News Articles

Just can't stand the thought of having another daughter, or even a first one?  People in Europe and the Middle East who can rationalize they want to "balance" their family or minimize the risk of certain genetic diseases have a new option: MicroSort preconception sex selection technology is now available in Cyprus at North Cyprus IVF Clinic - one of only three countries in the world where you can openly and legally get sperm sorting. 

Low power electronics and devices for active, modern lifestyles is getting edgy; the research is on for stuff that is wearable, epidermal, implantable - heck, even edible.Smart skin, created by MC10, is an example of an 'epidermal electronic system. It contains micro-circuitry like transistors, sensors, transmitters and receivers that can get wrinkled, are bendable and stretchable, just like real skin, but retains damage-free function of all components.

A new photo of a nearby star and its orbiting companion shows the planet has a temperature like a hot summer day in Arizona.

If you're a man, no matter how funny you are, your wife thinks you are not.  Well, men, science is giving you the last laugh.Sort of. Men are funnier than women, though mostly to other men, according to a psychology study from the University of California San Diego.  Men edged out women by 0.11 points out of a theoretically possible perfect score of 5.0, while about 90 percent of both male and female study participants agreed with the stereotype that men are funnier.

Networking and prompt sharing of knowledge are aspects commonly associated with the development of the Internet but intense intellectual exchange and joint work on projects over large distances happened as early as Habsburg times. The manuscripts of Court Librarian Peter Lambeck, head of Vienna´s Hofbibliothek (Imperial Library), show he was an expert in content management and social networking. The evaluation of his life and work now traces Austria´s role in the "Republic of Letters" - the combined expertise of Europe´s intellectual elite - as early as the 17th century.

Due to difficult economics and an aging population that needs social services, Finland is finding itself desperate for workers, but jobs cannot simply be created by giant corporations anymore and the only way to sustain the welfare state seems to be through new ventures and entrepreneurship.  Except government restrictions and regulations that discourage giant corporations hurt small businesses most, and Finns are conservative when it comes to risk anyway.

If words are windows into the soul, scientists are learning to be Peeping Toms: Computerized text analysis shows that psychopathic killers make identifiable word choices beyond their conscious control when talking about their crimes and that insight could lead to new tools for diagnosis and perhaps law enforcement and social media.The words of psychopathic murderers match their personalities, which reflect selfishness, detachment from their crimes and emotional flatness, says Jeff Hancock, Cornell professor of computing and information science, and colleagues at the University of British Columbia.

Once a product starts to get credit for doing everything, there is a chance you may be in the crackpot zone.  If so, look for the downfall of green tea in 2012 because a new study says the Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) in green tea prevents weight gain.  Add that on to claims that EGCG prevents arthritis, Alzheimer's, diabetes and breast cancer and even slows AIDS.

Rhythmic activity of nerve cells supports spatial navigation, say a group of researchers who recently showed that cells in the entorhinal cortex, important for spatial navigation, oscillate with individual frequencies. These frequencies depend on the position of the cells within the entorhinal cortex.

Rotten oranges can be detected manually in dark rooms with the help of ultraviolet light that illuminates the essential oils in damaged rind through fluorescence but that type of light poses some risk on fruit quality, like a reduction in vitamin C.Scientists at the Valencian Institute of Agrarian Research (IVIA, Spain) have created prototypes for machines that not only detect and automatically separate rotten oranges, but can also detect mandarin segments according to quality and helps citrus fruit pickers out in the field. All the prototypes use computer vision to automatically inspect the fruits.

There may be a sexual upside to an economic downside; more sex.  Maybe 'stimulus plan' means different things to different people.Omri Gillath at the University of Kansas says men are likely to pursue short-term mating strategies when faced with a threatening environment, according to sexual selection theory based on evolutionary psychology.  How did he determine that?  He and colleagues told men to think about their own deaths, which mimics conditions of 'low survivability' and they found that men responded more vigorously to sexual pictures and had increased heart rates when viewing them, compared to when they thought about dental pain.

In gene therapy, one or more desired genes are introduced into an adenovirus, a virus that causes the common cold, which is then administered to the patient. Once in the body, the virus enters targeted cells and delivers the desired genes. In heart disease patients, for example, the virus delivers genes that trigger the growth of new blood vessels in damaged heart muscle.