When you are sent to do a bit of work experience in the office of a university science department you don’t normally expect much more than a bit of boring filing and some tedious photocopying. So those that turned up to the University of Warwick’s Physics department recently were a bit shocked to be taken to a small black room and dropped into a virtual reality four dimensional hypercube.
Instead of dreary photocopying the work experience kids were used to help University of Warwick physicis
Researchers from the University of East London (UEL) have embarked on a project to investigate the ecology of the atmosphere, one of the last great frontiers of biological exploration on Earth. In an eighteen-month pilot project launched today, a team of microbiologists led by Dr Bruce Moffett aims to discover whether airborne microbes play an active role in forming clouds and causing rain to fall.
The researchers are using a revolutionary `cyclonic cloud catcher`, based on vacuum cleaner te
A plastic “energy flower” that collects solar and wind energy that can then be used to power appliances in the home for free has won a Northumbria University student a top award.
Paul Richardson, a third year design student, won a £1,750 Design International Attachment Award from the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce).
Paul’s award will give him the chance to work with DCA International to research and develop his interest in design.
A signature of arts and crafts sessions, the Möbius strip–a seemingly endless ribbon with only one side and one edge that can be made from construction paper and sticky tape–has been given a new look. According to a report published today in the journal Nature, scientists have succeeded in growing crystals in the form of Möbius structures.
A piece of ribbon or paper can be twisted and turned easily, so a regular Möbius strip itself is no great feat of engineering. Crystals, in contrast,
An international team of scientists from Cambridge, Manchester and Tenerife has released the first results of new high-precision observations of the relic radiation from the Big Bang, often called the cosmic microwave background or CMB.
These observations have been made with a novel radio telescope called the Very Small Array (VSA) situated on Mount Teide in Tenerife. The images show the beginnings of the formation of structure in the early Universe.
From the properties of the image
In a joint project with the STW Technology Foundation, medical information technologists from Leiden have developed a virtual robot which meticulously scans the heart muscle using images of the heart. The contours detector reduces the work of specialists and does not affect the patients. The research group will present the results in the middle of May at a congress in Honolulu.
To map the condition of a patient’s heart, physicians have until now used a series of MRI images (magnetic resonanc
It has often been claimed that psychological stress is an important cause of heart disease, but a study in this week’s BMJ shows that previous research may have been misleading.
Researchers measured self-assessed stress amongst middle-aged Scottish men working in and around Glasgow in the early 1970s. These men were then followed for more than twenty years to see whether or not they developed heart disease. Several different measures of heart disease were used.
Men who thought they
Scientists at the University of Ulster have unveiled a monitoring system that can ensure transplant organs arrive in pristine condition for the life-saving surgery.
They have developed tiny sensors which are inserted in the organs, and which monitor if there has been any deterioration in the organs’ condition since being removed from the donor.
The sensors are flexible micro-electrodes based on pioneering nanotechnology, which are implanted in the donor organ.
The electrodes mo
The Genostar consortium today announces the launch of its Genostar platform for exploratory genomics, the result of two and a half years research carried out by a team of more than 20 genomics and bioinformatics scientists and developers. Exploratory genomics involves the study of the structure and function of genes and proteins and plays a vital role in healthcare, agrifood and other industries. Members of the consortium are GENOME express, Hybrigenics, INRIA and the Pasteur Institute (see boilerpla
With the help of biologists and in a radical reversal of roles, the environment could exploit free trade. But with the World Trade Organisation`s legitimacy being challenged as never before, this opportunity is at risk.
“In the prevailing climate, trade protectionism gets equated with environmental protection, free trade with freedom to plunder”, says Dr Douglas Yu at the University of East Anglia`s School of Biological Sciences. “But the WTO could actually drive fundamental environmental re
New evidence suggests that hundreds of unseen dwarf galaxies made of dark matter encircle our Milky Way and other large, visible galaxies. Scientists believe that 80 to 90 percent of the universe must be made of this as-yet-undetected matter to account for the observed structure of the universe. According to Einstein, such large concentrations of matter should warp the surrounding space and bend light in much the same way that glass lenses do. With that in mind, astrophysicists at the University of C
Gold prospectors may one day rely on lowly bacteria to point them to deposits of the precious metal. Researchers have discovered that gold-laden soil often contains an abundance of spores belonging to a certain bacterium. The affinity humans have for gold aside, the ore in its soluble form is actually highly toxic to most living things. The common bacterium Bacillus cereus , however, possesses a unique resistance to the metal, allowing it to survive in a relatively vacant environmental niche:
Further cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob (CJD) disease could arise as a result of human growth hormone treatment, even after low doses, suggests research in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
Dutch researchers report on the case of a man who developed CJD 38 years after receiving human derived growth hormone.
A 47 year old man was given only a low dose as part of a diagnostic procedure, rather than being given full treatment, which may explain why the incubation period
Breastfeeding might protect against cot death, suggests research in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
The researchers surveyed the parents of 244 babies who had died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and 869 babies still alive and well to find out how they had been fed. The study was conducted between 1992 and 1995. Over 80 per cent of the SIDS baby parents and almost three quarters of the comparison group responded.
During the study period breast feeding among the c
Activity Generates New Nerve Cells For Old Mice – Study Supports Link Between Active Life And Lower Risk Of Neurodegenerative Disease
Active older people seem to have a lower risk of certain neurological disorders such as Alzheimer`s disease. A study published May 22 in the on-line edition of the Annals of Neurology, the research publication of the American Neurological Association, demonstrates how this increased activity might protect the brain.
Researchers in Germany and the Unit
Cooperation to better follow, understand and predict the climate
Eight institutes observe the climate together
On Thursday 23 May 2002, an agreement will be signed in Cabauw by 8 cooperating institutes situated in the Netherlands. The cooperation project is called CESAR, and is in the form of a national observatory for the atmosphere. The goal of the cooperation is to be able to better follow the development of the climate and to be able to better understand and predict it. Only a
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