Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have discovered that our ears use the most efficient way to process the sounds we hear, from babbling brooks to wailing babies. These results represent a significant advance in understanding how sound is encoded for transmission to the brain, according to the authors, whose work is published with an accompanying “News and Views” editorial in the Feb. 23 issue of Nature.
The latest national poll conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) Project on the Public and Biological Security finds that at the moment, the majority of the American public is concerned about the threat of avian flu, but only a small proportion is very concerned. However, should cases of avian flu emerge in poultry or humans in this country, the public reaction could lead to significant disruption of the economy and the health care system.
A comprehensive study into the impact of swimming pools in remote Aboriginal communities has found significant health and social benefits for children. A research team from the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research has followed the health status of children from Jigalong, Burringurrah and Mugarinya Aboriginal communities since 2000 when the remote community pools were first opened.
Political abuse of science, such as the recent attempts to stop NASA sceintists from public statements about the possiblity that global warming may be pushing Earth to a “tipping point,” have a long history.
Today’s political abusers of science are pikers compared to the Nazis, and no one claims that their motives and ideology are as vile as those who viewed themselves as members of the “Master Race.” Still, it’s useful to look back at Nazi tactics to see how easy it is to abuse science to achieve political objectives.
Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center say they now have a clearer picture of how an extract from the leaves of the Ginkgo biloba tree reduces the risk of aggressive cancer in animal experiments.
Engineers have found a way to pinpoint and identify the tiny iron oxide particles associated with Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases in the brain. The technique is likely to accelerate research on the cause of the diseases and could lead to the first diagnostic procedure for Alzheimer’s in patients while they are alive.
New research into a missing link in climatology shows that the Earth was not overcome by a greenhouse period when dinosaurs dominated, but experienced rapid fluctuations in temperature and sea level change that resulted in a balance of the global carbon cycle. The study is being published in the March issue of Geology.
Researchers from the Monell Chemical Senses Center have succeeded in growing mature taste receptor cells outside the body and for the first time have been able to successfully keep the cells alive for a prolonged period of time. The establishment of a viable long-term model opens a range of new opportunities to increase scientists’ understanding of the sense of taste and how it functions in nutrition, health and disease.
For many years, the shortage of Braille teachers in the United States has created challenges for blind students of all ages who wish to read the ubiquitous system of raised-dot text. In the 1990s, with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), renowned educator and innovator for the blind, Sally Mangold of Exceptional Teaching, Inc., developed the Speech Assisted Learning (SAL) device to counter the shortage. The device broke new ground by providing mathematics and Braille reading lessons, in both English and Spanish, in a flat, notebook-sized tool. Mangold passed away almost exactly one year ago, but her friends and colleagues have recently come together to ensure that her work continues.
Bacteria could help transform a key component of disposable cups, plates and utensils into a useful eco-friendly plastic, significantly reducing the environmental impact of this ubiquitous, but difficult-to-recycle waste stream, according to a study scheduled to appear in the April 1 issue of the American Chemical Society journal, Environmental Science & Technology.
By combining quantum computation and quantum interrogation, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have found an exotic way of determining an answer to an algorithm – without ever running the algorithm.
Like a friendly, non-biological form of the Borg Collective of science fiction fame, 80 personal computers, using artificial intelligence (AI), have combined their silicon brains to quickly design a tiny, advanced space antenna.
Anxiously awaited follow-up observations with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed the presence of two new moons around the distant planet Pluto. The moons were first discovered by Hubble in May 2005, but the science team probed even deeper into the Pluto system last week to look for additional satellites and to characterize the orbits of the moons.
Deeply buried ocean sediments may house populations of tiny organisms that have extremely low maintenance energy needs and population turnover rates of anywhere from 200 to 2,000 years, according to an international team of researchers.
On February 13, high-school juniors and seniors were able to access their January 2006 SAT scores through the College Board website. The test is an important step toward gaining college acceptance. But new research shows that the test may go far beyond predicting college success; when taken in the early teens, it may actually foretell a person’s success and life satisfaction after university.
Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found evidence that a hormone produced in the stomach directly stimulates the higher brain functions of spatial learning and memory development, and further suggests that we may learn best on an empty stomach.
For governments and corporations in the business of transmitting sensitive data such as banking records or personal information over fibre optic cables, a new system demonstrated by University of Toronto researchers offers the protective equivalent of a fire-breathing dragon.
Scientists have discovered that rarest of things: a chicken with teeth – crocodile teeth to be precise. Contrary to the well-known phrase, ‘As rare as hens’ teeth,’ the researchers say they have found a naturally occurring mutant chicken called Talpid that has a complete set of ivories. The team, based at the Universities of Manchester and Wisconsin, have also managed to induce teeth growth in normal chickens – activating genes that have lain dormant for 80 million years.
