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Energy14 Dec 2010

Calculating tidal energy turbines' effects on sediments and fish

VIDEO: This is a computer simulation of how sediment particles suspended in the water would change as they pass through a tidal turbine. Some particles speed up (turn red) as they... Click here for more information. The emerging tidal-energy industry is spawning another in its shadow: tidal-energy monitoring. Little is known about tidal turbines' environmental effects and environmentalists, regulators and turbine manufacturers all need more data to allow the industry ...

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Medicine14 Dec 2010

Indian study reveals that three-quarters of hip fracture patients are vitamin D deficient

A study from New Delhi India has revealed high rates of vitamin D deficiency among hip fracture patients, confirming the conclusions of similar international studies which point to vitamin D deficiency as a risk factor for hip fracture. A group of 90 hip fracture patients was compared to a matched control group of similar age, sex and co-morbidity. Of the patients who had suffered hip fractures, 76.7% were shown to be vitamin D deficient as measured by serum 25(OH)D levels of less than 20 ng/ml. In addition, 68.9% had elevated PTH levels. In comparison, only 32.3% of ...

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Science14 Dec 2010

Researchers show rapid rise of hip fracture rates in Beijing

A new study presented today at the 1st Asia-Pacific Osteoporosis Meeting in Singapore confirms rising rates of hip fractures in Beijing, China. The research was based on hospital discharge data from all Beijing hospitals that treat hip fracture patients, collected from 1990-1992 and 2002-2006 and using official population census figures for 1990 and 2004. The researchers identified over- and under-reporting caused by changes in methods of reporting and in patterns of referral over these two time periods. After adjustments were made, it was found that the rate of hip ...

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Science14 Dec 2010

Widespread vitamin D deficiency a concern in Asia

Bone health experts attending the 1st Asia-Pacific Osteoporosis Meeting in Singapore this week have flagged vitamin D deficiency as a major concern in the region, particularly in South Asia where the problem is especially severe and widespread across the entire population. Dr. Nikhil Tandon, Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences of New Delhi, India highlighted the results of various studies which show severe deficiency across India and Pakistan in all age groups, as well as insufficiency in populations of South-East and ...

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Environment14 Dec 2010

Oldest fossils found in Cordillera Betica mountain range

Spanish researchers have found fossils of Ordovician conodonts dating to between 446 and 444 million years ago for the first time in the western Mediterranean. The discovery of these very primitive marine vertebrates has helped scientists to reconstruct the palaeogeography of the Cordillera Bética mountain range. Their study shows that the mountain system in the south of the Iberian Peninsula was located alongside the Alps at that time. In 2006, a group of Andalusian geologists found the oldest fossils in the Cordillera Bética, dating from the late Ordovician period between ...

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Science14 Dec 2010

Children who don't like fruit and vegetables are 13 times more likely to be constipated

Primary school children who don't like eating fruit and vegetables are 13 times more likely to develop functional constipation than children who do, according to a study in the December issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing. Drinking less than 400ml of fluid a day also significantly increases the risk. Dr Moon Fai Chan, assistant professor at the National University of Singapore, teamed up with Yuk Ling Chan, from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, to study the diet and toileting habits of 383 children aged from eight to ten from a school in Hong Kong. Fifty-one ...

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Science14 Dec 2010

Jellyfish counterattack in winter

A study carried out over 50 years by an international team, with the participation of the Balearic Oceanography Centre of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) has confirmed an increase in the size and intensity of proliferations of the jellyfish Pelagia noctiluca. There are several complex reasons for this - over-fishing and the current increase in sea water temperatures. "Since 2002, these organisms have become increasingly frequently found in the north east Atlantic in winter, since winters have been warmer, and they have tended to appear earlier and spend more ...

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Medicine14 Dec 2010

How cells export and embed proteins in the membrane

Like an overprotective parent on the first day of school, a targeting factor sometimes needs a little push to let go of its cargo. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Grenoble, France, have visualised one such hand-over. They were the first to determine the structure of a ribosome-protein complex involved in carrying nascent proteins out of the cell. Their work, published today in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, could increase understanding of illnesses such as cystic fibrosis and some forms of Parkinson's disease, in which improper ...

