Cell biology studies may lay groundwork for a novel HIV treatment
New research on signaling pathways in immune cells bolsters evidence of connections between the central nervous system and the immune system. The findings may also advance the scientific foundation for a potential HIV treatment that may block the virus that causes AIDS.
The cell culture study by a research team from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania appears in th
Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have demonstrated that normal development of the eye requires the right amount of a neural stem cell gene be expressed at the right time and place.
Neural stem cells are cells that can differentiate into different cell types in the nervous system. In the developing eye, retinal neural stem cells differentiate to form the neurons of the adult eye and form the optic nerve.
Led by Dr. Larysa H. Pevny, an ass
“Lighthouses in the Sky” Yield Biggest-Ever 3-D Map of the Cosmos
A team of astronomers led by Nikhil Padmanabhan and David Schlegel has published the largest three-dimensional map of the universe ever constructed, a wedge-shaped slice of the cosmos that spans a tenth of the northern sky, encompasses 600,000 uniquely luminous red galaxies, and extends 5.6 billion light-years deep into space, equivalent to 40 percent of the way back in time to the Big Bang.
Schlegel i
Mechanical behaviour of hybrid SiO2-PMMA coatings measured by nanoindentation
Increasing the surface hardness of many materials opens them up for use in a wide variety of new applications. These new hybrid materials could be used in areas like anticorrosion coatings for metals, scratch and abrasion resistant coatings for plastics, antistatic films plus colour decorative coatings for glasses and plastics.
The sol-gel method of materials preparation is a suitable techniqu
Amplitude modulator using erbium doped polycrystalline CdS thin films
Demands on digital communications are increasing at an exponential rate. The need for innovative advances in this area means research on optical and electrical properties of CdS thin films are of interest. It is already known that CdS thin films show promise in conversion of energy applications such as for photovoltaic devices and sensors but they may also be suited for other applications. These applications i
According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the Big Bang represents The Beginning, the grand event at which not only matter but space-time itself was born. While classical theories offer no clues about existence before that moment, a research team at Penn State has used quantum gravitational calculations to find threads that lead to an earlier time. “General relativity can be used to describe the universe back to a point at which matter becomes so dense that its equations don’t hold u
Carbon fullerenes now have metallic cousins, ‘hollow golden cages’
Scientists have uncovered a class of gold atom clusters that are the first known metallic hollow equivalents of the famous hollow carbon fullerenes known as buckyballs.
The evidence for what their discoverers call “hollow golden cages” appeared today in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The fullerene is made up of a sphere of 60 carbon (C) atoms; gol
In the run up to the launch of the European MetOp-A satellite – scheduled for 17 July 2006 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan – the European scientific community has gathered at ESRIN, ESA’s Earth observation centre in Frascati, Italy, for the first EUMETSAT Polar System/MetOp Research Announcement of Opportunity workshop.
MetOp-A, developed by ESA in collaboration with the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), will be Europe’s first polar-orbi
Dundee today moved a step closer to becoming Scotland’s city of wireless innovation, with the announcement of a partnership between the University of Abertay Dundee and LastMile Communications, the British company pioneering a wireless delivery platform using WiFi.
Under the agreement, the Abertay campus will become a test bed for LastMile’s state-of-the-art node-based wireless information system. The technology offers end user-focused content to mobile devices on demand, and tailo
Mobile Carriers, Operators, Device Companies Present New Standards-based Model for Content Authoring
Today, the World Wide Web Consortium announces the publication of the Device Independence Authoring Language (DIAL), which facilitates authoring for an ever-expanding range of mobile devices. The W3C Device Independence Working Group invites review and discussion with the community of this First Public Working Draft.
“The DIAL suite makes the most of existing, established
Children who are poor but have parents who take an interest in their schooling and read to them when they are young are more likely to pull themselves out of poverty, new research published today shows.
The report, called Bucking the Trend, also builds on earlier research showing the importance of work for parents if their children are to break out of cycles of deprivation. Children who live in poverty are more likely to grow up to be poor, with 16-year-olds growing up in a
A University of Dundee led initiative aimed at making community-based further and higher education more accessible will be launched in Glasgow on Wednesday 17 May.
The Scottish Community Learning and Development Work-Based and Part-Time Training Consortium brings together four Scottish universities, 10 further education institutions and three community-based training providers from across Scotland.
Chaired by Ian Ball, vice-dean of the University of Dundee’s Faculty of E
There are significant differences between European Union countries and non-EU countries when it comes to reporting about Cardiac Rhythm Management (CRM) device technology, performance and adverse events and these differences can cause problems for the general public if steps are not taken to minimize them, according to the results of a policy conference held by the ESC’s European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA).
Because of variations in regulatory requirements and approval processes, a new
Top European marine biodiversity experts in Lecce, Italy.
Marine biodiversity was ‘exposed’ on a number of different levels in Lecce, Italy 8th-11th May 2006, where MarBEF (Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning) a European Network of Excellence held its third general assembly in a ‘conference style’ meeting. On the agenda were talks by members on their research varying from ‘The paradox of the plankton’ and ‘The role of native and/or invasive ecosystem engineers in expla
Manchester is hosting an international conference on genetic counselling, with 75 delegates from professional organizations, universities and clinics all over the world, including countries such as France, Italy, India, Japan, Australia, South Africa, Canada, Cuba and the US.
The International Genetic Counselling Education conference, from 15-17 May 2006, comes as the debate around medical genetics takes another turn with the UK fertility watchdog backing wider screening. The Hum
Scientists studying malaria-carrying mosquitoes and the effects of the disease on people are about to undertake a unique experiment in West Africa.
The researchers plan to examine the factors in climate variation that can affect disease epidemics. They have built an indoor experimental lab in the guise of a specially constructed traditional African thatched hut, to replicate conditions that many people live in. Located in the Sahel region of Niger, the hut is equipped with inst
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