Research

Scientists have discovered that chimpanzees in Tanzania are falling ill and dying from an AIDS-like disease -- a surprising finding that could lead to insights into the illness and, perhaps, to a vaccine. The study, published in Thursday's edition of the British research journal Nature, showed that chimps infected by certain strains of simian immunodeficiency virus, a precursor to HIV, died 10 to 16 times more frequently than uninfected chimps during a nine-year study.

Eating red meat increases the chances of dying prematurely, according to a large federal study offering powerful new evidence that a diet that regularly includes steaks, burgers and pork chops is hazardous to your health. The study of more than 500,000 middle-age and elderly Americans found that those who consumed the equivalent of about a small hamburger every day were more than 30% more likely to die during the 10 years they were followed, mostly from heart disease and cancer.

Long before Hollywood felt comfortable expressing its politics, medicine and medical research were the entertainment industry's causes of choice. People who think that celebrity interest in medical science begins and ends with cosmetic surgery need to take a look at the names on the buildings at Cedars-Sinai: Steven Spielberg, George Burns and Gracie Allen.

Desert locusts are normally solitary individuals who eke out a meager subsistence while avoiding others of their species. But when food sources become abundant, such as after a rain, they transform into ravening packs of billions of insects that can strip a landscape bare. The key to the transformation, researchers said Friday, is the brain chemical serotonin, the chemical that in humans modulates anger, aggression, mood, appetite, sexuality and a host of other behaviors.

Aficionados of the computer-based game Tetris describe the manipulation of its geometric shapes as mind-bending, time-expending and utterly absorbing. But an inoculation against the mental anguish of war memories? Who'd have guessed it?

If you're looking for a sympathetic ear, or worse, sage relationship advice from romantic comedies, well, they're just not that into you. It seems that the ideas commonly put forth by such movies -- a singular soul mate; deception in the name of desire; flashy, eloquent declarations of love -- can lead many to unrealistic expectations for their own love lives, say researchers in Scotland.

Four miles south of the Arctic Circle, the morning sky is streaked with apricot. Frozen rivers split the tundra of the Seward Peninsula, coiling into vast lakes. And on a silent, wind-whipped pond, a lone figure, sweating and panting, shovels snow off the ice. The young woman with curly reddish hair stops, scribbles data, snaps a photo, grabs a heavy metal pick and stabs at white orbs in the thick black ice.

A study published Thursday by California researchers provides the clearest picture yet of the subtle, slow-motion warping of the earth's surface that can happen after an earthquake on a buried fault. The research focused on a magnitude 6.6 earthquake in Iran and details how seismic forces deform the ground. Scientists said it can help us better understand the myriad faults in Southern California.

New York City authorities this week charged the son of University of Chicago professor Norman Golb with identity theft, criminal impersonation and harassment in connection with a campaign to smear opponents of his father's scholarly theories. At the center of the controversy are the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls, religiously significant documents that have provoked controversy since they were discovered six decades ago.

A profound shift away from California's more transient and migrant-dependent past will soon produce the state's first generation of adults whose majority will be native-born, researchers at USC said in a study released Monday. More than 70% of Californians ages 15 to 24 were born and raised in the state, according to the report, "The New Homegrown Majority in California." By contrast, nearly two-thirds of state residents 45 to 54 years old were born out of state.