Layers of salty ocean water mix with layers of fresher water, creating a salty staircase or layering driven by small-scale convection known as salt fingers. Although scientists have known about salt fingers since 1960, when they were discovered at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, they have not understood their role in ocean mixing and the ability of the ocean to absorb heat, carbon dioxide and pollutants from the atmosphere. Results of a new experiment, sponsored by the National Sci
Besides having faced grave risks inherent in military hostilities, many combat veterans experience a heightened chance of suffering heart and lung damage later in life because of unhealthy personal habits, a new University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study concludes.
The study was presented today (April 29) at the American Heart Association scientific meeting in Washington, D.C. It found combat veterans more likely to be heavy smokers and drinkers than both veterans not dir
Exposure to carcinogens in traffic emissions at particular lifetime points may increase the risk of developing breast cancer in women who are lifetime nonsmokers, a study by epidemiologists and geographers at the University at Buffalo has found.
Their study was conducted among women who lived in Erie and Niagara counties of New York State between 1996 and 2001. They found that higher exposure around the time of first menstruation to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), potent
Educational seminar seeks to inform, calm anxious patients
A recent study found that tumors of the pituitary gland are more common than many health care professionals realize, with national prevalence rates averaging 16.7 percent. To neurosurgeon Dr. Gail Rosseau, this isn’t surprising.
Rosseau, who treats patients with a variety of neurological conditions at Rush University Medical Center and the Chicago Institute of Neurosurgery and Neuroresearch (CINN), says th
Children exposed to cocaine before birth show subtle but discernible differences in their ability to plan and problem-solve once they reach school age, University of Florida researchers report.
Still, most fare far better in the first few years after birth than many experts once predicted, contradicting the notion that as a rule, cocaine-exposed infants would be born with devastating birth defects or miss major developmental milestones. “I think the early information we had was
Scientists have concluded more energy is being absorbed from the sun than is emitted back to space, throwing the Earth’s energy “out of balance” and warming the globe.
Scientists from NASA, Columbia University, New York, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, Calif. used satellites, data from buoys and computer models to study the Earth’s oceans. They confirmed the energy imbalance by using precise measurements of increasing ocean heat content over the past 10 yea
Patients suffering from asthma and diabetes could benefit
Patients suffering from conditions as diverse as asthma and diabetes could benefit from research at Cardiff University to improve the effectiveness of drugs taken through spray inhalers. Scientists in the Welsh School of Pharmacy are working on new nano-particle drug formulations for inhalers, and enhancers to improve the effectiveness of proteins, such as insulin, delivered to the lung.
“Drugs delivered through in
How can a tin be opened if it contains not tinned goods but explosives? Or a shell or something no less dangerous, for instance, a retired nuclear reactor?
Certainly, metal can be cut up mechanically, but this is very dangerous. Torch flame or laser beam do not suit the purpose even more so. However, a sheet of water released at high pressure, particularly if additionally saturated with a stream of frozen drops, would probably suit. The researchers from the Tula State Universit
In 2002-2003, three expeditions involving specialists of the Institutes of Geochemistry, of Solar-Terrestrial Geophysics, and of the Earth’s Crust, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences (Irkutsk) looked for traces of meteoroid that had fallen down in the north-east of the Irkutsk Province, in the Mamsko-Chuisk region. None of the expeditions found either craters or meteoroid fragments. Only fallen trees and minor particles of meteorite substance mark the direction of celestial body fa
Specialists of the Institute of Taxonomy and Ecology of Animals (Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences) investigate peculiarities of struggle against Asian populations of Gipsy moth – one of the most widespread and economically significant forest pests. The methods applied in the North America and Europe do not work with Asian populations of the vermin. In Siberia, the climate is different, other tree species grow in the region and Gipsy moth is slightly different.
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Ever since the internet was created, it has developed and advanced as new services have been introduced that have made it easier to access and send data between remote computers. Electronic mail and the easy-to-use interactive interface known as the World Wide Web are just two of the most important services that have helped to make the internet as popular as it is today. GRID technology, one of the latest systems that has been developed for linking computing resources, connects hundreds of la
Following green light for the deployment of ESA’s Mars Express radar, given in February this year, the radar booms are now planned to be deployed in the first half of May.
Once the deployment is successful, the Mars Express MARSIS radar will enable the first European spacecraft to orbit Mars to complement its study of the planet’s atmosphere and surface.
MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding instrument) is the first antenna of its kind whic
We will all soon be able to watch what we want on our televisions, when we want thanks to a project funded with the help of six million euros from the Information Society Technologies area of the EU’s Framework Programme.
Building on the communication technologies developed and improved in recent years, ‘Share it!’ developed an end-to-end system that provides seamless access to on-line, broadcast and personally stored content. It allows easy access and transfer of the content bet
The production of more advanced sensors to improve the detection of pesticides in water and other environmental samples has been helped by a grant of almost 1.23 million euro from the EU’s Framework Programme.
With seven partners from four EU member states, the SAFEGUARD project was designed to systematically evaluate specifically tailored enzymes as the basis for the production of sensors that are able to detect significantly lower levels of pesticides than has previously be
As cancer is the main cause of death among women aged 35 to 64 the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) has agreed to provide seven million euros for a new Network of Excellence called TRANS-BIG, aimed at addressing the treatment of breast cancer.
TRANS-BIG aims to refine the diagnosis of breast cancer in a way that will enable specialists reduce the number of women being over treated by better identification of those who will benefit from treatment.
“Under the present sys
Viewing actual images of patients’ internal organs is more and more common in medical procedures. However, in many cases the treatment can be painful or uncomfortable, and high sterilisation costs can limit the procedure’s use. IVP’s prototypes aim to overcome such challenges.
With the IST project IVP finishing in September 2005, the project partners have developed two key prototypes; a new, smaller wired endoscope (called IVP1), and a tiny wireless-imaging probe taken in the
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