European Geosciences Union, General Assembly
Vienna, Austria, 24 – 29 April 2005
For the first time, the EGU will hold its General Assembly in Vienna, Austria. A considerable attendance from the eastern European countries is expected and EGU 2005 promises to become a bigger event even than last year’s in Nice. So far, 10,000 paper and poster abstracts have been submitted, against 8,000 last year.
This will be the largest and most prominent event in the earth and pl
One of the most exciting developments in clinical research in decades is taking place at the University of Leeds, led by our professor of cancer medicine Peter Selby in collaboration with the Medical Research Council. The creation of a new network for world-class researchers in subjects such as medicines for children, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, mental health and strokes will benefit patients through translating cutting-edge research into new forms of treatment and the best possible chance of recov
Social science is regarded as a relatively inexpensive area of research, but human decision processes are as complex and elusive as anything in biology, physics or chemistry, and the resources needed to study them effectively are considerable.
That is the view of the man leading a ground-breaking ESRC-funded investigation of new ways to design survey questions which come as close as possible to how we actually weigh the pros and cons of issues affecting our lives.
Profess
Stories in their own words from men and women directly caught up in debates and controversies over threats from technologies to themselves and their environment are to be recorded and analysed in new research sponsored by the ESRC.
This new approach, which pays much more attention to how ordinary people understand risks in the context of their everyday lives, could give them a greater say with planners and policy-makers, according to Professor Nick Pidgeon, who is leading a pro
In an age when neither jobs nor marriages are for life, how do people perceive and weigh-up their options for partnering, reproduction and employment?
Precisely what those starting out on adult life today are prepared to ‘take a chance on’, and what kind of security they seek, are to be investigated in new ESRC-funded research led by Professor Jane Lewis of the London School of Economics. Rebellious students in the late 1960s were contemptuous of what may be termed ‘the standard
The recently formed Social Contexts and Responses to Risk network (SCARR) will be launched at a conference in Canterbury 28 – 29 January.
Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and co-ordinated by Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby and Dr Jens Zinn from the University of Kent, the SCARR network brings together social scientists from a wide range of backgrounds, including sociologists, psychologists, and media, law and social policy experts. Risks are at the centre
Medical Research Council (MRC) scientists, in collaboration with colleagues from British and Italian universities, have unveiled a mechanism that causes the death of brain cells (neurons) in stroke. The discovery may help explain why some therapy approaches for stroke have been unsuccessful and identifies potential research avenues for the development of new treatments for stroke and other degenerative brain diseases.
Stroke is a consequence of an abrupt interruption of blood f
In a recent animal study, researchers from the Division of Cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, in collaboration with the University of California, Los Angeles, have found that over time, the absorption of nicotine after myocardial infarction (MI) significantly increases the incidence of cardiac fibrosis in canine hearts. This reaction promotes a kind of rapid heart rhythm that has many similarities to typical human atrial flutter, a potentially life-threatening condition that affects appr
Critics who dismiss the importance of greenhouse gases as a cause of climate change lost one piece of ammunition this week. In a new study, scientists found further evidence of the role that greenhouse gases have played in Earth’s climate.
In Thursday’s issue of the journal Geology, Ohio State University scientists report that a long-ago ice age occurred 10 million years earlier than once thought. The new date clears up an inconsistency that has dogged climate change research fo
Experiments on moss grown aboard two space shuttle Columbia missions showed that the plants didn’t behave as scientists expected them to in the near-absence of gravity.
The common roof moss (Ceratodon purpureus) grew in striking, clockwise spirals, according to Fred Sack, the study’s lead investigator and a professor of plant cellular and molecular biology at Ohio State University. He and his colleagues noted this even in moss cultures grown aboard the second of the two
Research published in the current issue of Science magazine reinforces the belief that aerobic capacity is an important determinant in the continuum between health and disease.
“Our data clearly show that the some of the major health problems of today, namely obesity, hypertension, and insulin resistance, are strongly influenced by our genes,” said Steven Swoap, associate professor of biology at Williams Colleges, a member of the research team. “Coupled with our current enviro
Heroic efforts by park guards have helped safeguard isolated population
An isolated population of rare Grauer’s gorillas, living among rebel armies and bands of poachers, has managed to survive in one of the most dangerous regions in Africa, and may even be increasing in numbers, according to a recent census by the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). WCS conservationists say that a band of park guards who have heroically defended the gorillas and their rainfore
Neurochemicals might someday improve life for people with memory problems
Meeting a friend you haven’t seen in years brings on a sudden surge of pleasant memories. You might even call it an avalanche.
Recent studies suggest that avalanches in your brain could actually help you to store memories. Last year, scientists at the National Institutes of Health placed slices of rat brain tissue on a microelectrode array and found that the brain cells activated each other i
Research published in leading nanotechnology journal
UC Riverside researchers from the Departments of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Botany and Plant Sciences have worked together to discover a way to utilize Quantum Dot bio-conjugates to uncover new knowledge about the binding of a protein at the growing pollen tube tip. This protein plays a critical role along with another protein (chemocyanin) in guiding sperm-laden pollen tubes to the eggs fo
A Brown University team has found that a protein called melanopsin plays a key role in the inner workings of mysterious, spidery cells in the eye called intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells, or ipRGCs.
Melanopsin, they found, absorbs light and triggers a biochemical cascade that allows the cells to signal the brain about brightness. Through these signals, ipRGCs synchronize the body’s daily rhythms to the rising and setting of the sun. This circadian rhythm contro
To make it easier to measure the security of an information technology product or system, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Security Agency (NSA) have developed a common specification language–Extensible Configuration Checklist Description Format (XCCDF)–for writing security checklists and related documents.
Increasingly, computers and other information technology products are vulnerable to multiple threats including viruse
Feedback
