimes drawing blood from a rival,” Pack explained.

The researchers next measured each whale using both a hand-held sonar device and mathematical calculations based on angle of view and distance.

The scientists even donned snorkeler gear and swam around, and underneath, the courting whales.

Fitness appears to be behind the whales’ fondness for fat and long bodies, since the researchers also discovered that the largest females also produced the biggest calves.

Since whales depend upon stored body fat to support their metabolic requirements, particularly during the winter, the extra heft is necessary for their survival, promoting greater reproductive success and aiding females in the nursing of their offspring.

A new study has shown that “smart growth”, combined with the use of hybrid vehicle technology, could reduce cities’ carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions significantly by 2050.

According to Brian Stone, associate professor of City and Regional Planning, the research shows that expected levels of CO2 emissions from cars and trucks in 2050 could be reduced back to 2000 levels if the full vehicle fleet was converted to hybrid electric vehicles, such as the Toyota Prius or the soon-to-be released Chevy Volt.

This research also found that a doubling of population density in large U.S. cities by 2050 would have a greater impact on CO2 reductions than full hybridization of the vehicle fleet.

Stone’s study looked at 11 major metropolitan regions of the Midwestern U.S. over a 50-year period and took into account three different scenarios: the use of hybrid vehicles and two different urban growth scenarios through which population density was increased over time, a central component of smart growth planning.

“In this study, we looked at two general approaches on how to deal with the challenge of climate change,” said Stone.

“One approach is to improve vehicle technology and become more efficient. We can use less gas and reduce tailpipe emissions of CO2. The second approach is to change behavior by changing the way we design cities. We can travel less and take more walking and transit trips,” he added.

Stone said that it would be possible for virtually all cars on the roads by 2050 to be hybrid electric vehicles, assuming the costs of these vehicles become more competitive with conventional engine technologies.

Today’s hybrid electric vehicles can achieve 40 miles to the gallon and higher.

However, even the full hybridization of the national vehicle fleet by 2050 would not meet the CO2 targets identified though the Kyoto Protocol, an international climate change agreement which the United States has signed but not yet ratified.

To meet these global targets, CO2 emissions from all sectors on the U.S. would need to return to 1990 levels or lower.

According to Stone’s work, meeting this goal in the transportation sector would require a combination of technological improvements and higher density land use patterns in cities.

“If we can help cities to grow in more compact ways, what we call smart growth, it will help reduce emissions even further by allowing people to travel less often, travel shorter distances when they do travel and take advantage of public transit,” said Stone.

Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman G Madhavan Nair today said that European space consortium Arianespace would market home-grown rocket PSLV in Europe and maintained that ISRO does not see the latter as a long-term competitor.

“ISRO does not want to be a competitor of Arianespace. ISRO is looking for cooperation and collaboration with the European space community to evolve next generation of GSLV-Mk III,” he said.

“Similarly (in addition to marketing PSLV), some payloads which do not rightly suit their launcher (rocket), they (Arianespace) will deflect to us,” Nair, also Secretary in the Department of Space, said on the sidelines of an international seminar here.

Chairman and CEO of Arianespace, Jean-Yves Le Gall, who was also present, added “Cooperation (with ISRO) will centre around (marketing in Europe of) PSLV (ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle)”.

Since 1981, Arianespace has launched 13 of ISRO’s satellites. It is slated to launch INSAT-4G towards the end of this year.

Beyond that, barring one or two launches for which ISRO may have to go to Arianespace, Indian space agency is expected to have all launches from Indian soil. Its first flight of GSLV-Mk III, which can carry four tonne class satellite, is expected next year and this rocket is slated to be operational after the first two flights.

Ever wondered why you’ve that recurring dream about being chased or ending up back in the classroom at school? Well, a researcher has come forward to solve the mystery.

Finnish researcher Antti Revonsuo reckons it is your link to when wild animals chased our cavemen ancestors and without them we could be wiped out.

According to Revonsuo, people have inherited the dreams - based on a primitive need to survive - because they train their brains to cope with tricky situations today, reports the Sun.

He says: “It’s pretty certain that our ancestors did dream because dreaming seems to be biologically programmed into our brain, and the brain that our ancestors had was pretty much identical to ours.

“We know that our ancestors lived in an environment which was full of all sorts of fatal dangers.

“The nature of bad dreams and nightmares is that they contain threatening events and force us to go through those simulated threatening events.

“So, in the waking world, when we encounter similar or different kinds of threatening events then we are more prepared to survive when we have been training for them in our dreams.

