Manufacturing competition

A new study of nearly 650 Georgia manufacturing companies underscores the importance of innovation as a competitive strategy – at a time when international outsourcing continues to impact Georgia’s manufacturing community.

The 2005 Georgia Manufacturing Survey shows that companies basing their competitive strategies on the development of innovative products or processes enjoy higher returns on sales, pay better wages and have less to fear

Imagine a home hi-fi system where music was automatically categorised according to preferences, where you could read the lyrics as you listen, summon up a favourite tune by humming it, and play along with your favourites. It may sound farfetched, but all these functions and more have already been achieved.

The SemanticHIFI project, coordinated by the Paris-based music technology institute, Ircam, is unique. It represents a quantum leap in home music technology, in which access to

How do they do it? One of the best-kept secrets in the natural world may be about to be revealed.

Bats, porpoises and dolphins have biological sonar technology that is vastly superior to anything that man has yet devised. They use sonar to distinguish resolution and identify objects and their material characteristics for objects that are, to all extents and purposes, bewilderingly similar.

Now, researchers in the University of Leicester Department of Geology are playing

Using a nuclear magnetic resonance technique, University of Illinois at Chicago chemists have obtained the first molecular-level images of precursors of bundled fibrils that form the brain plaques seen in Alzheimer’s disease.

Untangling the molecular structure of these pre-fibril forms, which may be the key neurotoxins in Alzheimer’s, may help identify targets for new drugs to combat many neurodegenerative diseases.

Microscopic bundled fibrils made of p

This release contains a summary of some significant astronomical and space events that will be taking place during December. It has been written in order to assist the media in planning and researching future stories related to space science and astronomy, particularly those with UK involvement. It is not intended to be fully comprehensive. Dates and times may be subject to change.

1 DECEMBER: BEYOND EINSTEIN: LIVE WORLDWIDE WEBCAST
To celebrate Einstein Year (World Year of

HARPS Instrument Finds Neptune-Mass Exoplanet Around Small Star

A team of French and Swiss astronomers [1] have discovered one of the lightest exoplanets ever found using the HARPS instrument [2] on ESO’s 3.6-m telescope at La Silla (Chile). The new planet orbits a star belonging to the class of red dwarfs. As these stars are very common, this discovery proves crucial in the census of other planetary systems.

“Our finding possibly means that planets are rather frequen

One of the most important stages in the drug discovery process is the ability to determine binding sites on proteins for potential ligands.

When attempting to find the correct pose of a protein-ligand complex, there are an infinite number of possible solutions. The position, geometry and conformation of a ligand are all continuous variables – this leads to the “Docking Problem”. To explore all possible docking modes, an enormous amount of calculation must be done – the complexity,

For the first time in the history of planetary exploration, the MARSIS radar on board ESA’s Mars Express has provided direct information about the deep subsurface of Mars.

First data include buried impact craters, probing of layered deposits at the north pole and hints of the presence of deep underground water-ice. The subsurface of Mars has been so far unexplored territory. Only glimpses of the Martian depths could be deduced through analysis of impact crater and valley wa

Ebola virus (of the Filoviridae family) was first identified in 1976 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (ex- Zaire). It has been the source of several lethal epidemics in central Africa. Four subtypes exist, three of which rage on the African continent. The zaire subtype, the most dangerous for humans, was responsible for eight epidemics which have hit Gabon and the Republic of Congo since 1995. Infection by this subtype in humans is expressed by a violent haemorrhagic fever which in 80 % of cas

Doctors and scientists nationwide will today for the first time be able to join together over the internet to start the search for genes that underlie a range of chronic diseases.

Patients across Britain with cancer, heart and other common diseases have been providing blood samples for research since 2000. They are part of a project hosted by The University of Manchester that will allow more researchers than ever before to study genes in chronic diseases. The project – called

Russian researchers suggest that diamond deposits should be explored by smell of soil. Kimberlite pipes deeply hidden under the sedimentary rock cover are given away by the composition of adsorbed gases in superstrata. Specialists of the All-Russian Research Institute of Geological, Geophysical and Geochemical Systems, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Open Joint Stock Company “Arkhangelskgeoldobycha” (Stock company “ALROSA”) have compared the composition of gases adsorbed in the rock of already

Statistics isn’t what normally comes to mind what people think of cancer research, but a new statistical tool developed at the Stanford University School of Medicine could smooth out some of the fits and starts that have plagued the effort to understand and treat the disease.

The tool is at the heart of a new study that divides similar-looking kidney tumors into subtypes depending on which of thousands of genes are turned on or off. The idea behind this and related studies

UK scientists are returning to Mars with the news that the UK is to be a major player in the first phase of the European Space Agency’s robotic space exploration programme – Aurora – which will set the agenda for Europe’s robotic exploration of space for the next 10 years. The announcement was made at the conclusion of ESA’s Ministerial Meeting held in Berlin (5-6 December).

The UK is to invest 108.1 million Euros (approximately £74.4 million) into Aurora, making the UK second la

A group of investigators of the University of Bologna (Giovanni Fava, Chiara Ruini and Chiara Rafanelli) have published an article on a novel approach to treatment of depression and anxiety in the November issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Administration of treatments in a sequential order is a common practice in clinical medicine, but has received insufficient attention in psychiatry. The aim of this article was to survey the literature concerned with a sequential use o

Surveys of three streams in the Russian River watershed show the first encouraging signs that a ground-breaking recovery effort is making headway rescuing coho salmon from the brink of extinction in part of its historic California range.

Recently completed snorkeling and electrofishing surveys estimate survival of more than 12,000 young fingerlings released last spring into Palmer, Sheephouse and Gray creeks at 54, 60 and 71 percent, respectively.

“We’re thrilled to see

Patent foramen ovale may be ’innocent bystander,’ not source of stroke

Mayo Clinic researchers have found that — contrary to current thinking by some in the medical community — a patent foramen ovale (PFO), a small hole between the two upper chambers of the heart, does not predestine an individual to a stroke later in life. Findings will appear online on Friday, Dec. 9 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

“In the general population, it doe

New reports document dramatic changes in the ownership of southern forestland

Two new research studies document dramatic changes in the ownership of Southern forestland and declining markets for its forest products. The Southern Group of State Foresters (SGSF), with the help of scientists from the USDA Forest Service and their university cooperators, recently reviewed the findings of two year-long research projects aimed at understanding trends crucial to the future of southern fo

The outer core of the Earth, whose composition until now has been a mystery, may consist of an alloy of iron and magnesium. This discovery by an international team of scientists with members from Linköping University in Sweden, being published in the journal Physical Review Letters, is, among other things, a major step toward being able to predict earthquakes.

In theoretical and experimental studies under extremely high pressure, the team has succeeded in mixing iron and magnesium.

Alcoholism is a complex behavior that draws from both environmental and genetic factors. Researchers have found in a sample of smokers chromosomal regions that affect patterns of drinking behavior. These findings support results from previous research that link alcohol metabolism genes on chromosomes two and four with alcohol consumption. Researchers firmly believe that alcoholism is a complex behavior that draws from both environmental and genetic factors. A rece

Through the Human Genome Project, the HapMap Project and other efforts, we are beginning to identify genes that are modified in some diseases. More difficult to measure and identify are the regulatory regions in DNA – the ‘managers’ of genes – that control gene activity and might be important in causing disease.

Today, a team led by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, together with colleagues in the USA and Switzerland, provide a measure of just how important regulatory region var