First passive recordings from ocean gliders provide insight into whale behavior for some endangered species
Like robots of the deep, autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, are growing in number and use in the oceans to perform scientific missions ranging from monitoring climate change to mapping the deep sea floor and surveying ancient shipwrecks. Another use for these versatile platforms has now been found: monitoring the lives of whales.
Marine mammals are major
A Phase II clinical trial is under way at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in conjunction with the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine to determine if bevacizumab (also referred to as Avastin®, an anti-angiogenesis drug that is designed to inhibit the growth of blood vessels in tumors) in combination with abdominal radiation therapy and chemotherapy can reduce localized pancreatic tumors that have not metastasized or spread to other systems or organs in the body. Northwestern Memor
Researchers at the University of Virginia Health System have identified a molecular target, or receptor, for potential drugs to treat acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a sudden and life-threatening failure of the lung. Interestingly, the receptor is in the same class that gives people their sense of sight, smell and taste (G-protein coupled receptors.)
In ARDS, patients cannot breathe on their own because fluid gets into the lungs. Essentially, the body’s immune system causes lu
A new review of studies supports the government’s opinion that too little evidence exists to support a device that uses balloon-like pants as a treatment for heart failure.
External counterpulsation (ECP), a noninvasive therapy to improve blood flow to the heart, is most commonly used to relieve hard-to-treat chest pain for heart patients who are not candidates for surgery.
Last year, the equipment manufacturer asked the federal government to expand its coverage o
As the prism of our senses, the human brain has ways of refracting sensory input in defiance of reality.
This is seen, for example, in the placebo effect, when simple sugar pills or inert salves taken by unwitting subjects are seen to ease pain or have some other beneficial physiological effect. How the brain processes this faked input and prompts the body to respond is largely a mystery of neuroscience.
Now, however, scientists have begun to peel back some of the neuro
In one of the first studies to empirically compare the reproductive success of hermaphrodites and male and female populations, biologists from the University of Oxford make use of the rare and extreme sexual diversity displayed in a species of European weed to test the hypothesis that hermaphrodites have been selected in regions with frequent extinction and re-colonization.
“[We used] the general theory for the genetics of populations, which tells us that repeated bouts of extinction an
New report suggests promising areas for intervention
With the rapid aging of the population, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is intensifying the search for strategies to preserve brain health as people grow older. The effort moved an important step forward today with a report by an expert panel to the NIH, suggesting a number of promising avenues for maintaining or enhancing cognitive and emotional function. Specifically, the group said, education, cardiovascular health, p
Would you notice if all the objects around you simultaneously moved farther away? In a virtual-reality laboratory in Oxford, researchers have obtained the puzzling finding that humans can be “blind” to changes like this.
Computer-generated vision has shown that viewing a scene with two eyes, or walking around it, provides enough information to calculate its 3D structure. To find out how far away things are by this method, however, requires knowledge of the separation of the eyes o
Melanoma is the most common cancer amongst us. It is the cutaneous tumour with the worst prognosis and its incidence is growing. Although possible overdiagnosis has been criticised, the reality is that, the death rate has gone up from 6,000 to 9,000 cases in ten years. In the USA, in concrete, it is the main cause of death amongst women between 19 and 50 years of age. According to specialists from the University Hospital and from the USA, early diagnosis guarantees cure in 99% of patients with melan
Scientists in Germany have found that a significant route of transmission of Salmonella in non egg-laying snakes is from the mother to the offspring during pregnancy and birth.
One source of human Salmonella infection is associated with pet reptiles and these cases are often serious – sometimes causing septicaemia, meningitis or even death, especially among children and those at risk due to a compromised immune system.
A high percentage of snakes carry the food-poisoni
A recent study shows that hundreds of genes contribute to cell growth and cell division. For the first time these genes, many of which are potential contributors to cancer, have been mapped in a single systematic study.
The group led by Professor Jussi Taipale (University of Helsinki and National Public Health Institute of Finland) has identified genes contributing to cell growth and cell division by systematic silencing of most of the genes in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogast
The University of Rome “La Sapienza” and the Italian National Committee for relations between the Italian Government and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), on occasion of the 60th anniversary of the foundation of the FAO award
*50 grants for scientific research papers, of the amount of 2000 Euro each.
Deadline: 30.06.2006
*10 grants for postgraduate research, of the amount of 17 000 Euro each.
Deadline: 31.03.2006
Applications a
Tiny regular bumps on a surface, such as the wing of an airplane, can substantially reduce total air resistance, and thereby the consumption of fuel. Wind tunnel tests at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden, show that small cylindrical bumps on a surface delay the transition from laminar flow (well-ordered) to turbulent (chaotic) when air flows over a surface-a crucial factor in total air resistance.
If this finding, made by an international research team at
Scientists have discovered that rarest of things: a chicken with teeth – crocodile teeth to be precise.
Contrary to the well-known phrase, ‘As rare as hens’ teeth,’ the researchers say they have found a naturally occurring mutant chicken called Talpid that has a complete set of ivories.
The team, based at the Universities of Manchester and Wisconsin, have also managed to induce teeth growth in normal chickens – activating genes that have lain dormant for 80 million ye
Manchester is set to become a major contributor to stem-cell research with the opening of one of the most hi-tech facilities in the UK.
The North West Embryonic Stem Cell Centre, based at St Mary’s Hospital and The University of Manchester, will develop new treatments for diseases such as cancer and diabetes.
The £2 million centre will produce embryonic stem cells of high enough quality for human transplantation – one of only a handful of laboratories in the UK able to do
“Efficient flue gas purification equipment at large waste incineration plants can reduce flue gas emissions, and cut the amounts of fine particles and heavy metals containing harmful compounds, to the levels required by the Waste Incineration Directive,” explains senior research scientist Carl Wilen of the Technical Research Centre of Finland. Fine particle emissions from waste incineration and their purification have been studied as part of the Tekes FINE Particles technology programme.
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