Oxford scientists are using the latest virtual reality technology to study how we perceive the world in 3D. The “immersive virtual reality” used by the Virtual Reality Research Group at Oxford University allows subjects to walk around or look up and down while what they see through a headset changes accordingly – they can explore the virtual environment by literally walking around. Meanwhile, the scientists monitor how they are perceiving the dimensions of their ‘Matrix’-style world.
The res
Discovery may help design effective therapies for the genetic disease that mainly affects Ashkenazi Jews
An interdisciplinary team of Weizmann Institute scientists has solved the three-dimensional structure of an enzyme called glucocerebrosidase. Mutations occurring in this enzyme cause Gaucher disease, a genetic illness that mainly affects Ashkenazi Jews. The Institute study, published recently in EMBO Reports, may lead to the design of effective new therapies for treating the disea
The future of proteomics is in good hands with one of the most powerful and versatile mass spectrometers being developed by scientists and engineers from the William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory.
The high-throughput Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) mass spectrometer and automated liquid chromatography (LC) system is a breakthrough in mass spectrometry capable of improving the understanding of protein production, function and interactions at the cellul
Tiny blood vessels, viewed beneath a mouse’s skin with a newly developed application of multiphoton microscopy, appear so bright and vivid in high-resolution images that researchers can see the vessel walls ripple with each heartbeat — 640 times a minute.
The capillaries are illuminated in unprecedented detail using fluorescence imaging labels, which are molecule-size nanocrystals called quantum dots circulating through the bloodstream. Quantum dots are microscopic metal or semiconductor
An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Stanford University and Tel Aviv University has developed the first computational method that can identify clusters of genes responsible for controlling processes within a cell, when those clusters become active, and, most importantly, how the clusters are regulated.
In a paper published online May 12 by Nature Genetics, the researchers report that their method revealed several previously unknown control, or r
With the aid of a chance discovery by a graduate student, scientists from Oregon State University have identified, dusted off and found a new use for an old math theory from the early 1800s that could revolutionize the management of lands, protection of species and study of ecology.
The discovery promises for the first time to address the enormous complexities of the natural world with the powerful tools of advanced mathematics – which, until now, have been of limited use in the study of man
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists from diverse disciplines have responded to the April 27 spill of nearly 15,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil into Buzzards Bay, drawing on decades of experience studying the effects of oil spills on the marine and coastal environment.
Marine chemists have collected dozens of oil samples spilled into Buzzards Bay by the barge Bouchard 120 to determine the chemical composition of the petroleum spilled and its potential toxicity. Biologists
If the evolution of complex organisms were a road trip, then the simple country drives are what get you there. And sometimes even potholes along the way are important.
An interdisciplinary team of scientists at Michigan State University and the California Institute of Technology, with the help of powerful computers, has used a kind of artificial life, or ALife, to create a road map detailing the evolution of complex organisms, an old problem in biology.
In an article in the May 8 is
MENOPAUSAL WOMEN WITH DAYTIME SLEEPINESS SHOULD BE EVALUATED
Evaluation for sleep-disordered breathing should be a priority for menopausal women with complaints of snoring, daytime sleepiness, or unsatisfactory sleep. Researchers studied a population-based sample of 589 women enrolled in the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study. They tested the hypothesis that menopause is an independent risk factor for sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) using in-laboratory sleep testing (polysomnography). (SDB is a
A new generation of nanoscale devices are being developed based on inspiration found in nature. Grazyna Sroga, a postdoctoral researcher at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is using DNA and related proteins to construct microscopic structures that may one day conduct electricity, deliver drugs, boost computer memory, or sense the presence or absence of chemicals. She is working in the laboratory of Jonathan S. Dordick, the Howard P. Isermann ’42 professor of chemical engineering.
Srog
Physicists and geoscientists join forces in a Dutch research centre.
Luminescence dating is a new technology for the determination of the age of sediments such as sand. At the Netherlands Centre for Luminescence Dating (NCL), physicists and geoscientists join forces to use and improve this new method. The foundation of the NCL will be celebrated on Thursday 20th of March in the form of an opening symposium in the auditorium of the TNO-NITG building in Utrecht. TU Delft will act as se
Researchers participating in the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) and at Los Angeles (UCLA) have invented a new technique for producing “Ultra High Density Nanowire Lattices and Circuits”–the title of their paper being published expeditiously at 2:00 p.m. March 13 on the “Science Express” website, Science Magazine’s rapid portal for publication of significant research findings to appear subsequently in print in Science.
The me
Next-Generation IT Platform for Topological Proteomics to be Created
MelTec GmbH and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT today signed a collaboration agreement to develop an information technology platform for the management and interpretation of high-throughput experiments analysing protein networks of whole cells in situ, also known as topological proteomics or toponomics. MelTec continuously generates large data sets to decipher the toponome of cells an
European scientists will be ‘turning off’ the effects of gravity during the STS-107 Space Shuttle research mission this month in order to gain a better understanding of processes in medicine, technology and science.
Their investigations will be among some 80 experiments performed during a 16-day mission in Earth orbit to be launched from Cape Canaveral tomorrow.
Seven of the 31 payloads are sponsored by ESA, and the crew will work 24 hours a day in two alternating shifts on experi
Scientists are to go below ground in seven tropical countries to search for the largest source of untapped life left on Earth.
Experts know that, millimetres below the surface in the twilight, subterranean world, of the earthworm and the nematode, tens of thousands of new species of tiny organisms including bacteria, fungi, insects, mites and worms await discovery.
Scientists are also convinced that unraveling the secrets of how they operate may be the key to restoring the fe
Researchers in Finland are working to develop a comprehensive, multidisciplinary model of the carbon cycle and its impacts on climate change in northern ecosystems. The focus of work in the Academy of Finland’s Global Change Research Programme (FIGARE) has been on the uptake and release of carbon in different ecosystem reservoirs, the atmosphere, vegetation, trees, forest land and lakes.
‘The carbon dioxide content in the earth’s atmosphere is slowly and steadily increasing. Given the resul
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