Heavens

Antennas for the latest implanted medical devices are being developed by Queen Mary University of London and tested through a unique piece of kit at the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL).

Unravelling a microbe's multilayer defence mechanisms could lead to effective new treatments for potentially lethal fungal infections in cancer patients and others whose natural immunity is weakened.

Rates of binge drinking were 37 percent lower among eighth-grade students in communities in seven states that used a prevention system designed to reduce drug use and delinquent behavior compared to teenagers in communities that did not use the system.

STANFORD, Calif. — Globs of human fat removed during liposuction conceal versatile cells that are more quickly and easily coaxed to become induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, than are the skin cells most often used by researchers, according to a new study from Stanford's School of Medicine.

Novel bacterial strains capable of neutralizing toxins produced by blue-green algae have been identified by researchers at Robert Gordon's University, Aberdeen. Aakash Welgama presented the group's findings during the Society for General Microbiology's meeting at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.

(Kingston, ON) -- An international team of astronomers, including Queen's University physicist Larry Widrow, have uncovered evidence of a nearby cosmic encounter. Their study indicates that the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies, the two galaxies closest to our own, collided about two to three billion years ago.

Leipzig: The long-term effects of pesticides on living organisms in rivers and on water quality can now be assessed more easily. Researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) have developed a tool that can estimate the harmful effect of pesticides, such as those flushed into rivers and streams from agricultural land, within minutes. "It used to be very difficult to detect which chronic effects occur," explains Dr Matthias Liess, head of the UFZ's System Ecotoxicology Department.

This is one of the many new developments to be presented by four Fraunhofer Institutes at the TecWatch technology forum in Hall 5.3.

There is one striking fact about rush-hour traffic – vehicles on the commuter routes tend to be occupied by just one person, even though motoring costs are continually rising. The OpenRide mobile ridesharing service currently being developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems FOKUS will remedy this situation by organizing ridesharing opportunities spontaneously and conveniently. This will not only save costs but also help the environment by reducing the amount of city traffic.

ESA's XMM-Newton orbiting X-ray telescope has uncovered a celestial Rosetta stone: the first close-up of a white dwarf star, circling a companion star, that could explode into a particular kind of supernova in a few million years. These supernovae are used as beacons to measure cosmic distances and ultimately understand the expansion of our Universe.

People who start nicotine replacement therapy at least four weeks before surgery can halve their risk of poor wound healing. This is what the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) concludes in information published on informedhealthonline.org today.

Quitting smoking in times of stress is not easy

University of Hawaii astronomer Dr. Tomotsugu Goto and colleagues have discovered a giant galaxy surrounding the most distant black hole ever found. The galaxy, which is 12.8 billion light-years from Earth, is as large as the Milky Way galaxy and harbors a supermassive black hole that contains at least a billion times as much matter as does our sun.

Using one of the greatest sources of radiation energy created by man, University of Nevada, Reno researcher and faculty member Roberto Mancini is studying ultra-high temperature and non-equilibrium plasmas to mimic what happens to matter in accretion disks around black holes.

Researchers from the University of Georgia have just shown that one component of interstellar clouds emitting unusual infrared light known as the Unidentified Infrared Bands (UIRs) is a gaseous version of naphthalene, the chief component of mothballs back on Earth. The UIRs have been seen by astronomers for more than 30 years, but no one has ever identified what specific molecules cause these patterns.

As NGC 4945 is only about 13 million light-years away in the constellation of Centaurus (the Centaur), a modest telescope is sufficient for stargazers to spot this remarkable galaxy. NGC 4945's designation comes from its entry number in the New General Catalogue compiled by the Danish–Irish astronomer John Louis Emil Dreyer in the 1880s. James Dunlop, a Scottish astronomer, is credited with originally discovering NGC 4945 in 1826 from Australia.