Sea-level rise and changes to cyclone intensity under enhanced greenhouse conditions would pose a considerable increase in risk to coastal property and infrastructure, according to a recent CSIRO study.
Dr John Church, of CSIRO and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC, said a recent study had confirmed that sea-level in the Australian region was rising at rates which would have a significant impact over decades to come.
Speaking at the Coast to Coast 04 conference in Hobart tod
CSIRO marine scientists have developed a technique that gives new hope in the battle to stop the spread of aquatic pests
“What we have is a probe acting as a magnet to detect a needle in a haystack,” says Dr Jawahar Patil, who designed the technique which has been successfully tested in Australia.
The new DNA probe involves seawater sample extraction of DNA, and amplification of a target specific “DNA signature or fingerprint” to identify the presence of pest species in water
Specialised design problems can require massive computing efforts. Middleware tools to harness the power of Grid computing have been proven to work in real industrial applications, through the work of IST project DAMIEN.
Helping to design aircraft
EADS, a major aerospace company and DAMIEN consortium member, used the system in real applications across its sites in Europe. “Before you can get official certification for a new design of aircraft, extensive tests have to be car
To maximize a plane’s efficiency over a broader range of flight speeds, Penn State engineers have developed a concept for morphing airplane wings that change shape like a bird’s and are covered with a segmented outer skin like the scales of a fish.
Dr. George Lesieutre, professor of aerospace engineering who leads the project, says, “Airplanes today are a design compromise. They have a fixed-wing structure that is not ideal for every part of a typical flight. Being able to change t
Coronary artery surgery performed “off-pump”, i.e., keeping the heart beating and not using the cardiopulmonary bypass machine, has similar outcomes after one year, and costs less, when compared to conventional coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) using cardiopulmonary bypass, according to a study in the April 21 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
To try to avoid some of the complications attributable to cardiopulmonary bypass, U.S. surgeons performed approxim
New research findings about T-cell transport shed light on how the normal immune system functions and could have implications in fighting autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, say researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
Two molecules on the surfaces of T-cells – a type of immune cell – must work in tandem to help the T-cells cross from the bloodstream into infected tissues, where the T-cells initiate an immune or inflammatory response, researchers at UT Southwestern have di
A booster dose of a substance already found in the body appears to be safe and non-toxic for the treatment of pancreatic cancer, and shows signs of arresting pancreatic cancer cell growth in patients, Penn State College of Medicine researchers report.
“Our previous laboratory and animal studies showed that opioid growth factor, called OGF, can markedly slow down the proliferation of pancreatic cancer cells,” said Ian S. Zagon, Ph.D., professor of neural and behavioral sciences, Penn State C
Two largest organ transplant societies join forces to tackle problem of traditional and exotic infections in thoracic transplantation
Complications from infectious diseases, such as HIV and West Nile virus in heart and lung transplant patients, is the focus of a joint symposium at the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) 24th Annual Meeting held in San Francisco.
When demand for organs continually outstrips supply, offering transplants to patient
Researchers at Purdue University have developed the first system capable of searching a company’s huge database of three-dimensional parts created with computer-aided design software.
Such “parts search engines” could save time and millions of dollars annually by making it easier for companies to “reuse” previous designs, benefiting from the lessons learned in creating past parts.
“Designers spend about 60 percent of their time searching for the right information, which is rated as
The Arctic Ocean receives about 10 percent of Earth’s river water and with it some 25 teragrams [28 million tons] per year of dissolved organic carbon that had been held in far northern bogs and other soils.
Now an international team of U.S. and German scientists, including some funded by the National Science Foundation, have used carbon-14 dating techniques to determine that most of that carbon is fairly young and not likely to affect the balance of global climate.
They report
Genetically modified mosquitoes that cannot transmit malaria are one hope for battling the disease that still kills over one million people a year. But that plan faces some serious snags, according to UC Davis researchers who are suggesting an alternative strategy.
Other scientists have proposed controlling malaria by releasing into the wild mosquitoes genetically engineered to resist malaria. If the resistant mosquitoes breed and spread their genes through the population, malaria transmiss
Glaciers reached Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the most recent ice age about 20,000 years ago. But much harsher ice ages hit the Earth in an ancient geological interval known as “the Cryogenian Period” between 750 and 600 million years ago. A team of geologists from China and the United States now report evidence of at least three ice ages during that ancient time.
“The Cryogenian Period is characterized by some of the worst glaciations in earth history. But the available age constraints are s
About 75,000 years ago, some scientists say, the last truly colossal volcanic eruption on Earth came close to wiping out all the primates, including humans. That eruption occurred when the Toba volcano in Indonesia exploded in an almost unbelievably shattering display.
Other people with a flare for the dramatic warn that a supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park could erupt in the not-so-distant future and push humanity to the verge of extinction. University of North Carolina at C
Multiple births — twins, triplets or more babies in one pregnancy — have more risks of infant death and long-term disabilities such as cerebral palsy than births of single babies do. However, many couples seeking infertility treatments desire multiples and have poor knowledge particularly about the risks for twins, a University of Iowa study reported.
The investigation found that one in five women seeking treatment desired multiples over having a singleton, or one baby. While patients usu
Populations of antelope, elk and deer face growing gauntlet of gas fields and highways
Bottlenecks from increased development are choking off ancient migration routes for wildlife in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) and other regions, according to a study by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) that appears in the current issue of the journal Conservation Biology.
Increased gas development in particular is making it more and more difficult for specie
Close look at structure of transport proteins could aid search Red-blooded genealogists take note: The discovery in microbes of two oxygen-packing proteins, the earliest known ancestors to hemoglobin, brings scientists closer to identifying the earliest life forms to use oxygen. According to the project’s lead investigator, University of Hawaii microbiologist Maqsudul Alam, the research may also aid in the search for blood substitutes as new
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