Biomedical applications of shape-memory polymers: How practically useful are they?
Beijing, China (SPX) Apr 29, 2014 -
Polymers that exhibit shape-memory effect (SME) are an important class of materials in medicine, especially for minimally invasive deployment of devices. Professor Subbu Venkatraman and his group from School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University presented a review article surveying the clinical applications of the SME and addressing critically the question of its ...
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Dead blue whale's rotting stench, bloating worry Canada's Trout River residents
Trout River, Newfoundland (UPI) Apr 29, 2013 -
The rotting stench of a bloated blue whale has residents of Trout River, Canada, worried. The dead whale washed ashore more than a week ago and has since doubled in size - its belly like an overinflated balloon.
Locals are concerned with the growing stench, and also apprehensive about the possibility that it's methane-filled stomach might soon explode - spewing stinky whale guts all o ...
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Two antibodies show promise blocking MERS virus
Hong Kong (UPI) Apr 28, 2013 -
Researchers in China have identified two promising antibodies capable of blocking MERS infection - a bit of hopeful news for health officials after MERS-related deaths topped the 100 mark in Saudi Arabia over the weekend.
According to research by doctors at China's Tsinghua University and Sichuan University, as well as the University of Hong Kong, antibodies MERS-4 and MERS-27 were bot ...
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Dutchman at heart of Europe's horse meat scandal charged in France
Paris (AFP) April 29, 2014 -
A Dutch businessman at the heart of a horsemeat scandal that prompted a health scare across Europe last year has been charged and held in France, a judicial source told AFP.
Jan Fasen, who is in his sixties and runs a Cyprus-based firm named Draap Trading, was placed in custody on April 8 and charged with fraud following a probe into the scandal in which horsemeat was mislabelled and sold as ...
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Prehistoric caribou hunting site discovered under Lake Huron
Ann Arbor, Mich. (UPI) Apr 28, 2013 -
Beneath more than 120 feet of Lake Huron water, archaeologists have found one of the most elaborate prehistoric stone structures ever discovered in the Great Lakes region.
The main portion of the 9,000-year-old structure has been dubbed Drop 45 Drive Lane; it features a walled stone lane which leads into a cobblestone cul-de-sac-like structure. Nearby are hunting blinds, where Paleo-Ind ...
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UV-radiation data to help ecological research
Leipzig, Germany (SPX) Apr 30, 2014 -
Many research projects study the effects of temperature and precipitation on the global distribution of plant and animal species. However, an important component of climate research, the UV-B radiation, is often neglected.
The landscape ecologists from UFZ in collaboration with their colleagues from the Universities in Olomouc (Czechia), Halle and Luneburg have processed UV-B data from the ...
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Microscopic Organism Plays a Big Role in Ocean Carbon Cycling
San Diego CA (SPX) Apr 30, 2014 -
It's broadly understood that the world's oceans play a crucial role in the global-scale cycling and exchange of carbon between Earth's ecosystems and atmosphere. Now scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have taken a leap forward in understanding the microscopic underpinnings of these processes.
When phytoplankton use carbon dioxide to make new cells, a substant ...
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Getting at the root of the mountain pine beetle's rapid habitat expansion and forest
Oxford, UK (SPX) Apr 30, 2014 -
The mountain pine beetle has wreaked havoc in North America, across forests from the American Southwest to British Columbia and Alberta, with the potential to spread all the way to the Atlantic coast. Millions of acres of forest have been lost, with severe economic and ecological impacts from a beetle outbreak ten times larger than previous outbreaks.
Because of its importance and impact o ...
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Untangling Brazil's controversial new forest code
Cape Cod MA (SPX) Apr 30, 2014 -
Approved in 2012, Brazil's new Forest Code has few admirers. Agricultural interests argue that it threatens the livelihoods of farmers. Environmentalists counter that it imperils millions of hectares of forest, threatening to release the billions of tons of carbon they contain.
A new study, co-authored by Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) scientists Michael Coe, Marcia Macedo and Brazilian ...
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Mystery of the pandemic flu virus of 1918 solved by University of Arizona researchers
Tucson AZ (SPX) Apr 30, 2014 -
A study led by Michael Worobey at the University of Arizona in Tucson provides the most conclusive answers yet to two of the world's foremost biomedical mysteries of the past century: the origin of the 1918 pandemic flu virus and its unusual severity, which resulted in a death toll of approximately 50 million people.
Worobey's paper on the flu, to be published in the early edition of the P ...
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Nitrogen pollution, climate and land use: why what we eat matters
London, UK (SPX) Apr 30, 2014 -
A new report quantifies for the first time how much our food choices affect pollutant nitrogen emissions, climate change and land-use across Europe. The executive summary of the European Nitrogen Assessment Special Report on Nitrogen and Food, 'Nitrogen on the Table', was released this week. The Special report provides an assessment of what would happen if Europe were to decrease its consumption ...
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Krypton-dating technique allows researchers to accurately date ancient Antarctic ice
Washington DC (SPX) Apr 30, 2014 -
A team of scientists, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), has successfully used a new technique to confirm the age of a 120,000-year-old sample of Antarctic ice.
The new dating system is expected to allow scientists to identify ice that is much older, thereby reconstructing climate much farther back into Earth's history and potentially leading to an understanding of the mechan ...
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Microbe's Innovation Brought Doom to Earth
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Apr 30, 2014 -
The physical environment can produce sudden shocks to the life of our planet through impacting space rocks, erupting volcanoes and other events.
