Making a landmark event in the history of the experimental investigation of plutonium, scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for the first time have fully mapped the phonons in gallium-stabilized delta plutonium.
The experiment promises to reveal much about the physics and material properties of plutonium and its alloys.
The research, conducted in collaboration with researchers at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France, and the Univers
While croplands may provide more food than forests, they don’t offer much relief from hot tropical climes, a new study finds.
A study of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, which used NASA satellites and computer models, reports that cutting down tropical forests and converting grasslands to crops may inadvertently warm those local areas. According to the research, forest canopies create wind turbulence that cools the air, and native grasslands are better adapted to the tropics than crops, in ways
Cancer patients could be benefiting more than they realise from diagnostic scans. Research published today in Breast Cancer Research suggests that a radioactive molecule widely used to evaluate advanced tumours can kill cancer cells.
Dr Ekaterina Dadachova and her team from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, USA, examined how radioactive glucose affects breast tumours in mice. They found that, injected at certain doses, the radiation from the glucose killed cance
Surrounded by projection screens, a blue Saturn sits in a basement room in the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. If you look very closely, you can see several tiny video cameras inside the car, and a glance under the hood gives a whole new meaning to the term “souped-up.”
In the space where the engine normally resides sits an array of electronic instrumentation that turns this ordinary vehicle into a high-fidelity driving simulator known as SIREN (Simulator for Interdisciplinary Re
As well as keeping their fingers crossed for good weather during next week’s close approach of Mars, astronomers are hoping that the skies will be clear on Mars itself.
During National Astronomy Week – Saturday 23 to Saturday 30 August – observing events will be held across the UK where the public can view Mars through telescopes. It is expected that thousands of people will turn out to see the planet closer than it has been for almost 60,000 years. But it’’s not just our own
Nowadays, the Universe is pervaded by energetic ultraviolet radiation, produced by quasars and hot stars. The short-wavelength photons liberate electrons from the hydrogen atoms that make up the diffuse intergalactic medium and the latter is therefore almost completely ionised. There was, however, an early epoch in the history of the Universe when this was not so.
The Universe emanated from a hot and extremely dense initial state, the so-called Big Bang. Astronomers now believe that it took
How vastly different animals arrive at the same body plan or pattern of ornamentation has long been a conundrum of developmental biology.
But now, thanks to the colorful derriere of a wild fruit fly, captured on a compost heap by a University of Wisconsin-Madison post-doctoral student, scientists have been able to document a rare example of molecular convergence, the process by which different animals use the same genes to repeatedly invent similar body patterns and structures.
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New discoveries about tiny genetic components called microRNAs explain why plant leaves are flat.
The study may be a first step, researchers say, in revolutionizing our understanding of how plants control their morphology, or shape. A plant’s ability to grow structures with a specific shape is critical to its normal function of capturing energy from the sun and producing products like grain and fiber.
As such, these findings could ultimately have profound implications fo
Are there ’social behavior’ genes?
A rare genetic disorder may lead scientists to genes for social behavior, a Salk Institute study has found.
The study zeros in on the genes that may lead to the marked extroverted behavior seen in children with Williams syndrome, demonstrating that “hyper-sociability” – especially the drive to greet and interact with strangers — follows a unique developmental path.
The path is not only different from typical children bu
Two important questions face biologists studying the infectious proteins called prions: What stops prions that infect one species from infecting another species and what causes the invisible transmission barrier between species to fail sometimes?
In experiments with yeast prions reported in this week’s issue of Nature, Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have shown how point mutations in prions — which do not compromise their infectivity — can nevertheless cause prions to alter
Bread wheat plants carrying a newly discovered gene that is resistant to economically devastating leaf blotch can reduce the amount of grain lost to the pathogen, according to Purdue University researchers.
The scientists used bread wheat species to find the gene and the markers, or bits of DNA, that indicate presence of the naturally occurring gene. The fungus causes wheat crop damage worldwide with yield losses of 50 percent or more in some places. In the United States the disease is wide
Results from an expedition to the sea floor near the Hawaiian Islands show evidence that the deep Earth is more unsettled than geologists have long believed. A new University of Rochester study suggests that the long chain of islands and seamounts, which is deemed a “textbook” example of tectonic plate motion, was formed in part by a moving plume of magma, upsetting the prevailing theory that plumes have been unmoving fixtures in Earth’s history. The research will be published in the August 22 i
University of Utah biologist finds HIV gene makes a human gene turn bad
A human gene named ATR normally protects people by preventing the replication of cells damaged by radiation or toxic chemicals. Now, Utah and New York researchers have discovered how a gene in the AIDS virus hijacks the human gene and turns it into a weapon that prevents reproduction of immune-system white blood cells, leaving AIDS patients vulnerable to deadly infections and cancer.
The new study “puts
Patients stay home, take a pill instead of IV chemotherapy
A doctor at the James P. Wilmot Cancer Center has developed a new brain cancer treatment that, in a pilot study, shows promise at keeping more patients alive longer than the best current standard treatments for the disease. Preliminary findings were presented recently at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago, and now the study is continuing for adults and will be expanded to include children natio
Major blackouts such as those that hit North America last week can result from combinations of relatively small problems, such as trees growing too close to powerlines, according to Kevin Cryan, Business Development Manager with CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences.
“There seem to have been a number of factors that led to the recent disastrous blackouts but it’s been reported that one incident involved an overheated powerline sagging and making contact with trees,” says Mr Cryan.
New evidence suggest earth’s soil may be as important as its atmosphere
New evidence is emerging on the probable effects of an anticipated reliance on hydrogen as a fuel: surprisingly, we may need to look down in the ground rather up in the air, for answers.
In the August 21 issue of the journal Nature, a group of researchers from the California Institute of Technology and other institutions reports results of a study of the atmospheric chemical reactions that produce a
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