Hourly updated popular news in brief about discoveries in the physical and life sciences, medicine and health, the environment, and technology, from the world's leading laboratories, research centers and universities.
Found: 21368 Output: 1 - 50
- Physicians focus on stopping pain epidemic
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
The public health problem that needs to be addressed next is the epidemic of pain, according to pain medicine physicians who have come together to discuss the latest in pain research and treatment at the 24th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, Feb. 12-16 at the Gaylord Palms in Kissimmee, Fla.
Similar news · Read more »
- Tracing unidentified nuclear materials: APS, AAAS study group urges new steps
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
The United States is in danger of losing some of the expertise needed to rapidly and accurately identify nuclear materials smuggled on the black market or used in a nuclear detonation, according to a newly released report by the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Similar news · Read more »
- Group led by Stanford physicist says there's an urgent need for nuclear detectives
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
The first question asked after an atomic explosion in the US (or elsewhere) would be, "Who did this to us?" But the US ability to answer that question rapidly has faded since the end of the Cold War. A group head by Stanford's Michael May, a former director of the nuclear weapons laboratory in Livermore, Calif., says a rejuvenated nuclear forensics program is urgently needed.
Similar news · Read more »
- CIRA scientist among authors of book celebrating 50 years of Earth observations from space
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
Stan Kidder, a researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State University, will talk about contributions satellites make to weather forecasting on Feb. 17 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston.
Similar news · Read more »
- Worldwide hunt to solve the mystery of gamma-ray bursts
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
UK space scientist Emeritus Professor Alan Wells is to speak at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston in February on "International Cooperation in Developing Swift and its Scientific Achievements."
Similar news · Read more »
- Linguist tunes in to pitch processing in brain
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
More of the brain is busy processing pitch from language and other sounds than previously thought, according to a researcher in neurophonetics at Purdue University.
Similar news · Read more »
- You can't teach old materials new tricks
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
A more sensitive, more selective and easily deployable radiation detection material is necessary to meet complex 21st century challenges. In the AAAS symposium "Radiation Detectors for Global Security: The Need for Science-Driven Discovery," researchers addressed some of the technical challenges and gaps and proposed a science-driven approach to uncovering novel materials that will benefit national security and medicine.
Similar news · Read more »
- Link between treating osteoporosis with bisphosphonates and incidence of bone necrosis examined
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
On Saturday, Feb. 16, at 10 a.m., in Hynes Convention Center Rm. 112, Columbia University's Dr. John Grbic will be part of an AAAS press conference in Boston that focuses on the pharmacology of bisphosphonates, with data supporting the use of BFs therapy in both oncology and non-oncology patients. He will later discuss these findings at a scientific symposia session from 1:45 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. in Rm. 206.
Similar news · Read more »
- New findings on emerging contaminants
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
Substances that we use everyday are turning up in our lakes, rivers and ocean, where they can impact aquatic life and possibly ourselves. At a press conference at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, a panel of researchers will discuss how these chemicals are affecting aquatic environments and may be coming back to haunt us in unanticipated ways.
Similar news · Read more »
- Valuing ocean services in the Gulf of Maine -- New approaches for conflict resolution
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
Michael Fogarty, a NOAA biologist, says interactions among species, the effects of climate change, and the effects of human impacts such as harvesting are among the factors that need to be considered in moving toward an ecosystem-based fishery management plan. Conventional fishery management practices concentrate on individual species rather than a holistic approach that looks at the bigger picture.
Similar news · Read more »
- Health effects of pesticide mixtures: Unexpected insights from the salmon brain
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
In his research, NOAA scientist Nat Scholz examines how pesticides that run off the land and mix in rivers and streams combine to have a greater than expected toxic effect on the salmon nervous system. These pesticides are widely used in the United States and their occurrence as mixtures in the food supply for humans may also pose an unexpected risk for people.
Similar news · Read more »
- MIT: Turning 'funky' quantum mysteries into computing reality
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
The strange world of quantum mechanics can provide a way to surpass limits in speed, efficiency and accuracy of computing, communications and measurement, according to research by MIT scientist Seth Lloyd.
Similar news · Read more »
- Iowa Staters talk biofuels, healthy oils and 'pharma crops' at AAAS meeting
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
Iowa State researchers discuss energy and agriculture, the economic risks of 'pharma crops' and the role plant breeders play in producing healthier foods during their presentations at the AAAS annual meeting in Boston.
