Drawing on the expertise of the blind, a University of Toronto professor is “teaching” electronic devices how to navigate using surrounding sounds.
“The goal was to build a system that mimics the acoustic navigation abilities of blind people,” says Professor Parham Aarabi of the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He has developed a method by which a device fitted with as few as two microphones can combine the information from sounds around it to locate
Researchers have proven that gene therapy can reverse the pathological features of muscular dystrophy in an animal model. Before, gene therapy had only been able to prevent further muscle-wasting in mice. “We expect to build on these results in the continuing search for a way to treat a horrible disease. Our results indicate that gene therapy could be used not only to halt or prevent this disease, but also to restore normal muscle function in older patients,” says Dr. Jeffrey S. Chamberlain, professo
To combat urban sprawl and protect wildlife, many communities have set aside land for wildlife corridors linking natural areas to one another.
Public support for these greenways, however, has overshadowed a long-running debate among ecologists about whether they actually achieve their presumed benefits. The debate has been hobbled by a lack of definitive data, with many studies based solely on observations and others only on small-scale experiments, scientists say.
A University of
An experimental gene transfer technique shut down cell re-growth in the arteries’ interior lining and reduced the inflammatory response – two main causes of re-narrowing of newly opened blood vessels, researchers report in today’s rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
The process that opens blocked blood vessels – either inflating a tiny balloon to force open the narrowed vessel (angioplasty) or inserting a tiny mesh tube called a stent to se
“We need to get (chronic kidney disease) on the radar screen, especially when there’s a medical history of high blood pressure or diabetes, so both patients and physicians are more aware of the consequences and opportunities to intervene.” – Neil R. Powe, M.D., M.P.H.
Kidney disease patients are at a much increased risk of death when they have delays getting to a specialist, a Johns Hopkins-led study shows. Delays occur more often among black males, the uninsured and those who have mul
Scientists have discovered an elusive, mutated gene named for the Greek goddess, Aphrodite Kallipygos, that causes certain sheep to have unusually big and muscular bottoms. They hope the genetic mutation will illuminate how muscle and fat are deposited in these animals and possibly in humans.
The discovery is especially exciting, said the researchers, because the unusual gene has evaded all the traditional means of detection for nearly a decade. In fact, the gene appears to represent one of
Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have produced the first ever action movies starring individual water molecules on a metal surface. The ending was a surprise even to the producers.
Working with a unique scanning tunneling microscope (STM), a team led by Miquel Salmeron, a physicist with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division, cooled the surface of a single crystal of palladium, a good catalyst for reactions involving hydrogen and water, to a tem
Connecticut Sea Grant research could be aquaculture breakthrough
Synthetic growth hormones could shorten the growth time needed for farm-raised fish to reach market size. In research led by Connecticut Sea Grant scientist Thomas Chen, transgenics, or the technique of transferring DNA from one species to another, has showed promise as a method for stimulating growth hormone production. Using rainbow trout and tilapia, Chen is testing a synthetic protein to determine whether it can sti
A team of Dartmouth engineers and doctors are trying to find more comfortable and comprehensive ways to examine breast tissue to better detect and diagnose breast cancer. The Dartmouth group is simultaneously developing and testing four different breast imaging techniques.
The multidisciplinary Dartmouth team includes researchers from the Thayer School of Engineering and Dartmouth Medical School, and they are working under the auspices of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center and the department o
If people were computers, Srinidhi Varadarajan of Virginia Tech’s Department of Computer Science could enable them to go back to their youth to correct mistakes they made, adapt a jet engine to run a car, or change a part from one SUV engine to another as both vehicles sped down a highway side by side.
Of course, people aren’t computers and don’t need to do those things, but computers need to do equivalent processes. Varadarajan has come up with a computer technology he calls “Weaves” that
Budding computer experts from around the world will this week begin their own tests of the latest software developed by the European DataGrid Project. Students attending the 2002 CERN School of Computing in Vico Equense, Italy, will be submitting jobs that can run anywhere on the Project’s current Grid, which is based at 10 computer centres throughout Europe. This is the first in a series of important tests using software from the DataGrid Project that will take place throughout the autumn, and which
Scientists at the University of Sheffield have used fossilised leaves to determine the effect of greenhouse gases on the end of the Ice Age 300m years ago, according to an article published in PNAS.
The study, led by Professor David Beerling, examined fossilised leaves to determine how much carbon dioxide was in the air at various periods during the ice age.
Leaves have pores on their surface called stomata that act as “air holes” and open and close depending on the levels of carbo
Jesus Manuel Labandeira in his doctoral thesis, read in the University of Navarre, tested this technique in pigs due to the similarity to the human cardiovascular system.
According to the results obtained by doctor Labandeira, the use of a occlusion ball in the aorta duplicates the blood pressure that goes to heart and brain during cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Improving the results of CPR
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) constitutes one of the most emble
Research at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) has revealed that certain chemical ingredients of gasoline, jet fuel and other solvents may pose a greater health hazard than first thought. Scientists at the OHSU Center for Research on Occupational and Environmental Toxicology (CROET) have shown that a benzene derivative damages the nervous system. In fact, the substance is much more active than non-benzene analogs already known to cause peripheral nerve damage (loss of limb sensation and muscl
In findings they believe are fundamentally important to both biology and medicine, chemists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown experimentally for the first time that proteins can behave differently inside cells than when taken out of those cells and studied in test tubes.
“For 40 years, we thought we could learn most everything about proteins by studying them in water, but this work shows we are missing important observations by looking at them just in water or oth
Many cancer patients generate immune cells capable of specifically attacking their tumors, but the cells rarely do, in fact, target a patient’s cancer. What prevents these potentially helpful cells from taking action? And is there anything that might be done to unleash them?
The attack cells – known as cytolytic T cells – are prevented from acting by a second set of immune cells called regulatory T cells, according to a new study from investigators at The Wistar Institute. The research
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