Poor Development Of Over 200 Million ChildrenInadequate intellectual stimulation and poor nutrition, especially iodine and iron deficiencies, are likely to blame for hindering more than 200 million children in developing countries from meeting their full potential, says a Purdue University researcher."These problems are robbing children under age 5 of full development, contributing to a cycle of low educational attainment and poverty later in life," said Theodore Wachs, a professor of........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 3/5/2007 9:50:40 PM)
Scientists Expand Microbe "Gene Language"An international group of scientists has expanded the universal language for the genes of both disease-causing and beneficial microbes and their hosts. This expanded "lingua franca," called The Gene Ontology (GO), gives researchers a common set of terms to describe the interactions between a microbe and its host.
The Plant-Associated Microbe Gene Ontology (PAMGO) consortium and the GO consortium staff at the European Bioinformatics Institute........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 3/5/2007 8:42:29 PM)
Measuring Cell Mechanical PropertiesResearchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) cell-stretcher that can measure the mechanical properties of a living cell, such as its ability to stick to a surface. The new device is expected to enable novel studies of cell mechanics, which influence basic cell functions such as growth and division, and diseases such as sickle cell anemia and asthma.
The........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 3/5/2007 4:08:00 PM)
Teenagers with retail, service jobsDespite federal regulations intended to protect them, many teenagers in the U.S. use dangerous equipment or work long hours during the school week, according to a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study.
The national study was based on telephone surveys of 928 teenaged workers, 14 to 18 years old. The results show 52 percent of males and 43 percent of females use dangerous equipment such a box crushers and slicers, or serve and........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 3/5/2007 5:02:57 AM)
Rethinking Strategies For Soot EmissionCarnegie Mellon University researchers say government officials need to adopt new ways of measuring and regulating the fine particles of smoke and soot so endemic to serious health problems and the global warming crisis.
In a March 2 article published in the journal Science, professors Allen L. Robinson and Neil M. Donahue report a new conceptual model for how microscopic particles behave in the atmosphere that raises new questions about........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 3/2/2007 5:01:18 AM)
Evolutionary History Of Vespid WaspsScientists at the University of Illinois have conducted a genetic analysis of vespid wasps that revises the vespid family tree and challenges long-held views about how the wasps' social behaviors evolved. In the study, published in the Feb. 21 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers found genetic evidence that eusociality (the reproductive specialization seen in some insects and other animals) evolved independently in........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 3/1/2007 10:01:01 PM)
Children with sleep disordersParents of children with sleep problems are more likely to have sleep-related problems themselves, including more daytime sleepiness, according to a new study by researchers at the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center and Brown Medical School.
"While most parents can testify that having a child with sleeping problems affects their own sleep, few scientific studies have looked at the relationship between children's and parents' sleep,"........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 3/1/2007 5:01:34 AM)
Color Red Shows Definite Impact On Achievement The color red can affect how people function: Red means danger and commands us to stop in traffic. Scientists at the University of Rochester have now observed that red also can keep us from performing our best on tests.
If test takers are aware of even a hint of red, performance on a test will be affected to a significant degree, say scientists at Rochester and the University of Munich. The scientists article in the recent issue of the........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 2/28/2007 9:32:03 PM)
Gazillion Fetch a Bubble smells like chickenI can personally attest to the Gazillion team's observation that dogs go "utterly bananas for bubbles." They really do. I remember sitting on my parents' porch when I was a kid--my fingers soapy from that too-short bubble wand--cracking up hysterically as our family dog, Miki, chased, snapped up, and essentially ate the stream of bubbles I blew near her. I knew (embarrassingly from experience) that the soap didn't taste good, but Miki didn't........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 2/28/2007 9:05:14 PM)
Battery Powered Tram SWIMO in the Works in JapanJapanese are always ahead of others with their inimitable inventions. Now, Japanese vehicle maker Kawasaki is developing a tram (light rail vehicle) named SWIMO that would be power-driven by nickel-metal hydride batteries. The project has already made the tram to run for 10km on a single charge.
