Articles from November 2009
November 12, 2009 | Posted by admin
NASA scientists studying the origin of life have reproduced uracil, a key component of our hereditary material, in the laboratory. They discovered that an ice sample containing pyrimidine exposed to ultraviolet radiation under space-like conditions produces this essential ingredient of life.
Categories: Health & Medicine, Space & Earth | 
Tags: Michel Nuevo, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, uracil | 
No Comments »
November 11, 2009 | Posted by admin
A study at Örebro University in Sweden indicates that mobile phones and other cordless telephones have a biological effect on the brain. It is still too early to say if any health risks are involved, but medical researcher Fredrik Söderqvist recommends caution in the use of these phones, above all among children and adolescents. Few [...]
Categories: Health & Medicine, Science & Nanotechnology | Tags: adolescents, cordless telephones, Fredrik Söderqvist, Örebro University in Sweden | No Comments »
November 11, 2009 | Posted by admin
A team of mathematicians from the Engineering and Architecture Schools of the University of Seville has created a method to design underground lines whereby a city’s historical buildings are unaffected. The results of the study, which has just been published in the Journal of the Operational Research Society, offer possible solutions for the future underground [...]
Categories: Space & Earth | Tags: bypass monuments, Francisco A. Ortega, Voronoi diagram | No Comments »
November 11, 2009 | Posted by admin
It is currently estimated that natural gas resources will be exhausted in 130 years; however, those reserves where extraction is cost-effective will only flow for another 60 years or so. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research and at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces might be helping to make it [...]
Categories: Technology & Engineering | Tags: Ferdi Schüth, triazine-based network | No Comments »
November 11, 2009 | Posted by admin
AMES, Iowa – James Oliver picked up an Xbox game controller, looked up to a video screen and used the device’s buttons and joystick to fly through a patient’s chest cavity for an up-close look at the bottom of the heart.
Categories: Technology & Engineering | Tags: Eliot Winer, James Olive | No Comments »
November 6, 2009 | Posted by admin
Tree-dwelling ants generally live in harmony with their arboreal hosts. But new research suggests that when they run out of space in their trees of choice, the ants can get destructive to neighboring trees.
Categories: Science & Nanotechnology | Tags: amazonian rainforests, american naturalist, ant plants, biologist, cozy relationships, David Edwards, Douglas Yu, forest clearings, galls, glenn shepard, Glenn Shepard of Sao Paulo University, Megan Frederickson, plants and trees, precious soil, sao paulo university, soil nutrients, square kilometers, strange phenomenon, tree dwelling, university of east anglia, wood ants | No Comments »
November 6, 2009 | Posted by admin
A new study has discovered for the first time that dark chocolate rich in flavanols may provide significant protection from the harmful effects of ultraviolet light.
Categories: Health & Medicine | Tags: antioxidant properties, antioxidants, brain, C Lally, cells, cocoa beans, concentration, dark chocolate, double blind study, droplets, flavanols, forearms, free radicals, high temperature, mechanisms, previous research, S Tamburic, S. Williams, scientists, temperature method, uv light, volunteers, wrinkles | No Comments »
November 6, 2009 | Posted by admin
The intimate and spirited quarters of a stadium offer perhaps the most ideal venues to experience an athletic event.
Categories: Technology & Engineering | Tags: background information, classmates, Ed Coyle, eStadium, eStadium application, fellow fans, football game, georgia tech, information delivery, instant replays, intelligent devices, living room, new application, personal digital assistants, pockets, precursor, professor ed, purdue university, rare breed, smartphone, social networking, wake forest university | No Comments »
November 6, 2009 | Posted by admin
Despite their fearsome fangs, male sabertoothed cats may have been less aggressive than many of their feline cousins, says a new study of male-female size differences in extinct big cats.
Categories: Space & Earth | Tags: american lion, big cats, evolutionary synthesis, fangs, felines, fossil, fossils, journal of zoology, loyola marymount university, male competition, prehistoric cat, sabertoothed tiger, samuels, sexual dimorphism, size differences, size patterns, smilodon fatalis, subtle clues, synthesis center, van valkenburgh | No Comments »
November 6, 2009 | Posted by admin
Common experience tells us that particular scents of childhood can leave quite an impression, for better or for worse. Now, researchers reporting the results of a brain imaging study online on November 5th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, show that first scents really do enjoy a “privileged” status in the brain.
Categories: Health & Medicine | Tags: bad smells, brain, brain regions, brains, current biology, distinct signature, functional magnetic resonance, functional magnetic resonance imaging, good sense, olfactory, poets and scientists, privileged status, scents, scientists, unique activation, unpleasant memories, unpleasant odors, weizmann institute of science | No Comments »