Recent research conducted by scientists at the University of Surrey in collaboration with Bang & Olufsen and the BBC, shows that surround sound can be delivered to the consumer more efficiently by taking into account the results of perceptual tests. Although improvements in the audio quality of consumer entertainment systems such as DVDs, CDs, digital TV, home cinema and computer games are technically possible, they may no longer be necessary. In fact, the intelligent limiting of sound quality, bas
A team of Australian astronomers have developed a way of forecasting the weather on Mars – without putting their toes in space and created beautiful images of our neighbouring planet.
Their discoveries will help us determine if Mars was a kinder place for life in the past. And by forecasting the Martian weather they hope to be able to reduce the risks to spacecraft, such as the recent failed Beagle mission and possible future manned missions to Mars.
Sarah Chamberlain of the
Plankton poo could be the key to understanding how much carbon dioxide our oceans can store according to Tasmanian researcher Dr Karin Beaumont.
The greenhouse effect is arguably humanity’s greatest environmental threat. “We need to understand where and how carbon dioxide is stored in the oceans. Part of the answer lies in the poo of microscopic zooplankton: does it float or does it sink?” said Karin. “Heavy poo that sticks together and sinks to the ocean floor is good. It locks u
Researchers from the University of Chicago and Stanford University found that one of the new programs to increase the number of kidneys available for transplantation has disadvantages for candidates with blood type O who are waiting for an organ from a deceased donor. The researchers’ findings appear in the Sept. 15, 2004, issue of Transplantation.
Through a process called list-paired exchange, a person waiting for a kidney transplant gets a higher priority on the wait list for
Study demonstrates effectiveness of the antidepressant duloxetine for improving symptoms and relieving pain
Fibromyalgia is a chronic, incapacitating musculoskeletal disorder. Nearly six times more common in women than in men, fibromyalgia is marked by widespread body pain and muscle tenderness, often accompanied by headaches, sleep disturbances, and fatigue. While its cause remains a mystery, fibromyalgia has been linked to abnormalities in the brain’s neurotransmitters, seroto
A method that uses roughly only one-hundredth the fresh water customarily needed to grow forage for livestock may leave much more water available for human consumption, as well as for residential and industrial uses. As a byproduct, it also may add formerly untapped solar energy to the electrical grid.
The method for lessening water use is being tested by 42 wireless sensors being installed in a forage-growing hydroponic greenhouse built barely a stone’s throw from the Mexico b
Many cancers, including colon, prostate, and leukemia, continue to grow unchecked because they do not respond to a signal to die and stop proliferating from Transforming Growth Factor-beta (TGF-b). The cause of this signaling disruption of the normal cell cycle has not been fully understood. For the first time, scientists at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have discovered the biologic function of the cytoplasmic form of the Promyelocytic Leukemia protein (PML), and identified it as an essenti
New ’ring of life’ points to mergers and acquisitions between cells
According to a new report, complex cells like those in the human body probably resulted from the fusion of genomes from an ancient bacterium and a simpler microbe, Archaea, best known for its ability to withstand extreme temperatures and hostile environments. The finding provides strong evidence that complex cells arose from combinations of simpler organisms in a symbiotic effort to survive. Jim Lake and
Scientists have obtained their best measurement yet of the size and contents of a neutron star, an ultra-dense object containing the strangest and rarest matter in the universe.
The measurement may lead to a better understanding of nature’s building blocks — protons, neutrons and their constituent quarks — as they are compressed inside the neutron star to a density trillions of times greater than on Earth.
Tod Strohmayer of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,
By mimicking a molecular switch that triggers cell death, researchers have killed cells grown in the laboratory from one of the most resilient and aggressive cancers – a virulent brain cancer known as glioblastoma. The new approach to tricking the cell-death machinery could be applied to a wide range of cancers where this pathway, known as apoptosis, has been inactivated.
The researchers — led by Xiaodong Wang, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of Tex
BU neurobiologists find evidence hippocampus in rat brain triggers special form of memory
For millennia, the process of memory and remembering has intrigued scholars and scientists. In 350 B.C., Aristotle, in his seminal treatise on the subject, described it as having two forms: familiarity and recollection. Of these, he considered recollection to be a purely human condition. That tenet is now being challenged by researchers at Boston University.
Neurobiologists at Boston
But first study of indoor air before and after a smoking ban finds carcinogens eliminated by smoke-free laws
The level of cancer-causing particles is much higher in the air of smoke-filled bars and casinos than on truck-choked highways and city streets, according to the first published comparison of indoor air quality before and after smoke-free workplace legislation. The study, conducted in a casino, six bars and a pool hall in Wilmington, Delaware, is published in the September 2
At the Institute of Physics conference Photon 04 yesterday, Professor Jim Hough, one of the UK’s leading scientists, revealed that he thinks high street bookmakers are crazy to be offering odds of 100-1 on whether Gravitational Waves (wrinkles in relativity) will be discovered before 2010. He has placed a personal bet of £25 – the maximum Ladbrokes allowed him to stake. The available odds were quickly cut from an initial offering of 500-1.
Professor Jim Hough, from the Universi
What do Smallpox, AIDS, SARS, Monkeypox, West Nile Virus, Chestnut Blight, Dutch Elm Disease, Sudden Oak Death Syndrome, Sea Otter Mortality and Avian Flu have to do with the world-wide disappearance of frogs and salamanders, otherwise known as “Amphibian Decline”? And with bait shops?
These diseases and their pathogens, with the unsuspecting support of humans and our global activities, all have been involved in microbial invasions of sorts. The transportation and sale of live bait
Spacecraft observations of the landing area for one of NASA’s two Mars rovers now indicate there likely was an enormous sea or lake covering the region in the past, according to a new University of Colorado at Boulder study.
Research Associate Brian Hynek of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics said data from the Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey spacecraft now show that the region surrounding the Opportunity rover’s landing site probably had a body of water at leas
USC study in NEJM signals likely future health problems
By age 18, the lungs of many children who grow up in smoggy areas are underdeveloped and will likely never recover, according to a study in this week’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
The research is part of the Children’s Health Study, the longest investigation ever into air pollution and kids’ health. Between 1993 and 2001, study scientists from the Keck School of Medicine of the Universi
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