The most notable feature of this concept tram is that unlike the battery powered buses (if possible), it has the benefit of........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 2/28/2007 9:05:10 PM)
Early Sex May Lead Teens To DelinquencyTeens who start having sex significantly earlier than their peers also show higher rates of delinquency in later years, new research shows.
A national study of more than 7,000 youth found that adolescents who had sex early showed a 20 percent increase in delinquent acts one year later compared to those whose first sexual experience occurred at the average age for their school.
In contrast, those teens who waited longer than average to........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 2/26/2007 7:47:54 PM)
The cost of keeping eggs fresh for mother cockroachesOne of the defining differences between the sexes is in the size of their gametes. Males make many tiny sperm while females make only a few large eggs. This suggests that sperm are cheap while eggs are expensive. Yet sperm can be very long lived, while eggs degenerate quickly after they are made if they are not fertilized. Why don't females take better care of their expensive eggs? After all, if the females don't use their eggs they have fewer........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 2/26/2007 6:22:12 PM)
Watching Sky Through Three Giant EyesThe ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer, which allows astronomers to scrutinise objects with a precision equivalent to that of a 130-m telescope, is proving itself an unequalled success every day. One of the latest instruments installed, AMBER, has led to a flurry of scientific results, an anthology of which is being published this week as special features in the research journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
"With its unique capabilities,........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 2/21/2007 9:13:19 PM)
Bacteria to steady buildings against earthquakesSoil bacteria could be used to help steady buildings against earthquakes, according to researchers at UC Davis. The microbes can literally convert loose, sandy soil into rock.
When a major earthquake strikes, deep, sandy soils can turn to liquid, with disastrous consequences for buildings sitting on them. Currently, civil engineers can inject chemicals into the soil to bind loose grains together. But these epoxy chemicals may have toxic........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 2/21/2007 9:10:31 PM)
Tracking Personality Traits to Learn More About AlcoholismA long-term research project at the University of Missouri-Columbia is producing valuable information about alcoholism and individuals who are affected by a family history of the disease. MU psychology researchers, now several years into a multi-year study, have discovered that individuals from alcoholic homes maintain personality traits that could eventually lead to alcohol dependency.
Kenneth J. Sher, professor of clinical psychology in........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 2/20/2007 8:05:53 PM)
Lemelson Winner Designs For Public SafetyNathan Ball, graduate student in mechanical engineering and this year's winner of the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, has invented a device that makes the fantasy of leaping tall buildings in a single bound come close to reality.
With the help of Ball's Atlas powered rope ascender, a fully loaded firefighter could reach the top of a 30-story building in only 30 seconds, in comparison to the six minutes or more it often takes to trudge up........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 2/19/2007 8:14:50 PM)
Recast Usual View of Elusive ForcePhysicists at JILA have demonstrated that the warmer a surface is, the stronger its subtle ability to attract nearby atoms, a finding that could affect the design of devices that rely on small-scale interactions, such as atom chips, nanomachines, and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).
The research highlights an underappreciated aspect of the elusive Casimir-Polder force, one of the stranger effects of quantum mechanics. The force arises........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 2/19/2007 7:09:36 PM)
Grizzly Bears Feast On Diverse DietTheres no such thing as picky grizzly bearstheyll eat almost anything they can find. A new University of Alberta study that tracked food habits of the Alberta grizzly bear living in the foothills sheds some light on the animals varied diet and their activity pattern.
Alberta bears have remarkably diverse diets, said Dr. Mark Boyce, biological sciences professor at the U of A and co-author on the study. Theyll eat just about anything.
........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 2/15/2007 6:24:44 AM)
Lifetimer For Your Lifetime MemoriesHow much additional functionality can you include in a clock other than its most elementary features of time and alarm? Looks like quite a few other people have pondered over this question already. So we now have clocks which talk, scream and even counsel.
