Science News

(DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) The Applied Nuclear Physics program in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Nuclear Science Division takes equipment created for basic research and develops it into tools that can address practical needs like cancer therapy and homeland security. The program has received two new grants to support improved gamma-ray detectors. One via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act concentrates on gamma-ray imaging for ion-beam therapy.

(Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) As people head to the beach this summer, very few if any, really know how likely they are to develop skin cancer from their outdoor fun. That's about to change, thanks to a new discovery by an international team of scientists that makes it possible for doctors to access people's personal risk for skin cancer.

(Air Force Office of Scientific Research) US Air Force Office of Scientific Research-funded Professors Mark L. Brongersma of Stanford University and Stefan A. Maier of Imperial College London are investigating new applications for terahertz sensors.

(McMaster University) Scientists have captured the first images of electrons that appear to take on extraordinary mass under certain extreme conditions, thus solving a 25-year mystery about how electrons behave in metals. The discovery could help with the design of new materials for high-temperature superconductors.

(DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Sensorpedia is a significant resource that continues to expand with a network of more than 5,000 sensors. A team led by ORNL's Trent Nichols hopes to improve the odds for cancer patients with neutron imaging. Researchers at George Washington University and ORNL have demonstrated that tailored silicon nanopost arrays can provide an important analytical tool for nanoscale applications. Computational scientists from around the world will gather in Chattanooga, Tenn., July 11-15 to participate in technical and scientific talks of recent advances.

(Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard) Bioengineers at Harvard's Wyss Institute have developed a new technology based on nature's design principles for self assembly and self organization. The technology can be used to regenerate heart and other tissues and to make nanometer-thick fabrics that are strong and elastic. The key breakthrough came in the development of a matrix that can assemble itself through interaction with a thermosensitive surface. The protein composition of that matrix can be customized to generate specific properties.

(US Pharmacopeia) With the mutual goal of improving the quality of pharmaceuticals worldwide, the US Pharmacopeial Convention and the Ukraine Scientific Pharmacopoeial Center for the Quality of Medicines have entered into an agreement to share standards for the quality, purity, strength and identity of medicines.

(DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) A technique originally, applied to monitor the flow of contaminants into shallow groundwater supplies, has been repurposed to monitor carbon dioxide pumped deep underground for storage.

(National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK)) A British scientific expedition is heading into the world's deepest volcanic rift, more than three miles beneath the waves in the Caribbean, to hunt for the deepest "black smoker" vents detected so far on the ocean floor. The team, working aboard the RRS James Cook, will use a robot submarine called Autosub6000 and a remotely controlled deep-sea vehicle called HyBIS to reveal the features and inhabitants of the world's undersea volcanoes for the first time.

(American Chemical Society) That bracing morning shower and soothing bedtime soak in the tub are potentially important but until now unrecognized sources of the hormones, antibiotics, and other pharmaceuticals that pollute the environment, scientists reported here today at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society.

(University of Cincinnati) Techulon Inc., a life sciences company, has signed worldwide exclusive license agreements with the University of Cincinnati to manufacture and sell novel transfection reagents used for research and therapeutic delivery of nucleic acids. The licenses cover a family of new molecules invented by Theresa M. Reineke while she was a faculty member in the Chemistry Department of the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences and described in two patent applications filed by UC.

(American Chemical Society) Scientists are reporting progress toward a test that could revolutionize the diagnosis of glaucoma -- the second leading cause of vision loss and blindness worldwide -- by detecting the disease years earlier than usually happens at present. They reported the findings here today at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

(DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Using the latest in aberration-corrected electron microscopy, researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and their colleagues have obtained the first images that distinguish individual light atoms such as boron, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen.

(IOS Press) The use of repetitive anesthesia with isoflurane (one of the most common anesthetics by inhalation) increases the risk of developing changes similar to those observed in AD brains in mice with mutations of the amyloid precursor protein. This is the main conclusion of Spanish researchers coordinated by Doctors Maria Angeles Mena and Justo Garcia de Yebenes, from Centro de Investigacion Biomedica en Red de Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas. The work has been published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

(American Chemical Society) Motorists will be driving on the world's first "green" tires within the next five years, scientists predicted here today, thanks to a revolutionary new technology that produces a key tire ingredient from renewable feedstocks rather than petroleum-derived feedstocks.

(University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine) A team of cardiologists, materials scientists, and bioengineers have created and tested a new type of implantable device for measuring the heart's electrical output that they say is a vast improvement over current devices. The new device represents the first use of flexible silicon technology for a medical application. The technology may herald the next generation of active, flexible, implantable devices for applications in cardiology and neurology.

(University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) Arrhythmic hearts soon may beat in time again, with minimal surgical invasion, thanks to flexible electronics technology developed by a team of University of Illinois researchers, in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Northwestern University. These biocompatible silicon devices could mark the beginning of a new wave of surgical electronics.

(University of Alberta) An experiment led by a University of Alberta researcher, at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, could dramatically change our concepts of basic physics, revolutionize our understanding of the Universe and could eventually lead to technologies in future generations that right now only exist in science fiction.

(New York University) Physicists at New York University have created "handshaking" particles that link together based on their shape rather than randomly. Their work marks the first time scientists have succeeded in "programming" particles to join in this manner and offers a type of architecture that could enhance the creation of synthetic materials.

(American Chemical Society) Some birds are not "bird brains" when it comes to nutrition. Scientists today reported for the first time that certain birds eat berries that are high in antioxidants during their annual migration, passing up berries that are lower in these healthful substances.