Forget sharp metal picks or X-rays-in the future, your dentist may search for cavities using a painless laser-based technique developed at U of T that can detect cracks or defects at an early stage of development. v “Using the technique, we can see all the way to the pulp-more than five millimetres inside a tooth,” says Professor Andreas Mandelis of U of T’s Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. “It can reveal suspicious regions invisible to the naked eye below the surface of
Researchers from St. Petersburg have invented a way to check the viability of grains and seeds of agricultural plants without prior germination. The scientists assume that injuries of the germ and tissues of seeds can be revealed through X-ray photomicrography with the help of computer recognition system. This methodology allows determining the quality of wheat, barley, oats, rye and other crops seed grain.
The yield of agricultural cultures depends on viability and quality of seed grain. Re
Appliances that need no cables or batteries but operate purely on power generated from their surrounding vibrations could save manufacturers and consumers large sums of money, according to scientists at the University of Southampton.
Professor Neil White and his colleagues at the University’s Department of Electronics and Computer Science realised three years ago that sensors were being used in increasingly diverse application areas where physical connections to the outside world were d
The first laboratory population study of genetically modified mosquitoes identifies issues that need to be faced in the task of turning mosquitoes from disease carriers into disease fighters.
Scientists from Imperial College London report in Science today that populations including genetically modified mosquitoes quickly lose their test marker gene when they are bred with unmodified mosquitoes.
The scientists say their results have several lessons for further work on developing GM m
The effect of spinal cord stimulation, in chronic pain treatment, can be drastically improved using continuous distance detection. The strength of the stimulation pulses then depends on the distance measured between the electrodes and the spinal cord. In this way, negative side-effects belong to the past. These side-effects arise with a varying distance, causing diminished pain treatment in case of a distance that is too large, or unwanted sensations when the distance is too small. Emiel Dijkstra of
MTT Agrifood Research Finland and the University of Liège, Belgium, have worked together successfully in locating a gene that regulates total yield and protein and fat content of milk. The scientists found a variation in the growth hormone receptor gene in the bovine chromosome 20. The variation in the receptor gene is associated with a major effect on milk yield and composition in Ayrshire, Holstein and Jersey cows.
Dr Johanna Vilkki of MTT says that developing associated markers for genes
Amid a fast game in a vast venue, sports photography seeks to freeze motion and isolate small portions of space for special consideration. In the scientific world of the ultrafast and ultrasmall, stroboscopic effects are achieved with greatly attenuated laser pulses. The advent of laser light served up in femtosecond (or 10^-15 second) bursts has helped to elucidate the molecular world by freezing their vibrational and rotational motions. Scientists would of course like to instigate and monitor even
Montreal Neurological Institute researcher Dr. Wayne Sossin has discovered that nerve cells can bypass the cell’s normal protein-making machinery in the same way that viruses do when they infect a cell. In a study published on-line today in Nature Neuroscience, Dr. Sossin and colleagues describe the first example of regulated IRES (internal ribosome entry site) usage after a physiological stimulus in neurons.
When a virus infects a cell, its goal is to make more virus particles. To do t
Chains of molecules known as conducting polymers are versatile materials that can work like electronic circuits. Potential uses include flat panel displays, solar panels, sensing devices and transistors, to name just a few. Their invention won three scientists the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
But to make useful devices from conducting polymers requires a degree of chemical wizardry that often proves elusive. University of Illinois at Chicago chemistry professor Luke Hanley has found a new and
Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered that Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt — a bacterium that produces natural protein insecticides that have been used by organic farmers for five decades — can also produce similar natural proteins that kill nematodes.
The discovery could pave the way for the development of an inexpensive and environmentally safe means of controlling the parasitic roundworms that each year destroy billions of dollars in crops, cause debilitating
The universe has been mapped! Not the universe of stars, planets, and black holes, but the protein universe, the vast assemblage of biological molecules that are the building blocks of living cells and control the chemical processes which make those cells work. Researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley have created the first three-dimensional global map of the protein structure universe. This map provides important insight i
A Mediterranean diet significantly lessens the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, shows a small Swedish study in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. But it takes a minimum of six weeks for the diet to take effect, the study shows.
The researchers were only able to study 51 people out of a possible 300, because of the various combinations of drugs patients were taking. In the end, 26 people with stable rheumatoid arthritis were assigned to an experimental Mediterranean/Cretan, diet for three
Since the 1980s most experts have assumed that heterosexual sex transmitted 90% of HIV in Africa. In the March International Journal of STD and AIDS, an international team of HIV specialists presents groundbreaking evidence to challenge this consensus, with “profound implications” for public health in Africa.
In a series of articles, Dr David Gisselquist, Mr John Potterat and colleagues argue that the spread of HIV infections in Africa is closely linked to medical care. In their unique stud
We all know people who can take pain or stress much better than we can, and others who cry out at the merest pinprick. We’ve heard stories of people who did heroic deeds despite horrible injuries, and stereotypes about women’s supposedly sensitivity to pain that don’t mesh with their ability to withstand childbirth’s pain.
But what accounts for all these differences in how individuals feel and respond to pain? And why are some people, especially women, more frequently pr
In the years after the American Revolution, U.S. presidents were talking about the British a lot, and then about militias, France and Spain. In the mid-19th century, words like “emancipation,” “slaves” and “rebellion” popped up in their speeches. In the early 20th century, presidents started using a lot of business-expansion words, soon to be replaced by “depression.”
A couple of decades later they spoke of atoms and communism. By the 1990s, buzzwords prevailed.
Jon Kleinberg, a p
Tamoxifen appears to reduce the risk of benign breast disease and may result in fewer biopsies, according to an analysis of data from a major randomized clinical trial of tamoxifen. The findings appear in the February 19 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Tamoxifen was shown in the Breast Cancer Prevention Trial to reduce the incidence of invasive and noninvasive breast cancer by as much as 50% compared to placebo. Other studies have suggested that tamoxifen can also dec
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