Jeopardy answer: Death Valley and “ionic liquids.” Correct question: Where does a little bit of water make a whole lot of difference?
Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report* that flow properties for a relatively new class of alternative solvents called ionic liquids are extremely sensitive to tiny amounts of water. For example, for one of these solvents, just a 0.01 percent increase in water dissolved into a sample, caused a 1 percent decrea
Chip-scale refrigerators capable of reaching temperatures as low as 100 milliKelvin have been used to cool bulk objects for the first time, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report. The solid-state refrigerators have applications such as cooling cryogenic sensors in highly sensitive instruments for semiconductor defect analysis and astronomical research.
The work is featured in the April 25, 2005, issue of Applied Physics Letters.* The NI
Weizmann Institute Scientists “Weaponize” an Antibody To Deliver Continuous Attacks On Cancer Cells
In a recent study published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science paired the active ingredient of a garden remedy with advanced bio-technology to deliver a powerful punch against cancer. The cancer killing effectiveness lies in their technique of arming a cancer-targeting antibody with the destructive potential of the dietary molecule ot
A new mouse study suggests that a brain system that controls the sleep/wake cycle might also play a role in regulating appetite and metabolism. Mice with a mutation in a gene called “Clock,” which helps drive circadian rhythm, ate significantly more and gained more weight. The finding could help explain why disrupted sleep patterns-particularly when combined with a high-fat diet–are associated with excessive weight gain and the onset of metabolic syndrome in some people, according to investiga
The power of a new technique to map connections among nerve cells in the brain has a UT Southwestern Medical Center scientist dreaming of solving the mysteries of sleep.
By tracking which nerve cells in the mouse brain stimulate others, researchers in Japan and at UT Southwestern found that a type of neuron responsible for keeping animals awake receives inhibitory signals from neurons active only during sleep, as well as reinforcing, positive signals from nerve cells that are very
In a genomics milestone, an international consortium of researchers has for the first time lifted the veil from a fungal plant pathogen by sequencing the genome – or set of all genes – of the most destructive enemy of rice: Magnaporthe grisea, the fungus that causes rice blast disease.
Dr. Ralph Dean, professor of plant pathology and director of North Carolina State University’s Center for Integrated Fungal Research, is the lead author of a research paper that describes the M. g
When Kathryn Bard reached through the small hole that opened in a hillside along Egypt’s Red Sea coast, her hand touched nearly 4,000 years of history.
The opening that Bard, an associate professor of archaeology at Boston University, and her team’s co-leader Rodolfo Fattovich, a professor of archaeology at Italy’s University of Naples “L’Orientale,” discovered was the entrance to a large, man-made cave. Two days later at a site about 30 meters beyond this cav
Uranium-series dating shows cave engravings oldest in Britain
A team of scientists from Bristol, The Open and Sheffield Universities have proved the engravings at Creswell Crags to be greater than 12,800 years old, making them Britain’s oldest rock art.
Creswell Crags which straddles the Nottinghamshire-Derbyshire border is riddled with caves which have preserved evidence of human activity during the last Ice Age. Recently, engravings on the walls and ceiling wer
Clues about how a suspect version of a gene may slightly increase risk for schizophrenia are emerging from a brain imaging study by the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The gene variant produced a telltale pattern of activity linked to production of a key brain messenger chemical.
The study found that increased activity in the front of the brain predicted increases in the neurotransmitter dopamine in the middle of the brain in
Prions made in vitro cause brain disease in hamsters
UTMB scientists offer strongest evidence yet that infectious misformed proteins cause mad cow disease and other mysterious brain disorders. Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) have produced the strongest proof yet that the mysterious and devastating brain diseases known as “transmissible spongiform encephalopathies” (TSEs) are transmitted by an infectious agent composed only of a malformed pr
A group of scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, is giving new relevance to the term “sharper image” by creating a superlens that can overcome a limitation in physics that has historically constrained the resolution of optical images.
Using a thin film of silver as the lens and ultraviolet (UV) light, the researchers recorded the images of an array of nanowires and the word “NANO” onto an organic polymer at a resolution of about 60 nanometers. In comparison, curren
Groundbreaking research led by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) demonstrates for the first time that the signatures of the genes alone in terrestrial and aquatic samples can accurately diagnose the health of the sampled environments. This study, published in the April 22nd edition of the journal Science positions large-scale genome sequencing to accelerate advances in environmental sciences akin to the contributions DNA sequencing has made to biomedical sciences.
Global warming link remains elusive
The first comprehensive study of glaciers on Antarctic Peninsula has uncovered widespread glacier retreat and suggests that recent climate change on the peninsula is responsible. Eighty-seven percent of the 244 marine glaciers have retreated over the last 50 years, a new study says. The widespread glacier retreat began at the northern, warmer tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. As atmospheric temperatures rose along the peninsula — more than 2.5 de
Obesity and diabetes in both adults and children are rising at alarming rates and a wide range of culprits — super-sized food portions, lack of exercise due to television, computers, suburban sprawl and loss of gym classes, high-fat and fast foods, sugar-laden drinks and psychological trauma — have been blamed.
Now researchers from Northwestern University and Evanston Northwestern Healthcare (ENH) have pinpointed something deep within the brain and other tissues that plays an
A new study published online April 21, 2005 in the American Journal of Medical Genetics Part A examines whether the recent decline in neural tube defects in Chile was due to the addition of folic acid to wheat flour in that country or to pre-existing decreasing trends. The journal is available online via Wiley InterScience at www.interscience.wiley.com/journal/ajmg
Recent data in Chile have suggested that
Cells tugged in one direction sent biochemical signals in the opposite direction in the form of a signature pattern of fluorescent light
Researchers at UCSD and UC Irvine have captured on video for the first time chemical signals that traverse human cells in response to tiny mechanical jabs, like waves spreading from pebbles tossed into a pond. The scientists released the videos and technical details that explain how the visualization effect was created as part of a paper publishe
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