Experimenting on a university dormitory that was scheduled to be torn down, fire researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated that the correct combination of automatic fire sprinkler systems, smoke alarms and closed doors provided enough time and safe conditions for residents to escape safely and for firefighters to perform their job without undue hazard.
Tech
In readiness for launch on 8 April, ESA's CryoSat-2 ice satellite has now joined the rest of the Dnepr rocket in the launch silo at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The 'space head module' was transported from the integration facilities to the underground launch silo this morning. Although it is only 7 km between the two sites, the specialised lorry, nicknamed the 'crocodile', takes well over an hour to complete the journey.
Ann Arbor, Mich. — More than one in four elderly Americans lacked the capacity to make their own medical care decisions at the end of life, according to a study of 3,746 people to be published April 1 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Online communities could easily be used to offer people with chronic illnesses, such as diabetes , wireless healthcare services via mobile phones and the internet. The approach, outlined in the International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, would reduce healthcare costs and empower many patients to manage their condition more effectively.
WESTCHESTER, Ill. — A study of healthy new mothers in the April 1 issue of the journal Sleep found that the perception of poor sleep and the conscious awareness of its impact on daytime functioning might be stronger predictors of immediate postpartum mood disturbances than actual sleep quality and quantity.
Advanced imaging techniques such as computed tomography (CT) scans and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) might shorten the length of a person's hospital stay and decrease the high costs associated with hospitalization if used early, according to a study in the April issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology (www.jacr.org).
Occupational exposure to certain chemicals and pollutants before a woman reaches her mid-30s could treble her risk of developing cancer after the menopause, suggests research published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine .
Women exposed to synthetic fibres and petroleum products during the course of their work seem to be most at risk, the research suggests.
Ann Arbor, Mich. — More than one in four elderly Americans lacked the capacity to make their own medical care decisions at the end of life, according to a study of 3,746 people to be published April 1 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
When Walter O'Brien was a young boy, he recalls a moment of complete exhilaration when he was able to design and build a balsa wood airplane model that actually flew from his parents' front porch, across the street, and landed on the neighbor's deck. That boy of 10 is now in his early 70s, but he remains as excited about his engineering prowess now as he was then.
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Despite high levels of poverty and unemployment rates that are nearly double that of their urban counterparts, working families in rural Oregon tend to make less use of public assistance, especially childcare subsidies, according to researchers with Oregon State University's Family Policy Program.
Technical improvements to a microchip-based device for detecting and analyzing tumor cells in the bloodstream are revealing cellular differences that may reflect a tumor's aggressiveness and long-term response to treatment.
With funding from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, engineers at Boston University are working on a theoretical approach to improve automated mission control and decision-making for fleets of unmanned aerial vehicles.
While unmanned systems currently rely on the automation of low-level functions, such as navigation, stabilization and trajectory, operating these systems is still quite labor-intensive for Air Force pilots given the variable flying conditions experienced by UAVs.
Name a human gene, and you'll find a movie online showing you what happens to cells when it is switched off. This is the resource that researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and their collaborators in the Mitocheck consortium are making freely available, as the result of a study in which they have identified the genes involved in mitosis – the most common form of cell division – in humans. Published today in Nature, their work begins to unravel the molecular workings of one of the most fundamental processes of life: how one cell becomes two.
NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite, better known as TRMM has been tracking Cyclone Paul's rainfall over the last week, and has watched is it made landfall in the Northern Territory and is now tracking Paul as it heads back toward the Gulf of Carpentaria for a return over water.
Did you know that filling out your census card will help computer scientists model how diseases spread in the United States?
Over the last four years, researchers at RTI International in North Carolina have been transforming data from the 2000 census—which described the country's 281 million people and 116 million households—into a virtual U.S. population. They finished the "synthetic population" last year, and they plan to update it when the 2010 census results come out.