Heavens

Giving emergency artesunate suppositories to children with suspected severe malaria before referring them for treatment is a cost-effective intervention that can substantially improve the management of childhood malaria in remote African settings, according to a new study led by Boston University School of Public Health [BUSPH] researcher Yesim Tozan, PhD, (link to profile: http://sph.bu.edu/tozan)

DURHAM, N.C. – As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency weighs whether to define coal ash as hazardous waste, a Duke University study identifies new monitoring protocols and insights that can help investigators more accurately measure and predict the ecological impacts of coal ash contaminants.

DURHAM, N.C. – Long a staple of nature documentaries, the somewhat bizarre development of a grub-like pink marsupial embryo outside the mother's womb is curious in another way.

Duke University researchers have found that the developmental program executed by the marsupial embryo runs in a different order than the program executed by virtually every other vertebrate animal.

In the aeronautic and aerospace thin-walled structures, hole shape designs are very popular to achieve the weight reduction, structural reparation, cooling and other purposes and have important influences on the structural weight, performances and fatigue life. Due to the fact that the hole shape optimization has to ensure the movement of the hole contour always located on the specific 3D surface, it is difficult to define reasonably the geometric design variables and the automatic design procedure of engineering simulation by means of existing design methodologies.

Measurements show that the sea's salt has profound effects on the chemistry of the air above its surface.

The atmosphere over the Dead Sea, researchers have found, is laden with oxidized mercury. Some of the highest levels of oxidized mercury ever observed outside the polar regions exist there.

Superantigens, the toxins produced by staphylococcus bacteria, are more complex than previously believed, reveals a team of researchers from the University of Gothenburg in an article published today in the scientific journal Nature Communications. Their discovery shows that the body's immune system can cause more illnesses than realised.

TECHBREAK is a new foresight initiative led by the European Science Foundation to identify the technology areas that could benefit the space sector. It goes beyond space-related technologies to bring in expertise from sectors where technology is evolving faster, ranging from photonics and nanotechnology to energy, nuclear propulsion and robotics.

Researchers demonstrate that the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago made way for mammals to get bigger - about a thousand times bigger than they had been. The study, which is published in the prestigious journal Science, is the first to show this new pattern of increased body size of mammals after the exit of the dinosaurs.

London, UK (26th November, 2010) – Search engines like Google have become part of everyday life, not least in the academic context. But if knowledge is power, then search engines themselves are gaining ground as power nodes in their own right. Academic users need to raise their awareness of exactly how search engines operate, to ensure it is quality and not just popularity that drive their selection of sources. This is according to an article out today in the International Journal of Cultural Studies, published by SAGE.

Astronomers have found the first evidence of a magnetic field in a jet of material ejected from a young star, a discovery that points toward future breakthroughs in understanding the nature of all types of cosmic jets and of the role of magnetic fields in star formation.

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. -- Some of the universe's most massive galaxies may have formed billions of years earlier than current scientific models predict, according to surprising new research led by Tufts University. The findings appear in the Astrophysical Journal published online Nov. 24 in advance of print publication on Dec. 10, 2010.

Following a study of what is in effect a miniature galaxy buried inside a normal-sized one – like a Russian doll – astronomers using a CSIRO telescope have concluded that massive black holes are more powerful than we thought.

An international team of astronomers led by Dr Manfred Pakull at the University of Strasbourg in France has discovered a 'microquasar' – a small black hole, weighing only as much as a star, that shoots jets of radio-emitting particles into space.

A measure widely advocated as a means of assessing the health of marine ecosystems is an ineffective guide to trends in biodiversity, and more direct monitoring is needed, a new study has found.The findings – published this week in Nature – followed an examination of whether changes in fishery catches reflect changes in the structure of marine food webs, and therefore are a suitable guide to assess the impacts of fishing on marine ecosystem health.

Astronomers find cosmic dust annoying when it blocks their view of the heavens, but without it the universe would be devoid of stars. Cosmic dust is the indispensable ingredient for making stars and for understanding how primordial diffuse gas clouds assemble themselves into full-blown galaxies.

Nov. 22, 2010 -- More than 170 participants gathered this week for the eighth annual National Academies Keck Futures Initiative (NAKFI) conference in Irvine, Calif. This year's topic, imaging science, a field of study that uses physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, and cognitive sciences to understand the many factors that influence and enable image capture and analysis.