The British Ecological Society supports the UK government’s initiative during its G8 Presidency to get world leaders to set out a clear direction for political action on climate change, based on the clear scientific evidence for climate change and its impacts.
Ecologists have shown that climate change is already affecting natural systems and are predicting significant impacts on the earth’s life support systems and on biodiversity in the future. The British Ecological Soci
Leading European players from the telecommunications, electronics, audiovisual and media industries have joined forces in an initiative to foster the development of new audiovisual and multimedia broadband services. This initiative, chaired by Thomson, is called NEM – Networked and Electronic Media. The NEM initiative was launched on 29 June in Brussels as an EU Technology Platform.
The founding members of this initiative are Alcatel, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Franc
Clinical trials have already shown that an MIT robotic arm can help stroke patients regain movement faster. Now MIT pioneers in the field of robotic therapy are hoping a robotic gym full of machines targeted at different parts of the body will significantly improve stroke patients’ movement in arms, wrists, hands, legs and ankles.
To that end the researchers have created a new Anklebot, and on July 1, MIT and the Baltimore Veterans Administration Medical Center established a
Need cues, memory aids
When encouraged to use memorization strategies commonly employed by healthy individuals, people with schizophrenia can be helped to remember information just as well as their healthy counterparts, a process that in itself seems to spur a normalization of memory-related activities in the brains of people with schizophrenia, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.
Memory study shows brain function in schizophrenia can improve
Through the night of 4 July 2005, all European Southern Observatory (ESO) telescopes observed the effects of the impact on Comet 9P/Tempel 1. At sunset in Chile, the seven telescopes of the La Silla Paranal Observatory went into action.
The FORS2 multi-mode instrument on Antu, one of the 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) array, took stunning images, showing that the morphology of the comet had dramatically changed: a new bright fan-like structure was
Turning plants such as corn, soybeans and sunflowers into fuel uses much more energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesel generates, according to a new Cornell University and University of California-Berkeley study.
“There is just no energy benefit to using plant biomass for liquid fuel,” says David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell. “These strategies are not sustainable.”
Pimentel and Tad W. Patzek, professor of civil and environmental eng
Dust and gas are seen in these images of Comet 9P/Tempel 1, as observed with the 1-metre ESA Optical Ground Station (OGS) telescope, located at the Observatorio del Teide on Tenerife, Canary Islands.
Two different filters have been used in different visible light observations to study different aspects of the comet’s nature. Red ’broadband’ filters allowed the detection of dust, while blue ’narrowband’ filters, filtering only carbon gaseous compounds, allow the observations to
Even on a relatively cool day, the temperature inside a parked car can quickly spike to life-threatening levels if the sun is out, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found. They hope their findings will put to rest the misconception that a parked car can be a safe place for a child or pet in mild weather.
“There are cases of children dying on days as cool as 70 degrees Fahrenheit,” said lead author Catherine McLaren, MD, clinical instructor in emergency medici
Study raises hope of treating aggressive vascular malformations with anti-angiogenesis drugs
Vascular anomalies – birthmarks caused by abnormal development of arteries, capillaries, veins or lymph vessels – can sometimes begin to progress, requiring aggressive treatment to save the child’s health or vision. Research at Children’s Hospital Boston now suggests that urine testing can help monitor these anomalies and predict those about to become a serious threat. The findings, publi
What look like playground injuries to one physician, may be suspected child abuse to another. A Penn State College of Medicine study reports that there is widespread inconsistency among pediatricians in how they interpret their responsibility to report suspected child abuse. Mandated reporting of child abuse has been in effect for 30 years and requires that people who interact with children in a professional capacity contact child protection services whenever they have “reasonable suspicion” that
Classification tool may better describe autism-related disorders, help evaluate treatments
A new classification tool may allow healthcare professionals treating children with autism and autism-related disorders to more systematically sort out the combination of traits in the condition, and to better predict how children may improve over time. If the model holds up to further study, it may also allow researchers to gauge the effectiveness of different autism treatments.
These animations, composed of images taken by the OSIRIS Narrow Angle Camera on board ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft, shows how the brightness of Comet 9P/Tempel 1 developed after impact.
www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Rosetta/SEMSJ06DIAE_0.html
A Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator from Albany, New York, and an HHMI international research scholar from Buenos Aires, Argentina have combined their expertise to identify two peculiar features of the protein-making machinery of the parasite that causes Chagas disease. Their findings could help scientists develop a safe and effective drug for the disease, whose cardiac complications kill up to 30 percent of those infected.
The unusual structure of the ribosome, publis
Discovery has implications for future treatments
Researchers at the University of Minnesota have identified for the first time a group of genes that impact the development and function of blood stem cells, a discovery that brings researchers a step closer to harnessing the power of stem cells for disease treatments.
Every day, blood stem cells divide and differentiate to generate approximately 200 billion new blood cells in the bone marrow of adults. To maintain their num
Nerves talk to each other using chemicals called neurotransmitters. One of those “communication chemicals,” aptly named GABA (gamma amino butyric acid), shows up in unusually high amounts in some aggressive tumors, according to a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
The researchers investigated metastatic neuroendocrine tumors, which include aggressive types of lung, thyroid, and prostate cancers that spread to other parts of the body. Their study
What do you get when you mix RNA chips and zebrafish? A new two-stage method for studying human gene expression differs in human stem cells and progenitor cells, according to a new article in the open access journal PLoS Biology. In the paper, Catherine Verfaillie and colleagues identify 277 human genes with different gene expression profiles in stem and progenitor cells involved in blood cell development, or hematopoiesis. The paper also suggests that a developmental regulator called fibroblast
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