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Science14 Dec 2010

Smoking behind more than a third of severe rheumatoid arthritis cases

Smoking accounts for more than a third of cases of the most severe and common form of rheumatoid arthritis, indicates research published online in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. And it accounts for more than half of cases in people who are genetically susceptible to development of the disease, finds the study. The researchers base their findings on more than 1,200 people with rheumatoid arthritis and 871 people matched for age and sex, but free of the disease. The patients came from 19 health clinics in south and central Sweden, while their healthy peers were ...

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Medicine14 Dec 2010

UK ill prepared for 'epidemic' of degenerative valvular heart disease

The UK is poorly prepared for the forthcoming epidemic of degenerative valvular heart disease, prompted by a rapidly ageing population, say leading experts in the journal Heart. The prevalence of valvular heart disease, or VHD for short, rises with age. European and US data indicate that more than 13% of those aged 75 and above have the progressive condition. And by 2018, there will be an estimated 4 million people in the UK aged between 75 and 84. The exact causes of VHD have been poorly researched, but the condition is associated with a great deal of ill health, poor ...

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Medicine14 Dec 2010

UK medical student ophthalmology teaching falling short

UK medical schools are failing to comply with the recommended curriculum for ophthalmology, set out by the International Council of Ophthalmologists (ICO), suggests a survey published online in the British Journal of Ophthalmology. Amid concerns that the specialty was being squeezed out of undergraduate education, the council urged medical schools to make it a core subject and produced guidance to help them do this. But a questionnaire sent to 32 UK medical schools, which prompted 18 to complete returns, shows that while all include ophthalmology in the curriculum, ...

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Science14 Dec 2010

Unlawful killing of newborns soon after birth 5 times higher than thought

Although rare, the true incidence of neonaticides - the unlawful killing of a baby within the first 24 hours of its life - is more than five times as common as official estimates suggest, suggests research published online in the Fetal and Neonatal edition of the Archives of Disease in Childhood. Low maternal self esteem and emotional immaturity, rather than obvious mental illness or social disadvantage, are key drivers, the research indicates. The researchers reviewed the case records of 26 courts in three regions of France, involving the death of a child within the ...

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Science14 Dec 2010

A new mechanism for reversible proteasome inhibition

What makes cancer cells so dangerous is that they grow in an unregulated way and proliferate much faster than other cells. The proteasome, a large protein complex, plays a key role in this process: By breaking down used proteins for recycling, it clears the way for the next cycle. New hope was spawned several years ago with the discovery that inhibiting proteasomes can be used as a means to put the brakes on cell growth. In the mean time, the first drug using this approach, Bortezomib, generates revenues in excess of one billion U.S. dollars per year. However, it also inhibits ...

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Science14 Dec 2010

A study analyzes the movement of tree sap

The researchers decided to embark on this study in order to find out which mechanisms are used by plants when they extract water from very dry or somewhat inhospitable land. "In the case of mangrove swamps, for example, the plants are able to extract freshwater from a saltwater environment, despite the fact that the osmotic pressure should make quite the opposite happen", explains Professor José Luis Pérez Díaz, who studies this type of relatively unknown phenomenon as part of a new line of research that the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC3M has begun. The ...

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Science14 Dec 2010

Choose a movie's plot -- while you watch it

Tel Aviv ― Will Rona and Sol kiss and seal their fate as a couple forever, or will Sol answer the ringing phone and change the course of history? A new movie format developed by Tel Aviv University lets the viewer decide. Utilizing complicated video coding procedures, the new format provides smooth interaction and transition between scenes as audience members watch ― and determine the plot of ― Turbulence, created by Prof. Nitzan Ben Shaul of Tel Aviv University's Department of Film and Television. Made with his unique scene-sequencing technique, Turbulence ...

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Environment14 Dec 2010

Earthshaking possibilities may limit underground storage of carbon dioxide

Storing massive amounts of carbon dioxide underground in an effort to combat global warming may not be easy to do because of the potential for triggering small- to moderate-sized earthquakes, according to Stanford geophysicist Mark Zoback. While those earthquakes are unlikely to be big enough to hurt people or property, they could still cause serious problems for the reservoirs containing the gas. "It is not the shaking an earthquake causes at the surface that creates the hazard in this instance, it is what it does at depth," Zoback said. "It may not take a very big ...

