A Mayo Clinic study of more than 41,000 postmenopausal women in Iowa provides new evidence that the most common type of lung cancer in women is more closely linked to smoking cigarettes than previously recognized. The findings of the study will be published in the Dec. 15, 2002 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Lung cancer has been the leading cause of cancer death in women for more than a decade. In 2000, about 68,000 American women died of lung cancer. That’s compared to
An innovative engineering project could lead to fewer night-time accidents on badly lit roads.
It is developing a revolutionary way of assessing whether roads are equipped with appropriate levels of streetlighting.
The new assessment system is quicker, cheaper and more comprehensive than methods previously used. It can also help local authorities avoid the cost of unnecessary streetlight replacement.
The project is being carried out by engineers at Queen’s Univers
A University of Sheffield scientist has isolated a bacterium that may cause cancers in those with a genetic pre-disposition to the disease.
Dr Milton Wainwright, of the University’s Molecular Biology and Biotechnology department, researched historical literature and found that, as early as the 1890s, bacteria were believed to cause cancer. Unfortunately, none of the bacteria involved in these studies were ever kept or even named, making it impossible to verify claims about their role
The sun is healthy and strong, but physicists will have to change some of the basic assumptions they have made about how the universe works.
These are the results released today from the latest study of neutrinos made with a detector buried a half mile under a Japanese mountain. LSU physicist Bob Svoboda, who worked on an earlier ground-breaking experiment in the same mountain, was construction supervisor on this one.
Basically, scientists were trying to understand why the s
DOE News Release Embargoed for release December 6, 2002 INEEL geoscientist to present NAPL contaminant modeling advance at AGU Meeting By modifying the mathematical theory describing the relationship between permeability, saturation, and pressure in a multiple fluid system, researchers can now more accurately predict the movement of non-aqueous phase liquid (NAPL) contaminants in the subsurface. New calculations account for residual NAPL that remains in the vadose zone-forming a long-term source f
Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Whitehead Institute have discovered a pattern of genetic activity in several types of primary tumors that appears to predict the likelihood that they will spread, or metastasize, to other parts of the body. If larger studies support these findings, this early indicator of life-threatening cancer spread might lead to a clinical test that would help determine appropriate treatment.
The study will be published by Nature Genetics on its
On Thursday 5 December 2002 an ESA-coordinated demonstration in medical telediagnostics was carried out on board the French hospital ship Sirocco.
In a project initiated by ESA in association with the Department of Space Medical Physiology at the University of Tours, the Vision and Robotics Laboratory at Bourges, Sinters Toulouse, and CNES, this was the first real-time demonstration of the use of a teleoperated robotic arm for echographic diagnosis in a remote situation.
The object
Scientists have discovered that elevated atmospheric CO2 (carbon dioxide) can suppress plant growth when increases of this important greenhouse gas are combined with a broad suite of already-occurring environmental changes. According to Christopher Field, project leader and director of the new Department of Global Ecology of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, “We are now getting a much richer picture of ecosystem responses to global environmental changes, and the traditional view that elevated
A California research team has mapped an entire group of human enzymes, providing important information for the development of a new generation of drugs to treat cancer and other diseases. The findings will be published in the Dec. 6 issue of Science.
In the study, the team from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the biotechnology company SUGEN created a detailed catalog of the 518 protein kinase genes encoded by the human genome. Protein kinases are among the most important regu
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the use of fossil fuels for household cooking and heating may make more environmental sense for the estimated 2 billion rural poor in the world, according to a researcher from the University of California, Berkeley.
Because they contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuels have been largely dismissed as a viable alternative for the one-third of the world’s population who now use coal and local biomass – including wood, crop residues and dung – for c
A new study led by University of Colorado at Boulder researchers indicates Mars has been primarily a cold, dry planet following its formation some 4 billion years ago, making the possibility of the evolution of life there challenging at best.
Led by CU-Boulder doctoral candidate Teresa Segura and her adviser, Professor Owen B. Toon, the team used Mars photos and computer models to show that large asteroids or comets hit the planet some 3.5 billion years ago. These impacts apparently occurre
Findings with lab mice may lead to novel cholesterol-lowering drugs against heart disease
Two people eat the same egg, cheese and ham muffin for breakfast, yet one absorbs significantly more cholesterol into his or her blood than the other. Why?
The answer, and all of its implications for combating heart disease, remains stubbornly hidden within our DNA. In recent genetic studies with lab mice, however, researchers at The Rockefeller University have begun to close in on the culpr
A unique University of Southern California design for self-organizing robots controlled by “hormonal” software is moving toward space.
At the Robosphere 2002 conference held at the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley November 14-15, Wei-Min Shen of the USC School of Engineering’s Information Sciences Institute (ISI) presented an overview of an audacious project to have pieces of the proposed half-mile-long Space Solar Power System satellite put themselves together–self-a
For several years it has been widely believed that increased ultraviolet-B radiation because of thinning of atmospheric ozone was a major culprit in deforming amphibian offspring and dwindling populations.
Now two new studies cast serious doubt on that assumption, and the lead author of one says the belief could have had negative impacts on efforts to save amphibians.
“All of the concentration on UV might have misdirected our conservation and research priorities,” said Wendy Palen,
Rensselaer researchers have developed an automated system, called RPI-Trace3D, that can swiftly map capillaries in a live tumor. What used to take days of manually tracing the vessels, now takes two minutes. The diagnostic tool, in use at Harvard Medical School and at Northeastern University, is a boon to oncologists who aim to understand how blood vessels form in tumors.
For the first time, medical scientists can quickly and precisely measure blood vessel properties to quantify the effects
A tapeworm may be the unlikely source of a new contraceptive – 100% effective in either sex!
Despite intensive research, scientists have so far failed to find the perfect contraceptive for women – let alone men. However, a study in freshwater fish of the carp family has found a parasite, Ligula intestinalis, that makes the fish infertile. The infertility appears to be caused by a compound released by the parasite, which suppresses the production of eggs in females and sperm in males. P
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