ScienceDaily Top Science Headlines
for Monday, August 4, 2008
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Low-gravity Training Machine Reduces Joint, Muscle Impacts, Says Study (August 4, 2008) -- A new study of a space-age, low-gravity training machine used by several 2008 Olympic runners showed it reduced impacts on muscles and joints by nearly half when subjects ran at the equivalent of 50 percent of their body weight. ... > full story
New Male Circumcision Device For HIV Prevention (August 4, 2008) -- With the recent endorsement by the World Health Organization and scientists worldwide of adult male circumcision as an important strategy for HIV prevention, there is increased urgency to develop safe and cost-effective circumcision services. This is especially the case in Africa where HIV/AIDS continues to spread at an epidemic rate. ... > full story
Prelude To The Higgs: A Work For 2 Bosons In The Key Of Z (August 4, 2008) -- Scientists have announced the observation of pairs of Z bosons, force-carrying particles produced in proton-antiproton collisions at the Tevatron, the world's highest-energy particle accelerator. The properties of the ZZ diboson make its discovery an essential prelude to finding or excluding the Higgs boson at the Tevatron. ... > full story
Same Dose Of Anthracycline Is Not Safe For Everyone, Study Finds (August 4, 2008) -- Not all patients can tolerate the currently recommended cumulative dose of epirubicin. New models can help physicians calculate the epirubicin dose associated with a 5 percent risk of cardiotoxicity for individual patients. ... > full story
Spotting Tomorrow’s Forest Fires (August 4, 2008) -- A WiMAX-based connection to the internet enables fire-monitoring efforts in remote and mountainous regions. A forest fire remote monitoring system has been successfully tested in Portugal that could prevent the destruction of millions of hectares, as well as save lives. ... > full story
Doctors Must Be Held Accountable For Complying With Torture, Experts Argue (August 4, 2008) -- Doctors who assist in torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment should face prosecution and licensing punishments, says a new editorial. ... > full story
Giant Grass Miscanthus Can Meet US Biofuels Goal Using Less Land Than Corn Or Switchgrass (August 4, 2008) -- In the largest field trial of its kind in the United States, researchers have determined that the giant perennial grass Miscanthus x giganteus outperforms current biofuels sources -- by a lot. Using Miscanthus as a feedstock for ethanol production in the U.S. could significantly reduce the acreage dedicated to biofuels while meeting government biofuels production goals, the researchers report. ... > full story
Schizophrenia Researchers Welcome New Blood (August 4, 2008) -- Researchers from UQ's Queensland Brain Institute are set to conduct a world-first trial into the link between prenatal vitamin D levels and schizophrenia prevalence. ... > full story
Visualizing Open Source Software Development (August 4, 2008) -- With dancing points of light, rings of color and a soundtrack, the Code_swarm animations show how software such as the Python scripting language and the Apache Web server have developed from the contributions of different programmers. ... > full story
Lapatinib Reduces Brain Metastases In Mouse Model Of Metastatic Breast Cancer (August 4, 2008) -- Lapatinib reduces the number of large brain metastases in a mouse model of metastatic breast cancer, relative to untreated mice, researchers report. ... > full story
Spanish Researchers Discover Significant Leatherback Turtle Nesting Beaches In The Caribbean (August 4, 2008) -- Spanish researchers recently explored around 100 kilometers of practically uncharted Atlantic beach in the north of Colombia and south of Panama between the years 2006 and 2007. In the course of their work, they came across extensive nesting grounds that bring new hope for the survival of the leatherback turtle. This species suffered a grave decline in the twentieth century and is among those considered by the World Conservation Union to be in critical danger of extinction. ... > full story
Travel Industry Should Inform Travelers About Malaria, Say Doctors (August 4, 2008) -- Tour operators and airlines are wasting an ideal opportunity to warn travelers about the risk of contracting malaria in specific countries, say infectious disease experts. ... > full story
Alzheimer's Drug May Help Mild Memory Loss, Imaging Study Suggests (August 3, 2008) -- New UCLA research suggests that the treatment of early symptoms of memory loss may protect the brain and help people with mild age-related memory impairment. The finding also shows how PET offers researchers a tool for tracking the effectiveness of drugs prescribed to treat age-related cognitive decline. ... > full story
Common Vaginal Infection May Increase Risk Of HIV Infection (August 3, 2008) -- A common vaginal infection may make women more susceptible to contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, researchers have found. ... > full story
Timing Is Everything: How Vulnerable To Flooding Is New York City? (August 3, 2008) -- A new high-resolution storm surge modeling system will better be able to predict flood levels and when flooding will occur in the New York metropolitan area, information crucial to emergency managers when planning for impending storms. ... > full story
Cutting The Brakes On The Immune System; Newly Discovered Gene Variant Implicated In Lupus (August 3, 2008) -- A new study has found that variation of a particular gene -- known as TNFAIP3 -- may cause the immune system to lose its ability to shut off, leading to the autoimmune disease lupus. The research appears in the August issue of the journal Nature Genetics. ... > full story
Emerging Scientific Discipline Of Aeroecology (August 3, 2008) -- Aeroecology is the emerging discipline for studying how airborne organisms -- birds, bats, arthropods and microbes -- depend on the support of the lower atmosphere that is closest to the Earth's surface. Called the aerosphere, it influences the daily and seasonal movements, development traits, such as size and shape, and evolution of behavioral, sensory, metabolic and respiratory functions of airborne organisms. Understanding how they respond to altered landscapes and atmospheric conditions can also help mitigate adverse effects. ... > full story
