The millions of mammography exams performed each year in Europe save thousands of women’s lives, but if the data from all breast cancer screening procedures was made available to clinicians and researchers across the continent they could save many more. That is the vision behind MammoGrid.
The MammoGrid project is studying the commercial possibilities for its distributed computing environment that employs existing Grid technologies for the creation of a European database of mam
Looking at atmospheric disturbances during space storms
Scientists from NASA and the National Science Foundation discovered a way to combine ground and space observations to create an unprecedented view of upper atmosphere disturbances during space storms.
Large, global-scale disturbances resemble weather cold fronts. They form in the Earth’s electrified upper atmosphere during space storms. The disturbances result from plumes of electrified plasma that form in the i
A new study has shown for the first time that giving two chemotherapy drugs to women with advanced endometrial cancer after surgery reduced the risk of recurrence by 29% and extended survival by 32% compared with women who received whole abdominal irradiation. The findings could improve the care for the 15% to 20% of patients with endometrial cancer who have advanced disease. The study will be published online December 5 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO).
Endometrial cancer is t
Recent evidence from the Huygens Probe of the Cassini Mission suggests that Titan, the largest moon orbiting Saturn, is a world where rivers of liquid methane sculpt channels in continents of ice. Surface images even show gravel-sized pieces of water ice that resemble rounded stones lying in a dry riverbed on Earth.
But with a surface temperature of minus 179 degrees Celsius and an atmospheric pressure 1-1/2 times that of Earth, could fluvial processes on Titan be anything lik
By soaking up moisture with their roots and later releasing it from their leaves, plants play an active role in regulating the climate. In fact, in vegetated ecosystems, plants are the primary channels that connect the soil to the atmosphere, with plant roots controlling the below-ground dynamics.
“Most climate models assume that roots are shallow — usually within 6 feet of the surface — and that only the soil moisture near the surface can significantly impact the climate,” said Pr
Dispelling years of anecdotes in travelogues, the popular press, and scholarly works, biologists from the University of Bristol argue that it is nearly impossible for elephants to become intoxicated from eating the fruit of the marula tree.
“Elephants display many behavioral characteristics viewed as positive traits in humans, often causing us to identify with them in anthropomorphic ways,” write Steve Morris, David Humphreys, and Dan Reynolds in a forthcoming paper in Physiological an
A study scheduled for publication in the Dec. 15 issue of the American Chemical Society’s journal, Environmental Science and Technology, shows that for the first time, toxic metals emitted from automotive catalytic converters have been detected in urban air in the United States. The research was done by Swedish scientists working in collaboration with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The researchers found high c
Astronomers track massive shockwaves in plasma escaping newborn star
Like traffic on a freeway, plasma spewing from the poles of newborn stars moves in clumps that travel at different speeds. When fast-moving particles run into slower material on these cosmic freeways, the resulting “traffic jams” create massive shock waves that travel trillions of miles.
Thanks to highly resolved images from the Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers have created the first mov
NASA’s durable twin Mars rovers have successfully explored the surface of the mysterious red planet for a full Martian year (687 Earth days). Opportunity starts its second Martian year Dec. 11; Spirit started its new year three weeks ago. The rovers’ original mission was scheduled for only three months.
“The rovers went through all of the Martian seasons and are back to late summer,” said Dr. John Callas of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. He is d
Quick, highly sensitive method makes genetic material glow
Using tiny semiconductor crystals, biological probes and a laser, Johns Hopkins University engineers have developed a new method of finding specific sequences of DNA by making them light up beneath a microscope.
The researchers, who say the technique will have important uses in medical research, demonstrated its potential in their lab by detecting a sample of DNA containing a mutation linked to ovarian cancer
Almost a century after the 1906 earthquake, Stanford geophysicists have revisited San Francisco’s ’’Big One’’ and now paint a new picture of a fault that was ready to go and that ruptured farther and faster than previously supposed.
“Our understanding of seismic hazard in Northern California, including the Bay Area, relies on a thorough understanding of this earthquake and the San Andreas Fault,” said Professor Gregory C. Beroza, who with graduate student
Tropical areas of south and central America such as the Amazon rainforest are home to some 7500 species of butterfly compared with only around 65 species in Britain. UCL scientists have ruled out the common theory that attributed this richness of wildlife to climate change, in a paper published on 7th December by the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B (Biological Sciences).
Instead, scientists believe that biology played a far greater role in the evolution of species than
Ohio State University scientists have used minute fluctuations in gravity to produce the best map yet of ocean tides that flow beneath two large Antarctic ice shelves.
They did it using the twin satellites of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center.
Large tides flow along the ocean floor beneath the Larsen and Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelves. Though scientists have long known of these tides, they have not
Tourists in Spain often stop to ogle the country’s many saltwater lagoons, used to produce salt since Roman times. Scientists, too, admire these saltern crystallizers–and even more so, the microbes that manage to survive in such briny environs. Now, reporting in the November 28-December 2 early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at The Institute for Genomic Research and collaborators reveal the genome of one bacterium at home in the salty Spanish
In both poor and rich countries, well-educated people are receptive to the knowledge of climate experts. Expert knowledge can make people see climate change as a shared, global problem even though it affects different parts of the world so differently. This is shown in a dissertation by the political scientist Monika Bauhr at Göteborg University in Sweden.
You often hear that climate change is a global problem. At the same time, political and economic differences lead to differe
By 2025 the number of people in Britain over the age of 60 will outnumber those under 25. Pressure on both pensions and pensioner spending power will increase. Answers to problems, old and new, will have to be sought.
In a move to address the issues of ageing – one of the most significant aspects of change in our lives, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is highlighting the impact of ageing on society, and offering expanded research funding to provide leading edge th
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