An international team of scientists has completed the first comprehensive study of the ocean storage of carbon dioxide derived from human activity, called anthropogenic CO2, based on a decade-long survey of global ocean carbon distributions in the 1990s.
The findings, along with those detailed in a companion paper on the impacts of anthropogenic CO2 on the chemistry of the oceans and the potential response of marine animals and plants to changes in CO2 levels, will be published in the July
Autoimmune diseases are quite complex and this is due to the fact that these illnesses do not depend on just one gene. Thus, in order to find a suitable treatment, it is not enough to identify a gene involved in the development of the disease – each and every one has to be identified. To this end, a number of strategies have been design; for example, many geneticists have begun to analyse the genetic differences between healthy individuals and ill ones. A team at the Leioa campus of the University
Cinnamon oil shows promise as a great-smelling, environmentally friendly pesticide, with the ability to kill mosquito larvae, according to a new study published in the July 14 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.
The researchers also expect that cinnamon oil could be a good mosquito repellant, though they have not yet tested it against adult mosquitoes.
Besides bein
Determining exactly how proteins connect with specific DNA sequences in human cells has eluded researchers and scientists for years. While it has been possible to record the speed at which a protein could bond with DNA, little was known about how proteins located and connected with a specific pattern of DNA to allow genes to express themselves in the form of traits such as facial appearance, hair and eye color or behaviors.
In the July 16 issue of the journal Science, Rutgers-Newark chemi
Like a parasite exploiting its host, some tumors protect themselves by recruiting non-tumor cells that normally help keep the immune system in check, say researchers at the Medical College of Georgia.
When the researchers looked into the lymph nodes where tumors drain – typically the first place tumors spread – they found a subset of normal host immune cells were expressing IDO, an immunosuppressive enzyme also expressed by the fetus to help avoid rejection by the mother’s immune syst
Computerized systems that automatically match fingerprints have become so sophisticated that the best of them are accurate more than 99 percent of the time, according to the most comprehensive known study of the systems ever conducted.
Computer scientists at the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) tested 34 commercially available systems provided by 18 companies from around the world. NIST conducted the testing to evaluate the accuracy of fingerprin
Tiny pellets of fuel may be safer for hazardous places on earth and burn more efficiently in weightless space and low-gravity environments
Researchers from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering say solid fuel particles may be safer for hazardous environments on earth and burn more efficiently in the microgravity of space than gaseous fuels, which are more combustible and difficult to transport.
In the Spring 2004 issue of NASA Space Research, Fokion Egolfopoulos and Charles
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new performance standard for “across-the-road” radar speed-measuring device systems to help law enforcement agencies to purchase and use with confidence this relatively new method for catching speeders.
Unlike conventional “down-the-road” radar speed-measuring devices, across-the-road radar systems do not require an operator and can be programmed to detect and record vehicles traveling above a predete
Add a deceptively simple twist to a tiny fiber of glass and you get a versatile new class of optical devices to filter light; sense changes in temperature, pressure or other environmental factors; or transmit information via powerful, inexpensive lasers, according to researchers at Chiral Photonics Inc. of Clifton, N.J. Writing in the July 2 issue of Science, the company describes a new class of devices called chiral gratings that were developed with support from the Advanced Technology Program at t
A U.S. clinical study is just getting under way that, if successful, could lead to a non-surgical “cure” for the most common type of cardiac arrhythmia. The study is evaluating a new type of cryogenic catheter co-developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The catheter system, which is being commercialized by CryoCor of San Diego, Calif., is designed to selectively freeze cardiac tissue in order to block the abnormal electrical signals that cause arrhythmia, the
OHSU findings suggest more attention be paid to older patients’ cognitive functioning
Many older patients showing signs of dementia are not being diagnosed for the progressive brain disorder by their primary care physicians, an Oregon Health & Science University study has found.
The study, published in the current issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, confirms previous research that found dementia often goes undiagnosed in primary care. It points to the n
Docosahexaenoic acid, or “DHA,” is a nutritional compound (an essential fatty acid, or lipid) that has many effects in the body, including the development of the eyes and brain. Prior to birth, fetuses obtain DHA from their mothers, with DHA primarily accumulating in the brain during the third trimester.
DHA is also found naturally in breast milk and has recently been added to some U.S. commercial infant formulas. Some research indicates this postnatal DHA improves vision and some cognitive
The idea that a woman’s emotional state during pregnancy affects her unborn child has persisted for centuries and has, in recent years, been supported by science. Called the “fetal programming hypothesis,” it theorizes that certain disturbing factors occurring during certain sensitive periods of development in utero can “program” set points in a variety of biological systems in the unborn child. This, then, affects the ability of those biological systems to change later in life, resulting in difficu
A team of researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) has discovered that transposons, small DNA sequences that travel through the genomes, can silence the genes adjacent to them by inducing a molecule called antisense RNA. This is a new mechanism for evolution that has been unknown until now. The research has been recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Transposons are repeated DNA sequences that move through the genomes. For a l
A study of more than 2000 children of women with gestational diabetes (the diabetes that some women get during pregnancy) has revealed that obesity in mothers is one of the most decisive factors contributing to the appearance of congenital malformations in their children, even more so than the seriousness of the diabetes. The research, published in the european journal Diabetologia, has been carried out by a research team from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Hospital de Sant Pau in Barcelo
Getting lost in strange towns and cities or trying to find the right way to a particular destination is no longer a problem due to new navigation software that provides on the move information for drivers and pedestrians within seconds.
Developed with the help of almost £1.3 million from the Information Society Technology (IST) Programme of the European Union’s Framework Programme, PEPTRAN gives drivers and mobile users information on the best possible routes within seconds, using their sm
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