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Social Science14 Dec 2010

Britain at political crossroads

The National Centre for Social Research today released its latest British Social Attitudes report, its landmark study of the public's attitudes and values, published annually for almost thirty years. This year's report delivers the public's verdict after thirteen years of Labour rule. It shows a nation at a political crossroads. On the one hand attitudes on welfare have hardened to the right. On the other, many think there were marked improvements in health and education under Labour, creating potential resistance to reform or cuts in these areas. A shift to the right ...

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Medicine14 Dec 2010

R-E-S-P-E-C-T: The health of health care depends on it

INDIANAPOLIS – Along with integrity and compassion, respect for patients, colleagues and other team members is an essential attribute of medical professionalism. A new study examines how medical students learn respectful or disrespectful professional behavior. "Exploring the Meaning of Respect in Medical Student Education: An Analysis of Student Narratives" appears in the December 2010 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. From the observations and conclusions of third-year medical students, the article provides insight into how future physicians acquire ...

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Science14 Dec 2010

Guidance on preventing unintentional injuries to children

Researchers from the Peninsula Technology Assessment Group (PenTAG) at the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry have contributed to new National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance on preventing unintentional injury to the under-15s. The public health guidance is based on reviews of research evidence produced by the team at PenTAG. There are three linked pieces of guidance on: home safety assessments and safety equipment; road design and modification; and broader strategies to prevent unintentional injuries to among children and young people ...

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Science14 Dec 2010

Rice researchers take molecule's temperature

You can touch a functioning light bulb and know right away that it's hot. Ouch! But you can't touch a single molecule and get the same feedback. Rice University researchers say they have the next best thing -- a way to determine the temperature of a molecule or flowing electrons by using Raman spectroscopy combined with an optical antenna. A new paper from the lab of Douglas Natelson, a Rice professor of physics and astronomy, details a technique that measures the temperature of molecules set between two gold nanowires and heated either by current applied to the wires ...

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Science14 Dec 2010

Tracking down particulates

For some years now, consumers have been making increasing use of wood as a fuel – and not only on account of the rising cost of heating oil and natural gas. "Comfort fireplaces" have become all the rage because open fires, tiled and wood-burning stoves give a room a snug and cozy feel. But using wood for heating has one distinct disadvantage. When pellets, logs or briquettes are burnt, fine dust particles that are hazardous to health are released into the atmosphere. These particles are known to cause coughs, place stress on the cardiovascular system, and are thought to ...

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Earth Science14 Dec 2010

'Array of arrays' coaxing secrets from unfelt seismic tremor events

Every 15 months or so, an unfelt earthquake occurs in western Washington and travels northward to Canada's Vancouver Island. The episode typically releases as much energy as a magnitude 6.5 earthquake, but it does so gradually over a month. New technology is letting University of Washington researchers get a much better picture of how these episodic tremor events relate to potentially catastrophic earthquakes, perhaps as powerful as magnitude 9, that occur every 300 to 500 years in the Cascadia subduction zone in western Washington, Oregon and British Columbia. "Depending ...

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Science14 Dec 2010

Less than they are worth

Carsten Beier from the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT in Oberhausen, Germany does not believe that "anyone would burn a 50-dollar bill just to keep warm. It's obvious that it simply is too valuable for that." But, in contrast to dollar bills, most energy carriers are all too frequently burned for less than they are worth. Take wood, for example. Beier and his colleagues have analyzed the efficiency of heat supply systems and he explains that "wood is a high-quality fuel that can be compared to natural gas. With adequate technologies ...

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Science14 Dec 2010

Decline of West Coast fog brought higher coastal temperatures last 60 years

Fog is a common feature along the West Coast during the summer, but a University of Washington scientist has found that summertime coastal fog has declined since 1950 while coastal temperatures have increased slightly. Fog formation appears to be controlled by a high-pressure system normally present off the West Coast throughout the summer, said James Johnstone, a postdoctoral researcher with the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean at the UW. "The behavior of that high-pressure cell is responsible for a lot of the weather phenomena we see on ...

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Environment14 Dec 2010

CMU's research finds large uncertainty in carbon footprint calculating

PITTSBURGH—How much is that new computer server contributing to your company's carbon footprint? What about the laptop you bought your child for Christmas? As it turns out, answering those questions may be more difficult than you might think. The results of a recent study by Carnegie Mellon's Christopher Weber found that the calculation of carbon footprints for products is often riddled with large uncertainties, particularly related to the use of electronic goods. Weber, an adjunct professor in the university's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering ...

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