But sometimes life itself turns the tables and strikes a swift blow back to the environment. New research suggests that the biggest extinction event on record may have been initiated by a small, but significant change to a tiny microbe.
The ...
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Amazon rainforest survey could improve carbon offset schemes
Edinburgh, Scotland (SPX) Apr 30, 2014 -
Carbon offsetting initiatives could be improved with new insights into the make-up of tropical forests, a study suggests.
Scientists studying the Amazon Basin have revealed unprecedented detail of the size, age and species of trees across the region by comparing satellite maps with hundreds of field plots.
The findings will enable researchers to assess more accurately the amount of c ...
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North Shore Deploys Mutualink's Emergency Communications Platform in 15 Hospitals
Wallingford CT (SPX) Apr 30, 2014 -
North Shore-LIJ, one of the largest health care systems in the United States, has deployed Mutualink's secure communications platform in 15 hospitals and one mobile unit. Mutualink's Interoperable Response and Preparedness Platform (IRAPP) enables North Shore-LIJ's hospitals to share voice, video, data and text communications in real time within the health system, as well as with police, fire, E ...
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Engineering Breakthrough Will Allow Cancer Researchers to Create Live Tumors With a 3D Printer
Philadelphia PA (SPX) Apr 30, 2014 -
Drexel's Wei Sun, PhD, Albert Soffa chair professor in the College of Engineering, has devised a method for 3D printing tumors that could soon be taking cancer research out of the petri dish.
Using a mixture of cervical cancer cells and a hydrogel substance that resembles an ointment balm, Sun can print out a tumor model that can be used for studying their growth and response to treatment. ...
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What Lies Beneath Modern New England? Mountain-Building and the End of An Ancient Ocean
Boulder CO (SPX) Apr 30, 2014 -
When and where did the ancient Iapetus Ocean suture (the most fundamental Appalachian structure) form? Is part of New England made up of ancient African-derived rocks? What is the Moretown terrane? This new GEOLOGY study by researchers from Harvard, Middlebury College, Boise State University, and Williams College finds new evidence for an earlier closing of the Iapetus that is farther west than ...
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Odds of storm waters overflowing Manhattan seawall up 20-fold
Washington DC (SPX) Apr 30, 2014 -
Maximum water levels in New York harbor during major storms have risen by nearly two and a half feet since the mid-1800s, making the chances of water overtopping the Manhattan seawall now at least 20 times greater than they were 170 years ago, according to a new study.
Whereas sea-level rise, which is occurring globally, has raised water levels along New York harbor by nearly a foot and a ...
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Scientists pack lab into pill using idea inspired by breath-freshening strips
Hamilton, Canada (SPX) Apr 30, 2014 -
Inspiration can come in many forms, but this one truly was a breath of fresh air. A group of McMaster researchers has solved the problem of cumbersome, expensive and painfully slow water-testing by turning the process upside-down. Instead of shipping water to the lab, they have created a way to take the lab to the water, putting potentially life-saving technology into the hands of everyday peopl ...
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Violent weather in US kills at least 29
Washington (AFP) April 29, 2014 -
Americans in the southern and eastern US braced for more violent weather Tuesday after a string of tornadoes and other storms killed at least 29 people, news reports said.
Some 75 million people were at risk from storms that could unleash hail, winds and twisters on the affected regions, according to the National Weather Service.
The toll from two days of violent weather reached at least ...
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Scientists discover a new shape using rubber bands
Cambridge, UK (SPX) Apr 28, 2014 -
While setting out to fabricate new springs to support a cephalopod-inspired imaging project, a group of Harvard researchers stumbled upon a surprising discovery: the hemihelix, a shape rarely seen in nature.
This made the researchers wonder: Were the three-dimensional structures they observed randomly occurring, or are there specific factors that control their formation? The scientists ans ...
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Bake Your Own Droplet Lens
Washington DC (SPX) Apr 28, 2014 -
A droplet of clear liquid can bend light, acting as a lens. Now, by exploiting this well-known phenomenon, researchers have developed a new process to create inexpensive high quality lenses that will cost less than a penny apiece.
Because they're so inexpensive, the lenses can be used in a variety of applications, including tools to detect diseases in the field, scientific research in the ...
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'Double-duty' electrolyte enables new chemistry for longer-lived batteries
Oak Ridge TN (SPX) Apr 28, 2014 -
Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a new and unconventional battery chemistry aimed at producing batteries that last longer than previously thought possible.
In a study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, ORNL researchers challenged a long-held assumption that a battery's three main components - the positive cathod ...
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Ball Aerospace Moving Ahead on TEMPO and GEMS Air Quality Sensors
Boulder CO (SPX) Apr 29, 2014 -
Two powerful Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. air quality sensors are on their way to providing future environmental monitoring to support the quality of life on Earth.
Ball is building nearly identical geostationary ultraviolet visible spectrometers: the Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument for NASA Earth Venture, and the Geostationary Environment Monito ...
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Discovery helps solve mystery source of African lava
East Lansing MI (SPX) Apr 28, 2014 -
Floods of molten lava may sound like the stuff of apocalyptic theorists, but history is littered with evidence of such past events where vast lava outpourings originating deep in the Earth accompany the breakup of continents.
New research at Michigan State University shows that the source of some of these epic outpourings, however, may not be as deep as once thought. The results, published ...
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