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Super-soft nanobrushes could pave way for medical breakthroughs

Scientists are creating molecularly engineered polymer brushes using a revolutionary catalytic polymerization procedure developed in their laboratory. These nanoscale brushes — whose bristles are softer than anything except hydrogel — have numerous potential applications in fields including medicine, computers and environmental engineering.

Researchers Crack Web Bot Security System

For every warm-blooded human who has ever taken an online poll or signed up for free web-based email, there are legions of computer-automated Internet robots, or “bots,” trying to do the same thing. A clever security system designed to stop these bot programs – which contribute to the Internet equivalent of computer-generated telemarketing calls – has now been cracked by a pair of computer scientists from the University of California, Berkeley.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh created the security system, known as Gimpy, to thwart the bot programs that relentlessly scour cyberspace for opportunities to register new email addresses, stuff ballots for online polls and direct unwitting participants in Internet chat rooms to advertisements. Bot-produced email accounts are hard to block or trace, making them ideal vehicles for sending spam to legitimate email users.

Gene linked to depression in women

Researchers in Pittsburgh have made significant progress in identifying the first susceptibility gene for clinical depression, the second leading cause of disability worldwide, providing an important step toward changing the way doctors diagnose and treat major depression that affects nearly 10 percent of the population. Research results show significant evidence for linkage of unipolar mood disorders to a specific region of chromosome 2q33-35 in women.