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Low vitamin D blood levels are linked to greater risk of heart disease in whites and Chinese, but not in blacks and Hispanics, according to a study appearing this week in JAMA, a journal published by the American Medical Association. Growing evidence has suggested that low blood levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin are associated with higher risk of developing coronary heart disease among whites.

A 20-year puzzle as to how the heart regulates contraction appears to have been solved by researchers from the University of Bristol. The findings, published in the journal Biophysics, paves the way to improving our understanding of what goes wrong when the heart fails. When the heart beats (contracts), the contractile machinery is switched on by an increase in calcium within the cell.

Our results emphasise the importance of a more general evolutionary view of cognition Fish have the ability to communicate with each other while hunting their prey in ways that were previously known only for humans, great apes, and ravens, according to new research. A study led by Alexander Vail, a Gates Cambridge Scholar at the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology, found that groupers and coral trout perform a pointing signal to indicate the location of hidden prey to cooperative hunting partners including moray eels, octopuses and Napoleon wrasses.

Elite female athletes often feel a sense of isolation and pressure to tackle personal and professional adversity on their own—even while struggling with issues such as bullying, eating disorders, depression and sexual abuse, according to research from the University of Alberta. Researchers at the U of A ed high-performance elite female athletes to better understand the types of adversity they face, and more important, how they overcome it, learn from it and grow.

A model of the spread of gossip on Twitter prior to the Higgs boson discovery announcement has been developed by University of Birmingham computer scientists, according to research published on the online repository, ArXiv. For the first time scientists have been able to analyse the dynamics of social media on a global scale before, during and after the announcement of a major scientific discovery.

Sussex showcases academic research online Months of work culminated this week with the launch of Sussex Research Online (SRO), which showcases the University's research to the external world and contains a record of all research 'outputs' by academics at Sussex. SRO contains information about peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, reports, PhD theses and other publications - providing direct online access to the full text where possible.

"Whenever people with great minds get together, there is the opportunity for a spark," said Tashia Morgridge, at left with fellow UW-Madison alum and husband John Morgridge, addressing hundreds of people during Thursday's grand opening ceremony for the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. The Morgridges helped spark the creation of the Institutes when they joined Gov.

By Solmaz Barazesh Research/Penn State Five centuries after his death, Christopher Columbus remains a mysterious and controversial figure. Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece all claim the celebrated navigator and explorer as one of their own, yet there are few accurate records pertaining to Columbus' personal life and identity.

Archaeologists have disproved the fifty-year-old theory underpinning our understanding of how the famous stone statues were moved around Easter Island. Fieldwork led by researchers at University College London and The University of Manchester, has shown the remote Pacific island's ancient road system was primarily ceremonial and not solely built for transportation of the figures.

Grants to support innovation in basic science, energy security, climate change LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, January 21, 2010?Five Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have been awarded five-year research grants under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act through the U.S. Department of Energy?s prestigious Office of Science Early Career Research Program, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced recently.