News Articles

Wikipedia's user-generated content has made it the world's largest, and most derided, encyclopedia.Part of the openness model has also led to 'edit wars' when the anonymous "editors" disagree with each other. The dynamics of these conflicts provide an interesting window into collaborative content production and the emergence and resolution of conflicts in an online environment, say researchers led by Taha Yasseri of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.

Using 160 high-resolution tungsten leaves and dramatically faster leaf movement, Elekta’s new Agility multi-leaf collimator (MLC) radiation therapy treatment for cancer patients recently received 510(k) clearance (K121328) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), enabling U.S. medical centers to use it for patients with cancer. An MLC is device made up of numerous, individual tungsten “leaves,” which shape beams of therapeutic radiation that are delivered from different angles around the patient. Using twice the number of leaves typical of many standard MLC’s, Agility precisely delivers radiation to the unique contours of the tumor, while reducing the risk of exposure to healthy tissue. 

A new study shows that ursolic acid, a natural substance found in apple peel, can partially protect mice from obesity and some of its harmful effects. 

It seems European countries are discovering the issue Science 2.0 has discussed about America for many years. Granting student visas and then denying them work ones after their degrees under the guise of job protectionism means educating the best people and then sending them abroad to be competitors.
 The study, "Mobile Talent? The Staying Intentions of International Students in Five EU countries", published by the Research Unit of the Expert Council of German Foundations on Integration and Migration (SVR), compared European frameworks for international students and investigated the staying intentions of 6,239 non-EU international students in the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. 

Plant compounds from a South African daffodil may be used to treat depression, according to a University of Copenhagen study, where they tested those substance in a laboratory model of the blood-brain barrier.Substances from the South African plant species Crinum and Cyrtanthus – akin to snowdrops and daffodils, respectively – have characteristics that enable them to negotiate the defensive blood-brain barrier, a key challenge in all new drug development.Obviously you should not run out and start eating daffodils just yet.  The lab test does not show which compounds can be used in drug development. 

Stonehenge is interesting, though any mystical (or downright alien) symbolism is lost when you visit much larger sites, like Avebury Henge, that are clearly not mystical at all. Because of its fame, people have long sought answers as to why Stonehenge was built.A group of archaeologists now contend it was indeed symbolic - but not religious symbolism, it was more political.

NASA's Voyager 1, launched in 1977, was propelled into deep space with the help of Jupiter's and Saturn's gravity. Now it is about to leave the solar system. But exactly when is unclear.Voyager 1 is traveling at a speed of about 3.6 Astronomical Units (AU) per year - one 'AU' equals the distance between the Sun and the Earth, or 93 million miles.

A new review of studies suggests that fructose may not be as bad for us as previously thought - it may even provide some benefit. Fructose, which is naturally found in fruit, vegetables and honey, is a simple sugar that together with glucose forms sucrose, the basis of table sugar. It is also found in high-fructose corn syrup, the most common sweetener in commercially prepared foods.

A report from market research agency Conquest into the social media habits of 14-24 year olds claims that Facebook's core audience - teenagers - are starting to fall out of love with the website and that activity may have peaked amid a groundswell of dissatisfaction and concerns over privacy and even bullying. 

20 years ago in America, members of Congress, armed with studies showing that a college degree meant more lifetime earnings on average than a high school diploma, decided the way to boost income for everyone was to make sure everyone got a college degree.
What changed?  Very little.  The best and richest students still go to the top universities while everyone else does not; but student loan debt has climbed as universities, able to charge unlimited amounts, did just that and hired more people and built more buildings.

Tapping ocean energy sources like tides and offshore wind sound fine to people who understand nothing about science (the Anything But Oil contingent) but in reality it requires pile driving, the practice of pounding long, hollow steel pipes called piles into the ocean floor to support energy turbines and other structures. Pile driving creates loud, underwater booms that can harm fish and other marine animals so if you're thinking CO2 is better for the world, you are right.

A trial of HPV vaccines in India, which has now been halted and is the subject of an investigation by the Indian government, was examining the safety and feasibility of offering a vaccine against the virus associated with cervical cancer. The trial was run by the international health charity PATH and involved more than 23,000 girls from Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh states. A committee of scientists commissioned by the Indian Government to look into the trial said that the study involved a number of serious ethical violations. A new study by researchers at Queen Mary, University of London and the University of Edinburgh suggests that lack of data on cervical cancer in India did not support a trial of the vaccine to prevent the disease.