Late last January, while most people were battling winter’s cold and snow, University of Illinois structural geologist
Stephen Hurst left for a monthlong cruise in the South Pacific. It was no vacation, though. Hurst joined a team of scientists, engineers and technicians who set sail from Easter Island to explore the Pito Deep, a rift in Earth’s crust nearly 6,000 meters deep.
Funded by the National Science Foundation, the expedition had as its goal to probe the ocean
Target Skills of France has launched its scheduling management software, PlanningPME©. This multilingual scheduling management tool is highly adaptable and, therefore, suitable for use by all types of companies. With PlanningPME©, companies can eliminate unnecessary paperwork and cumbersome scheduling boards. In addition, modifications will no longer result in endless crossings-outs and corrections. As part of its export growth strategy, Target Skills is seeking international partners for the pro
Rheumatoid arthritis patients treated with anti-inflammatory drugs are 10 times less likely to develop age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common form of blindness in people over 55, researchers at the University of British Columbia and University of Saskatchewan have found.
The study, recently published in the Neurobiology of Aging, is a joint effort of neurologist Dr. Patrick McGeer of UBC and rheumatologist Dr. John Sibley of the U of S.
The scientists
Trees in the world¹s most productive forests — forests that add the most new growth each year — also tend to die young, according to a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study published in a recent issue of the journal Ecology Letters. This discovery could help scientists predict how forests will respond to ongoing and future environmental changes.
“One implication of this fast turnover rate is that the world¹s most productive forests may be those likely to respond most quickly to su
Multi-center trial shows positive results for pediatric head injury cooling treatment
A first-of-its-kind multi-center trial has shown that cooling the body can have positive affects on children who suffered traumatic brain injury. The study’s lead investigator, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh neurosurgeon P. David Adelson, MD, and fellow researchers determined that induced moderate hypothermia initiated after severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a safe therapeutic
The labels put on youths who commit violent crimes not only prevent society from understanding their behavior, but also act as a barrier to solving the problem, says a Purdue University sociologist.
“Children are supposed to be innocent and vulnerable, and it’s our job as adults to protect them,” says J. William Spencer, associate professor of sociology. “But what happens when teen-agers become ’cold-hearted’ and terrorize, or even kill, their classmates and teach
The “dead zone” area of the Gulf of Mexico – a region that annually suffers from low oxygen which can result in huge marine life losses – has appeared much earlier this year, meaning it could be potentially larger in 2005 and affect marine life more adversely than normal, researchers are reporting.
A team of scientists from Texas A&M University, Texas A&M at Galveston, Louisiana State University and NASA recently surveyed the dead zone in the northern Gulf of Mexico and their fi
Students play important role in Nobel-caliber research
Tucked away in a small, cluttered laboratory on Patuxent River Naval Air Station, two physicists spend their days trapping atoms – millions and millions of microscopic atoms. Dr. Frank Narducci, a physicist at Patuxent River Naval Air Station (NAVAIR 4.5.6.) and adjunct professor of physics at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and Dr. Charles Adler, a physics professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, are engaged in groundbreak
The tsunami that devastated south Asia coastlines and killed more than 200,000 people last December is a powerful reminder of just how dangerous those waves can be to humans.
Such reminders have been delivered periodically, sometimes several decades apart, during the last half-century. But the lessons have been largely ignored or forgotten by most people who didn’t suffer direct consequences, said Jody Bourgeois, a University of Washington Earth and space sciences professor w
Debris could be dust cloud around the moon
An instrument designed and built at the University of Chicago for the Cassini space probe has discovered dust particles around Enceladus, an ice-covered moon of Saturn that has the distinction of being the most reflective object in the solar system. The particles could indicate the existence of a dust cloud around Enceladus, or they may have originated from Saturn’s largest ring, the E-ring.
“We are operating on the plane o
If you wanted a random number, historically you could do worse than to pick a sequence from the string of digits in pi. But Purdue University scientists now say other sources might be better.
Physicists including Purdue’s Ephraim Fischbach have completed a study comparing the “randomness” in pi to that produced by 30 software random number generators and one chaos-generating physical machine. After conducting several tests, they have found that while sequences of digits from pi are
A number of articles explore the use of positron emission tomography (PET) and small animal imaging—nonsurgical techniques that open the door to understanding and treating human diseases—in the April issue of the Society of Nuclear Medicine’s Journal of Nuclear Medicine.
A major benefit of small animal imaging “is the ability to carry out many studies at various time points with the same animal,” said SNM member Michael J. Welch, Ph.D., co-author of “Preparation, Biodistribution
New research shows that a protein produced by a cancer-causing virus influences a key signaling pathway in the immune cells that the virus infects. This stimulates the cells to divide, helping the virus spread through the body.
The study, led by researchers at Ohio State University, examined the human T lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) and a protein that it produces called p12. The research is published in the April issue of the journal AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses.
Physical activity appears to inhibit Alzheimer’s-like brain changes in mice, slowing the development of a key feature of the disease, according to a new study. The research demonstrated that long-term physical activity enhanced the learning ability of mice and decreased the level of plaque-forming beta-amyloid protein fragments–a hallmark characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease (AD)–in their brains.
A number of population-based studies suggest that lifestyle interven
The first practical fountain pen was invented in 1884 by Lewis Waterman. Although pens with self-contained ink reservoirs had existed for more than a hundred years before his invention, they suffered from ink leaks and other troubles. Waterman solved these problems by inventing the capillary feed which produced even ink flow. Now fountain pen history is repeating itself in the tiny world of nanoscale writing.
Researchers at Northwestern University have demonstrated writing at the s
Enzymes that make the gas nitric oxide (NO) not only protect the heart from damage due to high blood pressure or a heart attack, but also promote heart failure through overgrowth and enlargement of the muscle tissue, say animal researchers at Johns Hopkins.
The Hopkins study, to be published in the May 2 edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, is believed to be the first to suggest future therapies for heart failure using chemical cofactors that control the enzymes’
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