New supernovae study offers tantalyzing clues about dark energy
The genius of Albert Einstein, who added a “cosmological constant” to his equation for the expansion of the universe but later retracted it, may be vindicated by new research.
The enigmatic dark energy that drives the accelerating expansion of the universe behaves just like Einstein’s famed cosmological constant, according to the Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS), an international team of researchers in France
As airline travel peaks for the Thanksgiving holiday, a newly completed wind tunnel at the University of Florida may help reduce the noise of commercial airplanes as they fly over homes and neighborhoods.
The tunnel is one of only a handful in the country and currently the largest at a university designed specifically to reduce noise from planes passing overhead and landing. Engineers will use the $400,000 tunnel to learn how to reduce the noise caused by the flow of air ove
A nanoparticle commonly used in industry could have a damaging effect on plant life, according to a report by an environmental scientist at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT).
The report, published in a recent issue of “Toxicology Letters,” shows that nanoparticles of alumina (aluminum oxide) slowed the growth of roots in five species of plants — corn, cucumber, cabbage, carrot and soybean. Alumina nanoparticles are commonly used in scratch-resistant transparent coating
In an important new study from the forthcoming Quarterly Review of Biology, biologists from Binghamton University explore the evolution of two distinct types of laughter – laughter which is stimulus-driven and laughter which is self-generated and strategic.
“Laughter that occurs during everyday social interaction in response to banal comments and humorless conversation is now being studied,” write Matthew Gervais and David Sloan Wilson. “The unstated issue is whether such laug
Study among people with fibromyalgia suggests those with greater swings in pain hour-to-hour, day-to-day are more likely to respond to placebos
Studies involving people who suffer from chronic pain often give some of them placebos, “sugar pills” with no medicinal value, to show whether the treatment has real value. Little is known, however, about the types of people who tend to respond positively to placebos, a mystery that places a hurdle before researchers who want to learn the
Using a nuclear magnetic resonance technique, University of Illinois at Chicago chemists have obtained the first molecular-level images of precursors of bundled fibrils that form the brain plaques seen in Alzheimer’s disease.
Untangling the molecular structure of these pre-fibril forms, which may be the key neurotoxins in Alzheimer’s, may help identify targets for new drugs to combat many neurodegenerative diseases.
Microscopic bundled fibrils made of p
A new study by researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and colleagues shows that a drug originally used to treat breast cancer may help combat the severe weight loss that can plague patients undergoing radiation treatment for lung and head and neck cancer.
“The drug clearly reduced weight loss and improved quality of life in study patients,” said Michael Farmer, M.D., who presented the results last month at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and
BACKGROUND: Previous studies have suggested that people reduce their average alcohol consumption as they age. In the new study the researchers sought to determine whether the percentage of heavy drinkers–that is, men who have at least five drinks in one sitting and women who have at least four drinks — also reduced as they aged. This latest study was based on data from 14,127 participants, aged 25 to 74, in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Study, first administered betwe
A recent study in the journal Veterinary Radiology and Ultrasound presents the first description of the anatomy of a dog’s cranial nerves (CN), a once difficult procedure now made possible by using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a diagnostic modality.
“By knowing the normal MRI anatomy of cranial nerve emergences in the dog, the clinician will better recognize lesions affecting those nerves, such as inflammatory or neoplastic diseases, thus allowing earlier recognition of t
Women urged to talk with their physicians about risks and preventive measures
A University of Minnesota Cancer Center study indicates that older women who receive radiation therapy for treatment of pelvic cancers have an increased risk of hip and other pelvic fractures later in life. Researchers encourage such women to talk with their physicians about their risks and preventive measures, including having their bone density levels checked.
Nancy Baxter, M.D., Ph.D., a
Study finds AKT blocks cancer cell motility; paradoxical discovery raises questions in developing cancer inhibitor therapies
In investigating the molecular mechanisms of cancer cell motility – the unique property that enables cancer to spread from its primary origin to other parts of the body – researchers have uncovered a surprising role for the AKT/PKB (protein kinase B) enzyme, providing important new insights into cancer metastasis and suggesting that current efforts to deve
BACKGROUND: Neonatal mortality rates–that is, mortality in the first 28 days–in the United States fell significantly between 1940 and 2000 from 28.8 deaths per live birth to 4.6 deaths. Yet ethnic and racial disparities have persisted or increased during that time. Deaths among very low-birthweight infants (VLBW) account for more than half the infant deaths in the United States. The researchers sought to determine whether there is a correlation between mortality among VLBW infants a
One of the key controllers of neural development seems to depend on a simple cellular decision–whether to divide perpendicularly or in parallel to the embryonic structure called the neuroepithelium. Nevertheless, such orientation is critical, and understanding its machinery could help neuroscientists learn to control the division of adult neural stem cells to regenerate neural tissues.
Researchers know that during the earliest embryonic brain development, neural stem cells divid
Removing an egg from the endangered whooping crane’s nest increases the species chances of survival despite governmental concerns about tampering with nature, says a University of Alberta scientist.
Dr. Mark Boyce, from the Faculty of Science, studied the policy of removing from Wood Buffalo National Park one of two whooping crane eggs laid and raising it in a “foster-parenting” program. Cranes usually rear a single chick and the other dies to siblicide or is killed by a
The image quality for detecting prostate cancer is significantly better for MRI at 1.5 T using an endorectal-body phased-array coil as compared with the 3.0 T imaging using the torso phased-array coil, a recent study found.
The study, consisting of 24 patients with prostate cancer, compared the use of MRI at 1.5 and 3.0 T in terms of image quality, tumor delineation, and depiction of staging criteria. MRI using an endorectal coil was found to be superior to the conventional bo
Peroneal nerve injury in traumatic knee dislocation is common, especially in high-speed collisions or sports injuries. “Because of its superficial course and proximity to the underlying bone, the peroneal nerve is susceptible to direct injury during contact sports and to indirect injury during knee trauma,” said the authors.
Clinically, the nerve is usually inspected during reconstructive knee surgery if pain and a sensory deficit on the anterolateral skin of the leg is appare
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