Cancer Patients Are Not Given Enough Information, Experts Say (August 3, 2008) -- Two thirds of cancer patients receive little or no information about the survival benefits of having palliative chemotherapy before making a decision about treatment, according to a new study. ... > full story
Mother Earth Naked: A Modern Masterpiece (August 3, 2008) -- Have you ever wondered what our world would look like stripped bare of all plants, soils, water and human-made structures? Well wonder no longer -- images of the Earth as never seen before have been unveiled in what is the world's biggest geological mapping project ever. ... > full story
How 'Hidden Mutations' Contribute To HIV Drug Resistance (August 3, 2008) -- One of the major reasons that treatment for HIV/AIDS often doesn't work as well as it should is resistance to the drugs involved. Now, scientists have determined how mutations hidden in previously ignored parts of the HIV genome play an important role in the development of drug resistance in AIDS patients. ... > full story
Brain Plays Key Role In Appetite By Regulating Free Radicals (August 3, 2008) -- Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found the brain's appetite center uses fat for fuel by involving oxygen free radicals -- molecules associated with aging and neurodegeneration. The findings suggest that antioxidants could play a role in weight control. ... > full story
Treatment Corrects Severe Insulin Imbalance In Animal Studies (August 3, 2008) -- Researchers have used a drug to achieve normal levels of blood sugar in animals genetically engineered to have abnormally high insulin levels. If this approach succeeds in humans, it could become an innovative medicine for children with congenital hyperinsulinism, a rare but potentially devastating genetic disease in which insulin levels become dangerously high. There is currently no effective medical treatment for children with the most common type of congenital hyperinsulinism. ... > full story
Superfluid-superconductor Relationship Is Detailed (August 3, 2008) -- Scientists have studied superconductors and superfluids for decades. Now researchers have drawn the first detailed picture of the way a superfluid influences the behavior of a superconductor. In addition to describing previously unknown superconductor behavior, these calculations could change scientists' understanding of the motion of neutron stars. ... > full story
Free Academic Articles Get Read But Don't Generate More Citations (August 3, 2008) -- When academic articles are "open access" or free online, they get read more often, but they don't -- going against conventional wisdom -- get cited more often in academic literature, finds a new study. ... > full story
Brightest, Sharpest, Fastest X-ray Holograms Yet (August 3, 2008) -- An international group of scientists working at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and at FLASH, the free-electron laser in Hamburg, Germany, has produced two of the brightest, sharpest x-ray holograms of microscopic objects ever made, thousands of times more efficiently than previous x-ray-holographic methods. ... > full story
Fruit-fly Study Adds Weight To Theories About Another Type Of Adult Stem Cell (August 3, 2008) -- Researchers have found that mature, specialized cells naturally regress to serve as a kind of de facto stem cell during the fruit-fly life cycle. ... > full story
Mussels To Determine How Much Contamination Is In The Ports (August 3, 2008) -- New research aimed at monitoring contamination of ports is using mussels to measure the levels of contaminants as they feed by filtering water and so accumulate any contaminant substances in their organs. ... > full story
High Resolution Heart Images Now Available At Peak Stress (August 3, 2008) -- Researchers have designed equipment to provide high resolution images of the heart at a critical stage of testing that have previously been difficult to obtain using standard testing procedures. Superior images of the heart are obtained with a test lasting less than one hour. ... > full story
Hybrid Cars Could Be More Reliable And Cheaper With New Fuel Cell Technology (August 3, 2008) -- Scientists have revolutionized the design of fuel cells used in the latest generation of hybrid cars which could make the vehicles more reliable and cheaper to build. The breakthrough, published in the journal Science, revolves around the design of a fuel cell in which a specially-coated form of popular hi tech outdoor and sporting clothing material Goretex® is the key component. ... > full story
Watching Too Much TV Is Causing Some University Students To Pack On The Pounds (August 3, 2008) -- What's causing some university students to pack on the pounds? University of Alberta researchers say the culprit could be television commercials. Researchers discovered students who reported medium or high television viewership snacked more frequently while watching TV and recognized more advertising than students who were considered low TV viewers. ... > full story
Newly Discovered Monkey Is Threatened With Extinction (August 2, 2008) -- Just three years after it was discovered, a new species of monkey is threatened with extinction according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which recently published the first-ever census of the endangered primate. Africa's 'kipunji' hovers at 1,100 individuals. ... > full story
How Some Bacteria May Steal Iron From Their Human Hosts (August 2, 2008) -- While humans obtain iron primarily through the food they eat, bacteria have evolved complex and diverse mechanisms to allow them access to iron. Scientists have discovered that some bacteria are equipped with a gene that enables them to harvest iron from their environment or human host in a unique and energy efficient manner.This discovery could provide researchers with new ways to target such diseases as tuberculosis. ... > full story