Similar news · Read more »
- Fish devastated by sex-changing chemicals in municipal wastewater
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
While most people understand the dangers of flushing toxic chemicals into the ecosystem through municipal sewer systems, one potentially devastating threat to wild fish populations comes from an unlikely source: estrogen.After an exhaustive seven-year research effort, Canadian biologists found that miniscule amounts of estrogen present in municipal wastewater discharges can decimate wild fish populations living downstream.
Similar news · Read more »
- Is that sea otter stealing your lunch -- or making it?
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
Hunted to near extinction, sea otters are making a steady comeback along the Pacific coast. Their reintroduction, however, is expected to reduce the numbers of several key species of commercially valuable shellfish dramatically, such as sea urchins and geoducks.
Similar news · Read more »
- Can Dungeness crab and eelgrass help improve management of our marine resources?
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
NOAA's Anne Guerry will discuss the benefits people obtain from ecosystems in managing marine resources in her AAAS presentation "Ecosystem Services Provided by the Nearshore in Puget Sound: An Analysis of Change." Puget Sound is home to 200 species of fish, 26 species of marine mammals, and over 625 species of seaweed, as well as 3.5 million people. How well the marine systems in Puget Sound function is directly linked to the region's quality of life and economy.
Similar news · Read more »
- Impacts of fossil fuels on fish and people
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
NOAA scientist John Incardona will tell a scientific detective story that uncovers a previously unrecognized threat to human health from a ubiquitous class of air pollutants.Incardona's presentation delves into how one type of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, a compound found in oil, damaged the developing hearts of Pacific herring and pink salmon embryos after the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989.
Similar news · Read more »
- From stem cells to organs: The bioengineering challenge
02-16-2008 · EurekAlert!
For more than a decade, Peter Zandstra has been working at the University of Toronto to rev up the production of stem cells and their descendants. The raw materials are adult blood stem cells and embryonic stem cells. The end products are blood and heart cells -- lots of them. Enough mouse heart cells that they form beating tissue.
Similar news · Read more »
- Columbus external experiments installed during spacewalk
02-15-2008 · European Space Agency (ESA)
Astronauts have successfully completed a spacewalk to install the Columbus external experiment facilities, SOLAR and the European Technology Exposure Facility. The facilities will now be activated and checked out before starting to collect the first data later this month.
Similar news · Read more »
- Stanford's Bill Perry to speak at AAAS on engineering's 'Grand Challenges'
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
At the request of the National Academy of Engineering, Stanford's William Perry, an engineering professor and former secretary of defense, has led a team of leading technical thinkers who have put together a list of "Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century."
Similar news · Read more »
- Dung happens and helps scientists
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
A scientist at Northern Arizona University is in charge of the largest animal dung collection in the world, used for clues about animal evolution and extinction, Ice Age existence and climate change. Researcher Jim Mead admits it is a bizarre resource, but he is one of many around the globe who access dung for DNA information. Mead, a dung authority, continues to grow the collection with specimens from as far away as Siberia.
Similar news · Read more »
- The key to quieter Atlantic hurricane seasons may be blowing in the wind
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
Every year, storms over West Africa disturb millions of tons of dust and strong winds carry those particles into the skies over the Atlantic. According to a recent study led by University of Wisconsin-Madison atmospheric scientists, this dust from Africa directly affects ocean temperature, a key ingredient in Atlantic hurricane development.
Similar news · Read more »
- MIT researcher addresses biomedical engineering challenges
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
Much of the work in MIT Institute Professor Robert Langer's prolific lab sounds like something straight from the pages of science fiction, but its products are already saving lives around the world in a variety of ways. Langer will speak about the great challenges facing biomedical engineering in the next century, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, on Friday afternoon, Feb. 15.
Similar news · Read more »
- Nanotechnology's future depends on who the public trusts
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
When the public considers competing arguments about a new technology's potential risks and benefits, people will tend to agree with the expert whose values are closest to their own, no matter what position the expert takes. The same will hold true for nanotechnology, a key study has found.
Similar news · Read more »
- Langer examines biomedical engineering future
02-15-2008 · Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
MIT Institute Professor Robert Langer speaks about the great challenges facing biomedical engineering as part of a panel announcing the report "Grand Challenges of Engineering" at the annual meeting of the AAAS in Boston on Feb. 15.