Along comes another one for those people obsessed with count-downs - the LifeTimer. 3 more months to your birthday, 5 since you last had a date, and probably a 100 more for you to........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 2/15/2007 6:14:35 AM)
Flu shot might protect against H5N1The yearly influenza vaccine that health officials urge people to get each fall might also offer certain individuals some cross protection against the H5N1 virus, commonly known as bird flu, according to scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
The scientists found that a protein present in the annual influenza shot can act as a vaccine itself and trigger some cross protection against H5N1 in mice; and that some human volunteers........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 2/13/2007 9:52:46 PM)
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New Coating Is Virtual Black HoleScientists have created an anti-reflective coating that allows light to travel through it, but lets almost none bounce off its surface. At least 10 times more effective than the coating on sunglasses or computer monitors, the material, which is made of silica nanorods, may be used to channel light into solar cells or allow more photons to surge through the surface of a light-emitting diode (LED).
Publishing in the March 1, 2007, Nature........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 3/5/2007 8:50:58 PM)
Atlantic Ocean Warming and Stronger HurricanesAtmospheric researchers have uncovered fresh evidence to support the theory that global warming has contributed to the emergence of stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean. But the trend doesn't hold up in the world's other oceans.
Researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, N.C., reported the findings in........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 3/5/2007 8:45:56 PM)
Conflicting Signals For Rescue RobotsSensor-laden robots capable of vital search and rescue missions at disaster sites are no figment of a science fiction writer's imagination. Prototypes and commercial models of urban search and rescue (US&R) robots will soon begin to work rubble piles across the country. Too many of these lifesaving robots, however, could be too much of a good thing, according to researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), who........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 3/5/2007 4:13:14 PM)
SIENNA MILLER GIVING UP MEN FOR A WHILEI've said this before, and I'll say it again, I don't understand why this girl continues to play games with Jude Law. It just seems to me that he's a wuss and she follows him around like a sick calf.
I think it's great that he spends lots of time with his kids, but........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 3/3/2007 8:00:52 PM)
Atomic Processes In NanomaterialsResearchers from MIT, Georgia Institute of Technology and Ohio State University have developed a new computer modeling approach to study how materials behave under stress at the atomic level, offering insights that could help engineers design materials with an ideal balance between strength and resistance to failure.
When designing materials, there is often a tradeoff between strength and ductility (resistance to breaking)--properties that........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 3/1/2007 10:03:59 PM)
Why do birds migrate?Why do some birds fly thousands of miles back and forth between breeding and non-breeding areas every year whereas others never travel at all?.
One textbook explanation suggests either eating fruit or living in non-forested environments were the precursors needed to evolve migratory behavior.
Not so, report a pair of ecologists from The University of Arizona in Tucson. The pressure to migrate comes from seasonal food scarcity.
"It's........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 3/1/2007 9:45:55 PM)
Iron and phytoplankton, fish populationsA new study suggests that the iron-rich winter runoff from Pacific Northwest streams and rivers, combined with the wide continental shelf, form a potent mechanism for fertilizing the nearshore Pacific Ocean, leading to robust phytoplankton production and fisheries.
The study, by three Oregon State University oceanographers, was just published by the American Geophysical Union in its journal, Geophysical Research Letters.
West coast........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 2/28/2007 9:44:40 PM)
Spacecraft Gets a Boost from JupiterNASA's New Horizons spacecraft successfully completed a flyby of Jupiter early this morning, using the massive planet's gravity to pick up speed on its 3-billion mile voyage to Pluto and the unexplored Kuiper Belt region beyond.
"We're on our way to Pluto," says New Horizons Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md. "The swingby was a success; the spacecraft is on........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 2/28/2007 9:27:15 PM)
Morphing Technology Promises Adroit Aircraft for All Missions
We might witness an aircraft in the near future that will do multi tasks and excel in all conditions, thanks to the morphing technology that guarantees the adroit aircraft that would be able to reshape itself in the air like the birds. A team of researchers funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and others are working on wings and helicopter rotors that crease, shrivel, extend, tilt,........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 2/28/2007 9:05:12 PM)
Size matters if you're a rodentPromiscuity is common among female rodents, leading to competition between the sperm of rival males over who fertilizes the eggs. It now seems that possessing a longer penis may give males an advantage in this competition, according to new research would be published in the recent issue of The American Naturalist. Dr. Steve Ramm, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Liverpool, UK, compared the relative size of the penis bone in........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 2/27/2007 7:54:31 PM)
South Pole Telescope To Help ScientistsJust days before nations around the world were set to begin a coordinated global research campaign called the International Polar Year (IPY); scientists at the South Pole aimed a massive new telescope at Jupiter and successfully collected the instrument's first test observations.
