Two billion years ago, in a far-away galaxy, a giant star exploded, releasing almost unbelievable amounts of energy as it collapsed to a black hole. The light from that explosion finally reached Earth at 6:37 a.m. EST on March 29, igniting a frenzy of activity among astronomers worldwide. This phenomenon has been called a hypernova, playing on the name of the supernova events that mark the violent end of massive stars.
With two telescopes separated by about 110 degrees longitude, the Roboti
This symmetry violation makes hydrogen possible, a requirement for life
Scientists at the Indiana University Cyclotron Facility in Bloomington have made the first unambiguous detection of a rare process, the fusion of two nuclei of heavy hydrogen to form a nucleus of helium and an uncharged pion. The pion is one of the subatomic particles responsible for the strong force that holds every nucleus together. The achievement will be announced Saturday (April 5) at the meeting of the Amer
When Gerald A. Miller first saw the experimental results from the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, he was pretty sure they couldn’t be right. If they were, it meant that some long-held notions about the proton, a primary building block of atoms, were wrong.
But in time, the findings proved to be right, and led physicists to the conclusion that protons aren’t always spherically shaped, like a basketball.
“Some physicists thought they did the experiment wron
Researchers report that in laboratory animals, the combination of radiation and the anti-angiogenic drug, endostatin, appears to work synergistically together to stop development of new blood vessels that seek to grow and nourish damaged tumors.
Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center found that the regrowth of new blood vessels was reduced five-fold in mice with implanted squamous cell cancer treated with radiation and endostatin compared to diseased mice that had ra
For the first time, researchers are characterizing the molecular processes that turn brain cancer deadly, and their work may result in a diagnostic test that can predict patient survival.
The research, by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center demonstrates that degree of loss of a crucial tumor suppressor gene, the AP-2( transcription factor, correlates with progression of different human gliomas.
For example, researchers found that normal brain tissue,
May lead to sharper picture of human genome as well
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists have used a powerful gene-mapping technique to produce the clearest picture yet of all the genes of an animal – the microscopic worm Caenorhabditis elegans (better known as C. elegans). Scientists believe the same technique may be used to bring the current, somewhat blurry picture of the human genome into sharper focus.
The study, which will be posted on the Nature Genetics website (
Logging, illegal hunting, and Ebola caused nearly 60 percent decline since 1983
Scientists say chimps and gorillas now ’critically endangered’
Scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, Princeton University and other organizations have reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature that a dramatic decline of gorillas and chimpanzees is taking place in western equatorial Africa, the last stronghold for great apes on the continent. Ravaged
USC researchers uncover mechanism of class- switching in antibodies
A team of scientists from the Keck School of Medicine of USC has, for the first time, described a new, stable DNA structure in both mouse and human cells-one which differs from the standard Watson-and-Crick double helix and plays a critical role in the production of antibodies, or immunoglobulins.
The research will be published online in the journal Nature Immunology this week, and will appear in print in the jou
Huge pulsed power machine enters fusion arena
Throwing its hat into the ring of machines that offer the possibility of achieving controlled nuclear fusion, Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine has created a hot dense plasma that produces thermonuclear neutrons, Sandia researchers announced today at a news conference at the April meeting of the American Physical Society in Philadelphia.
The neutrons emanate from fusion reactions within a BB-sized deuterium capsule pla
Using cold temperatures could help make quicker, cheaper and safer influenza vaccines, according to Dr Alison Whiteley at the Society for General Microbiology’s Spring Meeting in Edinburgh today, Monday 7 April 2003.
Influenza epidemics sweep the world every year killing the very young and the very old, but every thirty years or so a new virulent strain appears which kills people from every age group. These super-dangerous strains develop from viruses which normally infect birds, and the vac
Living longer and better medical treatments such as organ transplants and cancer therapy are all paradoxically increasing our risk of blood poisoning, according to experts in bacterial infections speaking at the Society for General Microbiology’s Spring Meeting in Edinburgh today, Monday 7 April 2003.
“The two commonest causes of blood poisoning are bacteria called Escherichia coli from the urinary tract, and Staphylococcus aureus carried on the skin or from a hospital drip,” says Professor
Study also reports users lose trust in systems that give phony ratings Online “recommender systems” are used to suggest highly rated selections for book buyers, movie renters or other consumers, but a new study by University of Minnesota computer science researchers shows for the first time that a system that lies about ratings can manipulate users’ opinions. Over time, however, users lose trust in unscrupulous systems. The Minnesota research group, led by professors Jos
Research to be presented at American Academy of Neurology meeting on April 3
Results of a clinical trial conducted by Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) reveal yoga or exercise assists multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with fatigue. The study was conducted and funded within the Oregon Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Neurological Disorders (ORCCAMIND) at OHSU. The research results will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology meeting on April 3 in Ho
An increasing amount of genetic engineering in agriculture closely resembles the conventional crop breeding that has been done for thousands of years, and unnecessarily stringent regulation of this type of gene research is choking off its usefulness, one expert says in a new policy forum in Science.
Government regulations that lump all types of genetic engineering together, instead of making reasonable distinctions between differing technologies, is stifling research, favors the efforts of
Data compares blue collar workers and white collar workers
Men who work in female-dominated professions, such as clerks and classroom aides, are 47 percent more likely to lash out in violence against wives or live-in girlfriends than a control group of white-collar managers, according to a recent study by a sociologist at the University of California, Riverside.
That is just one of the surprises found by Scott Melzer, a postgraduate researcher, who used a national data set
If your computer screen is covered with Web browser windows to let you monitor the news headlines, weather, traffic and stock market while you work, you might be suffering from information overload.
Computing researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology experienced this problem and have created a prototype software program to move such information from the center of your awareness to the periphery. Called InfoCanvas, the program creates an abstract pictorial representation of informat
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