Deep ocean research stretching from the Arctic to the Black Sea is to receive 15 million euros (around £10 million sterling) as part of a programme involving 15 countries across Europe.
Led by Southampton Oceanography Centre’s Professor Phil Weaver, the HERMES project (Hotspot Ecosystem Research on the Margins of European Seas) will study ecosystems along Europe’s deep-ocean margin and is one of the largest research projects of its kind.
HERMES will bring togethe
The Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Research Park has a new company: a spin-off of the UAB and the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). MusicStrands uses artificial intelligence techniques to provide people with music recommendations.
At MusicStrands website (www.musicstrands.com) people share their tastes in music and then receive music recommendations. This initiative is the first and only one to use tags applied to music; tags are labels that people can attach on
Serious diseases have been shown to be related to unhealthy protein chains that occur when proteins fold ’incorrectly’. In an article in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, PNAS, a research team from Uppsala University have shown that similar protein chains in our environment may hasten the process.
Under certain conditions, incorrectly folded proteins can transmit diseases from one individual to another. This is the mechanism in disea
A research team headed by Professor Helena Edlund at Umeå University in Sweden has achieved a breakthrough in our understanding of how obesity causes increased levels of insulin, sugar, and blood fats leading to diseases like type-2 diabetes and liver degeneration. The findings also indicate a direct way to prevent these diseases.
Today obesity is epidemic in the industrialized world, causing disturbances in blood levels of insulin, sugar, and blood fats that lead to high blo
As more of the population begin to recognise the benefits of sporting activity, there is a need for improved sports pitches which not only deliver increased access to sport, but also reduce the risk of injury.
With this in mind, Cranfield University’s Centre for Sports Surfaces, together with the University of Exeter’s Sports Science Department, is investigating how to improve the engineering of sports surfaces, such as those used for football and cricket, to minimise this inju
Desert blooms–plants that flourish in arid areas after rains–might reduce water accumulation in soil should the climate shift toward wetter conditions, according to a study conducted by a team led by University of Texas at Austin hydrogeologists.
By the same token, such vegetation keeps water from reaching the water table deep below the surface in such areas. “Monitoring soil-water response to extreme El Niños in Nevada indicates that vegetation response will dampen the impact
Establishing trust quickly is the key to effective Internet communication, especially when it comes to teaching online, according to researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT).
“While our study focused on trust formation among teachers and students in online courses,” said Nancy Coppola, PhD, associate professor, in the humanities department at NJIT, “our results are applicable for any group or team that interacts online. For example, we think our results could be
Unprecedented study describes sources contributing to decline of Caribbean reefs
Their position at the pinnacle of the marine food chain is legendary. Now, understanding sharks and their significance as top predators-and the consequences of human activity towards them-has taken on new importance through a new study by scientists in San Diego and Spain.
Jordi Bascompte and Carlos Melián of the Integrative Ecology Group, Estación Biológica de Doñana, Consejo Superior de
Researchers at UCSD have made carbon nanotubes bent in sharp predetermined angles, a technical advance that could lead to use of the long, thin cylinders of carbon as tiny springs, tips for atomic force microscopes, smaller electrical connectors in integrated circuits, and in many other nanotechnology applications. In a paper published in the April 7, 2005, issue of the Journal of Physical Chemistry B, Sungho Jin, a professor of materials science at UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering, report
Study predicted cardiovascular risk of Cox-2 inhibitors
Amid the recent controversy and confusion over serious side effects from pain medications, a new UCLA and Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System study demonstrates that for arthritis sufferers at high risk for gastrointestinal problems who traditionally may have used a drug like Vioxx, the most cost-effective and safest treatment is actually a common painkiller combined with an acid-reducing drug.
Publ
A team of scientists from Colombia, the United States and elsewhere has successfully completed a 15-year-plus search for the genetic problems behind the very rare Roberts syndrome, whose physical manifestations often include cleft lip and palate and shortened limbs that resemble those of babies whose mothers took thalidomide during pregnancy.
The discovery, which is reported in the April 10 advance online section of Nature Genetics, proves that genes behind very rare inherited d
Laughter might be the best medicine for transforming the faintest of glimmers of hope into an eternal spring, reveals research at Texas A&M University that shows humor may significantly increase a person’s level of hope.
The experience of humor can positively influence a person’s state of hopefulness, says Texas A&M psychologist David H. Rosen who, along with colleagues Alexander P. Vilaythong, Randolph C. Arnau and Nathan Mascaro, studied nearly 200 subjects ranging in a
Deep brain stimulation of two different areas of the brain appears to improve problems with uncontrolled movements (dyskinesia) in patients with Parkinson disease (PD), according to an article in the April issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Deep brain stimulation with electrical impulses delivered to structures deep within the brain is being intensively investigated for the management of advanced Parkinson disease, according to background informati
Scientists learn to process information with ’frozen light’
Scientists at Harvard University have shown how ultra-cold atoms can be used to freeze and control light to form the “core” – or central processing unit – of an optical computer. Optical computers would transport information ten times faster than traditional electronic devices, smashing the intrinsic speed limit of silicon technology.
This new research could be a major breakthrough in the quest to cr
A new way of testing cells for cancer can both diagnose and determine the stage of cancer with just 50 tumour cells
Speaking at the Institute of Physics conference Physics 2005 in Warwick today (Tuesday 12th April), scientists will reveal a new test for cancer, more sensitive than any existing technique and capable of predicting for the first time whether a tumour has spread.
Unlike existing techniques which rely on expert visual assessment or unreliable biochemical meas
Scientists have developed the first reliable way to extract stem cells from blood without adding contaminating markers
A major breakthrough in stem cell research – a new tool that could allow scientists to harvest stem cells ethically – will be announced at the Institute of Physics’ conference Physics 2005 in Warwick later today (Tuesday 12th April).
Professor Josef Käs and Dr Jochen Guck from the University of Leipzig have developed a procedure that can extract and i
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