Our planet is bombarded every second with a large number of chargeless, seemingly massless, particles that originate in nuclear fusion reactions that power the sun. They’re called neutrinos.
According to The Standard Solar Model – the most substantiated model of the sun – the sun should emit around three times more neutrinos than are actually measured on Earth. They are a source of great interest for scientists who seek to better understand elementary particles and the physics of the s
The popular stimulant blocks adenosine receptors, and is the most likely mechanism of central nervous actions that delay exercise-related fatigue, a new study finds
Consuming caffeine, whether in coffee of soft drinks, has been shown to delay fatigue during prolonged exercise. Studies have shown, for example, that ingesting three to nine mg/kg of caffeine can increase the amount of exercise time to achieve by as much as 50 percent. How caffeine achieves this effect has not been ful
Technical Insights’ materials and chemicals research service: Advanced materials technology
Advanced materials look set to revolutionize numerous applications in the 21st century. Scientists and engineers are undertaking extensive research activities in their quest to develop sophisticated new materials that are more durable, environmentally friendly, and energy efficient.
“Advanced materials and chemicals are the enabling building blocks for future devices and systems,
Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that primitive human embryonic stem (ES) cells, temperamental in the lab, can be grown with the help of special cells from bone marrow, offering an easily obtained and well-studied source of human cells to nurture the human ES cells as they divide.
First announced in 1998, human embryonic stem cells are usually grown in the lab on a “feeder layer” of mouse cells. Feeder cells send as yet unknown signals to the primitive human ES cells, preventing the
The phrase, “the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing,” has its roots in a passage of the Bible (Matthew 6:3). If there is truth to this old saying, the reasons may have as much to do with the way the brain obtains information from the arms as it does from the observations of ancient scribes.
Background
Most individuals are either left- or right-handed. How the skills they have learned from the dominant arm (or hand) are transferred to the non-dominant arm ha
New study may have implications for millions in search of the elusive “good night’s sleep”
In movies and novels alike, much is made of the stage of sleep known as rapid eye movement (REM), since this is the phase of slumber in which dreams (good, bad, exotic) occur. Among the medical community, there is an increased appreciation for what is called “slow-wave” sleep, (also known as deep or delta-wave sleep), because this fourth stage of sleep can be difficult to attain. If one is aw
Women smile more than men, but differences disappear when they are in the same role, Yale researcher finds
Women do smile more than men, but when occupying similar work and social roles, the gender differences in the rate of smiling disappear, a Yale researcher has found.
Also, there are large differences in the degree to which men smile less than women depending on a person’s culture, ethnicity, age, or when people think they are being observed, according to the study fund
Teeming with heat-loving microbes, samples of fluid drawn from the crustal rocks that make up most of the Earth’s seafloor are providing the best evidence yet to support the controversial assertion that life is widespread within oceanic crust, according to H. Paul Johnson, a University of Washington oceanographer. Johnson is lead author of a report being published March 25 in the American Geophysical Union’s publication Eos about a National Science Foundation-funded expedition he led last s
Discovery points to one possible path to novel drug development for cancer, AIDS, some inflammation
Using a new approach, Mayo Clinic researchers have successfully “taught” an RNA molecule inside a living cell to work as a decoy to divert the actions of the protein NF-kappaB, which scientists believe promotes disease development. The findings are published in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Although it also plays helpful roles in the bod
Anxiety has long been linked to substance abuse. It is the key psychological factor driving the impulse to drink alcohol and one of the first symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.
Now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have discovered they can control the urge to drink in experimental animals by manipulating the molecular events in the brain that underlie anxiety.
The study is published in the current issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, the nation
With each new vehicle, the car industry faces a fresh battle to cut out the unwanted vibrations that cause irritating rattles and the metal fatigue that can cause parts to break, with potentially lethal consequences.
The complexity of the problems persuaded the German automobile giant BMW to team up with smaller partners to find a new way of designing new vehicles. It got together with Belgian companies LMS International, a world market leader in noise and vibration engineering, optics spec
New research shows that a more effective method of genetic engineering could be used to eradicate or manipulate entire, wild populations of harmful species rather than simply small, managed populations, as is currently the case. The research,* to be published in Proceedings B, a learned journal produced by the Royal Society, shows in computer simulations how a single, ’selfish’ gene could be used to infect the host and eliminate ’problem’ genes, for example a gene allowing mosquit
Opiates and cannaboids, apart from being drugs, have curative properties. Thus, opiates (morphine, methadone, etc.) have been used for some time as a pain-reducer and many cannaboids have also analgesic properties.
Regarding their curative aspects, it is very important to know the effects produced after a prolonged period of treatment. Carrying out this analysis with opiates and cannabinoids, two important problems arise: given that they are drugs, they create psychological dependency and, i
The development of a new generation of membranes based on conducting polymers has been the subject of a recent line of research in the Department of New Materials at CIDETEC, in association with the LEIA Technological Centre.
This involves a field of work wherein the excellent advantages presented by electro-dialysis conventional membranes (continuous separation, low energy consumption, ease of combination with other separation processes, absence of additives) are combined with other, highl
A deactivation of the immune system in patients infected with HIV could be one way to inhibit progression to the immunodeficiency diseases associated with AIDS, researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and Emory University report.
A study comparing the effects of immunodeficiency virus in humans to its effects in sooty mangabey monkeys, which do not become ill when infected, revealed two major differences in the monkeys’ responses to the infection. The findings could o
Study Sheds light on HIV mutation process; May help guide AIDS vaccine development
Scientists in California have provided the first detailed look at how human antibodies, proteins critical for the body’s defense against invading pathogens, may actually drive human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to mutate and escape detection by the immune system. The findings, reported online March 18 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may be key in efforts to develop an effective
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