An atmosphere rich in oxygen is the most likely source of energy for complex life to exist anywhere in the Universe
Recent research argues that an atmosphere rich in oxygen is the most likely source of energy for complex life to exist anywhere in the Universe, thereby limiting the number of places life may exist.
Professor David Catling at Bristol University, along with colleagues at the University of Washington and NASA, contend that significant oxygen in the air and o
This image from SMART-1 was dedicated to the Cassini-Huygens mission team at the occasion of the European Geoscience Union conference in Vienna, April 2005, when new results from both missions were presented.
The crater Cassini on our Moon was named in honour of Jean-Dominique Cassini, one of the most important scientists of the 17th and 18th centuries. The joint NASA/ESA/ASI spacecraft, which is now in orbit around Saturn as part of the Cassini-Huygens mission, bears his name.
In the fifty-year history since the structure of DNA was first revealed, what was once a Nobel prize- winning research discovery has become an omnipresent cultural icon co-opted for promoting everything from fragrances to musical acts. Now, the familiar DNA double helix is serving as a microscopic trellis in order to further advances in nanotechnology aimed at improving human health.
Hao Yan, a researcher at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University and an assistant profes
Scientists in the USA have discovered a new way of obtaining embryonic stem cells that avoids contamination by other types of cells and reduces the numbers of embryos needed to create embryonic stem cell lines.
Dr Takumi Takeuchi told the 21st annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology today (Monday 20 June) that if he and his colleagues could replicate the research, which had been carried out in mice, in humans, it would make it easier to colle
In battle of the sexes, male fireflies may lie when it comes to love
This summer, in a darkened meadow west of Boston, Tufts University biologists are continuing to shine new light on the frenzied love life of fireflies. For the first time, researchers will explore the question of whether male fireflies’ flashing light – previously shown in one species to indicate superior physical and genetic quality – has evolved in another species to provide misinformation to prospective ma
The quest for a single theory that unites all of the universe’s fundamental forces has thus far eluded physicists, but that has not stopped a team of them from clearing the way for nanotechnologists while they look for it.
The group, which includes Purdue University’s Ephraim Fischbach, has recently completed research that improves our understanding of how tiny objects placed very close together can influence each other. Their experiment, which involves the behavior of
New York University School of Medicine researchers have developed a brain scan-based computer program that quickly and accurately measures metabolic activity in a key region of the brain affected in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Applying the program, they demonstrated that reductions in brain metabolism in healthy individuals were associated with the later development of the memory robbing disease, according to a new study.
“This is the first demonstration that red
Arterial spin labeling distinguishes between Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia
A non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique called arterial spin labeling is just as accurate as invasive scanning techniques in distinguishing Alzheimer’s disease from frontotemporal dementia (FTD) in the brains of elderly people, according to a new study at the San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC).
The study, led by Norbert Schuff, PhD, a Principle Invest
Ever stood on the tee and as you feel the eyes on the other golfers on you, your heart starts to race, your palms become sweaty, and you worry about making a mess of the shot? If this has happened, you are experiencing performance stress. A new study from the University of Alberta shows the strategies that elite golfers use to manage performance stress effectively.
A study of 18 of Ireland’s best young international male golfers aged 14 to 21 revealed differences between go
Cape Cod Marine Life Lures Biomedical Researchers to the Marine Biological Laboratory
It’s annual migration time on Cape Cod again, the time of year when Woods Hole squid arrive by the tens of thousands. It’s a sign of spring to the fishermen who make a living in this important New England fishery. But here at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), it triggers an influx of hundreds of scientists and students from around the world, who return here faithfully every summer to study
Insects develop resistance to engineered crops when single- and double-gene altered plants are in proximity, Cornell researchers say
Genetically modified crops containing two insecticidal proteins in a single plant efficiently kill insects. But when crops engineered with just one of those toxins grow nearby, insects may more rapidly develop resistance to all the insect-killing plants, report Cornell University researchers.
A soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis (
Also helps understand role of kidneys in hypertension
In related discoveries with far-reaching implications for treating diabetes and understanding hypertension, University of Utah researchers have learned why thiazolidinediones (TZDs), a major anti-diabetes drug, cause edema and also have found a new pathway critical to fluid metabolism. Identification of this pathway may help understand fundamental mechanisms of blood pressure control.
Using knockout-gene technology,
Commercial products such as laptop computer monitors and solar-powered calculators are constructed from a light-sensitive material with a peculiar problem: When exposed to intense light, it forms defects, reducing the efficiency of the solar cells by 10 to 15 percent.
Scientists have been pondering this flaw since the 1970s, because the material – hydrogenated amorphous silicon, or a-Si:H – has important applications for solar energy generation. A new study reported in the Jun
An international team of nuclear physicists has determined that particles called strange quarks do, indeed, contribute to the ordinary properties of the proton.
Quarks are subatomic particles that form the building blocks of atoms. How quarks assemble into protons and neutrons, and what holds them together, is not clearly understood. New experimental results are providing part of the answer.
The experiment, called G-Zero, was performed at Thomas Jefferson National Accelera
Rare and fragmented chalk grasslands may take at least half a century to recover from the damage done to them by military training, according to new research published in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology.
Working with historical aerial photographs taken on the Salisbury Plain Training Area between 1945 and 1995, Dr Rachel Hirst and colleagues from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and the University of Liverpool identified 82 sites from which th
In one of the first molecular studies of the human antibody response to yellow fever, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers and their colleagues have found the crucial bit of virus that people’s immune systems need to spot and quash this often-fatal re-emerging disease.
The findings may help scientists improve the existing vaccine, which has rare but severe side effects, said Jan ter Meulen, an HHMI international research scholar and associate professor of v
Feedback
