Aiming to take "clean" to a whole new level, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Maryland at College Park have teamed up to study how low-temperature plasmas can deactivate potentially dangerous biomolecules left behind by conventional sterilization methods. Using low-temperature plasmas is a promising technique for sterilization and deactivation of surgical instruments and medical devices, but the researchers say its effectiveness isn't fully understood yet. The researchers will present their findings at the AVS Symposium, held Oct. 30 – Nov.
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In the emerging field of synthetic biology, engineers use biological building blocks, such as snippets of DNA, to construct novel technologies. One of the key challenges in the field is finding a way to quickly and economically synthesize the desired DNA strands. Now scientists from Duke University have fabricated a reusable DNA chip that may help address this problem by acting as a template from which multiple batches of DNA building blocks can be photocopied. The researchers have used the device to create strands of DNA which they then folded into unique nanoscale structures.
Submerge it and they will come. Opportunistic seaweed, barnacles, and bacterial films can quickly befoul almost any underwater surface, but researchers are now using advances in nanotechnology and materials science to design environmentally friendly underwater coatings that repel these biological stowaways.
New rice varieties that offer new options for U.S. growers and expanded market opportunities for the U.S. rice industry have been developed by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and cooperators.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 31, 2011) — Surgeons at UK HealthCare recently became the first ever to perform two specific procedures together as a bridge to lung transplantation. Wanda Craig, of Lexington, Ky., is the first patient in history to receive these procedures, and at the age of 68, she is also the oldest living human to be bridged to transplant using an artificial lung device, also known as an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).
Bats in North America are under attack. Since 2006, more than a million have been killed. Little has been done to save them, because there has not been enough evidence to implicate the suspect—until now.
A study has discovered that the fungus Geomyces destructans is the causal agent of White-nose Syndrome (WNS), the fungal disease decimating the bat population.
Academics, activists, young people, parents and carers will debate government plans to involve parents in the assessment process and introduce a legal right to give them control over funding for their child's support. The proposals, which are laid out in a Green Paper published in March 2011, claim to give parents a greater choice of schools, along with the power to set up special free schools in their communities.
The introduction of new antibiotic regimes to tackle hospital-acquired infections, such as C. difficile, must take into account the possibility of increased infections following specific surgical procedures. That is the key finding of a study published in the November issue of the urology journal BJUI.
UK researchers from Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge discovered that patients undergoing a standard surgical procedure to diagnose prostate cancer developed more than five times as many infective complications when a new standard antibiotic regime was introduced.
Researchers have used zinc oxide microwires to significantly improve the efficiency at which gallium nitride light-emitting diodes (LED) convert electricity to ultraviolet light. The devices are believed to be the first LEDs whose performance has been enhanced by the creation of an electrical charge in a piezoelectric material using the piezo-phototronic effect.
Washington, DC -- Antibiotics may not be the only risk factor associated with community-acquired Clostridium difficile infection, indicating that other undefined causes of the potentially life-threatening infection may exist and could also predict whether or not a patient will require hospitalization, according to the results of a new study.
Most migrants working in the London sex industry do not feel they are forced to sell sex. In fact, they decide to work in the sex industry to achieve a good standard of living for themselves and their families back home. They say working in the sex industry avoids employment in menial and poorly paid jobs. These are the findings of a study led by Dr Nick Mai of London Metropolitan University. The study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), is based on in-depth interviews with 100 women, men and transgender migrants working in the London sex industry.
PHILADELPHIA -- Scientists at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia have identified a key mechanism of metastasis that could lead to blocking tumor growth if their findings are confirmed.
A new study describes a 2010 outbreak involving several NBA teams, the first known report of a norovirus outbreak in a professional sports association. Published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and available online (http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/cid/prpaper.pdf), the study highlights unique circumstances for spreading this highly contagious virus among players and staff on and off the court.
Today's hormonal forms of birth control are vastly different from those used by earlier generations of women, both with lower levels of hormones and with different means of delivery (not just a pill), but many of the same problems related to women's pleasure remain.
An Indiana University study that examined how newer forms of hormonal contraception affect things such as arousal, lubrication and orgasm, found that they could still hamper important aspects of sexuality despite the family planning benefits and convenience.