On 5 and 6 June this year, millions of people around the world will be able to see Venus pass across the face of the Sun in what will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It will take Venus about six hours to complete its transit, appearing as a small black dot on the Sun's surface, in an event that will not happen again until 2117. In this month's Physics World, Jay M Pasachoff, an astronomer at Williams College, Massachusetts, explores the science behind Venus's transit and gives an account of its fascinating history. Transits of Venus occur only on the very rare ...

WASHINGTON, April 30--Atomic clocks based on the oscillations of a cesium atom keep amazingly steady time and also define the precise length of a second. But cesium clocks are no longer the most accurate. That title has been transferred to an optical clock housed at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colo. that can keep time to within 1 second in 3.7 billion years. Before this newfound precision can redefine the second, or lead to new applications like ultra-precise navigation, the system used to communicate time around the globe ...

Knowing how a living cell works means knowing how the chemistry inside the cell changes as the functions of the cell change. Protein phosphorylation, for example, controls everything from cell proliferation to differentiation to metabolism to signaling, and even programmed cell death (apoptosis), in cells from bacteria to humans. It's a chemical process that has long been intensively studied, not least in hopes of treating or eliminating a wide range of diseases. But until now the close-up view – watching phosphorylation at work on the molecular level as individual cells ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Researchers studying multiple sclerosis(MS) have long been looking for the specific molecules in the body that cause lesions in myelin, the fatty, insulating cells that sheathe the nerves. Nearly a decade ago, a group at Mayo Clinic found a new enzyme, called Kallikrein 6, that is present in abundance in MS lesions and blood samples and is associated with inflammation and demyelination in other neurodegenerative diseases. In a study published this month in Brain Pathology, the same group found that an antibody that neutralizes Kallikrein 6 is capable ...

Scientists predict ocean temperatures will rise in the equatorial Pacific by the end of the century, wreaking havoc on coral reef ecosystems. But a new study shows that climate change could cause ocean currents to operate in a way that mitigates warming near a handful of islands right on the equator. Those islands include some of the 33 coral atolls that form the nation of Kiribati. This low-lying country is at risk from sea-level rise caused by global warming. Surprisingly, these Pacific islands within two degrees north and south of the equator may become isolated ...

Brand India is the name of the organisation that since the late 1990's has been tasked with convincing international corporations and heads of state that they should invest in new, modern India. In return for their investment, they get, among other things, access to cheap, well-educated labour. "The branding campaigns produce seductive images of 'new' India: In the beginning the ads placed traditional Indian motifs together with images of mobile phones, computers, and motor ways to show the investors how India has developed," says Ravinder Kaur, who is director of Centre ...

The common antibiotic, amoxicillin-clavulanate, may improve small bowel function in children experiencing motility disturbances, according to a study appearing in the June print edition of the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition from Nationwide Children's Hospital. Amoxicillan-clavulanate, also known as Augmentin, is most commonly prescribed to treat or prevent infections caused by bacteria. However, it has also been reported to increase small bowel motility in healthy individuals and has been used to treat bacterial overgrowth in patients with chronic ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Just 20 minutes of playing a violent shooting video game made players more accurate when firing a realistic gun at a mannequin – and more likely to aim for and hit the head, a new study found. Players who used a pistol-shaped controller in a shooting video game with human targets had 99 percent more completed head shots to the mannequin than did participants who played other video games, as well as 33 percent more shots that hit other parts of the body. In addition, the study found that participants who reported habitual playing of violent shooting ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - People aren't very good at media multitasking - like reading a book while watching TV - but do it anyway because it makes them feel good, a new study suggests. The findings provide clues as to why multitasking is so popular, even though many studies show it is not productive. Researchers had college students record all of their media use and other activities for 28 days, including why they used various media sources and what they got out of it. The findings showed that multitasking often gave the students an emotional boost, even when it hurt their ...

Boulder, Colo., USA – Studies in this Geology posting cover direct dating of brittle fault activity along the Dead Sea fault zone in Northern Israel; onset of the last deglaciation of valley glaciers in southern Patagonia; cutting-edge techniques, including NanoSIMS ion mapping, to identify the microbial metabolism involved in ooid cortex formation; slope failure at Scripps Canyon, California; and the continuing and relatively quick uplift of the U.S. Sierra Nevada, which gains 1-2 mm per year in elevation. Highlights are provided below. Geology articles published ahead ...

University of Iowa biologists have advanced the knowledge of human neurodevelopmental disorders by finding that a lack of a particular group of cell adhesion molecules in the cerebral cortex -- the outermost layer of the brain where language, thought and other higher functions take place -- disrupts the formation of neural circuitry. Andrew Garrett, former neuroscience graduate student and current postdoctoral fellow at the Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine; Dietmar Schreiner, former postdoctoral fellow currently at the University of Basel, Switzerland; Mark Lobas, ...

April 30, 2012 (Portland, Oregon)—Mexican-American women who participated in a culturally tailored weight management program lost weight, reduced their fat and sugar consumption and improved their eating habits according to a new study funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health. At the end of the year-long De Por Vida ("For Life") program, the women had lost an average of nearly 16 pounds. "More than three-quarters of Mexican-American women in this country are overweight or obese, and they became that way ...

