On the eve of the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, scientists at UCL have detected a flaw in the Kyoto protocol`s global plans to reduce the impact of global warming, all because of something as simple as atmospheric dust.
Dr Mark Maslin of UCL`s Environmental Change Research Centre explains: “Dust is vital to the health of the planet. This is not household dust, but tiny fragments of rock and soil, almost too small to see with the naked eye”.
Billions of tons of this dust are blown a
Working together at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, medical physicists and clinicians have developed a new procedure that treats spinal tumors and relieves patient discomfort faster that current treatments. Called intensity-modulated spinal radiosurgery, this technique pinpoints a tumor’s location to deliver a powerful dose of radiation that avoids healthy areas of the spinal cord, kidneys, and lungs. This research was presented last month at the annual meeting of the American Association for Ph
Amazingly Sharp VLT Image of Lunar Landscape
Thirty-three years after the first manned landing on the Moon, the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) has obtained what may be the sharpest image of the lunar surface ever recorded from the ground. It was made with the NAOS-CONICA (NACO) adaptive optics camera mounted on the ESO VLT 8.2-m YEPUN telescope at the Paranal Observatory.
The photo (ESO PR Photo 19a/02) shows an area about 700 km from the Apollo XI landing site. The location
The technological centre Robotiker from Zamudio (Basque Country) has developed a system of artificial sight to separate metals that come with copper, in order to obtain high purity copper.
To recover copper from old cables it is not something new. However, the recycled copper is not pure, because it is mixed with other metals, such as lead, aluminium and tin. It is quite complicated to separate copper from those components by using mechanical, physical and other methods. Nevertheless it is
Study hypothesizes that adolescent steroid exposure may permanently alter the production of the ’feel good’ receptor
“With more than one in ten boys admitting to using steroids, muscle- and strength-enhancing drug use among teenagers has caused considerable concern among parents and researchers over the past decade, but until now, the longer-term physiological and neurological effects of its use on the developing brain have not been fully examined. Now, new research from Nor
An enormous source of clean energy is available to us. We see it almost every day. It’s just a matter of harnessing it.
The problem with solar energy is that it has not been inexpensive enough in the past. David Kelley, professor of chemistry at Kansas State University, developed a new type of nanoparticle — a tiny chemical compound far too small to be seen with the naked eye — that may reap big dividends in solar power.
Kelley’s team is studying the properties and tech
Since the early 1980s, ocean phytoplankton concentrations that drive the marine food chain have declined substantially in many areas of open water in Northern oceans, according to a comparison of two datasets taken from satellites. At the same time, phytoplankton levels in open water areas near the equator have increased significantly. Since phytoplankton are especially concentrated in the North, the study found an overall annual decrease in phytoplankton globally.
The authors of the study,
Researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have located two genes that give hepatitis A virus (HAV) its virulent properties. The team, led by Suzanne Emerson, Ph.D., also has discovered that deliberately weakened HAV can quickly revert to its naturally occurring, infection-causing form. To be published in the September 1 issue of Journal of Virology, and appearing online this week, these findings indicate that making an improved vaccine for HAV will be a very dif
The emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria has become a serious public-health concern, and, accordingly, scientists are investigating new classes of antimicrobials for their efficacy against disease-causing bacteria. One developing area of study involves antimicrobial peptides derived from insects. Recent studies have identified the protein target in bacteria of these antimicrobial peptides and suggested that the peptides are not toxic to mammalian cells including those of humans, rai
DuPont scientist identifies key issues in future coatings technology
Dr. Robert R. Matheson, Jr., one of the world’s foremost scientists on coatings – one of the oldest technologies known to humans – will have his scientific paper “20th- to 21st-Century Technological Challenges in Soft Coatings” featured in the upcoming edition of SCIENCE magazine.
As part of the Aug. 9 edition of SCIENCE, Dr. Matheson, a DuPont senior scientist, details the future of technological adva
Findings from a Research Letter in this week’s issue of THE LANCET provide support for the idea that children who grow up on farms have fewer allergies because they are exposed to more microbes than other children.
Farmers’ children are known to be less prone to allergies than children who do not grow up on farms, but the exact reason is not known. Previous work has shown a circumstantial link between exposure to bacteria and reduced allergy; Dr Roger Lauener and colleagues from Zurich Unive
Injecting a patient’s bone-marrow cells into their legs could help repair damaged circulatory systems in those with limb ischaemia, suggest authors of a trial in this week’s issue of THE LANCET.
Lower limb ischaemia is due to narrowing of the arteries and is a common condition, which if left untreated can lead to gangrene, amputation, and sometimes death. The disorder is usually associated with chronic peripheral arterial disease and can result in severe leg pain at rest and walking, as well
Birds may have a basic understanding of physics, recent research by Oxford zoologists suggests. In an article to be published in Science this week [Thursday], the researchers report the findings of an experiment in which New Caledonian crows bent wires to make hooks appropriate to retrieve food from a cylinder. This is the first time any animal has been found to show some understanding of cause and effect, and to make a new tool for a specific task.
The experiment built on a chance observat
New technology for generating power from coal mining waste was launched by the Federal Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, the Hon. Ian Macfarlane, at CSIRO in Brisbane today.
The revolutionary technology has the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gases and bring big savings to mining companies operating coal mines.
The CSIRO-Liquatech hybrid coal and gas turbine system unveiled at the Queensland Centre for Advanced Technologies will generate electricity from wa
Canned corn may be healthier for you than corn on the cob, according to a study by Cornell University scientists. The researchers say that heat processing of sweet corn significantly raises the level of naturally occurring compounds that help fight disease.
The findings are reported in the August 14 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a peer-reviewed publication of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.
Sweet corn is the number-
An increase in the transmission rate of drug-resistant human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), now affecting as many as one in five newly infected persons, has been discovered by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine.
In a five-year, multi-center study of more than 300 patients in 10 North American cities, the investigators found that the transmission rate of drug-resistant HIV had more than doubled, resulting in impaired patient-response once anti-retr
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