Tech

Each year, about 80,000 people in Germany become seriously ill from occlusions of veins caused by blood clots. Such thromboses can cause pulmonary embolism or even heart attacks. Even airline passengers at long distance flights can be affected by deep vein thrombosis. But with the new system, a fast and easy test of a risk of travel-related thrombosis will soon be possible.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — New findings from epidemiology and observational studies show an increased risk for cancer among Latino populations, but unique demographic characteristics suggest the problem may be worse than currently known.

"As we see the Latino population age, we are going to see the current disparity in knowledge and outcomes become an explosion," said Amelie G. Ramirez, Dr.P.H., director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

ARLINGTON, Va. – Showcasing its energy research initiatives for an Earth Day event on April 22 at the Pentagon, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) will highlight the microbial fuel cell, a device that could revolutionize naval energy use by converting decomposed marine organisms into electricity.

These fuel cells convert naturally occurring fuels and oxidants in the marine environment into electricity, offering a clean, efficient and reliable alternative to batteries and other environmentally harmful fuels.

A team from Cardiff University's School of Physics and Astronomy fired light particles, or photons, into a tiny tower of semi-conducting material. A photon collides with an electron confined in an even smaller structure within the tower, and they oscillate briefly between the states of light and matter, before the photon re-emerges.

At present, graphene probably is the most investigated new material system worldwide. Due to its astonishing mechanical, chemical and electronic properties, it promises manifold future applications – for example in microelectronics. The electrons in graphene are particularly movable and could, therefore, replace silicon which is used today as the basic material of fast computer chips.

In a new study, researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, working with Community Coordinated Child Care (4C's), have found that many metropolitan Milwaukee child care directors would unnecessarily send children with mild illnesses home.

Washington, DC – Predicting breast cancer spread from a sentinel lymph node removed during surgery is a hit or miss affair, say researchers: there are still many false negatives, which means the node, when analyzed under a microscope, appears clean of cancer cells, but metastasis can still occur in the patient. The sentinel node is the first lymph node in the axilla that cancer spreads to.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — New findings from epidemiology and observational studies show an increased risk for cancer among Latino populations, but unique demographic characteristics suggest the problem may be worse than currently known.

"As we see the Latino population age, we are going to see the current disparity in knowledge and outcomes become an explosion," said Amelie G. Ramirez, Dr.P.H., director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

"It is exciting to think that we are now putting into service the best satellites this country has to offer," said Andre' Dress, GOES N-P NASA Deputy Project Manager, at Goddard. "We are really looking forward to see the increase in performance over the older satellites and the improvements in weather prediction."

HOUSTON – (April 15, 2010) -- Nine-year-old Morgan LaRue is the first cancer patient in Texas to benefit from a groundbreaking procedure that will magnetically lengthen her leg, sparing her the possibility of up to 10 future surgeries as her body grows. The implant and extension took place at Texas Children's Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Patients with acute kidney injury (AKI) who are admitted to the hospital on a weekend are more likely to die than those admitted on a weekday, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). This disparity was most evident in smaller hospitals. The findings indicate that researchers should further investigate the availability and timing of care to patients hospitalized with AKI.

Mom's trusty nose may be good, but researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have gone her one better by designing an instrument that quickly and precisely sniffs trace amounts of chemical compounds that indicate poultry spoilage without damaging the product itself.* The process can detect minute amounts of spoilage compounds and can be used by suppliers during all stages of processing, transport and storage.

TRURO, NOVA SCOTIA—Irish potato, one of the world's major food crops, is increasingly grown and processed for use in various products; consider the popularity of consumer favorites like French fries and potato chips. In the closely scrutinized food production industry, products are accepted or rejected on the basis of color and appearance, among other attributes. Quality defects such as after-cooking darkening, or ACD—a change in potato's normal flesh color to gray, blue, purple, or black—can affect the marketability of potatoes for both processing and fresh markets.

Boston, MA – A new study from researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Children's Hospital Boston has found that gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and heterosexuals who have ever had a same-sex sex partner are one-and-a-half to two times as likely to experience violent events, especially in childhood, than the general population and have double the risk of experiencing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a consequence of these events.

KAGAWA, JAPAN—Growing tomatoes is not always easy. In many parts of the world summers are too hot to grow tomatoes in greenhouses, even those with intricate cooling systems. In cooler climates where tomatoes are grown year-round in production greenhouses, yield fluctuations are still challenging for producers who need to fulfill orders and predict labor costs. Finding accurate methods for predicting greenhouse tomato yields is at the forefront of growers' concerns.