Winter colds can give you a blocked up nose that stops you smelling chimney smoke, roasting chestnuts, warming winter puddings and the other seasonal scents. Now researchers funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have not only discovered how air moves through the nose bringing you those smells but their work may lead to new ways of unblocking it and helping you to breathe more easily. They have even found that the airflow through the human nose is more compli
Holoprosencephaly (HPE) is the most common developmental forebrain anomaly in humans and is caused by the failure of the embryonic forebrain (the prosencephalon) to sufficiently divide into the two lobes of the cerebral hemispheres. The result is a single-lobed brain structure and severe skull and facial defects. About 1 in 250 pregnancies miscarries as a result of severe HPE. In less severe cases, about one in 16,000 babies is born with minor brain developmental and facial deformities that may
Additional imaging tests help spare critical vessels, preserve sexual function
Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center are using innovative planning techniques to help men with prostate cancer avoid erectile dysfunction after radiation treatment.
By using MRI scans in addition to CT scans, radiation oncologists can identify the blood vessels that control erectile function and plan treatment to target the prostate more precisely, sparing those
A study of twins
A paper showing a strong genetic contribution to social responsibility was published in the December 22 issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, 271, 2583-2585, entitled “Genetic and environmental contributions to pro-social attitudes: a twin study of social responsibility.”
The study compared identical twins with non-identical twins to see how much they agreed on 22 questions, such as “I am a person people can count on,” “It is
Double digit growth seen in all new business areas Clearstream experienced strong growth throughout 2004 in all of its main business areas. The value of assets held in custody on behalf of customers rose to approximately EUR 7.6 trillion, a rise of 3.5 percent from the end of 2003. The number of international transactions processed by Clearstream rose to 17.2 million across 2004, an increase of 4.2 percent year on year. 17 percent of these transactions are registered as stock exchang
The position of the earth’s tectonic plates is key, says Lehigh University seismologist
The location of the recent earthquake that triggered a deadly tsunami in the Indian Ocean came as no surprise to geologists, says Anne Meltzer, a world-renowned seismologist at Lehigh University. “Earthquakes like this one happen only once every 50 to 100 years and they happen in very specific locations,” says Meltzer, who has supervised two major international seismology research project
Beware not the ides but the start of March – and April and May and every month. In the first few days of each month, fatalities due to medication errors rise by as much as 25 percent above normal, according to new research by University of California, San Diego sociologist David Phillips.
Published in the January issue of Pharmacotherapy, the journal of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, the study is the first to document a beginning-of-the-month spike in deaths attribut
An American engineer has produced a mathematical model explaining the elegant shape of the Eiffel Tower that was derived from French engineer Gustave Eiffel’s writings regarding his own fears about the effects of wind on such a structure.
University of Colorado at Boulder Associate Professor Patrick Weidman said Eiffel, one of the premier structural engineers in history, was determined to build the world’s first tower reaching 300 meters, the nearest metric equivalent to
A study led by Dr. Herbert Kaufman, Boyd Professor of Ophthalmology at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, published in the January issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, found that 98% of the participants who are healthy individuals with no evidence of any symptoms did in fact shed herpes simplex virus type I (HSV-1) DNA in their tears and saliva at least once during the course of the 30-day study. The study was undertaken to assess the frequency of
Aggressive therapy with statins — drugs that inhibit cholesterol synthesis — works better than moderate statin therapy in reducing fats and proteins in the blood that have been linked to atherosclerosis, a new multi-center study concludes. Statins’ effects on both complex compounds appear beneficial in cutting patients’ cardiovascular risks.
Atherosclerosis is the progressive disease process, often called hardening of the arteries, in which blood vessels slowly narrow with brain
A look of fear on another person’s face is instantly recognizable. The split-second ability of the amygdala, a small, almond-shaped structure deep in the brain, distinguishes fear in facial expressions. In particular, the amygdala relies heavily on visual information contained in the eye region to detect fear.
A new study by scientists at the University of Iowa, the California Institute of Technology and their colleagues sheds more light on how the amygdala works. The study,
The Swift X-ray Telescope (XRT) has seen first light, capturing a dazzling image of Cassiopeia A, a well-known supernova remnant in the Milky Way galaxy, and also has discovered its first gamma-ray-burst afterglow.
The XRT is one of three instruments aboard the NASA-led Swift satellite, which was launched on 20 November 2004. The XRT was built at Penn State with partners at the Brera Astronomical Observatory in Italy and the University of Leicester in England.
“We
Scientists have developed a new “biological smoke detector” to help protect against potential bioterrorist attacks, according to a study published in the Jan. 1 edition of Analytical Chemistry, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.
High-traffic facilities like airports, office buildings, rail stations and sporting arenas serve hundreds of thousands of people each day, making them particularly susceptible to silent and invis
Astronomers have found the most powerful eruption in the universe using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. A super massive black hole generated this eruption by growing at a remarkable rate. This discovery shows the enormous appetite of large black holes, and the profound impact they have on their surroundings.
The huge eruption was seen in a Chandra image of the hot, X-ray emitting gas of a galaxy cluster called MS 0735.6+7421. Two vast cavities extend away from the super mas
Whether emotional responses to scent are a product of nature or nurture is a matter of scientific debate. But a Brown University study, published in the current issue of the International Journal of Comparative Psychology, comes down on the nurturing side.
In an experiment that involved computer games and custom-made scents, researchers found that responses to new odors depended on emotions experienced while the new odor was present. If participants had a good time playing the g
A new computer-aided detection (CAD) system can help radiologists detect polyps in colons that contain contrast-enhanced fluid, says a new study that appears in the January 2005 issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.
“As far as I know, we are the first to publish a CAD algorithm to find polyps submerged in contrast-enhanced colonic fluid; other CAD algorithms do not yet deal with this problem,” said Ronald M. Summers, MD, PhD, of the National Institutes of Health and lead autho
Feedback
