News Articles

Gay and bisexual men may be at far higher risk for eating disorders than heterosexual men, according to a study conducted at Columbia University. In the first population-based study of its kind, the researchers found that gay and bisexual men have higher rates of eating disorders. The findings are reported in the April 2007 issue of International Journal of Eating Disorders.
Researchers Ilan H. Meyer, PhD, associate professor of clinical Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health and principal investigator, and Matthew Feldman, PhD, of the National Development and Research Institutes and first author, surveyed 516 New York City residents; 126 were straight men and the rest were bisexual men and women.

John Hauptman stood before an international gathering of particle physicists and announced he had another idea.
One that was different. One that was simpler. And best of all, one that he was sure would work.

The 4th Concept detector would eliminate the iron surrounding most particle detectors and would be about one-tenth the mass of other detectors. Credit: Iowa State University

For the growing number of people with diminished immune systems - cancer patients, transplant recipients, those with HIV/AIDS - infection by a ubiquitous mold known as Aspergillus fumigatus can be a death sentence.
The fungus, which is found in the soil, on plant debris and indoor air, is easily managed by the healthy immune system. But as medical advances contribute to a growing population of people whose immune systems are weakened by disease or treatment, the opportunistic fungus poses a serious risk.

Through photosynthesis, green plants and cyanobacteria are able to transfer sunlight energy to molecular reaction centers for conversion into chemical energy with nearly 100-percent efficiency. Speed is the key - the transfer of the solar energy takes place almost instantaneously so little energy is wasted as heat. How photosynthesis achieves this near instantaneous energy transfer is a long-standing mystery that may have finally been solved.

Sunlight absorbed by bacteriochlorophyll (green) within the FMO protein (gray) generates a wavelike motion of excitation energy whose quantum mechanical properties can be mapped through the use of two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have captured and sequenced tiny pieces of collagen protein from a 68 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex. The protein fragments—seven in all—appear to most closely match amino acid sequences found in collagen of present day chickens.
Are birds and dinosaurs are evolutionarily related?
Researchers from Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center captured and sequenced tiny pieces of collagen protein from a 68 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex and a 160,000- to 600,000-year-old mastodon. The T. rex sequences are the oldest ever to be reported. Courtesy Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation)

Groundbreaking international legal principles on sexual orientation, gender identity, and international law have been released by 29 international human rights experts, led by University of Nottingham academic, Professor Michael O'Flaherty.
The "Yogyakarta Principles" call for worldwide action against violence, discrimination and abuse, by governments, the UN human rights system, national human rights institutions, non-governmental organisations, and others.

A new technology developed at the University of Toronto is revealing biochemical processes responsible for diseases such as cystic fibrosis and could one day pave the way for pharmaceutical applications.

The "iMYTH-system" shows a positive readout of our iMYTH sytem. If two proteins interact in iMYTH system the yeast cell will stain blue. Credit: Staglar lab

A remarkable eclipse of a supermassive black hole and the hot gas disk around it has been observed with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. This eclipse has allowed two key predictions about the effects of supermassive black holes to be tested.
Just as eclipses of the Sun and moon give astronomers rare opportunities to learn about those objects, an alignment in a nearby galaxy has provided a rare opportunity to investigate a supermassive black hole.

The large image shows an optical view of NGC 1365 from the ESO Very Large Telescope and the inset shows the Chandra X-ray Observatory view of the center of this galaxy.

ESA's Darwin mission aims to discover extrasolar planets and examine their atmospheres for signs of life, particularly for the presence of certain life-related chemicals such as oxygen and carbon dioxide. The major technical challenge lies in distinguishing, or resolving, the light from an extrasolar planet from the hugely overwhelming radiation emitted by the planet's nearby star.

Darwin will combine light from four or five telescopes and send it down to Earth. Credits: ESA

Cluster is providing new insights into the working of a ‘space tsunami’ that plays a role in disrupting the calm and beautiful aurora, or northern lights, creating patterns of auroral dances in the sky.

The image to the left is the typical appearance of the aurora before a magnetic substorm. During a substorm, the single auroral ribbon may split into several ribbons (centre) or even break into clusters that race north and south (right). Credits: Jan Curtis

Stretching a carbon nanotube composite like taffy, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) have made some of the first measurements* of how single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) both scatter and absorb polarized light, a key optical and electronic property.

Biomedical applications could exploit the natural fluorescence of the carbon nanotubes. When light is polarized along a single-walled carbon nanotube (left), this fluorescent emission is strong. Credit: NIST

While the government spends billions of dollars on educational and prevention programs to persuade teens not to do things like smoke, drink or do drugs, a Temple University psychologist suggests that competing systems within the brain make adolescents more susceptible to engaging in risky or dangerous behavior, and that educational interventions alone are unlikely to be effective.
Laurence Steinberg, Distinguished University Professor and the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Psychology at Temple, outlines his argument in, "Risk Taking in Adolescence: New Perspectives from Brain and Behavioral Science," in the April issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science.