Searching the web usually involves typing keywords or a phrase into a search engine and clicking the "search now" button. It's very effective and several large companies have become prominent in the field by providing users with searchable access to millions, if not billions of web pages in this way. However, according to researchers at Hewlett Packard in Palo Alto, California and Chinese technology company, Innovation Works, general search engines, while very effective at tracking down information, are nevertheless unstructured, which limits the user's ability to further ...

Trinitramid – that's the name of the new molecule that may be a component in future rocket fuel. This fuel could be 20-30 percent more efficient in comparison with the best rocket fuels we have today. The discovery was made at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden. "A rule of thumb is that for every ten-percent increase in efficiency for rocket fuel, the payload of the rocket can double. What's more, the molecule consists only of nitrogen and oxygen, which would make the rocket fuel environmentally friendly. This is more than can be said of today's solid ...

A major new fossil site in south-west China has filled in a sizeable gap in our understanding of how life on this planet recovered from the greatest mass extinction of all time, according to a paper co-authored by Professor Mike Benton, in the School of Earth Sciences, and published this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The work is led by scientists from the Chengdu Geological Center in China. Some 250 million years ago, at the end of the time known as the Permian, life was all but wiped out during a sustained period of massive volcanic eruption and devastating ...

Albert Einstein once said that science without religion is lame, and religion without science is blind. Now a Tel Aviv University researcher is one of the first to explore the link between these two realms in the Muslim world. Clinical psychologist Dr. Hisham Abu-Raiya of Tel Aviv University's Bob Shapell School of Social Work is investigating how various Islamic beliefs and practices impact the psychological well-being of its adherents. Among American Muslims, he's attempting to scientifically quantify how the after-effects of the 9/11 attacks have affected mental ...

While there are still couples who wait for a deep level of commitment before having sex, today it's far more common for two people to explore their sexual compatibility before making long-term plans together. So does either method lead to better marriages? A new study in the American Psychological Association's Journal of Family Psychology sides with a delayed approach. The study involves 2,035 married individuals who participated in a popular online marital assessment called "RELATE." From the assessment's database, researchers selected a sample designed to match ...

NASA and the National Science Foundation launched a scientific balloon on Monday, December 20, Eastern Standard time, to study the effects of cosmic rays on Earth. It was the first of five scientific balloons scheduled to launch from Antarctica in December. The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass (CREAM VI) experiment was designed and built at the University of Maryland. CREAM is investigating high-energy cosmic-ray particles that originated from distant supernovae explosions in the Milky Way and reached Earth. Currently, CREAM VI is floating 126,000 ft above Antarctica with ...

A team at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM) led by Dr. Tarik Möröy, President and Scientific Director of the institute and Director of the Hematopoiesis and Cancer research unit, will be publishing an important breakthrough in tomorrow's issue of Immunity, a scientific journal from the Cell Press group. The researchers identified a new regulator playing a critical role in the development B cells, which produce antibodies. Antibodies circulate through the blood and protect against infectious diseases originating from bacteria or viruses. A lack of ...

PITTSBURGH—An international team of researchers led by Carnegie Mellon University's Manojkumar Puthenveedu has discovered the mechanism by which signaling receptors recycle, a critical piece in understanding signaling receptor function. Writing in the journal Cell, the team for the first time describes how a signaling receptor travels back to the cell membrane after it has been activated and internalized. Signaling receptors live on the cell membrane waiting to be matched with their associated protein ligand. When they meet, the two join together like a lock and key, ...

TORONTO, December 22, 2010 − Research from York University is revealing which regions in the brain "fire up" when we suppress an automatic behaviour such as the urge to look at other people as we enter an elevator. A York study, published recently in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, used fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to track brain activity when study participants looked at an image of a facial expression with a word superimposed on it. Study participants processed the words faster than the facial expressions. However, when the word did ...

Researchers at the University of Granada have developed a new method for predicting the precise shade that a bleaching treatment will bring about for a patient's teeth. What is innovative about this method is that it allows researchers to successfully predict the outcome of a bleaching treatment, which will have a significant impact on such treatments, which are becoming more frequent. At present, dental offices routinely employ carbomide peroxide bleaching agents for tooth discoloration. As bleaching treatments have soft side effects –all of them temporary and mild– ...

Stanford University in the USA has an X-FEL (X-ray Free Electron Laser) with a pricetag of hundreds of millions. It provides images of 'molecules in action', using a kilometer-long electron accelerator. Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) have developed an alternative that can do many of the same things. However this alternative fits on a tabletop, and costs around half a million euro. That's why the researchers have jokingly called it 'the poor man's X-FEL'. It's one of the few remaining 'holy grails' of science: a system that allows you to observe ...

During recessions, increased spending on research and development and on advertising can benefit certain types of firms and punish others, according to researchers, who identified the firm types that spend most effectively. More than 10,000 firm-years of data from publicly listed U.S. firms from 1969 to 2008 -- a period that included seven recessions -- were examined by Gary L. Lilien, Distinguished Research Professor of Management Science, Penn State Smeal College of Business; Raji Srinivasan, University of Texas; and Shrihari Sridhar, Michigan State University. The ...

