The Gulf of Mexico, 130 miles south of Galveston, Texas — An international team of marine research scientists working for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) have found new evidence that links catastrophic sand avalanches in deep Gulf waters to rapid sea level changes. By analyzing downhole measurements and freshly retrieved sediment cores, IODP scientists are reconstructing the history of a basin formed approximately 20,000 years ago, when sea level fell so low that the Texas shor
Scientists have shown for the first time that carbon nanotubes make an ideal scaffold for the growth of bone tissue. The new technique could change the way doctors treat broken bones, allowing them to simply inject a solution of nanotubes into a fracture to promote healing.
The report appears in the June 14 issue of the American Chemical Society’s journal Chemistry of Materials. ACS is the world’s largest scientific society.
The success of a bone graft de
Novel electronic devices based upon nanotechnology may soon be realized due to a new understanding of how impurities, or ’dopants,’ can be intentionally incorporated into semiconductor nanocrystals. This understanding, announced today by researchers at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and the University of Minnesota (UMN), should help enable a variety of new technologies ranging from high-efficiency solar-cells and lasers to futuristic ’spintronic’ and ultra-sensitive biodete
Novel cues drive animal behavior; ’our thirst for novelty begins in the eye itself,’ scientists say
Researchers at Harvard University have found evidence that the retina actively seeks novel features in the visual environment, dynamically adjusting its processing in order to seek the unusual while ignoring the commonplace. The scientists report in this week’s issue of the journal Nature on their finding that this principle of novelty-detection operates in many visual
Weizmann Institute Scientists discover how an HIV protein fragment shuts down an immune response. Their finding may have implications for autoimmune disease treatment.
The HIV virus hides out in the very immune system cells that are meant to protect the body from viral infection. But how does it prevent these cells from mounting a full-scale attack against the invader? In research published today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, a team at the Weizmann Institute of Science ha
Further significance for those women taking low-dose oral contraceptives who already are at increased risk for such events because of polycystic ovary syndrome, or metabolic disorder
Women using low-dose oral contraceptives are at an increased risk for a heart attack or stroke while taking the pill – however the risk disappears after discontinuation, according to a Virginia Commonwealth University study published in the July issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Meta
A shifting diet of two flightless birds inhabiting Australia tens of thousands of years ago is the best evidence yet that early humans may have altered the continent’s interior with fire, changing it from a mosaic of trees, shrubs and grasses to the desert scrub evident today, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder-led team.
The unprecedented ecosystem disruption is now thought to have led to the extinction of Australia’s large terrestrial mammals, which disappea
A signaling pathway required for plants to grow to their normal size appears to have an unexpected dual purpose of keeping the plant from wallpapering itself with too many densely clustered stomata.
“It’s surprising that size and stomata patterning – both key to plants being able to survive on dry land – are using the same signaling components,” says Jessica McAbee, a University of Washington research associate in biology. She’s one co-author of a report in the July 8 i
Computers, telephones, music players keep getting smaller and more powerful, but the technology making this possible can only be shrunk so far. Leeds researchers have won £2.6m to develop the ‘disruptive technology’ of the century by exploiting nature’s ability to work on the nanoscale – heralding a revolution in the way our gadgets operate.
Semiconductor chips, containing millions of transistors, are now found in everything from cars to fridges. However, the technology behind t
SCIENTISTS at Manchester Metropolitan University have begun ground-breaking research to combat an alarming rise in brain damage in children living in the world’s most polluted countries.
Biomedical researchers in the city are investigating a link between poor diet in young children and neurological damage caused by polluted air and water and poisonous consumer products.
If a link is proven, a simple course of supplements could prevent irreversible brain damage in thousands
Spaniards could be sunning themselves on British beaches and Greeks could be cruising down the Rhine if global warming patterns continue, a report revealed today.
Southern Europeans could be heading northward for their summer break and British holidaymakers could be boycotting Benidorm as temperatures rise to unbearable levels within the next twenty years.
Scientists from eight European countries have spent the past three years estimating extreme climate change and its impa
Astronomers from across Europe today (July 7th) took a step closer to making their plans for a giant telescope a reality when they unveiled the scientific case for an Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) – a monster telescope with a light capturing mirror of between 50 and 100 metres, dwarfing all previous optical telescope facilities. The announcement was made at a meeting in Dwingeloo, the Netherlands and initiates the design phase of the project. Astronomers plan to use the ELT to search for p
Overactive dopamine receptors may help explain eating disorder’s symptoms
Just why those with anorexia nervosa are driven to be excessively thin and seem unaware of the seriousness of their condition could be due to over-activity of a chemical system found in a region deep inside the brain, a University of Pittsburgh study suggests. Reporting in the journal Biological Psychiatry, researchers found an over-activity of dopamine receptors in the brain’s basal ganglia,
Dutch researcher Bram Wijngaarden investigated how bottom quarks are created during collisions between protons and antiprotons. Wijngaarden’s measurements have contributed to a better understanding of the theory, and can be used to explain why the production of these quarks during such collisions is higher than had originally been expected.
Bram Wijngaarden investigated the creation of bottom quarks using the D zero experiment of the particle accelerator at the Fermi lab in
Quantum computers that store information in so-called quantum bits (or qubits) will be confronted with a fundamental limitation. This is the claim made by Dutch theoretical physicists from the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) and Leiden University in an article recently published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
A quantum computer can only function if the information exists for long enough to be processed. The so-called coherence of the qubit ensures that the qu
Dutch researcher Anna-Karina Hermkens has produced a description and analysis of the dynamics of gender and identity in the culture of the Maisin, an indigenous group from Papua New Guinea. She made this analysis by following the production and use of an object made by the women, painted barkcloth.
In her thesis Anna-Karina Hermkens provides insights into the life and culture of the Maisin from a previously undescribed female perspective. This reveals the importance of women and f
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