Street lighting in the UK could better cut crime, promote feelings of well-being and enhance sight for pedestrians, according to a report published today. By using the wrong type of lighting councils are missing an opportunity to reduce both the fear of crime and pedestrian accidents, and are spending more than they need to on powering street lamps.
The paper, published in Lighting, Research and Technology argues that while UK councils traditionally use orange sodium lamps for their s
The Webdesign International Festival 2006, held in Limoges, in central France, will host three days of international competitions, lectures, debates, demonstrations, exhibitions and meetings focusing on interactive, web-based design from 2 to 4 February 2006. The University of Limoges is also setting up a training course in web-design skills. The first 20 candidates for the diploma in ’Sensorial web design and online creation strategies’ will begin their studies this October.
Dur
Orelis of France is launching a new individual filtration module, the Pleiade® MP4, for the ultrafiltration of electrophoretic paint. The competitively priced module is available in two versions – MP450 and MP470 – and is easy to use and clean (both plates and frame), while offering the compactness of spiral modules.
Based on the tried and tested Pleiade® technology, the filtering surface of the Pleiade® MP4 is a stack of separate membranes. A unique feature is that users can
On 5 August 2005, the ESA/NASA SOHO spacecraft achieved an incredible milestone – the discovery of its 1000th comet!
The 1000th comet was a Kreutz-group comet spotted in images from the C3 coronagraph on SOHO’s LASCO instrument by Toni Scarmato, from Calabria, Italy. Just five minutes prior to discovering SOHO’s 1000th comet, Toni had also spotted SOHO’s 999th comet! These comets take Toni’s personal number of SOHO discoveries to 15.
Many SOHO comet
When it’s dry, it’s dry all over, according to a new analysis of more than 400 years of annual streamflow in the Upper Colorado and Salt and Verde river basins.
By using data from tree rings, University of Arizona researchers conclude that water supply for those western rivers fluctuated in synchrony during periods of severe drought. The study goes back almost 800 years in the Salt-Verde basin and covers waterways from the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
Samples collected by WCS in international collaborative effort to ID, contain disease
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has positively identified the pathogenic form of avian flu–H5N1–in samples taken from birds last week in Mongolia by field veterinarians from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). It is the first instance of this viral strain occurring in wild migratory birds with no apparent contact to domestic poultry or waterfowl.
Present in Mon
Researchers at Oregon State University and Diversa Corporation have discovered that the smallest free-living cell known also has the smallest genome, or genetic structure, of any independent cell – and yet it dominates life in the oceans, thrives where most other cells would die, and plays a huge role in the cycling of carbon on Earth. In nature, apparently, bigger is not always better.
In a publication today in the journal Science, scientists outlined the growing knowledge about S
In an ongoing effort to fight disease by manipulating energy regulation of cells, a collaborative study led by Dartmouth Medical School (DMS) has demonstrated that cells lacking a tumor-suppressing kinase called LKB1 can still maintain healthy energy levels when they become stressed. This energy regulation is essential for keeping cells from dying off too quickly. The study’s results could signal new advances for combating cancerous tumor growth, but also type 2 diabetes and obesity.
Scientists will announce next month a new technique called microdisplacement printing, which makes possible the highly precise placement of molecules during the fabrication of nanoscale components for electronic and sensing devices. The new technique, which also extends the library of molecules that can be used for patterning, will be described in the 14 September issue of the journal Nano Letters by a team led by Paul S. Weiss, professor of chemistry and physics at Penn State.
Scientists are one step closer to understanding the genetic pathway involved in the development of hearing. New research findings, published online this week in the journal Nature Genetics, detail how sensory hair cells in the ear –– the cells largely responsible for hearing –– develop unique shapes that enable the perception of sound.
Located in the spiraled cochlea, the hearing portion of the inner ear, the hair cells transform the mechanical vibrations that enter the ear in
From order to disorder: A monkey wrench in solar system evolution?
A U of T scientist has found unexpectedly ‘young’ material in meteorites – a discovery that breaks open current theory on the earliest events of the solar system.
A paper published today in the August issue of Nature reports that the youngest known chondrules – the small grains of mineral that make up certain meteorites – have been identified in the meteorites known as Gujba and Hammadah al Hamra.
Otters cavorting in the water is a scene with which we’re all familiar. Yet, unlike many other mammals that spend a considerable amount of time in the water–polar bears, seals, dolphins, and whales–river otters do not have a thick layer of body fat to keep warm. They rely, instead, on a few unique adaptations; namely, their fur and the densely packed layer of specially adapted underhairs.
Using scanning electron microscopy and polarizing light microsopy, John W. Weisel, PhD, Profe
Many living things, from fruit flies to people, naturally produce disease-fighting chemicals, called antimicrobial peptides, to kill harmful bacteria. In a counter move, some disease-causing bacteria have evolved microbial detectors. The bacteria sense the presence of antimicrobial peptides as a warning signal. The alarm sets off a reaction inside the bacteria to avoid destruction.
University of Washington (UW) and McGill researchers have revealed a molecular mechanism whereby bacteria ca
Findings have implications for urinary tract infections
Scientists have discovered a new phenomenon in which one bacterial cell can stop the growth of another on physical contact. The bacteria that stop growing may go into a dormant state, rather than dying. The findings have implications for management of chronic diseases, such as urinary tract infections.
The discovery by a team of scientists working in the laboratory of David Low, professor of biology at the Unive
Non-invasive imaging may help predict type 1 diabetes and response to treatment in humans: Joslin recruiting for new Imaging in Diabetes Clinical Trial
A key obstacle to early detection of type 1 diabetes – as well as to rapid assessment of the effectiveness of therapeutic intervention – has been the lack of direct, non-invasive technologies to visualize inflammation in the pancreas, an early manifestation of disease. Instead, clinicians have had to await overt symptoms before
New research has provided further support for UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s call for Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to be reformed. It concludes that the current distribution of over 90 billion Euros in farming subsidies will lead to even greater inequalities between rich and poor regions of Europe.
In the first comprehensive study of the effect of CAP on Europe’s regions, a team from the Universities of Newcastle upon Tyne and Aberdeen found that, eve
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