A revolutionary device that could protect asthmatics from stifling air pollution has gone on show at the Science Museum. in London.
The PUREbreathe, a plastic device containing high tech filters to be worn in the mouth, has been unveiled as one of the star exhibits in the Science of Sport exhibition, the Science Museum’s latest blockbuster exploring the world of sport [which opened on Friday, February 13].
Sport scientist Dr Alison McConnell a researcher at Brunel University, in Ux
Time to renew your residence permit? Oh dear. Down to the town hall, stand in line, collect the forms, take them away, come back, stand in line, hand in the forms, go away, come back one week later, stand in line again, collect your permit. Elapsed time – two weeks maybe. Sound familiar?
One group of IST researchers is dedicated to simplifying the whole process. The E-MuniS project has developed prototype electronic information systems and processes for town halls that should cut such time
’Organic spin valves’ shown feasible for new electronic devices
University of Utah physicists have taken an important step toward a new generation of faster, cheaper computers and electronics by building the first “organic spin valves” – electrical switches that integrate two emerging fields of technology: organic semiconductor electronics and spin electronics, or spintronics.
In a study published Feb. 26 in the journal Nature, the researchers report they used a se
An international study has found that maintenance therapy with the drug infliximab, a monoclonal antibody used to treat Crohn’s disease, can prevent or delay the recurrence of fistulas, a common complication of that inflammatory bowel disorder. As reported in the February 26 New England Journal of Medicine, patients receiving infliximab on a regular basis were twice as likely to avoid fistula recurrence than were patients receiving a placebo.
The study was largely supported by the phar
Scientists at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified a protein that blocks HIV replication in monkey cells. Humans have a similar protein, although it is not as effective at stopping HIV, say the researchers whose work is published in this week’s issue of Nature. The team, headed by Joseph Sodroski, M.D., is supported by the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
“Identification of this HIV-blocking factor opens new avenues for intervening in the ear
Provides new look at conservation of threatened coral species
An international research team has identified a family of corals found only in the Atlantic Ocean-a first for such classifications in that ocean-in a study that could transform how corals are viewed and classified. The scientists, who will publish their results in the Feb. 26 issue of the journal Nature, say the findings are also important for future decisions about coral conservation and the preservation of threatened biod
Biomedical engineers at Lehigh University and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh probe causes of eustachian tube dysfunction in hopes of finding new treatments for ear infections
It will come as no surprise to parents that the most common illness among small children in America today is the middle-ear infection.
Each year, Americans spend $5 billion on ear infections. Doctors often prescribe two different antibiotics for the same infection. For more serious cases, they p
When we want to go, why can we “wait”? In other words, when we sense that a bowel movement will be necessary, the body has the ability to defer that action until an appropriate time. A new research study examines this issue and the findings could have beneficial implications for those patients with fecal incontinence resulting from a cerebrovascular accident and injuries to the frontal lobe.
Background
Voluntary control of the external anal sphincter (EAS) plays an essentia
NHGRI-supported centers also to target more insects, worms and fungi
The Large-Scale Sequencing Research Network this year will begin sequencing the genomes of more than a dozen new model organisms, including the first marsupial to have its DNA deciphered. The research network, supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is part of an effort to further advance understanding of the human genome.
The effort
Procedure requires no immune suppression drugs
An experimental cross-species transplant to treat diabetes has passed an early test in rats with better-than-expected results, suggesting the innovative approach might halt type 1 diabetes while greatly reducing the risk of rejection.
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis set up control and experimental groups of rats with diabetes. The experimental group received embryonic pig pancreas cell transpl
Producing a material that is harder than natural diamond has been a goal of materials science for decades. Now a group headed by scientists at the Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory in Washington, D.C., has produced gemsized diamonds that are harder than any other crystals, available at a rate that is up to 100 times faster than other methods used to date. The process opens up an entirely new way of producing diamond crystals for electronics, cutting tools and other industrial applica
Purdue scientists have made an important biological molecule “swing,” in work that might clarify the process by which proteins fold as well as lead to new approaches to drug development and computer memory.
Using lasers to initiate and probe the folding process, a group including chemist Timothy Zwier have precisely determined the energies needed to twist tryptamine, a molecule with several flexible “hinges” that bears a close resemblance to an amino acid, the basis of proteins. Understandin
“Nature was nano before nano was cool,” stated Henry Fountain in a recent New York Times article on the proliferation of nanotechnology research projects. No one is more aware of this fact of nature than Dan Morse of the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research groups have been studying the ways that nature builds ocean organisms at the nanoscale for over ten years.
For example, they have studied the abalone shell for its high-performance, super-resistant, composite mineral str
Scientists at international conference release strategy to save them
The leatherback turtle, a gentle giant weighing close to a ton (907 kg) and measuring eight feet (2.4 meters) in length, may be extinct within a decade in the Pacific Ocean.
The news was released at the 24th Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Conservation and Biology, a weeklong conference in San Jose, Costa Rica attended by more than 1,000 experts from 70 countries.
Named for its smooth, leathery ski
The fight against antibiotic resistance could be aided by new 3D images of the final steps involved in manufacturing proteins in living cells, scientists reveal today in a letter to Nature.
By refining a technique known as cryo-electron microscopy, researchers from Imperial College London and CNRS-Inserm-Strasbourg University have determined how the enzyme RF3 helps prepare the protein-making factory for its next task following disconnection of the newly formed protein strand.
The t
One of the methods for treating diseases that include cancer, arthritis and radiation sickness is challenged by new research by a team of scientists at University College London (UCL). The current orthodoxy on the role played by oxygen free radicals in the development of a number of diseases is called into question by the UCL team in a paper to be published in the 26th February edition of Nature, in research that may hold profound implications for the standard approach of the medical profession and p
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