Carbon dioxide, an environmentally friendly solvent for dyeing and dry cleaning, may become a valuable new tool for making medical implants, according to a study at Ohio State University.
Engineers here used compressed carbon dioxide (CO2) to push chemicals into a plastic that is often used as a bone replacement. With further development, the technology could be used in a wide range of plastics that release medicines — from antibiotics to anti-tumor agents -– into the body.
The hig
Authors call on physicians and parents to engage players in discussions about media violence and its implications
A new study finds that Teen-rated video games contain significant amounts of violence and death. Led by researchers at the Center on Media and Child Health at Children’s Hospital Boston and the Kids Risk Project at the Harvard School of Public Health, the study appears March 12 in Medscape General Medicine (www.medgenmed.com), the first and only online, peer-reviewed pri
Scientists at the University of Ulster are harnessing molecules produced naturally in the body to tackle one of the world’s major health problems – diabetes.
Their novel approach involves bioengineering gut peptides – molecules produced in the human intestine and released in response to feeding – to prolong their duration of action and, therefore, make them work more effectively.
The research by the internationally-recognised Diabetes Research Group at the University’s Coleraine c
Construction companies in the UK can now make use of new internet-based services that will enhance collaboration and teamwork within the whole European construction industry.
Thanks to a grant of almost €1.5 million from the Information Society Technology (IST) Programme of the European Union’s Framework Programme, the project named OSMOS (Open System for Inter-enterprise Information Management in Dynamic Virtual Environments) succeeded in providing all the necessary conditions for optimis
System for guiding cell migration, adhesion has biomedical and regenerative medical applications
Scientists at the University of Toronto are taking regenerative medicine to a new dimension with a process for guiding nerve cells that could someday help reconnect severed nerve endings.
Molly Shoichet, a professor of chemical engineering and applied chemistry at the Institute for Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME), has devised a new method that helps guide cell mi
100,000 tons of sludge is produced annually in the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC) at waste water treatment plants (E.D.A.R). Under new legislation it will be obligatory to install these sewage water treatment plants in those urban areas of more than 3000 inhabitants, which in turn will mean, in the medium term, a considerable increase in the amount of sewage sludge generated.
The application of this sludge to forestry systems is being put forward as a solution to the ever-increasing pro
Cotton lint yields can be increased by up to 18 per cent when cotton crops are rotated with crops of a little known legume, vetch, according to a team of researchers at CSIRO Plant Industry.
Following an eight-year study the team found that vetch fixes large amounts of nitrogen, increases soil organic matter, improves soil structure, makes cultivation easier, increases soil water holding capacity and reduces the incidence of black root rot.
“Data from 2003 show when vetch is used
Competitiveness in the chip design and fabrication sector depends on fast turn-arounds and ever shorter concept-to-product cycles. New hardware design tools based on object-oriented methods should help shorten the design cycle.
The design gap
The complexity of recently available products, such as new 3G mobile phones, camera and PDA combos, is staggering and requires a huge design effort. “There is no doubt that electronic systems of the future are going to be very complex,”
A new research study sheds light on how cancer cells manage to evade the immune system despite the presence of tumor-specific immune cells. The researchers found that mouse and human melanoma cells secrete galectin-1, which has a negative impact on the survival of T cells, and that inhibition of Gal-1 dramatically reduces tumor formation in mice. The research has exciting implications for future anticancer therapies that may stimulate an effective immune response against tumor cells.
Tumor
Scientists studying the elusive western gorilla observed that neighboring social groups have surprisingly peaceful interactions, in contrast to the aggressive male behavior well documented in mountain gorillas. By analyzing the DNA from fecal and hair samples of the western gorilla, scientists uncovered evidence that these neighboring social groups are often led by genetically related males. These findings suggest connections between genetic relationships and group interactions, parallels with human
By examining the worker castes in colonies of the ant, Pheidole morrisi, researchers have found new evidence that ants alter the organization of their colonies in different environments. Researchers Andrew Yang and colleagues from Duke University compared populations of P. morrisi in Florida, North Carolina and New York, and uncovered evidence supporting the idea that some insects adapt to their environment by adjusting body size and the relative proportion of different castes within their population
Giving older patients antibiotics within four hours of their arrival at a hospital for treatment of pneumonia reduces the length of hospital stay, and may reduce the chances of dying, according to an article in the March 22 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
According to the article, pneumonia is the second leading reason for hospitalization among Medicare beneficiaries, accounting for more than 600,000 Medicare hospitalizations yearly, and is the
Seemingly incidental emotions can influence the prices at which individuals buy and sell goods, according to a groundbreaking study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
While prior research has found that people set a higher price for objects they own than they themselves would be willing to pay—which economists call the endowment effect—the Carnegie Mellon study found that people who are sad actually are willing to accept less money to sell something than they would pay for the s
Penn State College of Medicine researchers have developed a tiny package that searches for and destroys up to 80 percent of hepatitis B virus in the livers of mice.
“This marks one of the few successful in vivo, or in-animal, models of an effective therapy to reduce the production of hepatitis B virus,” said Gary Clawson, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology, biochemistry and molecular biology, Penn State College of Medicine. “Although this work focused on hepatitis B virus, our method of tar
New model directly links tiger numbers to amount of prey, study says
Scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and their collaborators from the US Geological Survey’s wildlife research center in Maryland have developed a model that shows a solid quantitative relationship between tiger numbers and the amount of prey available to these highly endangered big cats. Published in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the mod
Peeking at a Puzzling Supernova with Spectropolarimetry
By measuring polarized light from an unusual exploding star, an international team of astrophysicists and astronomers has worked out the first detailed picture of a Type Ia supernova and the distinctive star system in which it exploded.
Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, the researchers determined that supernova 2002ic exploded inside a flat, dense, clumpy disk of dust and gas
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