With oil from the big Gulf of Mexico spill threatening fragile coastal wetlands, clean-up crews are about to discover whether a combination of old and new clean-up methods will help limit the environmental damage. That's the topic of an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine.
Tech
Eight-five per cent of patients who took part in a survey shortly after day surgery said that they had been anxious about receiving a general anaesthetic, according to research in the May issue of the Journal of Advanced Nursing.
Seventeen per cent of respondents said they were very or extremely anxious, 22 per cent said they were quite anxious, 46 per cent said they were a little anxious and 15 per cent experienced no anxiety at all.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Thanks to a new semiconductor manufacturing method pioneered at the University of Illinois, the future of solar energy just got brighter.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- It may seem intuitive that greater amounts of exercise lead to less obesity, but an Indiana University study has found that this conventional wisdom applies primarily to white women. The findings draw attention not only to racial, ethnic and gender differences regarding exercise but also to the role work can play.
A group of Japanese researchers, who publish their findings today Thursday, 20 May in IOP Publishing's Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, have succeeded in building a fully functional replica model – an ornithopter – of a swallowtail butterfly, and they have filmed their model butterfly flying.
LIVERMORE, Calif. -- In a large natural disaster, such as the Haitian earthquake earlier this year, or in an unsolved homicide case, knowing the birth date of an individual can guide forensic investigators to the correct identity among a large number of possible victims.
Livermore researcher Bruce Buchholz and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute are looking at victim's teeth to determine how old they are at the time of death.
OAK BROOK, Ill. – May 19, 2010 – Researchers at the Syracuse Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New York examined postpolypectomy bleeding in patients undergoing colonoscopy on uninterrupted clopidogrel and found that the postpolypectomy bleeding rate is significantly higher in patients undergoing polypectomy while taking clopidogrel and concomitant aspirin/nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, but that the risk is small and the outcome is favorable.
A new method of analysing squalene and squalane, oils often used in the production of cosmetics and vaccines, can show whether they came originally from the liver oil of deepwater sharks or from olive oil.
Scientists monitoring the US oil spill with ESA's Envisat radar satellite say that it has entered the Loop Current, a powerful conveyor belt that flows clockwise around the Gulf of Mexico towards Florida.
"With these images from space, we have visible proof that at least oil from the surface of the water has reached the current," said Dr Bertrand Chapron of Ifremer, the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea.
ATS 2010, NEW ORLEANS—Patients with suspected obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) may no longer have to spend an expensive and uncomfortable night at a sleep center to monitor their sleep-disordered breathing. According to new research, those who performed sleep testing in their home with portable monitors showed similar improvements after three months of treatment with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) in daytime function as compared to patients who underwent overnight testing in a sleep center.
A new study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet presents a new technique that makes drug testing possible through exhaled air for the first time. By examining people who had received emergency care for an amphetamine overdose, the researchers found that in all cases there were traces of amphetamine and metamphetamine in the exhaled breath.
Ten years ago, ocean acidification was a phenomenon only known to small group of ocean scientists. It's now recognised as the hidden partner of climate change, prompting calls for an urgent, substantial reduction in carbon emissions to reduce future impacts.
A debate published this week in PLoS Medicine examines new approaches to tackling neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), with three viewpoints from experts in the field arguing which approach shows most promise.