Nanotechnology could make life easier for computer manufacturers and tougher for terrorists, reports a Purdue University research team.
A group led by Jillian Buriak has found a rapid and cost-effective method of forming tiny particles of high-purity metals on the surface of advanced semiconductor materials such as gallium arsenide. While the economic benefits alone of such a discovery would be good news to chip manufacturers, who face the problem of connecting increasingly tiny com
Using clusters of gold atoms and a microscopic lever, University of Toronto chemists have created a tiny circuit critical to the future of electronic engineering.
“When things are this small, they are fantastically sensitive,” says Professor Al-Amin Dhirani. “Such a circuit could make possible a bio-sensor that is activated by the reaction of just one molecule.” This has the potential for detecting important biological molecules including DNA, he notes.
Dhirani found that when the
The simple worm has at least one talent that could benefit most Americans.
It can convert Omega-6 — a group of fatty acids abundant in the Western diet with the potential to promote inflammation – into Omega-3, another class of fatty acids that decreases inflammation, helping keep vessel walls smooth and blood free-flowing.
The question one Medical College of Georgia researcher is asking is whether the enzyme these C. Elegans, or nematodes, use can work the same magic in peo
In stunning color images using time-lapse microscopy, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have for the first time captured the very earliest stages of HIV infection in living cells.
The researchers filmed individual HIV particles as they traveled to the nucleus of a human cell and began taking over its genetic machinery — the first step in the destruction of the body’s immune system that leads to AIDS.
The movies not only offer tantalizing glimpses of HIV in acti
Scientists all over the world hunt for anti-mutagens, substances protecting against mutations. Where they can find them? It was suggested and later proved that most anti-mutagens are located in those organs and biological liquids, which are connected with the process of reproduction. The latter is the key point in the life cycle, in which genome disorders should be minimal. Anti-mutagens were found in seeds, spores, eggs, and sperm. It was also established that anti-mutagens are formed in certain bac
VLT Images Progenitors of Today’s Large Galaxies [1]
An international team of astronomers [2] has made the deepest-evernear-infrared Ks-band image of the sky, using the ISAAC multi-modeinstrument on the 8.2-m VLT ANTU telescope.
For this, the VLT was pointed for more than 100 hours under optimalobserving conditions at the Hubble Deep Field South (HDF-S) andobtained images in three near-infrared filters. The resulting imagesreveal extremely distant galaxies, which appear at
The problem is intensive agriculture. Nowadays, some farmers have too many heads of cattle in comparison with their land under tillage. Due to this, purines (manure and stable/barn droppings) are applied in high concentrations on these soils, above all on those around the barns. Also, in order to feed the land which is further afield, farmers buy mineral feeds. Great problems for the environment arise out of the application of high quantities of mineral fertilisers and purines.
The Departmen
Micro-sensors, developed by the CEIT Technology Centre with the help of Gas de Euskadi, operate by detecting gas leaks and reducing the risks of poisoning through the inhalation of carbon monoxide gas.
Through research involving help from Gas de Euskadi, CEIT has developed a system based on micro-sensors that can detect domestic gas leaks. The increasing use of natural gas in homes, the future regulations for carbon monoxide detection in domestic situations and the growing demand for
Latest research at Oxford University’s Glycobiology Institute has provided new leads towards the development of an oral contraceptive for men. The advantages of the substance at the centre of the research, an alkylated imino sugar (NB-DNJ), are that it does not affect reproductive hormones, its effects are easily reversed and it is undergoing clinical evaluation in other contexts.
NB-DNJ interferes with the development of sperm cells in such a way that they become very poor swimmers, highly
Results of a 2 ½ year study led by doctors at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center could have implications for the nation’s decreasing blood supply.
In an article published in the December 11 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Drs. Howard L Corwin and Andrew Gettinger describe the effects of administering recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEPO) to critically ill patients. Significantly, they found that use of the hormone, which stimulates red blood
For every warm-blooded human who has ever taken an online poll or signed up for free web-based email, there are legions of computer-automated Internet robots, or “bots,” trying to do the same thing.
A clever security system designed to stop these bot programs – which contribute to the Internet equivalent of computer-generated telemarketing calls – has now been cracked by a pair of computer scientists from the University of California, Berkeley.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon Unive
Developed at MGH, digital tomosynthesis may better identify malignant lesions
A new approach to mammography, developed by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), holds the potential for greatly improving the detection of breast lesions and the ability to predict whether they are benign or malignant. In a presentation earlier this month at the scientific assembly of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), Elizabeth Rafferty, MD, of the MGH Breast Imaging Service
Sure Santa Claus asks boys and girls what toys they want, but, why they want them is a better question. The answer may have to do with a biological pre-wiring that influences boys’ and girls’ preferences based on the early roles of males and females, says a Texas A&M University psychologist.
It’s commonly believed that boys and girls learn what types of toys they should like based solely on society’s expectations, but psychologist Gerianne Alexander’s work with verv
Biodiversity worldwide may be decreasing, but at smaller scales it is increasing or at least changing in composition, suggesting the need for a dramatic shift in the current focus of ecological research. These changes may undermine the functioning of local ecosystems, according to an article in December’s American Naturalist.
The authors –– Dov F. Sax, assistant research scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara; Steven D. Gaines, director of the Marine Science Institute and a
Through precise control of the etching process, an inventor in Oxford University’s Photofabrication Unit has made the reliable production of High Resolution Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) with conductors down to 10 µm wide more of a cost-effective reality.
With increasing demands for greater miniaturisation and the use of flexible circuitry, the need for improved fabrication methods for high resolution printed circuit boards is becoming more important. PCBs currently include conductors with
Investigators at the University of Calgary and McGill University have identified genes that underlie two severe diseases of vitamin B12 metabolism. The two diseases, known as the cblA and cblB forms of methylmalonic aciduria, may produce brain damage, mental retardation and even death if not detected in infancy or early childhood.
Melissa Dobson, a graduate student at the University of Calgary working with Roy Gravel PhD in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, is lead autho
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