Astronomers at the University of Hertfordshire have helped to solve one of the longest standing puzzles in astrophysics— the nature of the enormous explosions known as short-duration gamma ray bursts (GRBs).
In a paper to be published in Nature tomorrow (15th December), they will reveal that around 15% of short-duration bursts originate from galaxies within 300 million light years of the Milky Way – more than 10 times closer than previously thought.
Dr Nial Tanvir who i
JEMA has been contracted directly by the European Commission (commissioned through the European Fusion Development Agreement, EFDA) to design, construct and install 4 sources of power supply, each capable of producing 20 million watts of energy, for the European experimental fusion reactor installations located at Culham in the United Kingdom. The project is expected to last three years.
The contract is a sound example of the confidence these European agencies have in the work of JEMA, es
In the first-ever poll of European consumers, supermarkets, chefs and restaurateurs on attitudes toward seafood and the ocean, 79% said that the environmental impact of seafood is an important factor in their purchasing decisions.
The new study, commissioned by the Seafood Choices Alliance in partnership with Greenpeace, the Marine Conservation Society, WWF and the North Sea Foundation, reveals that 86% of consumers would prefer to buy seafood that is labelled as environmentally re
Responding to a need among cardiologists for a practical textbook that brings together ESC Guidelines and best practice coupled with a strong clinical focus, the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) will publish its first textbook in cardiovascular medicine early next year. Entitled, The ESC Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine, the book will be published 13 January 2006 (1).
According to ESC President Michal Tendera, “Education is central to ESC activities and with the publication of The E
A Christian legend has it that the mistletoe was damned by God to a parasite’s life, because Christ’s cross was made out of its wood. It was hold sacred by ancient Teutons as it symbolised the continuity of life and fertility because of living between heaven and earth, and staying green even in winter. From this belief the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe at Christmas still dates back. Druids (and who does not know Miraculix in the world-famous comic series “Asterix”!?) cut them
Long after the disappearance of the glaciers that once covered much of North America, the land they rested upon is still recovering from their weight – and the slow movement of this recovery includes horizontal motion never seen before, say Purdue scientists.
The research team, led by Eric A. Calais, has found that a large swath of territory in the Northeast is slowly moving southward in relation to the rest of the continent. This region, once covered with massive ice sheets
When a viscous fluid, such as a jar of honey, is stirred and then unstirred, the contents return to their starting points. However, according to research by a team of physicists headed by New York University’s David Pine, the particles of such fluids do not always return to their original locations. The findings are reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature.
It is a well-established consequence of the laws governing fluid motion that when a viscous fluid is stirred and then un
Measurements of the ion-current through the open state of a membrane-protein’s ion channel have allowed scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to obtain a detailed picture of the effect of the protein microenvironment on the affinity of ionizable amino-acid residues for protons.
The findings, reported in the Dec. 15 issue of Nature, are expected to be welcome news for chemists and biophysicists, both experimentalists and theoreticians, because they have prev
A team of researchers led by Université Laval and The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) has discovered a protein that plays a major role in neuropathic pain. This discovery, published in the December 16 issue of Nature, paves the way for the development of new diagnostics and treatments for chronic pain.
Neuropathic pain is a common and severely disabling state that affects millions of people worldwide. Many people suffering from neuropathic pain appear normal, but are
Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have demonstrated that Langerhans cells in the skin, which had been thought to alert the immune system to pathogens, instead dampen the skin’s reaction to infection and inflammation.
This has the potential to significantly alter understanding of the mechanisms underlying many skin disorders such as psoriasis, lupus and skin cancer.
Dendritic cells are found throughout the body and are extremely efficient at alerting the immune syst
Cosmic gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe, have the extreme brilliance of a billion billion Suns and occur several times a day. But they are not all created equal. For several decades astronomers have known that two types exist–long ones that last for tens or hundreds of seconds, and short bursts, which last a few milliseconds to a second. Intense research over the last decade has shown that long bursts are the death throes of massive stars in distant, young, and vig
Physicists at nearly a dozen research institutions, including New York University, have discovered evidence for very high energy gamma rays emitting from the Milky Way, marking the highest energies ever detected from the galactic equator. Their findings, published in the Dec. 16 issue of the Physical Review of Letters, were obtained using the Milagro Gamma Ray Observatory, a new detector located near Los Alamos, N.M., that allows monitoring of the northern sky on a 24-hour, 7-day-per-week basis.
New tomato research has its roots in yielding more food to feed more people, according to Dr. Kendal Hirschi about results announced today.
His team’s study appears in today’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The team made tomato plants over-express the gene, AVP1, which resulted in stronger, larger root systems and that resulted in roots making better use of limited water, said Hirschi, a researcher at Texas A&M University’s Vegetable and Fruit Improvemen
Researchers have discovered a new drug that raises the level of endocannabinoids–the ’brain’s own cannabis’–providing anti-depressant effects. The new research published in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), suggests the new drug, called URB597, could represent a safer alternative to cannabis for the treatment of pain and depression, and open the door to new and improved treatments for clinical depression–a condition that affects around 20
UCSF scientists have determined that the quality of bone matrix, a key component of bone, is regulated by a molecule known as transforming growth factor beta. The finding, they say, suggests a possible target for preventing and treating bone fractures associated with aging and genetic diseases.
The study will be reported later this week in the Online Early Edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The ability of bone to resist damage depends on the mass,
’Essential’ system may be unnecessary in S. mutans
Leave it to the bacteria that cause tooth decay to be able to live without something all cells were thought to require.
Scientists have long believed a certain biochemical pathway involved in the folding and delivery of proteins to cell membranes is essential for survival. Now University of Florida researchers have discovered that Streptococcus mutans, the decay-causing organism that thrives in many a mouth, ca
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