New technology under development could lead to more successful hip and bone replacement surgeries, make better use of solar power and even prevent your computer from overheating. Through the creation of nano micro laser texturing and "nanospikes"on the surfaces of semiconductors and metals scientists are adding a new dimension to these materials'effectiveness.
Maintaining normal serum zinc concentration in the blood may help reduce the risk of pneumonia development in elderly nursing home residents. Study participants with normal serum zinc concentrations in their blood reduced their risk of developing pneumonia by about 50 percent.
Day care attendance early in life seems to protect infants and young children from later developing asthma, according to new research. Scientists examined the relationship between the age at which day care attendance begins and the amount of immunoglobulin E (IgE) in a child's blood. IgE is an antibody produced by the immune system and an indicator of allergic sensitivity.
New insights into the cellular signal chain through which pheromones stimulate mating in yeast have been gained by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. Similar signal chains are found in humans, where they are involved in many important processes such as the differentiation of nerve cells and the development of cancer. A sophisticated microscopy technique allowed the researchers to observe for the first time the interplay of signalling molecules in living yeast cells.
With China now the destination for 70 percent of the computers, TVs, cell phones, and other electronic waste (e-waste) recycled worldwide each year, a new study has concluded that Chinese recycling methods significantly increase dioxin levels in women and their breast-fed infants.
Should reading and writing researchers redefine basic concepts? One researcher commented that it is paradoxical that scholars are so unanimous in stating what dyslexia and language impediments are when the concepts they build their research on are vague and fuzzy.
Biologists report a rapid change of morphology and mitochondrial genes in a mouse common to a Chicago-area conservation area, with an older, established genotype of the mouse being pushed out by another type over a recent five-year period as nearby human suburban development progressed.
Almost 90 Canadian communities have experienced a shift in the normal 51:49 ratio of male to female births, so that more girls than boys are being born, according to two new studies. The researcher identified inverted male sex ratios, sometimes as profound as 46:54 in almost all of the communities studied.
Ubiquitin is a small protein, which can be attached to other cellular proteins. A study now reports a novel finding about ubiquitination asa key event for the activation of an immune response. The acquired immune response is triggered after specific engagement of foreign peptides (antigens) by receptor molecules on white blood cell (lymphocytes).
A new project aims to develop low-volume whole-blood sensors that could transform point-of-care cardiac testing. Fast, accurate blood analysis is vital in the treatment of people suffering heart attacks or other life-threatening cardiac events.
Bacteria living in the intestines of laboratory rats - those test tubes on four feet that stand in for humans in a wide range of research - may influence the results of drug safety and other tests, scientists are reporting.
Philosophers and scientists have long been interested in how the mind processes the inevitability of death, both cognitively and emotionally. One would expect, for example, that reminders of our mortality--say the sudden death of a loved one -- would throw us into a state of disabling fear of the unknown. But that doesn't happen. If the prospect of death is so incomprehensible, why are we not trembling in a constant state of terror over this fact?
Chemists have built a new wire out of photosensitive materials that is hundreds of times smaller than a human hair. The wire not only carries electricity to be used in vanishingly small circuits, but generates power as well.
People with more years of education lose their memory faster than those with less education in the years prior to a diagnosis of dementia, according to a new study."Higher levels of education delay the onset of dementia, but once it begins, the accelerated memory loss is more rapid in people with more education,"says the study author.
