Tooth decay could soon be detected without resorting to potentially harmful X-rays – by using a novel electrical technique developed by dental researchers at the University of Dundee in an unusual partnership with textile experts at Heriot Watt University.
Laboratory tests show the device, which measures the electrical resistance of teeth, is twice as accurate as current examination techniques and detects decay in its earliest stages when preventive treatment is still possible.
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New drug could soon thwart smallpox outbreaks
An anti-smallpox pill could be on the way if a new compound that shows promise in animal tests proves safe and effective in humans. Such a pill could provide the best method for controlling an unforeseen smallpox outbreak, its developers claim.
The need for new ways to treat smallpox has only become an issue in recent years as the threat of a deliberate release of the virus intensifies. Smallpox – a highly contagious and often let
The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) have announced a call to communication companies who are interested in undertaking a contract for brand communication services related to the International Space Station (ISS).
The contract is a significant move for ESA and CSA who want to heighten the profile of the ISS within Europe and Canada to help meet the commercial objectives of the Space Station.
The two organisations want to hear expressions of interest
Philippe Busquin, Research Commissioner and responsible for space policy, opened the first meeting of the GMES Steering Committee in Brussels today. This meeting gathered, for the first time, the users and suppliers of GMES services and technologies. The steering committee will assist in the implementation of the EU’s Action Plan on Global Monitoring of Environment and Security (GMES). The goal set by the European Union is to develop by 2008 an operational and autonomous European global monitoring ca
European clinical trials are under way in Denmark and the UK testing a new breast cancer vaccine targeted against the HER-2 growth factor.
HER-2 is overexpressed in about a quarter of all breast cancers and has become a key target for new treatments, such as the monoclonal antibody therapy Herceptin.
But, the development of a vaccine by Danish pharmaceutical company Pharmexa represents an entirely novel treatment paradigm, according to Pharmexa’s manager of preclinical development a
Research from the Cancer Registry of Norway has revealed that a higher proportion of women who discover they have breast cancer between mammographic screenings have also used HRT (hormone replacement therapy) at some point in their lives, the 3rd European Breast Cancer Conference heard today (Wednesday 20 March). In addition, these women tend to have denser breasts, and this may be why their tumours were not detected during screening.
Mrs Hege Wang, a researcher at the Cancer Registry of Nor
Scientists at the Royal Liverpool University Hospitals in the UK have found a way of testing whether certain abnormalities in a woman’s breast are likely to go on to develop into breast cancer, the 3rd European Breast Cancer Conference in Barcelona heard today (Wednesday 20 March).
Armed with information from the test, doctors could then consider whether the at-risk women should be offered prophylactic anti-oestrogen treatment such as tamoxifen or more frequent screening.
However, D
A new study shows that schools and many education programmes are failing to provide students with a basic understanding of evolution.
It is famously difficult to explain evolutionary principles without resorting to anthropomorphic or figurative language. Evolution ‘selects’ the fittest individuals; species ‘adapt’ to change. Both of these phrases are commonplace when explaining the very complex processes involved in evolution. However, this use of language implies that there is an agency o
Satellite images have revealed the collapse of Larsen B ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula fulfilling predictions made by British Antarctic Survey (BAS) scientists. The collapse of the 3250 km2 ice shelf is the latest drama in a region of Antarctica that has experienced unprecedented warming over the last 50 years.
Earlier this month Ted Scambos of the University of Colorado alerted BAS glaciologists David Vaughan and Chris Doake to images from the NASA MODIS satellite. Meanwhile, in Antar
In a joint project between the Technology Foundation STW and the energy agency Novem at Utrecht University, researchers have developed new silicon layers which are more stable and cheaper than the present amorphous silicon layers. The electronic properties of the present layers in laptop screens and solar cells deteriorate if the material is under ‘stress’, for example due to sunshine or a voltage.
Flat-panel displays and solar cells have a substrate of glass or plastic, which is coated with
Light bending reveals clumps of matter around early galaxy.
European astronomers have got their first glimpse of the soup of matter that surrounded a galaxy in the early Universe, just 3 billion years after the Big Bang. Their results provide clues as to how this matter got together, which is crucial to understanding why the Universe looks the way it does today 1 .
The 12-billion-year-old galaxy is called MS 1512-cB58. It is not the earliest galaxy known, but
Weakened polio borrows genes to gain strength for outbreak
Genetic sleuthing has revealed how a dose of oral polio vaccine (OPV) can revert to the deadly poliovirus and cause an outbreak. The research highlights problems that global health organizations face completing their eradication of polio, and the urgency of that effort 1 .
“It reminds us that we need to be very careful in our development of a post-eradication policy,” says Bruce Aylward, leader of the
Spot-welds stick sliding metals
Two smooth, cold, metal surfaces are like pieces of tacky Sellotape. They form tiny spot welds that have to be broken apart before they can slide over each other. This, claim two physicists in California 1 , is another reason why metals stick as they slip if they are pressed together and pushed.
Such microscopic causes of friction and wear are increasingly important as the scale of mechanical engineering shrinks to below what
Action to prevent non-insulin dependent diabetes and heart disease in South Asian people may need to begin during childhood, finds a study in this week’s BMJ.
Researchers in London identified 3,415 white and 227 South Asian children aged 8 to 11 years from primary schools in 10 British towns. Blood samples were taken from 1,287 white and 73 South Asian children.
An early stage in the development of diabetes and heart disease risk is insulin resistance, when insulin levels are increased.
Fusion may explain adult stem-cell morphing.
The hyped ability of adult stem cells to sprout replacement tissue types is being called into question. They may instead be fusing with existing cells, say two new reports, creating genetically mixed-up tissues with unknown health effects.
Recent studies have shown that adult stem cells transplanted from one tissue, such as blood, can spawn the cell types of another, such as nerves. The findings have stirred intense interest in st
Blue jets connect Earth’s electric circuit.
Video images captured in Puerto Rico suggest that blue flashes of light, much like lightning, feed energy from thunderstorms up into the Earth’s ionosphere – a blanket of electrically charged air some 70 kilometres above the ground 1 .
Some researchers suspect that such phenomena may also fix nitrogen for plants to use and interact with the ozone layer 2 .
The images, taken in September 2001
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