One of astronomy's big questions is why galaxies forming as recently as 1 billion years after the Big Bang contain so much dust. The leading hypothesis is that supernovae, stars that explode at the end of their lives, contain large amounts of metal-enriched material that, in turn, harbors key ingredients of dust, like silicon, iron and carbon.
Using the natural glue that marine mussels use to stick to rocks, and a variation on the inkjet printer, a team of researchers led by North Carolina State University has devised a new way of making medical adhesives that could replace traditional sutures and result in less scarring, faster recovery times and increased precision for exacting operations such as eye surgery.
OAK BROOK, Ill – Researchers have found that over a 10-year period radiologic exams on pregnant women have more than doubled, according to a study published in the online edition of Radiology.
"Imaging utilization has not been previously studied in the pregnant population," said Elizabeth Lazarus, M.D., assistant professor of diagnostic imaging at the Warren Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University and a radiologist at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, R.I. "This population may be vulnerable to the adverse effects of radiation."
CO2GeoNet, Europe's Network of Excellence working on the geological storage of carbon dioxide (CO2), will meet in Venice on 18-20th March 2009 to present highlights from five years of research and development carried out by hundreds of scientists and to interact with stakeholders on future needs to be addressed by science.
CO2GeoNet will host an open forum on the island of San Servolo, Venice with an audience of policy-makers, public authorities, industry executives, regulators, NGOs, EC representatives, engineers and scientists attending from across Europe, Australia, Canada, Iran, Japan and the USA. The following key questions will be answered:
A joint venture from researchers from the Helmholtz-Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig, the Otto-von-Guericke-University in Magdeburg, and the Karolinska institute in Sweden have taken an in-depth look at the connection between flu infection and pneumonia. Their results, recently released in the scientific journal "PLoS One", have disproven a common theory about flu-like pneumonia.
A passion for opera starts with an initial explosive, emotional experience. This is followed by a gradual learning process over a number of years during which fans discover how to truly appreciate it fully. Through his observation of middle class opera fans who stand on the upper floors of the Colón Opera House in Buenos Aires, Claudio Benzecry from the University of Connecticut in the USA sheds light on what it takes to develop a true passion for opera. His findings are published online in Springer's journal Qualitative Sociology.
Last summer, it was very expensive to fill up a gas tank when the gasoline price hit close to four dollars a gallon. Transportation by road or air consumes fuel, which not only increases our vulnerability to foreign imports but also is a source of greenhouse gas emissions that will impact adverse change in climate and global warming. A mechanical engineer at Washington University in St. Louis is developing techniques that will lessen our monetary pain at the pump by reducing the drag of vehicles. Drag is an aerodynamic force that is the result of resistance a body encounters when it moves in a liquid or gaseous medium (such as air). Reduction in drag means less fuel would be required to overcome the fluid resistance encountered by the moving vehicle.
The Earth explorer satellite GOCE (Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer), built by the European Space Agency ESA, was successfully launched today at 15:21 GMT from the Russian Cosmodrome Plesetsk. GOCE is the first satellite mission within the framework of the Living Planet Programme of ESA and will map Earth's gravity field in unprecedented detail.
Washington, DC – The President of the American College of Preventive Medicine commended the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) today for its recommendations on aspirin use for primary prevention of heart attack and stroke, released in the March 17 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, citing its improved specificity over previous guidelines.
New Rochelle, NY, March 17, 2009—While the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme led to the collapse of the Picower Foundation, a major benefactor for life science research, many bioindustry observers view the fallout from the scandal as a minor consequence in the larger economic picture, reports Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN). They look at the Madoff factor as representing only one challenge to a global financial environment that has been rocked by declining stock prices, additional scandals, and malaise, according to the March 15 issue of GEN. (http://www.genengnews.com/articles/chitem.aspx?aid=2824&chid=0)
You know what an octopus is, the eight arms, suckers, and sack-like body are almost as familiar to people as cats or dogs. If you're reading this, you also have enough science to know that soft tissue fossils are very rare because usually only hard objects can survive the somewhat lottery-winning odds of fossilizing at all. The body of an octopus is composed almost entirely of muscle and skin, and when an octopus dies, it quickly decays and liquefies into a slimy blob. After just a few days there will be nothing left at all.
Women who maintain a healthy weight and who have lower perceived stress may be less likely to have chromosome changes associated with aging than obese and stressed women, according to a pilot study that was part of the Sister Study. The long-term Sister Study is looking at the environmental and genetic characteristics of women whose sister had breast cancer to identify factors associated with developing breast cancer. This early pilot used baseline questionnaires and samples provided by participants when they joined the Sister Study.
Headlines tell us the nation is getting fatter, and that obesity has become an epidemic. But there is more to the story, according to one University of Houston sociologist.
While she acknowledges that there has been a shift in body weight over the years, assistant sociology professor Samantha Kwan looks at obesity from a different perspective.
The term obesity was constructed by the medical community, Kwan says. And the use of the Body Mass Index, which measures obesity, as the main factor to define obesity, has resulted in the media greatly overstating the rise of the condition.
