Despite delivering calcium and protein, drinking a lot of milk doesn’t seem to providea net health benefit for women and may even hindertheir long-term survival prospects, Swedish researchers find. Over the course of about 20 years, women who drank three or more glasses of milk per day were almost twice as likely to die as those who drank less than one, other things...
Scanning the skies for near-earth asteroids might be the best first step for getting humans to Mars. planetary scientist Richard Binzel argues that NASA should abandon the AsteroidRedirect Mission, the space agency’s plan to snag a space rock and jockey it into lunar orbit for astronauts to explore. Instead, NASA should beef up its telescope surveys to search for asteroids that come closer...
Itty-bitty seeds of human stomachs can now bud in plastic dishes. By bathing stem cells in a brew of growth-boosting chemicals, scientists have kick-started the constructionof crude organs about as bigas the head of a pin. These primitive balls of gastric tissue — the first to be cooked up in the lab — resemble the stomachs of developing fetuses. The lab-grown bellies represent...
A tiny quail and a huge ostrich would seem to have little in common given their 500-fold difference in size. But when faced with an obstacle in their path, the birds tackle it in the same way, scientistsreportOctober 29 in theJournal of Experimental Biology.Aleksandra Birn-Jeffery of the Royal Veterinary College in Hatfield, England, and colleagues wanted to know how running birds negotiate a...
A new frog species, discovered in New York City six years ago, has been found in many spots along the East Coast, from Connecticut to North Carolina.The Atlantic Coast leopard frog (Rana kauffeldi) wasfirstidentified on Staten Island when ecologists realized that its call was distinct fromthat of a lookalike, the southern leopard frog (Rana sphenocephala). The Atlantic Coast speciescroaks in a single burst...
NASA scientists have applied new super-black carbon-nanotube coating to a 3-D component critical for suppressing stray light in a new solar coronagraph. An emerging super-black nanotechnology that is to be tested for the first time this fall on the International Space Station will be applied to a complex, 3-D component critical for suppressing stray light in a new, smaller, less-expensive solar coronagraph designed...
A new power-conserving chip developed by MIT spinout Eta Devices may increase smartphone battery life and save energy in cell towers. Stream video on your smartphone, or use its GPS for an hour or two, and you’ll probably see the battery drain significantly. As data rates climb and smartphones adopt more power-hungry features, battery life has become a concern. Now a technology developed...
For the first time, a team of astronomers has measured the size and structure of a nova’s nuclear blast as it happened. The discovery of Nova Delphini 2013, along with the data collected about it, could well sharpen or reshape our understanding of the nature of such blasts. The research appears online in the journal Nature. Novae are found in solar systems with two...
Newly published research details how a team of scientists used a virtual computer experiment to discover information strings with peculiar properties. How did life originate? And can scientists create life? These questions not only occupy the minds of scientists interested in the origin of life, but also researchers working with technology of the future. If we can create artificial living systems, we may...
Providence, Rhode Island (Brown University) — Superconductors and magnetic fields do not usually get along. But a research team led by a Brown University physicist has produced new evidence for an exotic superconducting state, first predicted a half-century ago, that can indeed arise when a superconductor is exposed to a strong magnetic field. “It took 50 years to show that this phenomenon indeed...
The Ebola virus disease epidemic already devastating swaths of West Africa will likely get far worse in the coming weeks and months unless international commitments are significantly and immediately increased, new research led by Yale researchers predicts. The findings are published in the October 24 issue of The Lancet Infectious Diseases. A team of seven scientists from Yale’s Schools of Public Health and...
A new study from Columbia University Medical Center shows that dietary cocoa flavanols reverse age-related memory decline in healthy older adults. New York, New York — Dietary cocoa flavanols—naturally occurring bioactives found in cocoa—reversed age-related memory decline in healthy older adults, according to a study led by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) scientists. The study,published in the advance online issue of Nature Neuroscience,...
Technology News
Targeted Isolation May Be the Most Effective Way to Reduce Transmission of Ebola
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New research led by the Yale School of Public Health shows that isolating 75% of infected individuals in critical condition within four days of symptom onset has a high chance of eliminating the spread of Ebola. Isolating the most severely ill Ebola patients before the fifth day of their illness may be the most effective way to reduce transmission of the virus, new...
New research shows that delivering chemotherapy directly into the brain cavity may kill tumor cells in the brain more effectively and avoid side effects. Every year, about 100,000 Americans are diagnosed with brain tumors that have spread from elsewhere in the body. These tumors, known as metastases, are usually treated with surgery followed by chemotherapy, but the cancer often returns. A new study...
A team of scientists has calculated the risk for a worst-case scenario upper limit for sea level rise within this century, revealing that the sea level could rise 1.8 meters. The climate is getting warmer, the ice sheets are melting and sea levels are rising – but how much? The report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013 was...
Earth’s magnetic field is decreasing 10 times faster than normal, leading some geophysicists to predict a magnetic reversal to occur within a few thousand years. New research from an international team of scientists shows that this reversal could happen over a short period of time – less than a hundred years. Berkeley — Imagine the world waking up one morning to discover that...
