Lung cancer is a serious condition. Once patients are diagnosed with it, chemotherapy is often their only hope. But nobody can accurately predict whether or not this treatment will help. To start with, not all patients respond to a course of chemotherapy in exactly the same way.
Tech
WASHINGTON D.C., May 27, 2014 -- It took every inch of the Large Hadron Collider's 17-mile length to accelerate particles to energies high enough to discover the Higgs boson. Now, imagine an accelerator that could do the same thing in, say, the length of a football field. Or less.
Faleh Tamimi, a professor in McGill's School of Dentistry, is the leader of a research team that has just discovered that melatonin supplements make bones stronger in elderly rats and therefore, potentially, in elderly humans too. "Old rats are tedious to work with because they get sick a lot and that means they also cost a lot more. But if you're interested in diseases like osteoporosis, they're an essential part of the process."
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones – sleep and bone regulation
Michael Lewis's bestselling book "Flash Boys" describes how some brokers, engaging in high frequency trading, exploit fast telecommunications to gain fraction-of-a-second advantage in the buying and selling of stocks. But you don't need to have billions of dollars riding on this-second securities transactions to appreciate the importance of fast signal processing. From internet to video streaming, we want things fast.
The bright yellow fields of oilseed rape are a familiar sight at this time of year, but for scientists what lies beneath is just as exciting.
Researchers at the Institute of Food Research are looking at how to turn straw from oilseed rape into biofuel. Preliminary findings are pointing at ways the process could be made more efficient, as well as how the straw itself could be improved.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new study of bats reveals a capability within their wondrous wings that may help them fine-tune their flight.
Bats employ a network of nearly hair-thin muscles embedded in the membrane of their inherently floppy wing skin to adjust the wings' stiffness and curvature while they fly, Brown University researchers report. Birds and insects have stiff wings, but the new evidence suggests bats have evolved this muscular means of preserving or adjusting wing shape.
Researchers have been taking tips from nature to build the next generation of flying robots.
Based on the mechanisms adopted by birds, bats, insects and snakes, 14 distinguished research teams have developed solutions to some of the common problems that drones could be faced with when navigating through an urban environment and performing novel tasks for the benefit of society.
Tecnalia has collaborated in a study for the European Parliament's Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel (STOA) on the future use of methanol, produced from carbon dioxide, in motorised transport. STOA is the panel that advises MEPs in the sphere of Science and Technology.
The study analysed the barriers –technological, environmental and economic– to producing methanol using carbon dioxide as well as the options that would allow possible uses in automobile transport in the medium and long term.
Duke University researchers have found an antibody that simultaneously blocks the sensations of pain and itching in studies with mice.
The new antibody works by targeting the voltage-sensitive sodium channels in the cell membrane of neurons. The results appear online on May 22 in Cell.
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), working in collaboration with the Naval Research Laboratory, have found that a particular species of quantum dots that weren't commonly thought to blink, do.
DURHAM, N.C. -- Most schools across the United States provide simple vision tests to their students--not to prescribe glasses, but to identify potential problems and recommend a trip to the optometrist. Researchers are now on the cusp of providing the same kind of service for autism.
Vast amounts of excess heat are generated by industrial processes and by electric power plants. Researchers around the world have spent decades seeking ways to harness some of this wasted energy. Most such efforts have focused on thermoelectric devices – solid-state materials that can produce electricity from a temperature gradient – but the efficiency of such devices is limited by the availability of materials.
Lubricants are used in motors, axels, ventilators and manufacturing machines. Although lubricants are widely used, there have been almost no fundamental innovations for this product in the last twenty years. Together with a consortium, the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Freiburg has developed an entirely new class of substance that could change everything: liquid crystalline lubricant. Its chemical makeup sets it apart; although it is a liquid, the molecules display directional properties like crystals do.
Two-photon excitation fluorescence is growing in popularity in the bioimaging field but is limited by fluorophores' extremely low two-photon absorption cross-section. The researcher Dr. Guowei Lu and co-workers from State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics, Department of Physics, Peking University, are endeavoring to develop efficient fluorescent probes with improved two-photon fluorescence (TPF) performance. They theoretically present a promising bright probe using gold nanoshell to improve the TPF performances of fluorescent emitters.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Everything you think you know about the causes of rising obesity in the U.S. might be wrong, researchers say in a new report.
Contrary to popular belief, people are exercising more today, have more leisure time and better access to fresh, affordable food – including fruits and vegetables – than they did in past decades. And while troubling disparities exist among various groups, most economic, educational, and racial or ethnic groups have seen their obesity levels rise at similar rates since the mid-1980s, the researchers report.