“Diamond Graph” Corrects Long-Standing Errors of 3-D Bar Graphs
Looks can be deceiving. That’s one of the problems with today’s three-dimensional bar graph. While these graphs may look correct, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health believe they are in fact inaccurate and misleading.
Currently, the 3-D bar graph is used in countless computer programs, scientific journals, and newspapers to display financial, medical, and other information in whi
When Miss Pearl finally returned to the Pearl Cays in Nicaragua last month after a three-year hiatus, it was cause for celebration. Best of all, her transmitter was still attached.
Named by local Nicaraguan participants and scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Miss Pearl is a female hawksbill sea turtle, one of the most endangered of this ancient tribe of sea-going reptiles. In 2000, she had already distinguished herself by traveling farther than any other
Babies are more vulnerable to serious head injury during a fall than had been previously thought, according to new research that may also begin to help child abuse investigators distinguish between accidental and intentional injury.
Whitaker investigator Susan Margulies of the University of Pennsylvania found that rotational forces generated by a baby’s head hitting a hard surface can cause widespread, potentially serious brain injury. This can include internal bleeding, which can dama
Researchers at Ohio State found that endostatin has a dual effect on head and neck cancer cells – the compound prevented the cells from developing new blood vessels and also hindered the mechanism cancer cells use to migrate throughout the body and invade other tissues.
Head and neck cancers originate on the epithelium – the layer of tissue covering the outermost surfaces of the body, including the skin and mucus membranes. Kaposi’s sarcoma tumors arise from the endothelium, the cells that
Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Boston University have demonstrated a detector that counts single pulses of light, while simultaneously reducing false or “dark counts” to virtually zero.
Reported in the July 28, 2003, issue of Applied Physics Letters*, the advance provides a key technology needed for future development of secure quantum communications and cryptography.
Quantum communications and cryptography is a codemaker’s Holy Grai
Our roadways should get safer in the future, now that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a way to accurately and reliably measure how light reflects off stop signs and other road markings.
Road signs and markings are designed to be visible at night by retroreflectivity—that is, they reflect some of the light emitted by a vehicle’s headlights back toward the driver’s eyes. However, measurements of retroreflectivity have varied so much among different devic
It will never be the same old song again–this was the concept for MS3, a Hungarian musician when he created a software solution he calls „digital improvisation” or DI. The „di” music file format he developed enables the users to listen to one song in endless number of versions. „Imagine Madonna’s new releases were recorded in di format. Whenever you hit the ’’Play’’ button, a different remix of the same song is played back. You never get bored of your cd then” said Mester, now hea
A European team of scientists from the University of Dundee (UK), the Technical University of Munich (Germany) and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, ESRF, (France) have determined the structure of a key target enzyme for novel drug development to treat infectious diseases including malaria, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted bacterial infections. The results of their collaboration are published on the August 5 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Synchrotr
Thrombosis – the formation of internal blood clots – is a common cause of complications and even death following surgery. To create a better means of preventing thrombosis, researchers at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine coated red blood cells (RBCs) with tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), a clot-dissolving drug commonly used as an emergency treatment for stroke. When given alone, tPA has a short life span in circulation and has the potential to cause serious bleeding as it diffuses out
They still don’t have a personality, and they’re waiting for the maturity call. Stem cells in our bone marrow usually develop into blood cells, replenishing our blood system. However, in states of emergency, the destiny of some of these stem cells may change: They can become virtually any type of cell – liver cells, muscle cells, nerve cells – responding to the body’s needs.
Prof. Tsvee Lapidot and Dr. Orit Kollet of the Weizmann Institute’s Immunology Department have fo
Developing more efficient ways of storing tissues and organs
Carnegie Mellon University’s Yoed Rabin and Paul Steif have received $1.3 million over the next four years from the National Institutes of Health to develop more efficient ways of storing transplant tissue and organs in cryogenic temperatures. Mechanical Engineering professors Rabin and Steif are working to improve techniques of cryopreservation, the process of storing biological materials in extremely low temperatures.
Study suggests hope for better treatment of Alzheimer’s and stroke
Until now, scientists have been unable to distinguish between dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease and that caused by poor blood flow to the brain. But, researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center have now used a combination of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a related technique knows as MR spectroscopy to differentiate between the two kinds of dementia. Their work offers hope of improving the t
System detects tissue changes
Mammograms, X-rays and other pricey medical scans do little good if doctors can’t see the tiny changes that signal early stages of disease. But such warning signs are often too subtle to spot by eye, and too complex for computers to interpret. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory have developed the Change Detection System, technology that highlights slight differences between digit
Nanotechnologists could have a firmer handle on the forces at play in their microscopic world thanks to recent physics research at Purdue University.
The latest in a series of experiments aimed at revealing fundamental knowledge of the universe has yielded precise measurement of the so-called Casimir force – a force that could make tiny machines behave erratically, causing a thorn in the side of nanotechnology manufacturers. A team, including Purdue physicist Ephraim Fischbach, has answered
Hundreds of species with small ranges seen vulnerable
The Caribbean Sea has the greatest concentration of marine life in the entire Atlantic and is home to hundreds of species that live only in precariously small areas, making life there far richer and more delicate than previously thought, according to a new study.
An analysis of the ranges of 1,172 marine species revealed that some 253, or 22 percent, are endemic to the Caribbean region, meaning they are found nowhere else
The most important antibiotics in general use today are the b-lactam family of products, but the medical community faces a serious problem with these antibiotics: the increasing development of drug resistance. The resistance is caused by hydrolysis of the b-lactam by a bacterial lactamase enzyme, but fortunately it can often be overcome by the use of a serine b-lactamase inhibitor in combination with the drug. This approach is successfully used already, for example clavulanic acid is used in combinat
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