When recovering from a heart attack or stroke, the body must restore blood flow in order to resupply cells with oxygen. Ironically, the process of reoxygenation – so necessary for full recovery – also generates reactive oxygen species (ROS), molecules that induce apoptosis, or cellular death. Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the University of Iowa have identified a biochemical strategy to block ROS – which effectively prevents cellular damage and death. Their
Using the latest terascale ASCI computers, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have revealed details of the reactive states and faster relaxation of molecules at the water-to-air interface.
Scientists Christopher Mundy and I-Feng Kuo created the first ab initio calculations of a stable aqueous liquid-vapor interface. The simulations serve as a robust predictive tool in the investigation of electronic properties of molecules at interfaces.
These complex theoretical m
Argonne researchers use specialized instrument
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have reached for the stars – and seen what’s inside.
Argonne scientists, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Chicago, Washington University and the Universita di Torino in Italy, examined stardust from a meteorite and found remnants of now-extinct technetium atoms made in stars long ago.
The stardust grains are tiny bit
Researchers have discovered a mineral gel created when rocks abrade each other under earthquake-like conditions. If present in faults during a quake, the gel may reduce friction to nearly zero in some situations, resulting in larger energy releases that could cause more damage.
Terry Tullis and David Goldsby of Brown University in Providence, R.I., and Giulio Di Toro of the University of Padova in Italy announce their findings in the Jan. 29 issue of the journal Nature.
The research
Women with breast cancer have fewer adverse effects from chemotherapy and less fatigue when using virtual reality as a distraction intervention during treatments, according to a study from the Duke University School of Nursing and Case Western Reserve Comprehensive Cancer Center.
In the study, published in the January 2004 issue of Oncology Nursing Forum, the researchers described how chemotherapy patients eased their fatigue and discomfort by solving a mystery, touring an art gallery or go
The butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker may be more famous, but the pharmacist, the engineer, and the doctor may be onto something big.
The latter group has combined resources and knowledge to create a novel way to deliver a new lung cancer treatment. The new system, which uses “nanoparticle cluster bombs,” has proven effective in treating cancerous lung cells in vitro (in a petri dish), it was reported today in the International Journal of Pharmaceuticals. The research tea
Determining the three-dimensional position of Mars Express in space with as much precision as possible, at a distance of 155 million kilometres away from Earth, is no simple business.
If the Solar System were shrunk down so that Earth was only the size of a soccer ball, then Mars Express would be a speck of dust floating well over two kilometres away!
ESA ground stations have kept track of the spacecraft’s range and velocity ever since launch.
By measuring the ‘Doppl
Preparing for the arrival of the first European Automated Transfer Vehicle. Europe’s scientific utilisation of the International Space Station (ISS) took an important step forward with the launch of an unmanned Russian Progress cargo spacecraft today at 12:58 Central European Time (16:58 local time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The Progress supply vehicle will take two days to reach the International Space Station, carrying experiment hardware for the Delta mission to be
A breakthrough broadcast technology designed to deliver Traffic and Travel Information (TTI) has been tested and validated by the TPEG project. Project partners have further developed a new and open international standard for broadcasting language independent multimodal TTI to be distributed over a wide range of digital media.
Use of TPEG industry-wide will allow the development of powerful systems to manage and display travel news. In addition, developers will be able to create systems and
On Friday the 30th, during the XLII international winter meeting on nuclear physics at Bormio, the first results will be announced of Finuda experiment (Nuclear Physics at Daphne), settled in Frascati at Infn National Laboratories.
Planned and made operating by a group of about forty physicists from Universities and Infn Sites of Bari, Brescia, Frascati, Pavia, Torino and Trieste, Finuda is devoted to the study of hypernuclei: nuclei composed by three different kinds of particles rather the
A research team at the Department of Physics at the Public University of Navarre are developing new, “intelligent” materials which have the capacity for changing shape when a magnetic field is applied to them. These materials may be used for the generation of ultrasonic signals, in the manufacture of loudspeakers and sonars or in actuators, amongst other applications. The project is a three-year one.
Specifically, the group at the Public University of Navarre is working on the optimisation
A system designed to optimise fertilising strategies for radiata pine plantations in the Green Triangle (SE South Australia and SW Victoria) is being jointly developed by CSIRO, the Forest and Wood Products Research and Development Corporation (FWPRDC) and key softwood growers in the region.
According to CSIRO Forestry and Forest Products (CFFP) spokesman, Dr Barrie May, improved nutrient management practices could significantly increase the productivity of Australia’s radiata pine plan
A retrospective analysis by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center published in The New England Journal of Medicine found no causal relationship between testosterone replacement and prostate cancer or heart disease risk.
The comprehensive review of 72 studies, addresses the current controversy about testosterone replacement therapy and its potential health risks to men.
“We reviewed decades of research and found no compelling evidence that testosterone replacement the
Treatment for depression may be stymied in people with moderate to severe body pain, according to a new study.
Researchers Matthew J. Bair, M.D., formerly of the Regenstrief Institute, and colleagues uncovered the connection by analyzing the results of a clinical trial of 573 depression patients taking medications like Prozac, Paxil or Zoloft. Their findings are published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.
Although depression improved in most of the patients after three months
Older men with lower levels of free, or unbound, testosterone circulating in their bloodstreams could be at higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD) than their peers, according to new research. This prospective observational study is believed to be the first to associate low circulating blood levels of free testosterone with AD years before diagnosis.
The study appears in the January 27, 2004 issue of the journal Neurology. This work was conducted by investigators at the Natio
Scientists at JILA, a joint laboratory of the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder) report the first observation of a “fermionic condensate” formed from pairs of atoms in a gas, a long-sought, novel form of matter. Physicists hope that further research with such condensates eventually will help unlock the mysteries of high-temperature superconductivity, a phenomenon with the potential to improve energy ef
Feedback