Traumatic Response To Bad Memories Can Be Minimized (August 2, 2008) -- Researchers have identified the brain mechanism that switches off traumatic feelings associated with bad memories, a finding that could lead to the development of drugs to treat panic disorders. ... > full story
Simple Lab Test For Bone Disease Linked To Risk Of Death In Dialysis Patients (August 2, 2008) -- Among patients receiving dialysis for chronic kidney disease, high levels of alkaline phosphatase -- a routinely measured laboratory marker of bone disease -- may signal an increased risk of death, reports a new study. ... > full story
Functional Nanoribbons Carved Using Super-heated, Nano-sized Particles Of Iron (August 2, 2008) -- Physicists at the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated a new method by which graphene films can be etched along flawless, crystallographic axes using hot nanoparticles, a technique that results in precise, macroscopic length ribbons of graphene. The advance could enable atomically precise and simple construction of integrated circuits from single graphene sheets with a wide range of technological applications. ... > full story
Biological Fathers Not Necessarily The Best, Social Dads Parent Well Too (August 2, 2008) -- Men who marry a child's mother parent just as well, if not better than biological fathers. A new study examined differences in the parenting practices of four groups of fathers according to whether they were biologically related to a child and whether they were married to the child's mother. ... > full story
In Lean Times, Flies Can't Survive Without Their Sense Of Smell (August 2, 2008) -- Working with fruit flies reared under laboratory conditions, researchers show that in times of plenty, the sense of smell is irrelevant for survival. But when food is scarce, a well functioning nose can mean the difference between life and death. ... > full story
New Immune Disease Identified (August 2, 2008) -- Medical researchers have identified a strange disease in which the innate immune system works in an irregular fashion. A new study describes 9 cases of children severely infected by common bacteria, specifically pneumococci and staphylococci, who do not react to the infection with an inflammatory response; that is, they have no fever and there is no detected increase in the number of white blood cells in the blood. By the time they see a doctor, the infection is widespread. In fact, 3 of the children, aged between 1 and 11 months, died. ... > full story
Olfactory Fine-tuning Helps Fruit Flies Find Their Mates (August 2, 2008) -- Fruit flies fine-tune their olfactory systems by recalibrating the sensitivity of different odor channels in response to changing concentrations of environmental cues, a new study has shown. Disable this calibration system, and flies have trouble finding a mate, the researchers have found. The fly nervous system can dampen its response to intense smells to prevent strong signals from overloading the circuits, they report in the July 31 issue of Neuron. ... > full story
New Method Assesses Risks For Heart Failure Patients (August 2, 2008) -- Data from 260 hospitals across the United States has led to the creation of a new method for physicians to more accurately determine the severity of heart failure in patients upon hospital admission, with a goal of reducing in-hospital mortality and more quickly identifying triage methods and treatment decisions. ... > full story
Relays Pass Baton To Next-gen Broadband Networks (August 2, 2008) -- The ideal of affordable wireless broadband for all, and as an added bonus better quality services in urban areas, is a lot closer thanks to recent advances made by European researchers. ... > full story
Communication Gap Exists Between Seniors And Surgeons, Study Finds (August 2, 2008) -- In a study published in the July 2008 issue of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Richard M. Frankel, Ph.D., of the Indiana University School of Medicine, and colleagues report that older patients and their surgeons do not communicate effectively when exploring surgical treatment options. ... > full story
NASA Spacecraft Confirms Martian Water, Mission Extended (August 2, 2008) -- Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples. ... > full story
Liver Damage In Hepatitis C Patients Could Be Treated With Warfarin, Says New Study (August 2, 2008) -- The drug warfarin may help prevent liver failure in thousands of people with Hepatitis C, according to new research. ... > full story
Telescope Embedded In Glasses Lens Promises To Make Driving Easier For Visually Impaired (August 2, 2008) -- Glasses embedded with a telescope promise to make it easier for people with impaired vision to drive and do other activities requiring sharper distance vision. Scientists have found advantages of these innovative glasses over earlier devices. ... > full story
Two Different Breast Cancer Screening Strategies Are Equally Effective, Study Fiinds (August 2, 2008) -- An organized population-based breast cancer screening program in Norway and an approach to screening that relies on physician- and self-referrals in Vermont are equally sensitive for detecting cancer, researchers report in the July 29 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. But the recall rate for abnormal mammograms was lower in Norway. ... > full story
Like Eavesdropping At A Party: How A Tiny Protein Senses All The Communications In A Cell (August 2, 2008) -- Cells rely on calcium as a universal means of communication. For example, a sudden rush of calcium can trigger nerve cells to convey thoughts in the brain or cause a heart cell to beat. A longstanding mystery has been how cells and molecules manage to appropriately sense and respond to the variety of calcium fluctuations within cells. ... > full story
Drug Has Potential To Prevent Alcoholics From Relapsing (August 2, 2008) -- An experimental drug that blocks the euphoric feelings associated with drinking may prevent alcoholics from relapsing. The finding, the result of a mouse study at Oregon Health & Science University, could lead to human clinical trials within the next year. ... > full story
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