The University of Hertfordshire has taken the robot out of the laboratory and has it living in a house nearby as part of a study of human-robot interaction.

The study, which will be broadcast on the BBC Three Counties’ John Pilgrim Show, on Wednesday 25 January as part of a two-hour feature on the University, aims to research how humans can comfortably interact with robots.

Mick Walters, a researcher in the University’s School of Computer Science will describe the Schoo

A transportation engineer at The University of Texas at Austin has performed one of the most comprehensive surveys of physical activity in children and found that about as many kids stay active by pedaling their bikes to a friend’s house or walking around a neighborhood as do others by participating in organized athletics.

“This is a compelling reminder that parents really don’t need to think of staying fit as a huge and scheduled time sink,” said Dr. Chandra Bhat.

Anti-social behaviour (ASB) can be prevented by addressing the myriad of social and health care needs of the perpetrators and their families, according to an independent report published today.

The report studied ASB rehabilitation projects, which offer multi-disciplinary support to stop anti-social behaviour by resolving its underlying causes. This can either be by offering support to families in their own homes or by moving families to managed accommodation.

The

Anticipating our own touch – for example in tickling oneself – reduces its impact, says Queen’s psychologist Dr. Randy Flanagan, a member of the university’s Centre for Neuroscience Studies. This is evidence of an important human adaptation that helps us interact with objects in our environment.

An expert in eye/hand movement, Dr. Flanagan is part of an international team exploring sensory attenuation – the way that we filter out or “cancel” unnecessary information from

Once-daily antiretroviral combination more effective and better tolerated than traditional drug ’cocktail’

An international team of AIDS researchers at Johns Hopkins and other institutions has found that a once-daily combination of three antiretroviral drugs works better as an initial treatment for HIV infection than another three-drug combination long considered the gold standard.

Reporting in the Jan. 19 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, the res

The Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network of 26 research sites in which more than 1,800 scientists and students collaborate through funding by the National Science Foundation, turned 25 years old in 2005. During that quarter century, researchers have made important strides in understanding how ecosystems change over time.

But a new report, co-authored by an anthropologist at the University of Georgia, says that much more attention should be paid at the study sites and elsew

International scientific team reacts to misinterpretation of their research results and provides the correct perspective

In a recent study (Nature, 12 January 2006), scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Utrecht University, Netherlands, and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development for Northern Ireland, UK, revealed that plants produce the greenhouse gas methane. First estimates indicated that this could account for a significant proportion of meth

In this study, members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) health equity research group examined access to general practitioners and medical specialists in 21 OECD countries.

After taking into account the age, sex and reported level of health of respondents to national surveys, the authors found that – although in many countries general practitioner care is distributed fairly equally and is often even pro-poor (more visits among poorer households)

A new study in mice suggests that Alzheimer’s disease (AD) may be triggered when adult neurons try to divide. The finding helps researchers understand what goes wrong in the disease and may lead to new ways of treating it. The study was funded in part by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health, and appears in the January 18, 2006 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.*

For unknown reasons, nerve cells (neurons) aff

Men who delay surgical repair of a hernia until the hernia becomes uncomfortable fare as well those who undergo immediate surgery, according to a study at five North American medical centers.

In the study, published in the Jan. 18 issue of JAMA, a journal of the American Medical Association, 720 men with inguinal hernia (a small part of the large or small intestine protruding into the groin) were randomly assigned to either “watchful waiting” or standard hernia repair surgery an

Data strikingly similar to Finnish studies

Using technology that allows DNA from thousands of genes to be collected and surveyed on a 3 x 1½-inch chip, University of Utah medical researchers have confirmed that a region on a single chromosome probably harbors a gene that causes autism. The researchers at the U School of Medicine made the finding by tracing variations in the DNA of an extended Utah family that has a high occurrence of the disorder and whose members are descended

Biologists have long believed that bigger is better when it comes to body size, since many lineages of animals, from horses to dinosaurs, have evolved into larger species over time.

But a study published this week by two biologists at the University of California, San Diego in an early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that maxim, known as “Cope’s Rule,” may be only partly true.

The scientists found that populations of tiny

The popular BBC series ‘Who do you think you are?’ describes the quest of celebrities to trace their family histories back to the 19th century and beyond. Now a fascinating new study allows us all to explore the geography of our family histories, using a unique website that tracks how many people have our surnames, their origins and where they live today.

The Surname Profiler website (at www.spatial-literacy.org) is part of an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) sponsored stu

A new study published in the online open-access journal PLoS Biology explores a longstanding paradox in the regulation of a key tumor suppressor protein called p53. Min Hu, Yigong Shi, and their colleagues applied structural and mutational approaches to shed light on the regulation of a crucial regulatory pathway. Mutations that disable p53, which also plays a crucial role in regulating cell growth, are the most common mutations in many human cancers.

When cell damage occurs, p

More than three-quarters of people with overactive bladders (OAB) say that their condition makes it difficult to perform daily activities, yet only 43 per cent would consider consulting a doctor.

And men are much more likely to express concern than women, according to the results of a large-scale study published in the latest issue of BJU International.

11,521 people aged 40-64 took part in the survey which was conducted in six European countries – France, Germany,

Investigators still recommend procedure, although they want patients aware of risks

A new Mayo Clinic study finds that vertebroplasty, a procedure used to treat painful compression fractures in the spinal vertebrae due to osteoporosis, appears to increase the risk for new fractures in adjacent vertebrae. The study also found vertebrae adjacent to fractures treated with vertebroplasty fracture significantly sooner than more distant vertebrae. Findings will be published in the