Tech

A means by which the removal of carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal-fired power plants might one day be done far more efficiently and at far lower costs than today has been discovered by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). By appending a diamine molecule to the sponge-like solid materials known as metal-organic-frameworks (MOFs), the researchers were able to more than triple the CO2-scrubbing capacity of the MOFs, while significantly reducing parasitic energy.

Winter storms dumped records amounts of snow on the East Coast and other regions of the country this February, leaving treacherous, icy sidewalks and roads in their wake. Now researchers from Canada are developing new methods to mass-produce a material that may help pedestrians get a better grip on slippery surfaces after such storms.

While looking for life on planets beyond our own solar system, a group of international scientists has created a colorful catalog containing reflection signatures of Earth life forms that might be found on planet surfaces throughout the cosmic hinterlands. The new database and research, published in the March 16 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, gives humans a better chance to learn if we are not alone.

A Northwestern University-led study in the emerging field of nanocytology could one day help men make better decisions about whether or not to undergo aggressive prostate cancer treatments.

Technology developed by Northwestern University researchers may help solve that quandary by allowing physicians to identify which nascent cancers are likely to escalate into potentially life-threatening malignancies and which ones will remain "indolent," or non-aggressive.

Two-year data show a continued survival advantage for self-expanding transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) over standard surgery in high-risk patients with severe aortic stenosis, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 64th Annual Scientific Session.

According to a meta-analysis published in BMC Family Practice, high dose zinc acetate lozenges may help shorten diverse symptoms associated with the common cold. The common cold is an infection caused by over a hundred viruses, and it is a major cause of days off school or work and visits to a doctor.

Patients who received the new drug Bendavia before undergoing angioplasty or receiving a stent to clear blocked arteries after a heart attack showed no significant reduction in scarring as compared to patients given a placebo, according to a study presented at the American College of Cardiology's 64th Annual Scientific Session.

Researchers from General Atomics and the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have made a major breakthrough in understanding how potentially damaging heat bursts inside a fusion reactor can be controlled. Scientists performed the experiments on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, a tokamak operated by General Atomics in San Diego. The findings represent a key step in predicting how to control heat bursts in future fusion facilities including ITER, an international experiment under construction in France to demonstrate the feasibility of fusion energy.

A flu vaccine given just under the surface of the skin that includes four strains of inactivated influenza could be more protective than a similar flu vaccine containing only three strains, Saint Louis University research found.

These findings, which appear in Vaccine, confirmed the expected results, said Geoffrey Gorse, M.D., professor of internal medicine in the division of infectious diseases at Saint Louis University and the study's lead author.

An FDA-approved drug for high blood pressure, guanabenz, prevents myelin loss and alleviates clinical symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS) in animal models, according to a new study. The drug appears to enhance an innate cellular mechanism that protects myelin-producing cells against inflammatory stress. These findings point to promising avenues for the development of new therapeutics against MS, report scientists from the University of Chicago in Nature Communications on Mar. 13.

A new "app" for finding and mapping chromosomal loci using multicolored versions of CRISPR/Cas9, one of the hottest tools in biomedical research today, has been developed by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Light can be used to activate normal, non-genetically modified neurons through the use of targeted gold nanoparticles, report scientists from the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago. The new technique, described in the journal Neuron on March 12, represents a significant technological advance with potential advantages over current optogenetic methods, including possible use in the development of therapeutics toward diseases such as macular degeneration.

Studying the intricate fractal patterns on the surface of cells could give researchers a new insight into the physical nature of cancer, and provide new ways of preventing the disease from developing.

This is according to scientists in the US who have, for the first time, shown how physical fractal patterns emerge on the surface of human cancer cells at a specific point of progression towards cancer.

Most military battlefield casualties die before reaching a surgical hospital. Of those soldiers who might potentially survive, most die from uncontrolled bleeding.

In some cases, there's not much medics can do -- a tourniquet won't stop bleeding from a chest wound, and clotting treatments that require refrigerated or frozen blood products aren't always available in the field.

A new technique for creating artificial DNA that is faster, more accurate and more flexible than existing methods has been developed by scientists at Imperial College London.

The new system - called BASIC - is a major advance for the field of synthetic biology, which designs and builds organisms able to make useful products such as medicines, energy, food, materials and chemicals.