Neuropathic pain, caused by nerve or tissue damage, is the culprit behind many cases of chronic pain. It can be the result of an accident or caused by a variety of medical conditions and diseases such as tumors, lupus, and diabetes. Typically resistant to common types of pain management including ibuprofen and even morphine, neuropathic pain can lead to lifelong disability for many sufferers. Now a drug developed by Tel Aviv University researchers, known as BL-7050, is offering new hope to patients with neuropathic pain. Developed by Prof. Bernard Attali and Dr. Asher ...

Durham, NC — Not all acts of altruism are alike, says a new study. From bees and wasps that die defending their nests, to elephants that cooperate to care for young, a new mathematical model pinpoints the environmental conditions that favor one form of altruism over another. The model predicts that creatures will help each other in different ways depending on whether key resources such as food and habitat are scarce or abundant, say researchers from Indiana University and the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, North Carolina. Examples of creatures caring ...

PHILADELPHIA— To improve the quality of life in gay men and minorities treated for prostate cancer, a greater awareness of ethnic and sexual preference-related factors is needed to help men choose a more-suitable treatment plan, researchers from Thomas Jefferson University Hospital conclude in a literature review published May 1 in Nature Reviews Urology. Some of the factors to consider, for example, include increased risk of urinary and bowel function decline in African Americans regardless of treatment received and differing sexual expectations and social support in ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Every year, U.S. supermarkets lose roughly 10 percent of their fruits and vegetables to spoilage, according to the Department of Agriculture. To help combat those losses, MIT chemistry professor Timothy Swager and his students have built a new sensor that could help grocers and food distributors better monitor their produce. The new sensors, described in the journal Angewandte Chemie, can detect tiny amounts of ethylene, a gas that promotes ripening in plants. Swager envisions the inexpensive sensors attached to cardboard boxes of produce and scanned ...

Montreal, April 30, 2012 – What if there was a way to vastly improve the safety, durability and sustainability of bridges across North America without increasing spending? This was the question Saleh Abu Dabous set out to answer when he began his PhD at Concordia. "I was looking for an applied way to do research — something that would have an impact on society and improve the current situation," he remembers. In a paper published in the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, Abu Dabous and his thesis supervisor Sabah Alkass, professor of in the Department of Building, ...

PHILADELPHIA – Two drugs commonly used to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD) yield similar improvements in vision for patients receiving treatments on a monthly or as-needed basis, according to a study from researchers at the Center for Preventive Ophthalmology and Biostatistics (CPOB) at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The year-two results of the Comparison of AMD Treatment Trials (CATT) support the findings from the first year of the study that evaluated the effects of Avastin ® (bevacizumab) - the off-label drug most frequently ...

Hans Vogel, a professor in the biological sciences department, is the guest editor of a special issue of the journal Biochemistry and Cell Biology that focuses on lactoferrin, an important iron-binding protein with many health benefits. "Some people describe this protein as the 'Swiss army knife' of the human host defense system," says Vogel. "We now know that lactoferrin has many functions in innate immunity and that it plays a role in protecting us from bacterial, viral, fungal, and protozoal infections. It can even protect us from some forms of cancer." Lactoferrin—which ...

There was no change in concentrations of chloride, dissolved solids, or nitrate in groundwater for more than 50 percent of well networks sampled in a new analysis by the USGS that compared samples from 1988-2000 to samples from 2001-2010. For those networks that did have a change, seven times more networks saw increases as opposed to decreases. The analysis was done by the USGS National Water Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA) to determine if concentrations of these constituents have increased or decreased significantly from the 1990's to the early 2000's nationwide. ...

It's very difficult to kick a star out of the galaxy. In fact, the primary mechanism that astronomers have come up with that can give a star the two-million-plus mile-per-hour kick it takes requires a close encounter with the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's core. So far astronomers have found 16 of these "hypervelocity" stars. Although they are traveling fast enough to eventually escape the galaxy's gravitational grasp, they have been discovered while they are still inside the galaxy. Now, Vanderbilt astronomers report in the May issue of the Astronomical ...

Robert Stanek, bestselling author of over 150 published books, has a passion to help other independently published authors reach their goals. Stanek lives in Washington State, but his reach is international via the internet. Over the past 11 years he has developed several venues to help promote and market indie authors giving them more online exposure and visibility. He works diligently to offer ways in which to showcase new authors and books. One example is his blog readindies.blogspot.com (http://readindies.blogspot.com/). Stanek started his writing career as a technical ...

ThePetCrib.com (http://www.thepetcrib.com/), a leading online store for upscale dog products and cat products announced today they will begin promotion one pet product a month as a special way to highlight their vendors products. The pet product of the month promotion will begin in May of 2012. "We really work hard to represent vendors and pet products that are high quality and unique," said Bryan Cochran, owner of ThePetCrib.com. "The pet products we sell represent some of the best in the pet products industry. This is an opportunity for us to showcase ...

"Love thy neighbor" is preached from many a pulpit. But new research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that the highly religious are less motivated by compassion when helping a stranger than are atheists, agnostics and less religious people. In three experiments, social scientists found that compassion consistently drove less religious people to be more generous. For highly religious people, however, compassion was largely unrelated to how generous they were, according to the findings which are published in the July issue of the journal Social Psychological ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – As the United States grapples with health care reform, much attention has focused on the importance of preventative health care. Now, a researcher at the University of Missouri has developed a system that could help public health care organizations determine the best method of allocating resources by prioritizing health risk factors and conditions – in some cases before these conditions become major health problems. "Every state, county and community has different trends and needs in public health," said Eduardo Simoes, chair of the Department of Health ...