Citation: Jozwiak, S.; Habich, A.; Kotulska, K.; Sarnowska, A.; Kropiwnicki, T.; Janowski, M.; Jurkiewicz, E.; Lukomska, B.; Kmiec, T.; Walecki, J.; Roszkowski, M.; Litwin, M.; Oldak, T.; Boruczkowski, D.; Domanska-Janik, K. Intracerebroventricular Transplantation of Cord Blood-Derived Neural Progenitors in a Child With Severe Global Brain Ischemic Injury. Cell Medicine 1(2):71-80; 2010. The editorial offices for Cell Medicine are at the Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair, College of Medicine, the University of South Florida. Contact, David Eve, PhD. ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A study comparing the long-term outcomes of patients with spinal-cord tumors following radiation therapy suggests that certain subsets of patients have better long-term survival. It also suggests that photon-based radiation therapy may result in better survival than proton-beam therapy, even in patients with more favorable characteristics. This is the first study to report the long-term outcomes of spinal-cord tumor patients treated by modern radiotherapy techniques, the researchers say. Gliomas, which represent most spinal cord tumors, develop in about ...

Montreal, December 22, 2010 – Obese people are more likely to report exercise as a trigger for asthma. Of 673 people evaluated in a new study whose results are published in the journal The Physician and Sportsmedicine, 71 percent of participants reported exercise-induced asthma (ETA). The findings are important, since 2.3 million Canadians are affected by asthma according to Statistics Canada. ETA affects up to 90 percent of asthma sufferers, says lead author Simon Bacon, a professor at the Concordia Department of Exercise Science and a researcher at the Hôpital du ...

Why do people choose present consumption over their long-term financial interests? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research finds that consumers have trouble feeling connected to their future selves. "This willingness to forego money now and wait for future benefits is strongly affected by how connected we feel to our future self, who will ultimately benefit from the resources we save," write authors Daniel M. Bartels (Columbia Business School) and Oleg Urminsky (University of Chicago). When we think of saving money for the future, the person we think of can ...

Although it is the third most frequent cause of death in Germany, blood poisoning is frequently underestimated. In this country, 60,000 persons die every year from some form of sepsis, almost as many as from heart attacks. The Sepsis Nexus of Expertise states that patients arriving at the intensive care ward with blood poisoning only have a 50% chance of surviving. One of the reasons for the high mortality rate is the fact that patients are not correctly treated due to late diagnosis. The doctor and the patient used to have to wait as much as 48 hours for the laboratory ...

People who feel powerful are more likely to believe they can beat cancer if it's described in human terms, according to new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. The study looks at anthropomorphism, or the tendency to attribute humanlike characteristics, intentions, and behavior to nonhuman objects. "The present research shows important downstream consequences of anthropomorphism that go beyond simple liking of products with humanlike physical features," write authors Sara Kim and Ann L. McGill (both University of Chicago). Previous consumer research has already ...

People are happier when goods are more equally distributed, but equality makes people want to spend more to get ahead of their neighbors, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. Authors Nailya Ordabayeva (Erasmus University, The Netherlands) and Pierre Chandon (INSEAD, France) examined the way equality influences the consumption decisions of people in the bottom tiers of social groups. The researchers found that increasing equality decreases bottom-tier consumer envy of what other people have and boosts their satisfaction with their possessions. ...

The way people treat their possessions looks like love, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Is it possible for consumers to be in love with their possessions?" ask authors John L. Lastovicka (Arizona State University) and Nancy J. Sirianni (Texas Christian University). When it comes to cars, computers, bicycles, and firearms, the answer seems to be a resounding yes. The researchers visited five car shows in Arizona and conducted in-depth interviews with car enthusiasts (males and females, aged 19-68). They found that love-smitten consumers ...

Adventure seekers are plunking down more than $50,000 to climb Mount Everest, but a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research finds that people who pay for transformative experiences often lack the communitarian spirit that usually defines such activities. "In order to escape the rules, contraptions, and stresses of daily life in the city, many people search for new and liberating experiences that transcend their normal bureaucratic and corporate existence," write authors Gülnur Tumbat (San Francisco State University) and Russell W. Belk (York University). However, ...

If a vegetarian has to buy a steakhouse gift certificate for a friend, her discomfort will lead her to buy something else that reaffirms her identity, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "When gift givers choose a gift that matches the identity of the recipient but is contrary to their own identity, they experience discomfort," write authors Morgan K. Ward (Southern Methodist University) and Susan M. Broniarczyk (University of Texas). This discomfort leads consumers to choose other products that express their identities. The authors investigated ...

Picture the following: With great care, a robot picks up a gear wheel in one hand, a housing in the other, and places the two together. When they don't immediately engage, it breaks off its movement. Slowly, it twists the gear wheel round a little and tries again. This time the wheel slots easily into its mounting. The robot smiles, and places the correctly assembled part on the conveyor belt. The pi4-workerbot is capable of making many more movements than a normal robot and is the jewel in the crown of the EU-funded PISA research project, which aims to introduce greater ...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22, 2010 — Just in time for New Year's Eve, and the arrival of the International Year of Chemistry, a study may settle that long-standing disagreement over the best way to pour a glass of champagne: Scientists in France are reporting that pouring bubbly in an angled, down-the-side way is best for preserving its taste and fizz. The study also reports the first scientific evidence confirming the importance of chilling champagne before serving to enhance its taste. They reported in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. ...

The AZTI-Tecnalia technological centre, in a project undertaken by the Tecnolat and Llet de Catalunya dairy product companies within the FUTURAL project, has verified that, as an alternative to the traditional heat treatment for decontamination of a number of dairy products, high pressure technology is highly recommendable. In fact, according to a press release from Tecnolat, the results, especially with ready-to-eat fruit products and in the inactivation of moulds and yeasts in other dairy products, "were highly positive and promising". The research and trials carried ...