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Using a modified ink-jet printer, a McGill University researcher is producing three-dimensional bioceramic “bones” that could one day change the way reconstructive surgery is performed.
McGill professor Jake Barralet, Canada Research Chair in Osteoinductive Biomaterials, Charles Doillon of Université Laval and Uwe Gbureck of the Department for Functional Materials in Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Würzburg, Bavaria, have taken advantage of the ink-jet printer’s ability to print layer upon layer to produce three-dimensional porous materials using the same building blocks as real bone.

Frog skin and human lungs hold secrets to developing new antibiotics, and a technique called solid-state NMR spectroscopy is a key to unlocking those secrets.
That's the view of University of Michigan researcher Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy, who will discuss his group's progress toward that goal March 3 at the annual meeting of the Biophysical Society in Baltimore, Md.
Ramamoorthy's research group is using solid-state NMR to explore the germ-killing properties of natural antibiotics called antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), which are produced by virtually all animals, from insects to frogs to humans. AMPs are the immune system's early line of defense, battling microbes at the first places they try to penetrate: skin, mucous membranes and other surfaces.

TOKYO 02/03/2007
Japan's advanced humanoids can now serve tea and wash the cup afterwards, but they still need to learn from their mistakes if they are to become real household helpers.
A Tokyo University team this week showed their latest robots which can perform more complicated daily tasks, but the machines still have a learning curve.

Japan's advanced humanoids can now serve tea and wash the cup afterwards, but they still need to learn from their mistakes if they are to become real household helpers. © AFP,Ken Shimizu

The European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] has developed a new computational tool that makes images obtained with cutting-edge microscopes even sharper. The technological advance and its applications are published in this week's online issue of the journal Nature Methods.
Since the Single Plane Illumination Microscope [SPIM] was developed at EMBL in the early 2000s it turned into one of the most powerful tools in cell biology. SPIM allows scientists to study large, living specimen along many different angles, under real conditions and with minimal harm to the specimen.

Brain damage that was thought to be caused by hypoglycemic coma actually occurs when glucose is administered to treat the coma, according to a study in rodents led by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center.
The results are surprising, say the authors, and may be of clinical significance for the treatment of diabetics in hypoglycemic coma, though they caution that the results cannot be immediately extrapolated to humans.

By analyzing the COSMOS field, the largest field of galaxies ever observed with the Hubble space telescope, an international team of scientists led by researchers from the California Institute of Technology (United States) and researchers from the associated laboratories of the CNRS and the CEA , made the first three-dimensional map of dark matter in the Universe using gravitational lensing effects. This historic first seems to confirm the standard theories on the formation of the large structures of the Universe. This study was presented in the January 7, 2007 issue of the journal "Nature."

Three-dimensional map of black matter in the COSMOS field. © ESA/NASA

The chemical bond between carbon and fluorine is one of the strongest in nature, and has been both a blessing and a curse in the complex history of fluorocarbons.

The changing Larsen-B Ice Shelf captured by Envisat on 22 February 2007 with its Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR). The Larsen Ice Shelf is a series of three shelves – A (the smallest), B and C (the largest) – that extend from north to south along the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula. Changes in ice shelves are believed to be indicators of climate change, as evidence suggests high latitudes experience the greatest atmospheric warming. Credits: ESA

A team of researchers from the UAB's Mutagenesis Group, led by Dr Jordi Surrallés, has identified one of the mechanisms used by cancer cells to resist chemotherapy.
In his paper, to be published in The EMBO Jorunal, Dr Surrallés describes how proteins of the Fanconi/BRCA pathway recognise the presence of genetic mutations in order to repair them. The researchers also found that alteration of this mechanism makes tumour cells much more sensitive to certain drugs. This discovery will make it possible to develop strategies to make tumours more vulnerable to chemotherapy.

It is a vision of information technology to store data in the smallest available units - single atoms - thus enabling the development of novel mass storage devices with huge capacities but compact dimensions. It is crucial to understand the mutual interaction and dynamics of individual spins, both for realising such a visionary device as well as to explore the limits of conventional mass storage media. New insights into these interactions can find direct application in the advancement of magnetic recording techniques as well as in the development of novel spin-based information technologies such as quantum computers.

There are many galaxies of different shapes and sizes around us today. Roughly half are gas-poor elliptical-shaped galaxies with little new star formation activity, and half are gas-rich spiral and irregular galaxies with high star formation activity. Observations have shown that gas-poor galaxies are most often found near the centre of crowded galaxy clusters, whereas spirals spend most of their lifetime in solitude.

An extended view of the Hubble image also shows the gravitational lensing effect -- an optical illusion -- caused by the cluster's gravitational tidal forces of the cluster and "ram pressure stripping" by the hot gas.

As we have seen, penis size matters to female mice and sword size matters to female swordfish but brain size in humans barely gets noticed at all. It's what you do with it that counts.
The ability to hit a baseball or play a piano well is part practice and part innate talent. One side of the equation required for skilled performances has its roots in the architecture of the brain genetically determined before birth, say scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.