Science News

(University of Maryland) The University of Maryland and Lockheed Martin Corporation have opened a major new chapter in their six-decade history, agreeing to create a unique, strategic relationship. The new agreement provides a strategic framework for current and future cooperation that leverages the resources, talent, and ideas of both institutions to produce innovative solutions for global and national security challenges. The initial Lockheed Martin commitment is a minimum of $1 million per year for three years.

(Michigan State University) While an out-of-control gusher deep in the Gulf of Mexico fouls beaches and chokes marshland habitat, another threat could be growing below the oil-slicked surface.The nation's worst oil spill could worsen and expand the oxygen-starved region of the Gulf labeled "the dead zone" for its inhospitality to marine life, suggests Michigan State University professor Nathaniel Ostrom.

(Elhuyar Fundazioa) Chemical products, energy sources, oils, paints, and more ... from biomass as a raw material many more things than might be thought can be obtained. Aware of this, engineer Maria Gonzalez looked for the most appropriate types of biomass as well as the most suitable processing techniques and technologies for refining them.

(CERN) Following a workshop hosted by the CERN European particle physics laboratory in February, doctors and physicists today published a strategy for harnessing physics for health. Techniques developed for physics research have a long history of application in medicine. Today's news recognizes that synergy, and sets out a program of strengthened collaboration.

(Northwestern University) The hunting strategy of a slender fish from the Amazon is giving researchers more insight into how to balance the metabolic cost of information with the metabolic cost of moving around to get that information.

(University of North Carolina School of Medicine) The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill today opened the doors of a new facility designed to be one of the world's most sophisticated research centers devoted to life science imaging.

(University of Florida) University of Florida researchers have used an agent, called Oxi4503, to poison leukemia cells and destroy the blood vessels that supply the cells in mouse models of acute myelogenous leukemia, or AML. The researchers plan human tests of the drug at Shands at UF later this year.

(Brigham Young University) A new Brigham Young University study indicates that water arriving at Ash Meadows in Death Valley is completing a 15,000-year journey, flowing slowly underground from what is now the Nevada Test Site.

(Institute of Physics) Chinese researchers have successfully built an electromagnetic absorbing device for microwave frequencies. The device, made of a thin cylinder comprising 60 concentric rings of metamaterials, is capable of absorbing microwave radiation, and has been compared to an astrophysical black hole (which, in space, soaks up matter and light).

(Science in China Press) Positive-parity single-neutron levels in an axially-deformed relativistic quadrupole Woods-Saxon potential are analyzed. Neutron states are obtained as solutions of the corresponding single-particle Dirac equation, using the coupled-channels method in coordinate space. The evolution of levels close to the continuum threshold and, in particular, the occurrence of single-neutron resonant states as functions of the axial deformation parameter 0 ≤ β ≤ 0.5, are examined using the eigenphase representation.

(Optical Society of America) The Optical Society today announced it will launch a new journal devoted to optical materials, called Optical Materials Express. OME will launch in spring 2011 with bi-monthly issues, joining OSA's diverse portfolio of 14 peer-reviewed optics journals. The editor-in-chief is David Hagan, associate dean for academic programs and professor of optics and physics at CREOL, the College of Optics & Photonics at the University of Central Florida.

(The Kavli Foundation) Eight scientists whose discoveries have dramatically expanded human understanding in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience have been recognized with the award of the 2010 Kavli Prizes.

(Carnegie Mellon University) Robot soccer players from Carnegie Mellon University competing in this month's RoboCup 2010 world championship in Singapore should be able to out-dribble their opponents, thanks to a new algorithm that helps them to predict the ball's behavior based on physics principles.

(NIH/National Institute of Mental Health) Researchers have found a way to pharmacologically induce a memory of safety in the brain of rats, mimicking the effect of training. The finding suggests possibilities for new treatments for individuals suffering from anxiety disorders.

(University of Washington) When certain bacteria reproduce by splitting in two, one cell inherits a propeller for swimming and the other builds a stalk to cling to surfaces. University of Washington researchers developed biosensors to observe what was going on biochemically. They found that a signaling chemical c-di-GMP was unevenly distributed during cell division, and that the swimming cell got less than the stalk cell. The biosensors enabled the researchers to measure these fluctuations in a single bacterium smaller than any animal or plant cell.

(University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences) The liver scarring of α1-antitrypsin (AT) deficiency, the most common genetic cause for which children undergo liver transplantation, might be reversed or prevented with a medication long used to treat seizures, according to researchers at Children's Hospital of UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Because the anti-seizure drug is familiar to doctors and has a well-understood safety profile, clinical trials could begin immediately to see whether it can help affected patients.

(Walter and Eliza Hall Institute) Walter and Eliza Hall Institute scientists have made a significant advance in understanding how potassium channels, which permit the flow of electric currents central to many of the body's biological processes, control the flow of these currents.

(Science in China Press) The collaborators in the Key Laboratory of Particle Astrophysics, Institute of High Energy Physics and Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing provided an original model to explain the knee at the cosmic ray spectra, which has been the puzzle for half a century in cosmic ray physics

(Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) Here's another reason to breast feed your baby: Canadian researchers have discovered how a probiotic found in breast milk reduces or eliminates painful cramping in the gut. In a new research report published online in the FASEB Journal, these scientists use mice to show that a specific strain of Lactobacillus reuteri decreases the force of muscle contractions in the gut within minutes of exposure.

(Sam Houston State University) Researchers, government agencies, land managers, environmentalists and energy industry come together at the International Association for Society and Natural Resources conference.