VIDEO: A new form of electronics, small enough to fit under a temporary tattoo, changes the way scientists think about gathering data from the human body. Click here for more information. CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Engineers have developed a device platform that combines electronic components for sensing, medical diagnostics, communications and human-machine interfaces, all on an ultrathin skin-like patch that mounts directly onto the skin with the ease, flexibility and comfort of ...

August 7, 2011 – A paper to be published on August 12, 2011 in the authoritative magazine Science reveals that Dr. F. Robin O'Keefe of Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va. and Dr. Luis Chiappe, Director of the Natural History Museum's Dinosaur Institute, have determined that a unique specimen now displayed in NHM's Dinosaur Hall is the fossil of an embryonic marine reptile contained within the fossil of its mother. The 78-million-year-old, 15.4-foot-long adult specimen is a Polycotylus latippinus, one of the giant, carnivorous, four-flippered reptiles known as plesiosaurs ...

Researchers have traced in detail how certain powerful HIV neutralizing antibodies evolve, a finding that generates vital clues to guide the design of a preventive HIV vaccine, according to a study appearing in Science Express this week. The discoveries were made by a team led by the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. "This elegant research brings us another step closer to an HIV vaccine and establishes a potent new technique for evaluating the human immune response ...

Pasadena, CA— Type Ia supernovae are violent stellar explosions whose brightness is used to determine distances in the universe. Observing these objects to billions of light years away has led to the discovery that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, the foundation for the notion of dark energy. Although all Type Ia supernovae appear to be very similar, astronomers do not know for certain how the explosions take place and whether they all share the same origin. Now, a team of researchers has examined new and detailed observations of 41 of these objects and ...

Depressed women may face an increased risk of stroke, according to new research reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. In six years of follow-up of women in the Nurses' Health Study, researchers found that a history of depression was associated with a 29 percent increased risk of total stroke – even after considering other stroke risk factors. Women who used anti-depressant medication — particularly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors— had a 39 percent increased risk of stroke. Examples of these drugs are Prozac, Zoloft, and Celexa. Anti-depressant ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---A type of fungus that's been lurking underground for millions of years, previously known to science only through its DNA, has been cultured, photographed, named and assigned a place on the tree of life. Researchers say it represents an entirely new class of fungi: the Archaeorhizomycetes. Like the discovery of a weird type of aquatic fungus that made headlines a few months ago, this finding offers a glimpse at the rich diversity of microorganisms that share our world but remain hidden from view. The fungal phenomenon, brought to light by researchers ...

The Nobel Prize winning scientists Professor Andre Geim and Professor Kostya Novoselov have taken a huge step forward in studying the wonder material graphene and revealing its exciting electronic properties for future electronic applications. Writing in the journal Science, the academics, who discovered the world's thinnest material at The University of Manchester in 2004, have revealed more about the electronic properties of its slightly fatter cousin – bilayer graphene. The researchers, from the universities of Manchester, Lancaster (UK), Nijmegen (the Netherland) ...

Thousands of tonnes of toxic mercury are released into the environment every year. Much of this collects in sediment where it is converted into toxic methyl mercury, and enters the food chain ending up in the fish we eat. New research, published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Biotechnology, showcases genetically engineered bacteria which are not only able to withstand high levels of mercury but are also able to mop up mercury from their surroundings. These mercury-resistant bacteria, developed by researchers from Inter American University of Puerto Rico, ...

(Edmonton, Canada) Access to health care and the usage of emergency departments are popular topics in the news. David Jones, a graduate student in the University of Alberta's School of Public Health, along with Linda Carroll, professor in the School of Public Health, and Leonard Frank, executive director of the Leduc Beaumont Devon Primary Care Network, recently completed a study that examined whether or not there was a clear association between the number of visits to the emergency department and the availability of an after-hours care clinic in Leduc, Alberta. Jones ...

After a heart attack or stroke, heart scarring can lead to dangerously paper-thin heart walls and a decreased ability to pump blood through the body. Although the heart is unable to completely heal itself, a new treatment developed at Tel Aviv University uses laser-treated bone marrow stem cells to help restore heart function and health. Combining the therapeutic benefits of low-level lasers — a process called "shining" — and bone marrow stem cells, Prof. Uri Oron of the Department of Zoology at TAU's George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences has developed an effective, ...

A team of researchers from the University of Valladolid (Spain) has analysed 40 brands of beer, discovering that dark beer has more free iron than pale and non-alcoholic beers. Iron is essential to the human diet, but also helps oxidise the organic compounds that give these beverages stability and flavour. According to the analysis carried out by the University of Valladolid (UVa) on 40 types of beers from all 5 continents, dark beers have an average free iron content of 121 ppb (parts per billion) compared to 92 ppb in pale beers and 63 ppb in non-alcoholic beers. "Although ...

Milan, Italy, August 11, 2011 – Memory is not a single process but is made up of several sub-processes relying on different areas of the brain. Episodic memory, the ability to remember specific events such as what you did yesterday, is known to be vulnerable to brain damage involving the hippocampus. The question is, what happens when damage to the hippocampus occurs very early in life? In a case study published in the September 2011 issue of Elsevier's Cortex, clinical neuropsychologists have reported that a child can develop normally despite severe damage to the hippocampus ...

Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) have mimicked the ways viruses infect human cells and deliver their genetic material. The research hopes to apply the approach to gene therapy – a therapeutic strategy to correct defective genes such as those that cause cancer. Gene therapy is still in its infancy, with obvious challenges around targeting damaged cells and creating corrective genes. An equally important challenge, addressed by this research, is finding ways to transport the corrective genes into the cell. This is a problem, because of the poor permeability ...