“Although we may dread our nightmares, they help us deal with the day ahead. So as a species we should be thankful for these fearsome visions.

“They are a good thing. Without nightmares and bad dreams, there is a good chance humanity wouldn’t be here.”

A higher level of education may help lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, but it doesn’t seem to slow memory loss once the decline starts, says a new study.

For the study, researchers tested the thinking skills of 6,500 people with an average age of 72 from the Chicago area with different levels of education.

The education level of people in the study ranged from eight years of school or fewer to 16 or more years of schooling. Interviews and tests about memory and thinking functions were given every three years for an average of 6.5 years.

At the start of the study, those with more education had better memory and thinking skills than those with less education.

However, education was not related to how rapidly these skills declined during the course of the study.

The researchers found that results remained the same regardless of other factors related to education such as occupation and race and the effects of practice with the tests.

“This is an interesting and important finding because scientists have long debated whether aging and memory loss tend to have a lesser affect on highly educated people,” says study author Robert S. Wilson, PhD, with the Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

“While education is associated with the memory’s ability to function at a higher level, we found no link between higher education and how fast the memory loses that ability,” he added.

The study is published in the February 3, 2009, print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

A team of astronomers from East Asia is building the world’s largest radio telescope network, which will look deep into the galaxies and black holes more accurately and determine the orbits of lunar probes.

The array, called the East Asia Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) consortium, consists of 19 radio telescopes from China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) that cover an area with a diameter of 6,000 kilometers from northern Japan’s Hokkaido to western China’s Kunming and Urumqi.

According to Shen Zhiqiang, secretary general of the East Asia VLBI consortium committee, “The actual number of telescopes included could change as the countries involved are building new ones - like the 65-meter-diameter radio telescope being built in Shanghai.”

“In addition, Chinese astronomers have made huge success in applying VLBI technology to determine the orbit of Chang’e-1, China’s first lunar probe,” he added.

Shen’s research team also used VLBI to find the most convincing proof so far that there is a super-massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

The VLBI technology is widely used in radio astronomy. It combines the observations simultaneously made by several telescopes to expand the diameter and increase magnification.

According to Shen, the consortium has carried out experimental observations and frequent academic exchanges since the idea came into being in 2003.

One main task of the consortium is to improve the three-dimensional map of the Milky Way galaxy obtained by Japan’s VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry), according to the project’s development plan.

Hideyuki Kobayashi, director of Japan’s Mizusawa VERA Observatory, earlier said that the consortium would help astronomers obtain high quality data on galactic structures.

Full-scale observations of the consortium are scheduled to start in 2010, which will connect at least 12 Japanese and four Chinese stations, in addition to three Korean ones that are under construction.

US biotech firm Genentech said Friday it would study the offer from Roche for the shares not already owned by the Swiss pharmaceutical group.

A special board committee of Genentech “today urged shareholders to take no action at this time with respect to the announcement by Roche,” a statement from the US firm said.

The special committee will take a formal position within 10 business days, the statement said.

The offer “substantially undervalues the company,” said Charles Sanders, the chairman of the special committee, who said Roche was seeking to take advantage of weak share prices.

“The special committee is disappointed that Roche has taken this unilateral and opportunistic step in an attempt to take advantage of current market conditions. The special committee has been working diligently toward one goal: assuring full, fair value for all of Genentech’s minority shareholders.”

Roche offered 86.50 dollars (66.5 euros) per share for the remaining 44.2 percent in Genentech, the biotech pioneer which underpins Roche’s dominance of the cancer treatment market. But Genentech’s board has balked at the deal.

Talks with Genentech’s board on the offer had been “disappointing,” Roche said in a statement, and therefore the company had decided to submit it directly to shareholders to resolve the issue.

Who loves Lucy? Far fewer people than a Seattle science center hoped when officials paid millions to show the fossil remains of one of the earliest known human ancestors.

Halfway through the five-month exhibit, the Pacific Science Center faces a half-million-dollar loss resulting in layoffs of 8 percent of the staff, furloughs and a wage freeze, President Bryce Seidl said Friday.

Lucy is a 3.2 million-year-old fossilized partial skeleton of a species with chimplike features that walked upright. The discovery in 1974 in Ethiopia forced a major revision of theories about the evolution of Homo sapiens.

The fossil exhibit was successful at the first stop on the tour — Houston in 2007, but the expenses have other museums reconsidering the planned six-year, 10-city tour.

The Seattle center’s staff redesigned the Lucy exhibit, adding a large section on Ethiopian history and artifacts, an audio tour and interactive displays in which visitors can put themselves in the shoes of a fossil hunter.

