London, UK (September 3, 2010) – More people are likely to believe scientific studies claiming that oil drilling is riskier, not safer, than was previously thought, according to a new study of attitudes in California. What's more the findings, which appear in the journal Public Understanding of Science (PUS), published by SAGE, show that scientists' efforts to influence public opinion have a limited effect.
Tech
Tropical Depression Nine strengthened yesterday into Tropical Storm Gaston, but today it ran into dry and stable air and weakened back into a depression again.
UCSF researchers today unveiled a prototype model of the first implantable artificial kidney, in a development that one day could eliminate the need for dialysis.
The device, which would include thousands of microscopic filters as well as a bioreactor to mimic the metabolic and water-balancing roles of a real kidney, is being developed in a collaborative effort by engineers, biologists and physicians nationwide, led by Shuvo Roy, PhD, in the UCSF Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences.
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Protecting helicopters in combat from heat-seeking missiles is the goal of new laser technology created at the University of Michigan and Omni Sciences, Inc., which is a U-M spin-off company.
"Battlefield terrain in places like Afghanistan and Iraq can be so rough that our troops have often had to rely on helicopters, and they can be easy targets for enemies with shoulder-launched missiles," said Mohammed Islam, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
STEPHENVILLE -- Think you're uncomfortable in the extreme Texas summer heat? Try being an ovulating 1,200-pound mother cow.
Studies have shown that heat-stressed dairy cows suffer from damage to their ovarian follicles. Moreover, the eggs produced by the damaged follicles may also be damaged, said Dr. Todd Bilby, Texas AgriLife Extension Service dairy specialist.
Worse, after becoming heat-stressed, other studies have shown the eggs she ovulates for the next 40 or 50 days are likely to be damaged as well, according to Bilby.
Prompted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a UC Santa Barbara scientist has come up with a new way of predicting how contaminants like oil will spread. He was able to forecast several days in advance that oil from that spill would wash ashore in particular parts of the Gulf of Mexico.
"We predicted where the oil was going to go," says Igor Mezic, a professor of mechanical engineering at UC Santa Barbara who studies fluid dynamics. "We were able to do 3-day predictions pretty accurately."
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.— Scientists have long thought that social networks, which features many distant connections, or "long ties," produces large-scale changes most quickly. But in a new study, Damon Centola, an assistant professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has reached a different conclusion: Individuals are more likely to acquire new health practices while living in networks with dense clusters of connections — that is, when in close contact with people they already know well.
A new discovery by scientists at the Universities of East Anglia and Frankfurt could make it possible in future to identify the source of banned CFCs that are probably still being released into the atmosphere.
A team of McGill chemists have discovered that a technique known as photoacoustic infrared spectroscopy could be used to identify the composition of pigments used in art work that is decades or even centuries old. Pigments give artist's materials colour, and they emit sounds when light is shone on them.
The Department of Computer Science and Technology, Peking University, Beijing, China, has shown that a novel dynamic memory mapping (DMM) model brings about additional flexibility to virtual resource management, leading to the feature-adjustable design of a virtual machine monitor (VMM). The study is reported in Issue 53 (June, 2010) of SCIENCE CHINA Information Sciences because of its significant research value.
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new class of electronic logic device in which current is switched by an electric field generated by the application of mechanical strain to zinc oxide nanowires.
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., Sept. 1, 2010 –Very low birthweight and very preterm infants are more likely to die if they are not born at hospitals with neonatal intensive care units specially equipped to care for seriously ill newborns, in contrast to similar babies born at those specialized facilities.
WATERLOO, Ont. (Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010) - A new "smart materials" process - Multiple Memory Material Technology - developed by University of Waterloo engineering researchers promises to revolutionize the manufacture of diverse products such as medical devices, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), printers, hard drives, automotive components, valves and actuators.
A long-held assumption about asymmetrical division of stem cells has cracked. Researchers at the University of Oregon report that the mitotic spindle does not act alone -- that cortical proteins help to position a cleavage furrow in the right location.
Researchers from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard and from Boston University have discovered that charitable behavior exists in one of the most microscopic forms of life—bacteria. Their findings appear in the current issue of Nature.
In studying the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, the researchers found that the populations most adept at withstanding doses of antibiotics are those in which a few highly resistant isolates sacrifice their own well being to improve the group's overall chance of survival.