The Radiation Research Division at Risø DTU was suddenly very busy in March 2011 when the accident in Fukushima began to unfold. "In the first 14 days we couldn't do anything but answer questions from the media and monitor the event in collaboration with the Danish Emergency Management Agency," says Bent Lauritzen, Head of Programme in the Radiation Research Division at Risø DTU, and continues: "The report was almost ready to be issued, but after the accident we didn't think it made sense to send it out without mentioning the accident in Japan. Therefore, we have subsequently ...

Hysterectomy elevates the risk of stroke and coronary heart disease in young women when combined with the removal of both ovaries in the same operation. This fact provides the background for the epidemiological report by Andreas Stang and colleagues on hysterectomy rates in Germany, which appears in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2011; 108[30]: 508-14). Removal of the uterus (hysterectomy) is among the commonest procedures in surgical gynecology. Stang et al. based their report on nationwide statistics relating to diagnosis-related ...

Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is a safe and effective option for the treatment of dysplastic Barrett's esophagus that attains lasting response, according to a new study in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. Progression of disease, which can precede cancer, was rare in patients who underwent RFA treatment, and there was no procedure- or cancer-related mortality. "This study reports the longest duration of follow-up of patients undergoing radiofrequency ablation for pre-cancerous Barrett's esophagus," said Nicholas J. ...

A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientist is trying to learn what is causing the decline in bumble bee populations and also is searching for a species that can serve as the next generation of greenhouse pollinators. Bumble bees, like honey bees, are important pollinators of native plants and are used to pollinate greenhouse crops like peppers and tomatoes. But colonies of Bombus occidentalis used for greenhouse pollination began to suffer from disease problems in the late 1990s and companies stopped rearing them. Populations of other bumble bee species are also ...

CINCINNATI – A biochemical pathway long associated with diarrhea and intestinal function may provide a new therapeutic target for treating ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) other neuropsychiatric disorders, according to a team of scientists from China and the United States reporting Aug. 11 in Science. Scientists have for the last quarter century studied the intestinal membrane receptor protein, guanylyl cyclase-C (GC-C) for its role in diarrheal disease and other intestinal functions, according to Mitchell Cohen, M.D., U.S. author on the study and director ...

COLLEGE STATION – Though it may not sound very glamorous, a new method of extracting ammonium from liquid animal manure could be exciting news for both confined animal operations and environmental groups, according to a Texas AgriLife Extension Service engineer. The method uses gas-permeable membrane technology that tests have shown could remove 50 percent of the dissolved ammonium in liquid manure in 20 days. The removed ammonium is "not scrubbed but captured," said Dr. Saqib Mukhtar, AgriLife Extension engineer and interim associate department head of the Texas A&M ...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11—The steady improvement in speed and power of modern electronics may soon hit the brakes unless new ways are found to pack more structures into microscopic spaces. Unfortunately, engineers are already approaching the limit of what light—the choice tool for "tweezing" tiny features—can achieve. But there may be a way of reaching beyond this so-called "diffraction limit" by precisely steering, in real time, a curve-shaped beam of weird "virtual particles" known as surface plasmons. This technique, described in the Optical Society's (OSA) journal Optics ...

Dr. Bateman, dentist in South Charlotte, of Bateman Family Dental is now offering patients special offers for more affordable dental care. From complimentary consultations to Invisalign, patients can receive a variety of specials to best fit their dental needs and budget. Patients can visit the practice website for Dr. Bateman, dentist in South Charlotte, NC, to view and print various dental specials that are currently available. From the homepage, patients can simply click on the "special offers" link to find available dental deals. For those who are coming ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A visiting researcher from Sweden in the Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences' Biology Department has led an international team in culturing, characterizing and formally naming a new class of fungi that previously had only been identified through DNA sequencing from environmental samples. Structures on Roots The new fungal class Archaeorhizomyces, previously known as Soil Clone Group 1 (SCG1), has now been found in more than 50 ecological studies of soil fungi. Prior to the work reported by the team led by Swedish biologist Anna Rosling, ...

BOULDER—Although Arctic sea ice appears fated to melt as the climate continues to warm, the ice may temporarily stabilize or somewhat expand at times over the next few decades, new research indicates. The computer modeling study, by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, reinforces previous findings by other research teams that the level of Arctic sea ice loss observed in recent decades cannot be explained by natural causes alone, and that the ice will eventually disappear during summer if climate change continues. But in an unexpected new result, ...

The sex hormone oestrogen could help protect women from cardiovascular disease by keeping the body's immune system in check, new research from Queen Mary, University of London has revealed. The study has shown that the female sex hormone works on white blood cells to stop them from sticking to the insides of blood vessels, a process which can lead to dangerous blockages. The results could help explain why cardiovascular disease rates tend to be higher in men and why they soar in women after the menopause. The researchers compared white blood cells from men and pre-menopausal ...

Astronomers have discovered the darkest known exoplanet - a distant, Jupiter-sized gas giant known as TrES-2b. Their measurements show that TrES-2b reflects less than one percent of the sunlight falling on it, making it blacker than coal or any planet or moon in our solar system. "TrES-2b is considerably less reflective than black acrylic paint, so it's truly an alien world," said astronomer David Kipping of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), lead author on the paper reporting the research. In our solar system, Jupiter is swathed in bright clouds ...