CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- In the arid Namib Desert on the west coast of Africa, one type of beetle has found a distinctive way of surviving. When the morning fog rolls in, the Stenocara gracilipes species, also known as the Namib Beetle, collects water droplets on its bumpy back, then lets the moisture roll down into its mouth, allowing it to drink in an area devoid of flowing water. What nature has developed, Shreerang Chhatre wants to refine, to help the world's poor. Chhatre is an engineer and aspiring entrepreneur at MIT who works on fog harvesting, the deployment of devices ...

Scientists at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow are developing a technique based on a new discovery which could pave the way towards detecting Alzheimer's disease in its earliest stages - and could help to develop urgently-needed treatments. The technique uses the ratio of detected fluorescence signals to indicate that clusters of peptide associated with the disease are beginning to gather and to have an impact on the brain. Current techniques are not able to see the peptide joining together until more advanced stages but a research paper from Strathclyde describes ...

A better understanding of corrosion resistance may be possible using a data-mining tool, according to Penn State material scientists. This tool may also aid research in other areas where massive amounts of information exist. In data mining -- a branch of computer science -- computer programs categorize large amounts of data so they become more useful. Different types of data-mining programs can find correlations between data on specific subjects, or in different areas of a single subject. Data mining finds similarities and differences among data parameters that frequently, ...

Online retailer HMV reveals the most popular gadgets, CDs, DVDs and video game titles available for pre-order and release during April through their online store at hmv.com. Movies The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest DVD - Release date: 4th April 2011 The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest is the explosive final installment of Stieg Larsson's trilogy which began with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Leading on from the conclusion of The Girl who Played with Fire, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) is under police custody and about to face the murder trial that has ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – A study of DNA rearrangements in roundworm chromosomes may offer new insight into large-scale genome duplications that occur in developing tumors. A report of the research led by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine scientists was published in the April 22 online edition of the journal Science. The study focused on telomeres, a region of repetitive DNA sequence that protects the ends of chromosomes from deterioration or from fusing with other chromosomes. In many organisms, including humans, chromosome ends are capped by ...

There's no question, drugs work in treating disease. But can they work better, and safer? In recent years, researchers have grappled with the challenge of administering therapeutics in a way that boosts their effectiveness by targeting specific cells in the body while minimizing their potential damage to healthy tissue. The development of new methods that use engineered nanomaterials to transport drugs and release them directly into cells holds great potential in this area. And while several such drug-delivery systems — including some that use dendrimers, liposomes ...

April 18, 2011 – Illicit drug overdose deaths declined dramatically after the establishment of North America's first supervised injection facility located in Vancouver, Canada, according to the findings of a groundbreaking new study published in The Lancet. In the first peer-reviewed study to assess the impact of supervised injection sites on overdose mortality, researchers observed a 35% reduction in overdose deaths in the immediate vicinity of a pilot injection facility called Insite located in Vancouver, Canada, following its opening in September 2003. By contrast, ...

PITTSBURGH—Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute have leveraged the latest browser technology to create GigaPan Time Machine, a system that enables viewers to explore gigapixel-scale, high-resolution videos and image sequences by panning or zooming in and out of the images while simultaneously moving back and forth through time. Viewers, for instance, can use the system to focus in on the details of a booth within a panorama of a carnival midway, but also reverse time to see how the booth was constructed. Or they can watch a group of plants sprout, ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The Earth may be able to recover from rising carbon dioxide emissions faster than previously thought, according to evidence from a prehistoric event analyzed by a Purdue University-led team. When faced with high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and rising temperatures 56 million years ago, the Earth increased its ability to pull carbon from the air. This led to a recovery that was quicker than anticipated by many models of the carbon cycle - though still on the order of tens of thousands of years, said Gabriel Bowen, the associate professor ...

What is a dental bridge? A dental bridge is a solution for missing teeth. Using a false tooth, a dental bridge is attached to two porcelain crowns and affixed to your adjacent teeth to hold it into place. Once in place, the false tooth restores symmetry, function, and beauty to your smile. Can a dental bridge be used to replace several teeth? Depending on how many teeth you need to have replaced, there are three different types of dental bridges. Traditional fixed bridges and cantilever bridges can be used to replace several missing teeth at one time. Resin-bonded ...

Do you belong to the one-half of the population that frequently uses dietary supplements with the hope that it might be good for you? Well, according to a study published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, there seems to be an interesting asymmetrical relationship between the frequency of dietary supplement use and the health status of individuals. Wen-Bin Chiou of National Sun Yat-Sen University decided to test if frequent use of dietary supplements had ironic consequences for subsequent health-related ...

Headaches are one of the more common medical complaints people have. Headaches can range from annoying to debilitating. Another problem with headaches is that they can be chronic, returning day after day. Despite their frequency, it can be very hard to track down the cause of headaches. If you have been to one or more doctors to seek help with your headaches, but have been able to get a true diagnosis and successful headache treatment, perhaps you need to go in a different direction. Perhaps you need a dentist. Could Your Teeth Be Causing Your Headaches? Where ...

What tales they tell of their former lives, these old bones of sirenians, relatives of today's dugongs and manatees. And now, geologists have found, they tell of the waters in which they swam. While researching the evolutionary ecology of ancient sirenians--commonly known as sea cows--scientist Mark Clementz and colleagues unexpectedly stumbled across data that could change the view of climate during the Eocene Epoch, some 50 million years ago. Clementz, from the University of Wyoming, published the results in a paper in this week's issue of the journal Science. He ...

