The University of Minnesota Law School's Institute on Race and Poverty has released a report that reveals very troubling data concerning the success rates of charter schools in the Twin Cities metro area.
Entitled "Failed Promises: Assessing Charter Schools in the Twin Cities," the new study is one of very few to evaluate the academic performance of charter schools and their competitive impact on traditional public school systems within the context of racial and economic segregation.
COLUMBIA, Mo. – In the race for bioengineered crops, sequencing the genome could be considered the first leg in a multi-leg relay. Once the sequence is complete, the baton is passed forward to researchers to identify genes' functions. A draft sequence of the soybean genome is now available, and the complete genome will be available soon. Taking the next step in a new study, University of Missouri Interdisciplinary Plant Group researchers have demonstrated the applicability of a genomic tool for identifying gene function in soybeans.
Amsterdam, December 1, 2008 – A study (doi:10.1016/j.clim.2008.07.027) published by Elsevier this month in Clinical Immunology, the official journal of the Clinical Immunology Society (CIS), describes a new method that facilitates the induction of a specific type of immune suppressive cells, called 'regulatory T cells' for therapeutic use. These immune suppressive cells show great potential for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and improving transplantation outcomes.
Biologists at The University of Nottingham and University College Dublin have announced a major breakthrough in our understanding of the sex life of a microscopic fungus which is a major cause of death in immune deficient patients and also a cause of severe asthma.
Are consumers under too much pressure to be healthy? Has the global financial crisis sidelined the promotion of sustainable food? And how much do consumers actually know or care about the subject?
These are some of the questions being asked exclusively of people in Nottinghamshire in a major new study, by a researcher at The University of Nottingham.
PhD candidate Angie Clonan, from the Division of Nutritional Sciences, will send out 2,500 questionnaires in an unprecedented survey that will find out what consumers really think about sustainable foods.
The IWS's manufacturing experts will be exhibiting their two-in-one machining solution on the joint Fraunhofer stand at the EUROMOLD trade show in Frankfurt from December 3 to 6, 2008 (Hall 8, Stand L113).
On Dec.1, the global community commemorates the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day by remembering the millions of people lost to AIDS and renewing the commitment to fight the disease. Since the inception of World AIDS Day in 1988, considerable progress has been made in the fight against HIV/AIDS. This included the development of more than two dozen drugs to treat HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and the implementation of scientifically proven strategies to prevent people from becoming infected with HIV.
If you think the person most likely to be involved in an avalanche this winter will be a young hot-dogger who doesn't know any better, think again.
Like tuning a violin to produce strong, elegant notes, researchers at The Wistar Institute have found multiple receptors on the outside of the body's killer immune system cells which they believe can be selectively targeted to keep the cells in superb infection- and disease-fighting condition.
In a study published online November 30 in Nature Immunology, the researchers describe their discovery of seven different receptors on T cells that can tamp down immune responses during a prolonged battle with an infectious pathogen or against developing cancer.
A booster vaccination for parents of new babies and other household members may be the most effective way of preventing the fatal form of whooping cough in young infants, say a group of paediatric intensive care doctors on bmj.com today.
As most American families sit down to Thanksgiving dinner, a University of British Columbia researcher is revealing how one of the largest animals on earth feasts on the smallest of prey – and at what cost.
Some large marine mammals are known for their extraordinarily long dive times. Elephant seals, for example, can stay underwater for an hour at a time by lowering their heartbeat and storing large amounts of oxygen in their muscles.
New Haven, Conn. — Science fiction writers have long envisioned sailing a spacecraft by the optical force of the sun's light. But, the forces of sunlight are too weak to fill even the oversized sails that have been tried. Now a team led by researchers at the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science has shown that the force of light indeed can be harnessed to drive machines — when the process is scaled to nano-proportions.
With hard bony shells to shelter and protect them, turtles are unique and have long posed a mystery to scientists who wonder how such an elegant body structure came to be.
Since the age of dinosaurs, turtles have looked pretty much as they do now with their shells intact, and scientists lacked conclusive evidence to support competing evolutionary theories. Now with the discovery in China of the oldest known turtle fossil, estimated at 220- million-years-old, scientists have a clearer picture of how the turtle got its shell.
Saturn's moon Enceladus may indeed hide an underground reservoir of water.
Scientists at Jet Propulsion Lab in California, the University of Colorado and the University of Central Florida in Orlando teamed up to analyze the plumes of water vapor and ice particles spewing from the moon. They used data collected by the Cassini spacecraft's Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS). Cassini was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in 1997 and has been orbiting Saturn since July 2004.
Currently, solar cells are difficult to handle, expensive to purchase and complicated to install. The hope is that consumers will one day be able to buy solar cells from their local hardware store and simply hang them like posters on a wall.