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GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- They aren't the lost cities early explorers sought fruitlessly to discover.
But ancient settlements in the Amazon, now almost entirely obscured by tropical forest, were once large and complex enough to be considered "urban" as the term is commonly applied to both medieval European and ancient Greek communities.
Waltham, MA—Everybody loves the way breakfast eggs conveniently slide off of Teflon without leaving any pesky pieces of egg in the pan. Indeed, the carbon-fluorine bond at the heart of Teflon cookware is so helpful we also use it in clothing, lubricants, refrigerants, anesthetics, semiconductors, and even blood substitutes. But the very strength of the C-F bond that makes it useful in so many applications also gives it formidable greenhouse gas effects that persist in nature.
(WASHINGTON, August 28, 2008) – Blood transfusions are a valuable treatment mechanism in modern medicine, but can come with the risk of donor disease transmission. Researchers are continually studying the biology of blood products to understand how certain diseases are transmitted in an effort to reduce this risk during blood transfusions.
Researchers report the discovery of the first new living species of giant clam in two decades, according to a report to be published online on August 28th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. While fossil evidence reveals that the new species, called Tridacna costata, once accounted for more than 80 percent of giant clams in the Red Sea, it now represents less than one percent of giant clams living there.
LIVERMORE, Calif. - Certain explosives may soon get a little greener and a little more precise. LLNL researchers added unique green solvents (ionic liquids) to an explosive called TATB (1,3,5-triamino-2,4,6-trinitrobenzene) and improved the crystal quality and chemical purity of the material.
This work, supported under the Transformational Materials Initiative (TMI) Laboratory Research and Development project, appears on the cover of the Sept. 1 issue of the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.
NEW YORK (AUGUST 28, 2008) –A WCS report reveals surprisingly large populations of two globally threatened primates in a protected area in Cambodia.
The report counted 42,000 black-shanked douc langurs along with 2,500 yellow-cheeked crested gibbons in Cambodia's Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area, an estimate that represents the largest known populations for both species in the world.
Researchers at The University of Nottingham have developed a unique technology that will allow scientists to look at microscopic activity within the body's chemical messenger system for the very first time, live as it happens.
The cutting edge laser technology has helped to attract £1.3 million from the MRC (Medical Research Council) for a five-year project that will offer a new insight into the tiny world of activity taking place within single cells and could contribute to the design of new drugs to treat human diseases such as asthma and arthritis with fewer side effects.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Hundreds of lives and hundreds of millions of dollars could potentially be saved if emergency managers could make better and more timely critical decisions when faced with an approaching hurricane. Now, an MIT graduate student has developed a computer model that could help do just that.
Researchers at The University of Nottingham have been awarded £2.8 million by the Wellcome Trust to develop a new drug that could ease the suffering of hundreds of thousands of heart disease patients who are unable to take beta-blockers.
In the UK, 2.6 million people suffer from heart disease and most are able to have their symptoms effectively managed with the prescription of beta-blocker drugs which stop adrenaline from making the heart work too hard.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. –A class of oral drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes may make heart failure worse, according to an editorial published online in Heart Wednesday by two Wake Forest University School of Medicine faculty members.
Researchers running cancer trials are often critical of the Research Ethics Committee (REC) process they have to go through to get their trials approved, complaining that it's too complex, burdensome and sometimes unreasonable. In the UK only 17% of research study applications are given immediate favourable opinion by RECs.
But a new study from the University of Leicester, recently reported in The Lancet Oncology, suggests that RECs may sometimes identify important problems in applications to conduct cancer trials.
By manipulating the machinery used by our cells for quality control, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh have found a way to restore the function of cystic fibrosis (CF) airway cells. This could significantly reduce the sticky mucus that plugs the lungs of CF patients, which leads to antibiotic-resistant infections and untimely death.
Troy, N.Y. – The advantage of using two eyes to see the world around us has long been associated solely with our capacity to see in 3-D. Now, a new study from a scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has uncovered a truly eye-opening advantage to binocular vision: our ability to see through things.
As antiviral treatment for HIV infection allows patients to live longer, many will be confronted with additional health challenges. A new study shows for the first time that one of these may be significantly increased risk of bone fractures. The report in the September Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism finds that fracture prevalence was increased more than 60 percent in those infected with HIV compared to patients without HIV infection.