Mobile phones are not associated with an increased risk of the most common type of brain tumour, according to the findings of the first UK study of the relationship between mobile phone use and risk of glioma.
A four-year study by the Universities of Nottingham, Leeds and Manchester, and the Institute of Cancer Research, London, found those who had regularly used a mobile phone were not at a greater overall risk of developing this type of tumour. The research is published onli
Plans to build a road tunnel to ease congestion near Stonehenge could soon be scrapped threatening the government-backed recovery of one of Britain’s rarest birds.
Two over-ground alternatives to the tunnel – set to be detailed in consultation documents due today – would destroy nesting and roosting sites of the secretive stone-curlew. The bird has two UK strongholds, one of which is the area surrounding the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. The new road plans would also harm prosp
Building spacecraft is a tough job. They are precision pieces of engineering that have to survive in the airless environment of space, where temperatures can swing from hundreds of degrees Celsius to hundreds of degree below zero in moments. Once a spacecraft is in orbit, engineers have virtually no chance of repairing anything that breaks. But what if a spacecraft could fix itself?
Thanks to a new study funded by ESA’s General Studies Programme, and carried out by the D
The first genome-wide screen for protein complexes is completed
Today researchers in Germany announce they have finished the first complete analysis of the ”molecular machines” in one of biology’s most important model organisms: S. cerevisiae (baker’s yeast). The study from the biotechnology company Cellzome, in collaboration with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), appears in this week’s online edition of Nature.
“To carry out their tasks, most proteins wo
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have made an important theoretical breakthrough in the understanding of energy dissipation and thermal breakdown in metallic carbon nanotubes. Their discovery will help move nanotube wires from laboratory to marketplace.
The remarkable electrical and mechanical properties of metallic carbon nanotubes make them promising candidates for interconnects in future nanoscale electronic devices. But, like tiny metal wires, nan
Pitt researchers develop nanoscale semiconductor islands small enough to hold single electrons
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have developed a way to create semiconductor islands smaller than 10 nanometers in scale, known as quantum dots. The islands, made from germanium and placed on the surface of silicon with two-nanometer precision, are capable of confining single electrons.
“We believe this development moves us closer to our goal of constructing a q
The ability to retain memory about the details of a natural scene is unaffected by the distraction of another activity and this information is retained in “working memory” according to a study recently published in Journal of Vision, an online, free access publication of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO). These results reinforce the notion that humans maintain useful information about previous fixations in long-term working memory rather than the limited capacity of v
Scientists at the UK’s leading plant science centre have uncovered a gene that could help to develop new varieties of crop that will be able to cope with the changing world climate. Researchers funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) at the John Innes Centre in Norwich have identified the gene in barley that controls how the plant responds to seasonal changes in the length of the day. This is key to understanding how plants have adapted their flowering
Snow is the source of glacial deposits found at the base of the majestic volcanoes and mountains dotting the mid-latitude and tropical regions of Mars. Based on an innovative blend of geological observations and climate modeling created by a team of American and French scientists, the finding appears in Science.
Discovery of the source of the tropical glaciers ends a 30-year Martian mystery. In 1976, cameras aboard NASA’s Viking Mission to Mars captured unprecedented views of the
Scientists at Virginia Tech have developed a single-step process for creating nonwoven fibrous mats from a small organic molecule – creating a new nanoscale material with potential applications where biocompatible materials are required, such as scaffolds for tissue growth and drug delivery.
The research will be presented in the Jan. 20 issue of Science, in the article, “Phospholipid Nonwoven Electrospun Membranes,” by Matthew G. McKee, a recent Ph.D. graduate in chemical eng
New view attained of electronic orbitals of separating molecules
Imagine you are standing, John Wayne style, on the backs of two runaway horses pulling a stagecoach. You try to bring the horses to a stop but instead the harnesses break, the horses separate, and an unlucky passenger gets thrown from the stage.
You learned, first, you are not John Wayne (because he always succeeded). But because you were standing at the heart of the action, you alone of all the bystande
Investigating the harmful health effects of excess fat, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a protein that triggers death in mammalian cells overloaded with saturated fat.
When the researchers halted production of this protein, called EF1A-1, the cells were able to thrive in ordinarily damaging amounts of the saturated fat palmitate, a fat abundant in Western diets. At the same concentration of palmitate, normal cells still produc
A group of Northwestern University researchers is developing a novel gene therapy aimed at selectively turning off one of the genes involved in the development of Parkinson’s disease.
The gene therapy, described in the January online issue of the journal Experimental Neurology, was designed by Martha Bohn and her laboratory group at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Bohn is Medical Research Council Professor and director of the neurobiology progra
By tracing the 30-million year history of variation in a gene found in plants such as tomatoes and tobacco, biologists at the University of California, San Diego have found new evidence to support an old idea — that some evolutionary changes are irreversible.
Their study, published this week in an early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offers new support for the idea that the loss of complex traits, like eyes, wings or in this cas
Scientists at the Johnson Space Center in Houston were excited and awed Tuesday by what they saw when the sample-return canister from the Stardust spacecraft was opened.
“It exceeds all expectations,” said Donald Brownlee, a University of Washington astronomy professor who is principal investigator, or lead scientist, for Stardust. “It’s a huge success. We can see lots of impacts. There are big ones, there are small ones.”
Stardust returned to Earth in a spectacular re-entr
Inbred strains of rats differ in how aggressively they seek cocaine after a few weeks of use, researchers say.
The finding, posted online Jan. 18 by Psychopharmacology, is another piece of evidence that genetics plays a role in the relapse of drug-seeking behavior in humans, says Dr. Paul J. Kruzich, behavioral neuroscientist at the Medical College of Georgia and lead study author.
It also fingers glutamate, a neurotransmitter involved in learning and memory, as an accom
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