News Articles

While its known that cigarette smoking can cause cancer it has been unclear how cigarette smoke causes healthy lung cells to become cancerous.
Researchers from U.C. - Davis say that hydrogen peroxide (or similar oxidants) in cigarette smoke is the culprit. This finding may help the tobacco industry develop “safer” cigarettes by eliminating such substances in the smoke, while giving medical researchers a new avenue to developing lung cancer treatments.
“With the five-year survival rate for people with lung cancer at a dismally low 15.5 percent, we hope this study will provide better insight into the identification of new therapeutic targets,” said Tzipora Goldkorn, senior author of the report.

A highly specialised computer modelling technique developed at The University of Nottingham has been instrumental in the design of a revolutionary new swimsuit which is now being hailed as the fastest in the world.
Dr Herve Morvan, a lecturer in fluid mechanics in the School of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering, is working as an advisor to the AQUALAB, Speedo’s competition research and development department, responsible for the development of Speedo’s new LZR Racer swimsuit.
Within a week of its launch athletes wearing the new swimsuit had broken three world records.

Numerical results show a 5 percent improvement over the FS Pro pictured here.

Differences in gene expression levels between people of European versus African ancestry can affect how each group responds to certain drugs or fights off specific infections, say researchers in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
They used Affymetrix exon arrays to show that expression levels for nearly five percent of the 9,156 human genes they studied varied significantly between individuals of European and African ancestry. The research team took an unbiased whole genome approach and found significant differences in several unrelated processes, especially among genes involved in producing antibodies to potential microbial invaders.

A report in a recent New England Journal of Medicine, led by researchers at the New England Newborn Screening Program (NENSP) of the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS), indicates a declining incidence of a genetic disease, providing what may be the first demonstration of a link between two independent population-based screening programs.
The state of Massachusetts has offered universal newborn screening to detect cystic fibrosis (CF) since 1999. Independently, recommendations for nationwide (adult) carrier screening for CF were introduced in the U.S. around 2002, coming from the National Institutes of Health, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the American College of Medical Genetics.

Scientists at the John Innes Centre in Norwich have discovered how roots find their way past obstacles to grow through soil. The discovery also explains how germinating seedlings penetrate the soil without pushing themselves out as they burrow.
“The key is in the fuzzy coat of hairs on the roots of plants” says Professor Liam Dolan. “We have identified a growth control mechanism that enables these hairs to find their way and to elongate when their path is clear”.
Root hairs explore the soil in much the same way as a person would feel their way in the dark. If they come across an obstacle, they feel their way around until they can continue growing in an opening.

In the 1980s and 90s, Scotland was known for its alarmingly high suicide rate. But since 2000, suicide rates have fallen sharply. A study published in the online open access journal BMC Public Health found this reduction is associated with a significant drop in hangings as a means of suicide.
Dr Cameron Stark led the research team from the Department of Public Health, NHS Highland. The research team based the analysis on routinely collected information for the period 1980-2004 from the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS). The data showed a 42% reduction in suicide rates among 15-29 year old men, from 42.5/100,000 in 2000 to 24.5/100 000 in 2004, There were no significant changes in trend in any other male age group in the period reviewed.

A team of scientists from Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences and Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales travelled to Africa to find new evidence of climate change which helps explain some of the mystery surrounding the appearance of the Antarctic ice sheet.
Ice sheet formation in the Antarctic is one of the most important climatic shifts in Earth’s history. However, previous temperature records show no evidence of the oceans cooling at this time, but instead suggest they actually warmed, presenting a confusing picture of the climate system which has long been a mystery in palaeoclimatology.

Utilizing a technique that combines low temperature measurements and theoretical calculations, Hebrew University of Jerusalem scientists and others have revealed for the first time the electronic structure of single DNA molecules.
The knowledge of the electronic properties of DNA is an important issue in many scientific areas from biochemistry to nanotechnology -- for example in the study of DNA damage by ultraviolet radiation that may cause the generation of free radicals and genetic mutations. In those cases, DNA repair occurs spontaneously via an electronic charge transfer along the DNA helix that restores the damaged molecular bonds.

Researchers have discovered that neurons can use two different neurotransmitters that target the same receptor on a receiving neuron to shape the transmission of a nerve impulse.
Although the researchers’ experiments identified the “co-release” of the two neurotransmitters only in specific types of neurons in the brain’s auditory center, their finding may apply more broadly in the brain, they said.
Thus, the finding may represent a new way in which the brain precisely modulates the nerve impulses that travel from neuron to neuron in its circuitry.

It may not be for all people, but I am betting 90% of the readers of this site and 100% of the writers would buy this car; active suspension, six-wheel drive with independent steering for each wheel, no doors, no windows, no seats and the only color available is gold.
And no passenger seat. Pure off-roading heaven.
But NASA's latest concept vehicle is meant to go way off-road, as in 240,000 miles from the nearest pavement, and drive on the moon.

Children who under-achieve at school may just have poor working memory rather than low intelligence according to researchers who have produced the world's first tool to assess memory capacity in the classroom.
The researchers from Durham University, who surveyed over three thousand children, found that ten per cent of school children across all age ranges suffer from poor working memory seriously affecting their learning. Nationally, this equates to almost half a million children in primary education alone being affected.
However, the researchers identified that poor working memory is rarely identified by teachers, who often describe children with this problem as inattentive or as having lower levels of intelligence.

Boulders the size of footballs could help scientists predict the West Antarctic Ice Sheet’s (WAIS) contribution to sea-level rise according to new research published this week in Geology.
Scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Durham University and Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) collected boulders deposited by three glaciers in the Amundsen Sea Embayment – a region currently the focus of intense international scientific attention because it is changing faster than anywhere else on the WAIS and it has the potential to raise sea-level by around 1.5 meters.
Analysis of the boulders has enabled the scientists to start constructing a long-term picture of glacier behavior in the region.