In September of the past year, Russian scientists made sensational findings on the famous mammoth’ burial site Lugovskoe in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area. Particularly, about 300 human-shaped stone objects and a mammoth’s vertebra pierced by a spear or javelin head were found. The pierced vertebra is the first indisputable proof that men hunted mammoths. A site of human settlement that functioned about 14 000 years ago is discovered by the researchers. This is the northernmost settlement
Visually-impaired visitors to the National Railway Museum in York will be able to find their way around the buildings more easily and enjoyably from today, thanks to specially designed ’tactile guides’ produced by the University of York.
Visitors use their fingertips to trace their way around the building and its famous engines following the guide, a two-dimensional picture of lines, shapes and textures.
The guide has been tested by visually impaired people, who were so
Oxygen played a key role in the evolution of complex organisms, according to new research published in BMC Evolutionary Biology. The study shows that the complexity of life forms increased earlier than was thought, and in parallel with the availability of oxygen as an energy source.
In the largest study to date that does not focus on vertebrates, researchers from Pennsylvania State University used molecular dating methods to create a new timeline of eukaryotic evolution. By adding informatio
The eradication of leprosy, one of the world’s oldest and most feared diseases, may be one step closer. An international research team lead by scientists from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) discovered that small changes in certain genes, the Parkin 2 gene and its neighbor, PACRG, result in an increased susceptibility to leprosy. Parkin 2 has also been shown to cause certain forms of Parkinson’s Disease, a common neuro-degenerative disease in developed countries.
Scientists have discovered why icy clouds found at the edge of space are higher at the South Pole than at the North. The answer to this puzzle is that the intensity of solar radiation at the South Pole is six percent higher than at the North Pole during the austral summer, as the Earth comes closer to the sun. New research from British Antarctic Survey and University of Illinois is reported in this month’s Geophysical Research Letters (published online 29 January 2004). This research helps under
It is known that previous pregnancy decreases the risk of breast cancer. But a new dissertation from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden shows that even brief pregnancies terminated prior to full term can have a certain preventive effect. The results could not confirm several earlier studies showing that the risk of developing breast cancer increases among individuals who have had an abortion.
It has long been known that pregnancy has a preventive effect against breast cance
The discovery of a unique phenomenon: a beautiful set of expanding X-ray halos surrounding a gamma-ray burst which have never been seen before, (see Movie link at end), has been announced by an international team of astronomers led by Dr Simon Vaughan of the University of Leicester. The research has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.
Gamma-ray bursts (GRB) are the most energetic form of radiation in the Universe and can be used to probe any material between Earth and
Like a doctor trying to understand an elderly patient’s sudden demise, astronomers have obtained the most detailed observations ever of an old but otherwise normal massive star just before and after its life ended in a spectacular supernova explosion.
Imaged by the Gemini Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) less than a year prior to the gigantic explosion, the star is located in the nearby galaxy M-74 in the constellation of Pisces. These observations allowed a team of European
In Europe, 8.5 million tons of tomatoes are cultivated annually. 1.5 million tons are sold directly to the consumer and 7 million are processed for products such as ketchup, sauces, etc. During this processing, some 40% of the tomato raw material ends up as residue mainly skin and seeds. The seeds, considered by the processing industry simply as waste or used as animal feed, is still an excellent source of nutrients such as carotenoids, proteins, sugars, fibre, wax and oils, these oils being nutritio
Microscopic colitis is a newly discovered inflammatory intestinal disease that occurs in two different forms, lymphocytary colitis and collagenic colitis. Örebro University, Sweden, is on the cutting edge of research on these diseases, and Martin Olesen is one of first scientists in the country to write a dissertation on the subject, defending it at University Hospital, Örebro.
The disease is difficult to discover because the mucous lining of the intestine often looks perfect
To carry out simultaneuos observations with several telescopes and transform the combined data into pictures from distant galaxies has so far been a cumbersome procedure which often has taken a long time.
Now a breakthrough has been achieved by way of the installation of optical fibre links between the observatories and the universities who have access to the national and international research networks.
On Thursday 15 January 2004, the first e-VLBI experiment took place between O
Work to develop new methods of digitally restoring archive film footage could breathe new life into old recordings and improve on the quality of the originals.
The new approach aims to make the whole process cheaper, faster and more effective than current methods. The work could also dramatically improve public access to previously unavailable historic, artistic and cultural material.
Many historic events are captured on celluloid but its fragile nature means we are gradually los
Artificial glass livers being developed at the University of Leeds could help those suffering from liver failure, and improve understanding of how the organ works, researchers believe.
Dr Peter Walker of mechanical engineering is leading Leeds’ contribution to a three-year £320,000 project that aims to replicate the geometry of the liver, using glass and liver cells.
“The liver is a very complex organ, which we still don’t fully understand,” said Dr Walker. “If we can mimic closely
Research at the University of Leeds into herbal remedies in the farmyard could soon see pigswill garnished with garlic and cows chewing on cinnamon-flavoured cud. With an EU ban on antibiotic growth promoters in animal feed from 2006, alternatives need to be found urgently. The use of plant extracts, once dismissed as quack science, is attracting growing interest from the industry.
Dr Henry Greathead, researcher at the department of biology, is experimenting with essential oils from thyme as
The number of sigmoidoscopy examinations that fail to attain an adequate depth of insertion increases progressively along with advancing age in men and women, according to a new study by a researcher at the San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC). In addition, the study found, women are up to twice as likely as men to have inadequate exams. The findings, which are based on reviews of thousands of records of sigmoidoscopies, suggest that a patient’s age and sex are important factors to consider
Using math and physics to investigate mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE) and similar diseases caused by infectious proteins called prions is the aim of research by physicists Daniel Cox, Rajiv Singh and colleagues at UC Davis. The researchers are using mathematical models to study issues such as the incubation time, prion “strains” and treatment or detection strategies.
Diseases such as BSE in cattle, Creutzfeld-Jakob disease in humans and chronic wasting disease in d
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