ScienceBlog.com

Warnings that alcohol and driving don’t mix are generally targeted at adults or high school students, but a new University of Georgia study finds that some middle schoolers in rural areas are drinking and driving as well.

According to the most comprehensive survey of people affected by Hurricane Katrina, results of which are being presented today to the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery, the percentage of pre-hurricane residents of the affected areas in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi who have mental disorders has increased significantly compared to the situation five to eight months after the hurricane. These findings counter a more typical pattern from previous disasters where prevalence of mental disorders decreases as time passes.

A breakthrough in the search for the ultimate alternative energy source.

Make way for the real nanopod and make room in the Guinness World Records. A team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley have created the first fully functional radio from a single carbon nanotube, which makes it by several orders of magnitude the smallest radio ever made.

In a familiar high-school chemistry demonstration, an instructor first uses electricity to split liquid water into its constituent gases, hydrogen and oxygen. Then, by combining the two gases and igniting them with a spark, the instructor changes the gases back into water with a loud pop.

Bulletproof jackets do not turn security guards, police officers and armed forces into Robocops, repelling the force of bullets in their stride. New research in carbon nanotechnology however could give those in the line of fire materials which can bounce bullets without a trace of damage.

A recent study of an ancient growing medium has implications for advancing growth and yield of greenhouse crops grown in soilless conditions.

Science lost its foundation when Heisenberg discovered Uncertainty. Since then the mind of humanity has been evolving in a disordered manner, with out a fixed direction. Science is being exploited recklessly endangering the world. Revival of spirituality has led to “Gods warriors”, with battle cry for “Mother all Battles”. Both seem to set for destruction of the world. The world cannot survive unless the Reality of Nature and its oneness are revealed. Biophysical Reality gives a new platform for the mind to settle down and have a direction.

One in every eight (12.2 percent) of the 47 million Americans without health insurance is a veteran or member of a veteran’s household, according to a study by Harvard Medical School researchers based at the Cambridge Health Alliance.

In a feat that seems like something out of a microscopic version of Star Trek, MIT researchers have found a way to use a “tractor beam” of light to pick up, hold, and move around individual cells and other objects on the surface of a microchip.

Nematode worms treated with lithium show a 46 percent increase in lifespan, raising the tantalizing question of whether humans taking the mood affecting drug are also taking an anti-aging medication.

Starting Down syndrome infants on treadmill training for just minutes a day can help them walk up to four or five months earlier than with only traditional physical therapy, a new study from the University of Michigan says.

Wanted: Bacterium that can eat sugar or sludge; must be team player or electrochemically active; ability to survive without oxygen, a plus. Thus might read the bacterial “job description” posted by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Washington University (WU) scientists, who are collaborating on ways to make microbial fuel cells more efficient and practical.

Their infiltration began – like so many other infiltrations – with a tell-tale contrail of smoke and flame creating a supersonic slash across the afternoon sky. But this time they would not go unnoticed. This time, two Australian station workers, just going about their job, opening a gate to a boundary fence, witnessed their arrival.

The research and development component of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), a program that aims to reprocess spent nuclear fuel which could then be shared with partner countries, should not go forward at its current pace, says a new report from the National Research Council. DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, of which GNEP is a part, should instead assign the highest priority to facilitating the startup of new commercial nuclear power plants, a program that is currently falling behind schedule due to funding gaps.

Researchers have determined that television viewing is not only linked to childhood obesity, but also to hypertension in children, according to a study published in the December 2007 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Scientists at Newcastle University have developed a cancer fighting technology which uses UV light to activate antibodies which very specifically attack tumours.

Thresholds limiting bariatric surgeries to high-volume centers disproportionately restrict access for poor and underinsured patients, populations which are among the most in need of them, an analysis led by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers shows.

People who are optimistic are more likely than others to display prudent financial behaviors, according to new research from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

The next cancer drug might come straight from the grocery store, according to new research published in the November 2007 issue of The FASEB Journal. In the study, French scientists describe how high and low doses of polyphenols have different effects.