Noting that it’s “a terrible time for science” in the U.S., Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel has compared the effects of government science policy to the Eisenhower-McCarthy era, when scientists were persecuted for their political beliefs.
Ginger is known to ease nausea and control inflammation. But researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center are investigating a new use for this age-old remedy: treating ovarian cancer.
A pair of supermassive black holes in the distant universe are intertwined and spiraling toward a merger that will create a single super-supermassive black hole capable of swallowing billions of stars, according to a new study by astronomers at the University of Virginia, Bonn University and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory.
Using the power of modern computing combined with innovative theoretical tools, an international team of researchers has determined how a one-way electrical valve, or diode, made of only a single molecule does its job.
With the recent wild fluctuations in gasoline prices, there’s renewed interest in finding a cheaper way to fill up the gas tank. In 1992, Karel Grohmann, then research leader of the ARS Subtropical Products Laboratory in Winter Haven, Florida, began research on converting citrus peel waste into fuel ethanol. Citrus waste materials are rich in pectin, cellulose, and hemicellulosic polysaccharides, which can be hydrolyzed into sugars and fermented into alcohol.
Thirty-plus years ago on the moon, Apollo astronauts made an important discovery: Moondust can be a major nuisance. The fine powdery grit was everywhere and had a curious way of getting into things. Moondust plugged bolt holes, fouled tools, coated astronauts’ visors and abraded their gloves. Very often while working on the surface, they had to stop what they were doing to clean their cameras and equipment using large–and mostly ineffective–brushes.
Every parent worries that his or her child may turn to drugs, or worse, become dependent on them, and a new Florida State University study indicates that parents of boys who have very low self-esteem and have friends who approve of drug and alcohol use may have good cause to worry.
Mediterranean countries will suffer from increasingly saturated coastal development over the next 20 years if current trends continue, 63 million people will lack sufficient water and desertification will worsen rural poverty and biodiversity loss, according to the grim projections of a new United Nations-backed report.
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has uncovered new evidence that planets might rise up out of a dead star’s ashes. The infrared telescope surveyed the scene around a pulsar, the remnant of an exploded star, and found a surrounding disk made up of debris shot out during the star’s death throes. The dusty rubble in this disk might ultimately stick together to form planets.
Nerve cells that normally are not light sensitive in the retinas of blind mice can respond to light when a green algae protein called channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) is inserted into the cell membranes, according to a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-supported study published in the April 6, 2006 issue of the journal Neuron. The study was conducted with mice that had been genetically bred to lose rods and cones, the light-sensitive cells in the retina. This condition is similar to the blinding disease retinitis pigmentosa (RP) in humans.
Can eating a low-calorie yet nutritionally balanced diet extend human life? Preliminary research suggests it might, so researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are launching a long-term study to find out.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh are to study the effects of nanoparticles on the liver. In a UK first, the scientists will assess whether nanoparticles — already found in pollution from traffic exhaust, but also used in making household goods such as paint, sunblock, food, cosmetics and clothes– can cause damage to the cells of the liver.
Chemicals in cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, watercress, cabbage and cauliflower, appear to stop human prostate cancer cells from growing in mice by affecting the expression of proteins, says a University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute study.