An X-ray movie of the Vela pulsar, made from a series of observations by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, reveals a spectacularly erratic jet that varies in a way never seen before. The jet of high-energy particles whips about like an untended firehose at about half the speed of light. This behavior gives scientists new insight into the nature of jets from pulsars and black holes.

Chandra observed the Vela pulsar, a rotating neutron star, 13 times between January 2000 and August 2002. The

The human brain combines motion and shape information to recognize faces and facial expressions, a new study suggests.

That new finding, part of an engineer’s quest to design computers that “see” faces the way humans do, provides more evidence concerning a controversy in cognitive psychology.

Were computers to become adept at recognizing faces and moods, they would be more user-friendly, said Aleix Martinez, assistant professor of electrical engineering at Ohio State University. T

Injections of a stimulant agent into rat brains expanded blood vessels and improved blood flow, a finding that may lead to a new, non-invasive way to prevent stroke, researchers reported in today’s rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Rats treated with the growth-promoting substance granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) had almost twice as much arteriogenesis, the expansion of a brain artery, after one week compared to rats given s

A strain of E. coli that causes severe, sometimes deadly, intestinal problems relies on signals from beneficial human bacteria and a stress hormone to infect human cells, a researcher at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas has discovered.

The finding, which will appear online today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could lead to the development of beta blockers as a therapy to impede this cellular signaling system, causing the harmful bacteria to pass blindly through t

Madrid, Spain: Scientists believe that they are an important step nearer to success in creating an artificial egg from the combination of the nucleus of a somatic cell and an oocyte which has had its DNA-carrying nucleus removed, a conference of international fertility experts heard today (Tuesday 1 July).

Dr Peter Nagy, from Reproductive Biology Associates, Atlanta, collaborating with the University of Connecticut, USA, told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology annual

When ten Eastern European countries join the EU next year, internal trade will increase and the structures of the agricultural and food sectors will change in both old and new Member States. This was the message of JOHAN SWINNEN, Professor of Agricultural Policy of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, addressing delegates at the opening of the Nordic Association of Agricultural Scientists (NJF) congress in Turku, Finland, last Tuesday. Swinnen is one of the world’s leading experts on the Ag