Soon, a far more distant quarry will enter the South Pole telescope's (SPT) sights, as a team of researchers from nine institutions tackles fundamental mysteries of........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 2/26/2007 7:05:05 PM)
Influenza Virus Genomes Now AccessibleThe Influenza Genome Sequencing Project, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced recently that it has achieved a major milestone. The entire genetic blueprints of more than 2,000 human and avian influenza viruses taken from samples around the world have been completed and the sequence data made available in a public database.
"This information will........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 2/21/2007 9:42:05 PM)
Creates Metallic Interconnects, Nanostructuresreating high-resolution metallic interconnects is an essential part of the fabrication of microchips and other nanoscale devices. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a simple and robust electrochemical process for the direct patterning of metallic interconnects and other nanostructures.
"Solid-state superionic stamping offers a new approach, both as a stand-alone process and as a complement to other........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 2/21/2007 9:23:43 PM)
Air Purifiers That Emit Ozonendoor air purifiers that produce even small quantities of ozone may actually make the air dirtier when used at the same time as household cleaning products, researchers at UC Irvine have discovered.
Ozone emitted by purifiers reacts in the air with unsaturated volatile organic compounds such as limonene - a chemical added to cleaning supplies that gives them a lemon fragrance - to create additional microscopic particles, researchers found.........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 2/21/2007 8:55:36 PM)
protein linked to elevated BMIUniversity of Minnesota researchers have discovered a variant of a common blood protein, apolipoprotein C1, in people of American Indian and Mexican ancestry that is linked to elevated body mass index (BMI), obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
The finding were published in the Feb. 20 online issue of the International Journal of Obesity.
Lead investigator Gary Nelsestuen, a professor in the College of Biological Sciences department of........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 2/21/2007 8:53:29 PM)
A good lie detector is hard to findIn the not-too-distant future, police may request a warrant to search your brain.
This was said only partly in jest by one of the panelists at a Feb. 2 symposium, "Is There Science Underlying Truth Detection?" sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT.
The symposium explored whether functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which images brain regions at work, can detect........Go to the My-media-blog (Added on 2/19/2007 8:19:40 PM)
Clues to 'Constant' Changeears of comparisons among the world's best atomic clocks-based on different atoms-have established the most precise limits ever achieved in the laboratory for detecting possible changes in so-called "constants" of nature. The comparisons at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) may help researchers test the latest theories in physics and develop a more complete understanding of the history of the universe.
Some........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 2/19/2007 7:47:52 PM)
DNA to detect hazardous uranium ionsResearchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a simple, disposable sensor for detecting hazardous uranium ions, with sensitivity that rivals the performance of much more sophisticated laboratory instruments.
The sensor provides a fast, on-site test for assessing uranium contamination in the environment, and the effectiveness of remediation strategies, said Yi Lu, a chemistry professor at Illinois and senior........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 2/15/2007 6:21:05 AM)
LSU Professor Resolves Einstein's Twin ParadoxDelaune Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at LSU, recently resolved the twin paradox, known as one of the most enduring puzzles of modern-day physics.
First suggested by Albert Einstein more than 100 years ago, the paradox deals with the effects of time in the context of travel at near the speed of light. Einstein originally used the example of two clocks one motionless, one in transit. He stated that, due to........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 2/15/2007 4:40:19 AM)
The colourful demise of a Sun-like starA brand new image taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 shows the planetary nebula NGC 2440 - the chaotic structure of the demise of a star.
This image, just taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the colourful "last hurrah" of a star like our Sun. The star is ending its life by casting off its outer layers of gas, which formed a cocoon around the star's remaining core. Ultraviolet light from the dying star makes the........Go to the Science-blog (Added on 2/13/2007 9:29:32 PM)
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