Wind power is the most rapidly growing form of energy in the world today. European wind power accounts for the greatest share, with Denmark, Germany, and Spain as leading countries. In Denmark, for example, wind power provides roughly 12 percent of production of electricity. In Sweden, too, wind power has increased, although to a more limited extent. Between 1996 and 2003 the number of plants doubled from 300 to 631, while annual production trebled from 0.15 to about 0.5 TWh. However, wind accounts f
Resurgence may be due to greater resistance to pesticides, socioeconomic conditions
“Bed bugs were once a common urban plague. But with the development of synthetic insecticides such as DDT and spray systems during the Second World War, they were largely eliminated,” says Dr. Tim Myles, an urban entomologist and author of the study published U of T’s Centre for Urban and Community Studies in a recent research bulletin.
Reports of bed bugs by Toronto pest control companies a
Research News from British Journal of Surgery
The surgery needed to remove throat tumours is severe and often involves drawing the stomach higher into the chest cavity. Before surgeons embark on this risky procedure they need to believe that the patient has a good chance of benefiting from the operation.
Endoscopic ultrasonography is a fairly new technique, and so far there has been relatively little use of it in the UK. But a study of 150 patients with throat cancer found th
Many of our actions are guided by past experiences combined with insight into the future. A major mystery of biology involves understanding how brain cells can create a representation that extends backward and forward through time. A new study conducted by researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine published in the December 18th issue of Neuron begins to unravel the brain activity that underlies concurrent processing of the recent past, the present and the imminent future.
Memories that
A combination of drugs is significantly more effective than either drug alone for preventing progression of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), especially in men at high risk for disease progression, according to a study appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine tomorrow.
The Medical Therapy of Prostatic Symptoms (MTOPS) Trial tested whether finasteride (Proscar), doxazosin (Cardura) or a combination of the drugs could prevent progression of BPH and the need for surgery or other inva
Researchers have developed a process to create wires only 50 nanometers (billionths of a meter) thick. Made from silica, the same mineral found in quartz, the wires carry light in an unusual way. Because the wires are thinner than the wavelengths of light they transport, the material serves as a guide around which light waves flow. In addition, because the researchers can fabricate the wires with a uniform diameter and smooth surfaces down to the atomic level, the light waves remain coherent as they
Researchers report that children who spent more time in sports activities and had higher aerobic fitness reported fewer “sick” days; children with more than 25% body fat had significantly more
How best to keep school aged children from getting sick? Some invoke the most famous parental warning of all: “Don’t go outside with your hair wet or you’ll catch pneumonia.” Now, a new study offers additional strategies for combating the number of cold and flu symptom days among youngsters.
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that the absence of two proteins cells use to cope with heat stress can make it easier for the cells to become cancerous, but that same absence also makes it harder for cancerous cells to survive exposure to heat and radiation.
The findings mark the two proteins, Heat shock protein (Hsp) 70.1 and 70.3, as potential targets for gene therapy that could increase cancer cells’ vulnerability to treatments.
International HapMap Project begins the cartography of human genome variation
Tracking down genes involved in health and disease and the response of patients to therapies is a principal goal of contemporary biomedical research. In the December 18 issue of Nature, the International HapMap Consortium describes the new tools and approaches it has developed that will enhance the ability of scientists to identify disease-related genes and to develop corresponding diagnostic and therapeutic
New findings may have implications for the stability of today’s climate
Scientists at the University of California, Riverside and Columbia University have found evidence of the release of an enormous quantity of methane gas as ice sheets melted at the end of a global ice age about 600 million years ago, possibly altering the ocean’s chemistry, influencing oxygen levels in the ocean and atmosphere, and enhancing climate warming because methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. Th
Even without noticing this, everyday we all make use of many magnetic gadgets and devices, both at home and at work. There are dozens of magnets working in our cars and household appliances and billions of tiny magnets keep records on computer hard disks. These are just a few examples of the importance of magnetic materials in supporting our modern lifestyle.
Whether a particular material can be used in a simple appliance, such as an electric bell, or can be a part of a sophisticated electr
The gemstone opal could be manufactured synthetically copying a technique employed by a beetle to control the appearance of its outer shell.
Researchers from the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford have discovered the first case of opal in an animal, in this case in the weevil Pachyrhynchus argus, found in forests in north-eastern Queensland, Australia. This animal produces a photonic crystal structure analogous to that of opal, which gives it a relatively uniform, metallic co
Scientists have developed biodegradable polymers that can mimic the ability of white blood cells to target inflamed blood vessel walls, according to a new study led by Ohio University researchers. The finding could be the first step in developing drugs that suppress specific sites of inflammation in medical conditions such as arthritis, heart disease and inflammatory bowel disease.
Researchers found that biodegradable beads coated with targeting molecules can travel through the bloodstream
Of all the personal computers to be unwrapped during the holiday season, more than 80 percent will be used to go online and search the Web’s more than 92 million gigabytes of data (comparable to a 2 billion-volume encyclopedia). Getting online is the easy part, finding a useful Web page is a bit harder-keeping track of a useful Web page is another issue altogether.
People have devised many tricks-such as sending e- mails to themselves or jotting on sticky notes-for keeping track of Web pa
USC nanotube device uses ’Stochastic Resonance’ to enhance subthreshold signals
Paradoxical as it seems, a team of University of Southern California researchers has built a signal detector that only works when noise is added.
The device uses a novel kind of transistor made from carbon nanotubes. The principal investigator, Professor Bart Kosko of the USC department of electrical engineering, claims that the series of experiments reported in the December issue of the American
Premenopausal women with lymph node-negative breast cancer should receive adjuvant therapy tailored according to the estrogen receptor status of the primary tumor, concludes a study by the International Breast Cancer Study Group (IBCSG) reported in the December 17 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Patients with estrogen receptor (ER)-negative (i.e., endocrine nonresponsive) breast cancer should receive adjuvant chemotherapy, according to the study, whereas for patients
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