As scientists and engineers build devices at smaller and smaller scales, grasping the dynamics of how materials behave when they are subjected to electrical signals, sound and other manipulations has proven to be beyond the reach of standard scientific techniques. But now a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers has found a way to time such effects at the nanometer scale, in essence clocking the movements of atoms as they are manipulated using electric fields.
The accomplis
Is that salt marsh healthy? To answer this, Sea Grant biologists are cracking open common marsh snails and counting parasitic worms. Their claim: the more parasites, the healthier the marsh.
While the parasite hypothesis may conflict with conventional ideas about infectious disease and human health (malaria, for example, is caused by a parasite), the worms the scientists are investigating are not just any kind of parasite.
For one, these worms, known as trematodes, must
The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) wants an extra 433 million euros per year for top research. The organisation announces this on 22 May with the launch of its strategy for 2007-2010. The money is intended for excellent researchers, consolidating strengths and improving the benefits for society.
If the Netherlands is to contribute to the Lisbon objectives, as agreed within the EU, then a number of bottlenecks in its knowledge system need to be vigorously tackled.
Scientists at The University of Manchester are to create the first 3D model of the maze-like crystals known as Zeolites.
Professor Michael Anderson of the University’s Centre for Microporous Materials will lead an international research team in a bid to create the first 3D ‘map’ of the material.
Zeolites are porous crystals commonly known as molecular sieves. They are made up of a complex maze of tunnels which can be used to purify or filter materials such as
AKARI, the new Japanese infrared sky surveyor mission in which ESA is participating, saw ‘first light’ on 13 April 2006 (UT) and delivered its first images of the cosmos. The images were taken towards the end of a successful checkout of the spacecraft in orbit.
The mission, formerly known as ASTRO-F, was launched on 21 February 2006 (UT) from the Uchinoura Space Centre in Japan. Two weeks after launch the satellite reached its final destination in space – a polar orbit around Ear
One extra chromosome, one damaged chromosome, or pieces of chromosomes missing. Eight children with four different disorders with autistic features all had one such aberration in their genes. This is shown in a dissertation from the Sahlgrenska Academy at Göteborg University in Sweden.
The children in the study had Asperger’s syndrome, infantile autism, ADHD, and Rett’s syndrome. These are so-called autism spectrum disorders that all involve some form of contact disturbance. The
Experts in Learning and Teaching attended the launch of a new government funded Centre of Excellence at the University of Hertfordshire on Thursday 18 May.
The new Blended Learning Unit (BLU) was established last year through the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) as a Centre for Excellence in Teaching or Learning. Its remit is to exploit the huge benefits offered by technology to provide new ways of Learning and Teaching.
Professor Peter Bullen, Head of
A WORLDWIDE initiative led by Manchester Metropolitan University to assess problems and develop solutions for the global aviation industry has been launched with £5 million from the UK Government.
Announced on May 18, 2006 by Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling, the funding is one of 11 competitive bid awards made under the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) to help build closer ties between business and higher education and turn ideas into enterprise.
A
The risks of suffering from breast cancer are mostly linked to reproductive habits. This is not goods news for female university students today, as they have the profile of potential ill breast cancer patients. The research coordinator of the Hospital Clinico of Granada, Dr. Nicolás Olea, reasserts this idea with a study he carried out with over 500 women who were admitted to that hospital between 1996 and 1998 to have a breast cancer-related operation. Approximately half of them had a breast tu
Scientists of the University of Jaen are working in a project, pioneer in the world, to improve the treatment of hallucinations, by means of acting in the attention processes using virtual reality techniques. It is a project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology, carried out by the ‘Evaluación Psicológica’ group, focused on the development of psychological methods that complement pharmacological treatments in order to try to control psychotic symptoms.
Project leader
New MBL study results may aid battle against insect-borne diseases
Scientists studying the widespread symbiotic bacteria Wolbachia have long been interested in its ability to proliferate. One way it does this is by hijacking sperm of its insect hosts and genetically tricking them to bear more infected females, the only sex that transmits the bacteria. Now, a new study from the MBL (Marine Biological Laboratory), published in the May 18 issue of PLoS Pathogens, demonstrates that
Enables lower-temperature semiconductor processing
A team of researchers have achieved a long-sought scientific goal: using laser light to break specific molecular bonds. The process uses laser light, instead of heat, to strip hydrogen atoms from silicon surfaces, a key step in the manufacture of computer chips and solar cells.
The new technique was developed by Philip Cohen, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Minnesota, working with
For many, sea-level rise is a remote and distant threat faced by people like the residents of the Tuvalu Islands in the South Pacific, where the highest point of land is only 5 meters (15 feet) above sea level and tidal floods occasionally cover their crops in seawater.
Now, however, a recently published study by researchers from The Earth Institute at Columbia University and the International Institute for Environment and Development suggests that as much as 10 percent of the
Researchers have known for years that damaged DNA can lead to human diseases such as cancer, but how damage occurs–and what causes it–has remained less clear.
Now, computational chemists at the University of Georgia have discovered for the first time that when a proton is knocked off one of the pairs of bases that make up DNA, a chain of damage begins that causes “lesions” in the DNA. These lesions, when replicated in the copying mechanisms of DNA, can lead to serious disorders such as c
Using time series analyses of a 22-year record of satellite observations across the northern circumpolar high latitudes, scientists at the Woods Hole Research Center are assessing trends in vegetation photosynthetic activity. The results indicate that tundra areas consistently and predominantly show greening trends while forested areas show browning, indicating that the boreal forest biome might be responding to climate change in previously unexpected ways. This research is highlighted in the
The continuing disintegration of Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 has allowed ESA scientists to see into the interior of the comet. Using a revolutionary camera attached to the ESA Optical Ground Station on Tenerife, they have followed the detailed twists and turns of various comet fragments.
The superconducting camera, SCAM, is an ultra fast photon counting camera, developed by ESA. It is cooled to just 300 thousandths of a degree above absolute zero. This enables its sensitiv
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