A game of soccer, volleyball or basketball may seem like an unconventional way to start a science lesson, but in the Lab of Tomorrow sports and other real-life activities merge with theory to create a new educational environment based on the premise that if playing is fun, learning can be too.
Lab of Tomorrow, a project funded under the European Commission’s IST Programme, developed a family of tiny, programmable devices that can be imbedded in clothing, footballs and other items to monitor
Infra-red cameras that automatically count people in cars could soon be a feature on the UK’s motorways, making it easier to enforce priority lanes for car sharing to ease congestion and cut journey times.
The unique patented technology to detect human faces in moving cars without distracting drivers was developed by Laser Optical Engineering (LOE), a spin out company from Loughborough University. Together with commercial, research and civic partners, it has developed a prototype came
Professor Pierre Delaere (Otorhinolaryngology section, K.U.Leuven) has in the past decade developed a new surgical technique for larynx reconstruction. In an increasing number of cases, this innovative technique can save the larynx in patients suffering from vocal cord cancer. Patients are able to breathe, swallow and speak normally following the operation, something that was previously impossible since the entire larynx frequently needed to be removed, even if only one vocal cord was affected.
Burning with a core heat approaching 800°C and spreading at up to 100 metres per minute, woodland blazes bring swift, destructive change to landscapes: the resulting devastation can be seen from space. An ESA-shaped service to monitor European forest fire damage will help highlight areas most at risk of future outbreaks.
Last year’s long hot summer was a bumper year for forest fires, with more than half a million hectares of woodland destroyed across Mediterranean Europe. So f
Even though we have lost much of our fear of tuberculosis in the industrialized countries, according to the WHO about 2 mio. people worldwide die each year of this infectious disease. Researchers at the University of Leeds have now discovered a carbohydrate with an unusual structure in the cell walls of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. This could be a new starting point for pharmaceutical research.
The main component of the cell walls of mycobacteria is a l
Researchers from around the globe participating in the world’s largest environmental science experiment, the Large-Scale Biosphere Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA), will, fittingly, convene in Brazil this week.
From July 27-29, some 800 researchers will attend the Third International Scientific Conference of the LBA in Brasilia, Brazil, to discuss key findings on how the world’s largest rainforest impacts the ecological health of Amazonia and the world. Never before has so mu
After a series of studies in the laboratory of Dr. Gregory Freund, a clearer picture is emerging: A disruption of signaling proteins in the immune system may be responsible for the inflammation that makes someone with type 2 diabetes feel sick and increases the risk of serious complications.
Freund, the head of the pathology department in the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign and a professor of animal sciences in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environm
Feeling sick can be “all in the head” for people with inflammatory disorders or for those receiving immunotherapy, say Robert Dantzer and Keith Kelley, professors in the department of animal sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“For the first time, we have evidence of a strong relationship between a molecular event and the development of psychopathology,” Dantzer said.
The two scientists, who have collaborated for 25 years, have identified how a molecular pa
Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas are looking for women to participate in the second phase of a study of a new cohesive silicone-gel breast implant.
The implant, which has the consistency of a “gummy candy,” is made of a cohesive silicone gel that will not leak if the implant breaks, said Dr. William P. Adams Jr., associate professor of plastic surgery at UT Southwestern. Cohesive-gel implants have been the most widely used type of breast implant in Europe and Brazil f
New research findings verify that income changes directly affect depressive symptoms in women during the first three years after childbirth, according to an article to be published in the American Journal of Public Health.
The article, co-written by Eric Dearing, assistant professor in the University of Wyoming Department of Psychology, suggests that interventions to help increase income levels of such women could improve their mental health, which in turn can foster the social and emotiona
Reproductive technology is an issue that grows more complicated and more controversial each day. Some experts believe that imminent reproductive techniques, like human cloning and germ-line genetic engineering, pose the risk of injuries so frequent and so serious that they should be prohibited completely. Others believe this technology has endless medical possibilities and should be used to its fullest potential. A new book by a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher helps create a road map for
New medications for osteoporosis, offering improved efficacy and convenient dosing, are associated with increased frequency of patient visits and treatment. The finding suggests new drug therapy contributes to increased disease recognition and treatment, according to an article in the July 26 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
According to background information in the article, osteoporosis is a condition of low bone mass and deterioration of bone
Approximately half of all women who seek clinical treatment for migraines have reported an association between migraine and menstruation, and a recent study confirms their experience. In another, unrelated study researchers have identified a drug therapy that is effective in reducing the occurrence or the severity and duration of menstrually associated migraines. Details and outcomes of both studies, and a related editorial, are published in the July 27 issue of Neurology.
Nearly one in fiv
In a study using hypothetical cases, physicians commonly made end-of-life treatment decisions that were not consistent with patient preferences stated in explicit advance directives, according to an article in the July 26 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
According to background information in the article, significant concern remains about how well physicians know and follow the treatment preferences of their patients. Decisions are particularly
As many as 65 percent of stroke patients are likely to be treated with antihypertensive medications during the first four days of hospitalization, despite current guidelines of the American Stoke Association that recommend against treating all but the most severe cases of hypertension during the first few days following a stroke. A recent retrospective study found that nearly all stroke patients who were being treated for hypertension prior to admission had their medication regimens continued or int
Recent efforts to improve hurricane tracking and intensity predictions have focused on the effect the ocean has on the movement of hurricanes. University of Rhode Island oceanographers have demonstrated how the roughness of the ocean surface affects the speed and intensity of these powerful storms.
“Hurricanes are very complex weather systems that are affected by any number of parameters in the atmosphere, the ocean, and on land,” said URI Oceanography Professor Isaac Ginis. “The more para
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