When a person suffers a minor wound, the human body reacts to close the opening, sending the blood platelets needed to the affected area -- and with no need in many cases for any external coagulant substance to be employed. This reaction of nature to damage suffered was the starting point for the development of self-repairing polymer materials with the capacity of recovering a good part of the properties lost and with no or with minimal external help.
Newly published data from the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site, the Soviet Union's primary nuclear weapons testing ground during the Cold War, can help today's atomic detectives fine-tune their monitoring of nuclear explosions around the world, according to new research. The treasure trove of data from Semipalatinsk are especially important in light of the fact that only three nuclear tests -- back-to-back tests in India and Pakistan in 1998 and a 2006 test in North Korea -- have been conducted since the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1996.
Poorer outcomes for breast cancer and prostate cancer among minorities may be due to biologic factors, new research suggests. In addition, researchers present a new theory on why a recent decline in breast cancer rates was less pronounced among African-American women, and offer data on a relatively simple means of reducing racial disparities in breast cancer care.
Three music professors have devised a new way of analyzing and categorizing music that takes advantage of the deep, complex mathematics they see enmeshed in its very fabric. Writing in Science, they have outlined a method called "geometrical music theory" that translates the language of musical theory into that of contemporary geometry.
Many women with a faulty breast cancer gene could be at greater risk of the disease due to extra risk-amplifying genes, according to research published this month in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
Tadpoles exposed to the herbicide atrazine during an often overlooked growth phase named organ morphogenesis develop deformed hearts and impaired kidneys, according to biologists. Atrazine is one of the most widely used weed killers in the United States and is already known to be harmful to amphibians exposed to the chemical in early and late developmental stages. But the Tufts research focuses on a critical third stage.
Patients with pain caused by narrowed arteries in their legs have 37 percent more pain-free walking if they take naftidrofuryl (200 mg three times a day) than those taking placebos, a Cochrane Review has found. In addition, 55 percent of patients taking naftidrofuryl improved, while only 30 percent of people on placebo treatments improved. Naftidrofuryl is used to treat circulatory problems.
A new study in mice indicates that overeating, rather than the obesity it causes, is the trigger for developing metabolic syndrome, a collection of heath risk factors that increases an individual's chances of developing insulin resistance, fatty liver, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
Data from the ESA/NASA spacecraft SOHO shows clearly that powerful starquakes ripple around the Sun in the wake of mighty solar flares that explode above its surface. The observations give solar physicists new insight into a long-running solar mystery and may even provide a way of studying other stars.
Computer scientists have created a fog and smoke machine for computer graphics that cuts the computational cost of making realistic smoky and foggy 3-D images, such as beams of light from a lighthouse piercing thick fog. By cutting the computing costs, the computer scientists are helping to pull cutting edge graphics techniques out of research labs and into movies and eventually video games and beyond.
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada will declare on Friday that a chemical widely used in water and baby bottles is dangerous, a move that could lead to an eventual ban on its use in food and water containers, officials said.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Teams of university scientists backed by U.S. government funds hope to grow new skin, ears, muscles and other body tissue for troops injured in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Defense Department said on Thursday.
New data throws more doubt on the notion that cosmic rays are a major influence on the Earth's climate. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 18 Apr 2008 | 8:48 am
Nasa's Galex satellite sees baby stars spawning in the otherwise barren outskirts of the M83 galaxy. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 18 Apr 2008 | 8:46 am
New scientific findings show greenhouse gas emissions causing more damage than previously thought Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 17 Apr 2008 | 11:20 pm
Research allays fears that the rapid draining of water from the top of Greenland's ice sheet may be contributing to the rise of global sea levels Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 17 Apr 2008 | 11:20 pm
New method of delivering cancer treatments straight to tumor cells saves healthy cells from toxic side effects, say researchers Source: guardian.co.uk Science | 17 Apr 2008 | 11:18 pm
MILAN (Reuters) - The use of antibiotics and other anti-microbial agents throughout the food chain contributes to the growth of resistant bacteria which can be passed on to humans through food, EU's food agency said on Thursday.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Edward Lorenz, the father of chaos theory, who showed how small actions could lead to major changes in what became known as the "butterfly effect," died of cancer on Wednesday at the age of 90, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said.
The world's smallest transistor is made out of a material that could one day replace silicon, say scientists. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 17 Apr 2008 | 6:11 pm
A tree thought to be nearly 10,000 years old is found in central Sweden, scientists say. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 17 Apr 2008 | 6:01 pm
An inquiry is launched into how to lower carbon dioxide emissions from Britain's offices, shops and factories. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 17 Apr 2008 | 5:44 pm
Damian Wroclavsky is a senior correspondent with the Spanish-language service in Buenos Aires. In seven years with Reuters he has covered presidential summits, political crisis and human rights from Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia and Cuba. In the following story, he recounts how he watched killer whales hunt sea lion pups at risk of beaching themselves.
LONDON (Reuters) - Tiny magnets have been used to deliver anti-cancer gene therapy in mice in a development that could make the treatment much more effective, scientists said on Thursday.
Even on Earth-like planets, the chances of intelligent life evolving are remote, a scientist calculates. Source: BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition | 17 Apr 2008 | 1:25 pm
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Borneo's mysterious pygmy elephants may be the descendants of Javan elephants accidentally saved from extinction by a local sultan several centuries ago, the conservation group WWF said on Thursday.