All women have uneven breasts, but the difference can be so pronounced in many women as to create difficulty finding bras and clothes that fit properly. Extreme breast asymmetry can also lead to feelings of insecurity and depression about your appearance. The difference between breasts can be subtle in some women, dramatic in others; it can also include corresponding conditions such as uneven nipples, varying areolas or differently shaped breasts. The causes of uneven breasts can also differ. Asymmetrical breasts can be genetic in nature or brought about by hormonal ...

Maryland Court of Appeals Upholds Statutory Damages Cap Last year brought one significant disappointing legal development for Maryland personal injury victims and wrongful death survivors. While plaintiffs in Illinois and Georgia received news from their state's highest courts that damages should be determined by juries rather than politicians, the Maryland Court of Appeals issued an opinion that upheld the cap on damages passed by the state legislature over two decades ago. Insurance companies and other "tort reform" advocates were understandably pleased with ...

Athens, Ga. – Researchers at the University of Georgia and Yale University have discovered a compound with the potential to be more effective than existing agents in treating the very painful blisters known as shingles—a condition that affects up to 30 percent of Americans, mostly elderly, and for which no specific treatment exists. Most adults remember the fever, itchy blisters and possibly tiny scars they experienced as children when they had chickenpox, which is caused by the varicella-zoster virus, or VZV.Unfortunately, that memory can come back—with a vengeance—when ...

North Carolina Appeals Court Reverses Workers' Compensation Award A recent North Carolina Court of Appeals opinion took a close look issues of medical causation and liability in North Carolina workers' compensation cases. The case, Gross v. Gene Bennett Co., involved a claim for workers' compensation benefits from a welder and steel fabricator who injured his back after falling through a suspended ceiling over ten feet to a concrete floor. The plaintiff initially missed about two months of work after receiving medical treatment and occupational therapy and receiving ...

April 21, 2011 -- (Bronx, NY) -- Transplanting cells from healthy adult livers may work in treating a genetic liver-lung disorder that affects millions of people worldwide, according to an animal study in the April 18 online edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Jayanta Roy-Chowdhury, M.D. , professor of medicine and of genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, is the study's senior author. The genetic disorder, alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT) deficiency, is the most common potentially lethal hereditary disease among Caucasians, affecting ...

UCLA researchers have redefined the concept of a microscope by removing the lens to create a system that is small enough to fit in the palm of a hand but powerful enough to create three-dimensional tomographic images of miniscule samples. The advance, featured this week in the early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, represents the first demonstration of lens-free optical tomographic imaging on a chip, a technique capable of producing high-resolution 3-D images of large volumes of microscopic objects. "This research clearly ...

High-Profile California Cases Draw Attention to Employee Misclassification Recent lawsuits filed in California courts against Franklin American Mortgage Company, Raytheon, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Ecolab are highlighting the oft-ignored issue of employee misclassification. The intentional -- or even accidental -- misclassification of employees can make them ineligible for payment of overtime benefits, mandatory rest periods, covered meal times, uniform reimbursement and other employee perks. California Overtime Payment Laws California has some of the most employee-friendly ...

New research on mice has shown that pulmonary administration of granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) significantly reduces flu symptoms and prevents death after a lethal dose influenza virus. While GM-SCF therapy for humans as a flu prophylaxis or treatment may be years away, the study results were striking: All of the mice treated with GM-SCF survived after being infected with the influenza virus, whereas untreated mice all died from the same infection. "Such unique and unambiguous results demonstrate the great potential of GM-CSF and may be the ...

Scotland's first fully protected marine reserve, and only the second in the UK, is already providing commercial and conservation benefits, according to new research. After only two years in operation, it is already showing positive signs for both fishermen and conservationists, according to a study by the University of York and the Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST). The research, published in the journal Marine Biology, shows that commercially valuable scallops and several species of algae known to promote biodiversity are much more abundant in the marine reserve, ...

Delivering the News: How to Tell the Kids You Are Getting a Divorce Choosing to get a divorce can be a difficult decision, especially if you and your spouse have children. However, communicating the facts of your decision and simply explaining how the children's lives will change -- and how they will stay the same -- can make the transition a better experience for them. To deliver the divorce news in an understandable and kid-friendly way, Lynn Louise Wonders, a licensed professional counselor who works with children and families going through divorce, offers the ...

PHOENIX, Ariz.-- April 22, 2011-- A gene called PVT1 may help reduce the kidneys ability to filter blood, leading to kidney disease, kidney failure and death, according to a study published today by researchers at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen). The TGen team found PVT1 expression levels increased up to 5-fold in response to hyperglycemia, or high blood sugar, a condition that often accompanies diabetes. But by knocking down or reducing the expression of the PVT1gene, TGen researchers lowered the amount of proteins associated with the excessive ...

An article in Science Signaling by researchers at the RIKEN Research Center for Allergy and Immunology (RCAI) has clarified for the first time the mechanism governing differentiation of B cells into antibody-producing plasma cells. The finding establishes a role for the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signaling pathway in B cell differentiation, a key step toward the development of B cell-targeted drugs for treatment of autoimmune diseases and allergies. As the only cells in the body that produce antibodies, B cells play an essential role in the immune system's ...