“It’s a powerful story of evolution and culture and history … but we’re not getting the attendance we need for an exhibit of this scale,” Seidl said.

The center had hoped to draw 250,000 visitors during the exhibit that ends March 8, but only 60,000 have come. Seidl blamed the recession, which has cut into arts and museum revenue nationwide, as well as December snowstorms that curtailed travel within and around Seattle.

The Lucy show cost the center about $2.25 million, Seidl estimated. That includes a $500,000 fee to Ethiopia, which plans to use the money for cultural and scientific programs.

The Field Museum in Chicago withdrew from the tour because of the cost. Debate over whether the irreplaceable fossil should be shipped around the globe led the Denver Museum of Nature & Science to drop the idea after early consideration.

“Lucy may not be anywhere other than Ethiopia after Seattle,” Seidl said.

But Donald Johanson, the American anthropologist who discovered Lucy, said fascination with the skeleton remained strong.

“As I travel around the country lecturing, people seem to have a deep interest in their origins, in their roots,” Johanson said.

Routine gum treatments do not reduce the risk of early delivery in pregnant women with periodontal disease, according to a new study by researchers from Duke University Medical Center and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

It was earlier found that gum disease was associated with very preterm deliveries (defined as less than 32 weeks gestation), which led insurance policies and healthcare providers to recommend scaling and root planing, sometimes referred to as “deep cleaning,” in pregnant women.

It was believed that such care had the potential to reduce preterm delivery risk.

However, the new findings, based on a randomized trial of 1,800 pregnant women with periodontal disease, indicate that routine gum treatments do not reduce the risk of early delivery.

“I’m always asked whether we should mandate dental treatment for all pregnant women. The biggest implication of this study is that this level of standard periodontal care will not affect the birth outcome,” said Amy Murtha, MD, director of obstetrics research at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC.

However, Murtha said that the findings do not suggest that pregnant women should not get dental exams and treatment as needed; they should.

“Our study emphasizes that treating periodontal disease during pregnancy is safe, but that standard periodontal care is not enough,” said Murtha.

Steven Offenbacher, DDS, PhD, the study’s lead investigator said that progression, or worsening of periodontal disease occurs in about 25 percent of pregnancies.

The bacterial infection attacks the teeth-supporting tissues below the gum line. If left untreated, it can lead to tooth loss as well as a host of other problems.

For the study, pregnant women with periodontal disease were randomly assigned to two groups: one received periodontal treatment before 23 weeks gestation; the other did not.

Overall, no significant differences were reported regarding obstetric or neonatal outcomes when the two groups were compared.

Despite the findings, Murtha said much remains unknown about the relationship between the two conditions.

“Periodontal disease and poor pregnancy outcomes travel together, but we don’t know why.”

Nor do researchers understand how or why pregnancy appears to jumpstart the onset and progression of the disease.

Murtha added that it might be that a more aggressive approach to periodontal disease management could have a different outcome.

He presented the findings at the annual meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine in San Diego.

New data has led scientists to disapprove a theory that a large comet exploded over North America 12,900 years ago, causing a shock wave that traveled at hundreds of kilometers per hour and triggering continent-wide wildfires.

Dr Sandy Harrison from the University of Bristol and colleagues tested the theory by examining charcoal and pollen records to assess how fire regimes in North America changed between 15 and 10,000 years ago, a time of large and rapid climate changes.

Their results provide no evidence for continental-scale fires, but support the fact that the increase in large-scale wildfires in all regions of the world during the past decade is related to an increase in global warming.

According to Dr Harrison, fire is the most ubiquitous form of landscape disturbance and has important effects on climate through the global carbon cycle and changing atmospheric chemistry.

This has triggered an interest in knowing how fire has changed in the past, and particularly how fire regimes respond to periods of major warming.

“The end of the Younger Dryas, about 11,700 years ago, was an interval when the temperature of Greenland warmed by over 5 degrees Celsius in less than a few decades,” said Dr Harrison.

“We used 35 records of charcoal accumulation in lake sediments from sites across North America to see whether fire regimes across the continent showed any response to such rapid warming,” he added.

The team found clear changes in biomass burning and fire frequency whenever climate changed abruptly, and most particularly when temperatures increased at the end of the Younger Dryas cold phase.

Understanding whether rapid changes in climate have caused wild fires in the past will help understand whether current changes in global temperatures will cause more frequent fires at the present time.

Such fires have a major impact on the economy and health of the population, as well as feeding into the increase in global warming.