Is there — or has there ever been — life on Mars? A UK project could help provide the answer to this fascinating question. The team are working to improve the equipment on space probes which is used to try and identify evidence of life on other planets. The work is focusing on the development of more effective and robust systems for detecting ‘biomarkers’. (‘Biomarkers’ are molecules that indicate the existence of current or extinct life.)
A new type of liquid crystal – recently discovered by a research team that includes a Kent State University professor – holds the promise of faster liquid crystal displays at a lower price. A new liquid crystal phase — the biaxial nematic liquid crystal – which is likely to revolutionize the liquid crystal display technology, has been discovered by three researchers, Dr. Satyendra Kumar, professor of physics at Kent State; Dr. Bharat R. Acharya, of Platytus Technologies, Madison, WI; and Dr. Andrew Primak, of Pacific Northwest National Lab, Richland, WA.
The principal active ingredient in marijuana causes transient schizophrenia-like symptoms ranging from suspiciousness and delusions to impairments in memory and attention, according to a Yale research study. Lead author D. Cyril D’Souza, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, said the study was an attempt to clarify a long known association between cannabis and psychosis in the hopes of finding another clue about the pathophysiology of schizophrenia.
Just being unhappy with their bodies is not enough to lead most women into eating disorders — it takes additional factors, according to a new study.
Women are more likely to have eating disorders when their body dissatisfaction is accompanied by other issues — most importantly, a tendency to obsessively examine their bodies and think about how they appear to others. The results showed ”body surveillance” was the strongest factor that predicted which women with body dissatisfaction were likely to report symptoms of eating disorders.
Medical implants — from catheters that deliver long-term life support to joint replacements — may work better when their surfaces are on the rough side, new research suggests. Implants often have surfaces that soft tissue, such as skin and connective tissue, cannot attach to, said Andreas von Recum, the study’s lead author and a professor of biomedical engineering at Ohio State University. So the body in turn forms a tissue capsule around the implant, sealing it off from the rest of the body.
A combination of new technology and time-tested tracking techniques has yielded encouraging news for the world’s panda lovers. The latest census of giant pandas living in the wild finds that 50 percent more pandas actually live in China than were previously thought to exist. China is the only place in the world where pandas live in the wild.
The Nuclear Policy Research Institute (NPRI) today called on the Bush administration to reassess its commitment to the expansion of nuclear power; based on new study reported in the June edition of the International Journal of Epidemiology. The study documents a dramatic increase in thyroid cancers following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Throughout North America a current debate is raging over the ineffectiveness of skateboard parks–created to curb the loitering of skaters in the streets. Some people argue it is because of location and accessibility of the parks. However, a University of Alberta researcher says the spontaneous nature of skateboarding makes permanent structures increasingly boring for skaters.
University of California scientists working at Los Alamos National Laboratory with a colleague from Sandia National Laboratories have developed a new method for exciting light emission from nanocrystal quantum dots. The discovery provides a way to supply energy to quantum dots without wires, and paves the way for a potentially wider use of tunable nanocrystalline materials in a variety of novel light-emitting technologies ranging from electronic displays to solid-state lighting and electrically pumped nanoscale lasers.
Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and Northern Illinois University have shown that very thin materials can still retain an electric polarization, opening the potential for a wide range of tiny devices. The researchers found that the ferroelectric phase ? the ability to hold a switchable electric polarization ? is stable for thicknesses as small as 1.2 nanometers, one-billionth of a meter, or a size several hundred thousand times smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.
According to string theory, all the different particles that constitute physical reality are made of the same thing–tiny looped strings whose different vibrations give rise to the different fundamental particles that make up everything we know. Whether this theory correctly portrays fundamental reality is one of the biggest questions facing physicists.
Three theoretical physicists propose the most viable test to date for determining whether string theory is on the right track. The effect that they describe and that could be discovered by LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), a facility for detecting gravitational waves that is just becoming operational, could provide support for string theory within two years.
The most complex interplanetary mission ever launched is about to meet one of our Solar System’s most enigmatic moons. The NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens spacecraft will fly by Saturn’s largest outer moon, Phoebe, on Friday, 11 June 2004. The spacecraft will capture images of Phoebe that have a resolution more than a thousand times better than existing technology has allowed in the past.
Society is losing $2.4 billion per year because the Colorado River’s water no longer flows all the way to the Gulf of California, says a University of Arizona researcher. It’s the first dollar estimate of the benefits society would get from the natural functioning of a healthy Colorado River delta. Functioning ecosystems provide benefits, known as ecosystem services, to humans. However, so much Colorado River water has been dammed or diverted for human uses that the river’s delta no longer works the way it used to.