This release is available in http://chinese..org/zh/pub_releases/2010-02/sfeb-cbc020310.php">Chinese.
Tech
The fact that glaciers in the Himalayan mountains are thinning is not disputed. However, few researchers have attempted to rigorously examine and quantify the causes. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist Surabi Menon set out to isolate the impacts of the most commonly blamed culprit—greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide—from other particles in the air that may be causing the melting. Menon and her collaborators found that airborne black carbon aerosols, or soot, from India is a major contributor to the decline in snow and ice cover on the glaciers.
Stephan Link wants to understand how nanomaterials align, and his lab's latest work is a step in the right direction.
Link's Rice University group has found a way to use gold nanorods as orientation sensors by combining their plasmonic properties with polarization imaging techniques.
That may make it possible to see and perhaps track single nanoparticles over long periods. It would give researchers new information about materials, including living systems, that incorporate them.
Tropical Storm Oli is headed between the islands of Bora Bora and Raratonga in the South Pacific, while maintaining its intensity as a tropical storm. Infrared satellite data from NASA's Aqua satellite reveals that Oli is a large storm, so those islands will experience gusty winds, some moderate to heavy rainfall, and heavy swells along their coasts.
Yale University researchers have found more than two dozen scent receptors in malaria-transmitting mosquitoes that detect compounds in human sweat, a finding that may help scientists to develop new ways to combat a disease that kills 1 million people annually.
As cancer survivors live longer, questions arise about what kind of care long-term survivors require.
A recently published study from Case Western Reserve University's Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences found 245 older married women who survived cancer had more health problems as compared to a sample of 245 married women without cancer.
Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a "smart coating" that helps surgical implants bond more closely with bone and ward off infection.
CHICAGO --- Low-risk patients who require certain cancer surgeries can have the procedures performed with low operative mortality rates at community hospitals, according to a new study.
The research showed that for 13 different kinds of cancer surgeries such as gastric and colon, younger patients with few pre-existing illnesses survived operations at community hospitals at a similar rate as at cancer centers.
Tropical Storm Oli is headed between the islands of Bora Bora and Raratonga in the South Pacific, while maintaining its intensity as a tropical storm. Infrared satellite data from NASA's Aqua satellite reveals that Oli is a large storm, so those islands will experience gusty winds, some moderate to heavy rainfall, and heavy swells along their coasts.
NASA's Aqua satellite caught the thirteenth tropical cyclone in the southern Indian Ocean form very quickly. In 12 hours a low grew into a tropical storm named Fami and made a fast landfall in Madagascar around 1 a.m. ET (0600 UTC) today, February 2.
At 1 a.m. ET (0600 UTC), Tropical Storm Fami had maximum sustained winds near 46 mph (40 knots) and was located in southern Madagascar, about 235 nautical miles west-southwest of Antananarivo, Madagascar. That's near 21.2 South and 43.8 East. Fami is moving east-southeast near 9 mph (8 knots).
Sociologists at Case Western Reserve University found that when passive cancer patients become survivors, they have plenty of bold advice to offer other cancer patients, according to a study in JAGS, the Journal of American Geriatric Society.
Eva Kahana, Robson Professor of Sociology and director of the Elderly Care Research Center at Case Western Reserve, reported the findings from interviews with 100 cancer survivors. These survivors are part of a longitudinal study of 1,107 elderly adults living in a retirement community.
San Diego, CA, February 2, 2010 – Reducing obesity and smoking have become national priorities in the United States. Research has shown that intensive counseling can positively impact each problem. However, because such counseling is typically not covered by medical insurance, cost can be a barrier.
Could humans one day walk on walls, like Spider-Man? A palm-sized device invented at Cornell that uses water surface tension as an adhesive bond just might make it possible.
The rapid adhesion mechanism could lead to such applications as shoes or gloves that stick and unstick to walls, or Post-it-like notes that can bear loads, according to Paul Steen, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, who invented the device with Michael Vogel, a former postdoctoral associate.
A targeted program of preventive antiviral medication, combined with the use of hand sanitizers and surface decontamination, was associated with containing the spread of the H1N1 virus in a summer camp setting, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the April print issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
BOSTON, Mass. - One of the holy grails of local anesthesia is the ability to achieve a long-lasting nerve block that eliminates pain sensation while not affecting motor function. Now, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston have discovered an anesthetic approach that seems to do just that.