For quite some time, the "Holy Grail" in medical imaging has been the development of an effective method to image cell death as a means to intervene early in diseases and rapidly determine the effectiveness of treatments. A new paper by researchers at the University of Notre Dame and the Washington University School of Medicine describes important progress in using a synthetic probe to target dead and dying cells in mammary and prostate tumors in living animals.
Earth
College Park, MD (January 28, 2010) -- The American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) has issued a statement today in the wake of several recent articles in the New York Times yesterday and earlier in the week that discuss a number of rare but tragic events in the last decade involving people undergoing radiation therapy.
Phase transitions – changes of matter from one state to another without altering its chemical makeup – are an important part of life in our three-dimensional world. Water falls to the ground as snow, melts to a liquid and eventually vaporizes back to the clouds to begin the cycle anew.
Cambridge, MA - Scientists have long studied how atoms and molecules structure themselves into intricate clusters. Unlocking the design secrets of Nature offers lessons in engineering artificial systems that could self-assemble into any desired form.
In the January 29th issue of Science, a team from Harvard led by Vinothan Manoharan and Michael Brenner, presents additional clues to how and why groups of atoms and molecules may favor less symmetrical and more complex, flexible geometric patterns.
WASHINGTON – A George Washington University expedition to the Gobi Desert of China has enabled researchers to solve the puzzle of how one group of dinosaurs came to look like birds independent of birds. The discovery extends the fossil record of the family Alvarezsauridae – a bizarre group of bird-like dinosaurs with a large claw on the hand and very short, powerful arms – back 63 million years, further distancing the group from birds on the evolutionary tree.
Migrating birds can and do keep their travel dates flexible, a new study published online on January 28th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, reveals. But in the case of pied flycatchers, at least, an earlier takeoff hasn't necessarily translated into an earlier arrival at their destination. It appears the problem is travel delays the birds are experiencing as a result of harsh weather conditions on the final leg of their journey through Europe.
A recent study by researchers from the Cleveland Clinic found that the overall mortality rate in the U.S. for all pediatric patients with rheumatic diseases was not worse than the age and sex-adjusted population. Furthermore, mortality rates were significantly lower than reported in previous studies of rheumatic diseases and conditions that are associated with increased mortality. Details of the study appear in the February issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American College of Rheumatology.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- New research is casting doubt on the old adage, "All you need to run is a pair of shoes."
Scientists have found that those who run barefoot, or in minimal footwear, tend to avoid "heel-striking," and instead land on the ball of the foot or the middle of the foot. In so doing, these runners use the architecture of the foot and leg and some clever Newtonian physics to avoid hurtful and potentially damaging impacts, equivalent to two to three times body weight, that shod heel-strikers repeatedly experience.
An international research team, comprising scientists working in the Sweden, UK, USA & South Korea and led by Professor Rajeev Ahuja of Uppsala University now presents new findings for better understanding of superconducting high-pressure metal hydride systems. The study is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
Scientists are discovering what farmers knew for hundreds of years. Where there is fire, there is smoke and research that has identified plant growth promoters and inhibitors in smoke has been done by an international team of scientists who report discovery of a plant growth inhibitor. The study appears in ACS's Journal of Natural Products.
A team funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) is returning to Haiti this week to investigate the cause of the January 12, magnitude 7 earthquake there.
The geologists will collect crucial data to assess whether the quake could trigger another major event to the east or west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital.
Global warming may impair the ability of ecosystems to perform vital services—such as providing food, clean water and carbon sequestration—says the nation's largest organization of ecological scientists. In a statement released today, the Ecological Society of America (ESA) outlines strategies that focus on restoring and maintaining natural ecosystem functions to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
A study published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) provides new information about the rates at which three of the most powerful greenhouse gases are destroyed by a chemical reaction that takes place in the upper atmosphere.
"Rising and falling sea levels over relatively short periods do not indicate long-term trends. An assessment of hundreds and thousands of years shows that what seems an irregular phenomenon today is in fact nothing new," explains Dr. Dorit Sivan, who supervised the research.*
Washington, D.C.—Physicists have long wondered whether hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, could be transformed into a metal and possibly even a superconductor—the elusive state in which electrons can flow without resistance. They have speculated that under certain pressure and temperature conditions hydrogen could be squeezed into a metal and possibly even a superconductor, but proving it experimentally has been difficult.