Weekly PLoS ONE News and Blog Round-Up

In this week’s PLoS ONE media digest: amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s may be beneficital, beer makes people attractive to malarial mosquitoes, declining death rates from cancer, a new fossil crocodile, and more.

The Alzheimer’s Disease-Associated Amyloid β-Protein Is an Antimicrobial Peptide by Soscia et al, was covered by New York Times Health Feed, Business Week, Suite101, Scientist Live, Alzheimer’s Reading Room and Neurophilosophy.

Beer Consumption Increases Human Attractiveness to Malaria Mosquitoes by Lefèvre et al, was covered by DNA India, Birmingham Science News Examiner, Smithsonian.com, Discoblog, Scientificblogging.com and Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Declining Death Rates Reflect Progress against Cancer by Jemal, Ward and Thun was reported in Xinhuanet, U.S. News & World Report, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, Ars Technica and Fight Aging.

A New Horned Crocodile from the Plio-Pleistocene Hominid Sites at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania by Brochu, Njau, Blumenschine and Densmore was covered by Discovery News and Newswise.

Open space loss and land inequality in United States’ cities, 1990–2000 by McDonald, Forman and Karieva was written up in the Conservation magazine, Global Change and Conservation Maven

Network Analytical Tool for Monitoring Global Food Safety Highlights China by Nepusz, Petróczi and Naughton, was covered by Food Safety News, bjhc & im and Flesh & Stone.

A Demonstration of the Transition from Ready-to-Hand to Unready-to-Hand by Dotov, Nie and Chemero, a rare scientific article that cites philosopher Martin Heidegger, was covered by Wired Science and Softpedia.

Winter Active Bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) Achieve High Foraging Rates in Urban Britain by Stelzer, Chittka, Carlton and Ings was described in PlanetEarth and DNA India.

Is it easy to be urban? Convergent success in urban habitats among lineages of a widespread native ant by Menke, Booth, Dunn, Schal, Vargo and Silverman was covered by Science News

Using Imputation to Provide Location Information for Nongeocoded Addresses by Curriero, Kulldorff, Boscoe and Klassen was described at HealthCanal.

Gut Microbiota in Human Adults with Type 2 Diabetes Differs from Non-Diabetic Adults by Larsen et al. was covered by FoodConsumer.org, PRLog and Health Freedom Alliance

pH-Dependent Metal Ion Toxicity Influences the Antibacterial Activity of Two Natural Mineral Mixtures by Cunningham, Jennifer, Summers and Haydel was covered by R&D Magazine and Green Agenda.

Female Scent Signals Enhance the Resistance of Male Mice to Influenza by Litvinova et al, was explained by Ed Yong of Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Female Field Crickets Incur Increased Parasitism Risk When Near Preferred Song by Martin and Wagner was explained by Phased.

Some of our older articles received additional coverage recently:

Could Work Be a Source of Behavioural Disorders? A Study in Horses by Hausberger et al, was presented in TheHorse.com

Altruism in Forest Chimpanzees: The Case of Adoption by Boesch et al was discussed at Big Think.

Athlete Atypicity on the Edge of Human Achievement: Performances Stagnate after the Last Peak, in 1988 by Berthelot et al was discussed in Finding Dulcinea.

Neural substrates of spontaneous musical performance: an FMRI study of jazz improvisation by Limb and Braun was discussed on The Posit Science Blog.

Persistent Cell Motion in the Absence of External Signals: A Search Strategy for Eukaryotic Cells by Li et al was described by BenjaminTseng