Similar news · Read more »
- Stress may increase a woman's risk of developing cervical cancer
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
A woman's daily stress can reduce her ability to fight off a common sexually transmitted disease and increase her risk of developing the cancer it can cause, according to a new study. No such association is seen, however, between past major life events, such as divorce or job loss, and the body's response to the infection.
Similar news · Read more »
- MIT researcher: Learning about brains from computers, and vice versa
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
For many years, Tomaso Poggio's lab at MIT ran two parallel lines of research. Some projects were aimed at understanding how the brain works, using complex computational models. Others were aimed at improving the abilities of computers to perform tasks that our brains do with ease. But recently Poggio has found that the two tasks have begun to overlap to such a degree, that it's now time to combine the two lines of research.
Similar news · Read more »
- Brain waves pattern themselves after rhythms of nature
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
The same rules of physics that govern molecules as they condense from gas to liquid, or freeze from liquid to solid, also apply to the activity patterns of neurons in the human brain. University of Chicago mathematician Jack Cowan will offer this and related insights on the physics of brain activity this week in Boston during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Similar news · Read more »
- CT radiation dose report released by American Association of Physicists in Medicine
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
Aiming to promote the best medical imaging practices nationwide and help ensure the health and safety of the millions of people who undergo computed tomography scans each year in the United States, the American Association of Physicists in Medicine has issued a CT radiation dose management report this month recommending standardized ways of reporting doses and educating users on the latest dose reduction technology.
Similar news · Read more »
- Past greenhouse warming events provide clues to what the future may hold
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
Scientists studying an extreme period of global warming 55 million years ago are piecing together an increasingly detailed picture of its causes and consequences. Their findings describe what may be the best analog in the geologic record for the global changes likely to result from continued carbon dioxide emissions from human activities.
Similar news · Read more »
- Religion colors Americans' views of nanotechnology
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
Is nanotechnology morally acceptable? For a significant percentage of Americans, the answer is no, according to a recent survey of Americans' attitudes about the science of the very small.
Similar news · Read more »
- Worldwide effort bringing ALMA telescope into reality
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
In the thin, dry air of northern Chile's Atacama Desert, at an altitude of 16,500 feet, an amazing new telescope system is taking shape, on schedule to provide the world's astronomers with unprecedented views of the origins of stars, galaxies, and planets. The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array will open an entirely new "window" on the Universe, allowing scientists to unravel longstanding and important astronomical mysteries.
Similar news · Read more »
- Coal gasification -- myths, challenges and opportunities
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
With demand for electricity expected to double by 2050 and renewable resources still years away from offsetting increased demand, it is clear -- coal is here to stay.But can "dirty" coal be used cleanly? The answer may be a resounding yes if gasification becomes common place, researchers said today at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.
Similar news · Read more »
- Panel identifies greatest technological research challenges of the 21st century
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
A panel of maverick thinkers, convened by the National Academy of Engineering, today identified what they consider to be the greatest technological research challenges facing society in the coming century. In the following Q&A, panel member Rob Socolow of Princeton University expands upon the NAE Grand Challenges project and the role that technological innovation plays in a vibrant society.
Similar news · Read more »
- Dr. Caroline Wagner presents on dynamic self-organizing networks in higher education
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
SRI senior policy analyst Caroline Wagner, PhD, will deliver a talk titled Science, Ethics, and Institutional Traditions Around the World at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston from Feb. 14-18. Wagner's talk is based on research for her new book, The New Invisible College: Science for Development, which is being published in Spring 2008 by The Brookings Institution Press.
Similar news · Read more »
- Leading engineers and scientists identify advances that could improve quality of life
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
The US National Academy of Engineering today announced the grand challenges for engineering in the 21st century. A diverse committee of experts from around the world, convened at the request of the US National Science Foundation, revealed 14 challenges that, if met, would improve how we live.
Similar news · Read more »
- Nanotech's health, environmental impacts worry scientists and the public
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
Nanotechnology, which is making its way into products ranging from food storage containers to computers, is seen differently among scientists than the general public, with scientists appearing to be more concerned in some areas. This is among the findings of a recent survey that will be presented by Elizabeth Corley, an Arizona State University assistant professor, on Feb. 15 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting.
Similar news · Read more »
- Does socializing make us smarter?
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
Humans are social animals; we spend much of our time with others in groups. We are also wise. It is not our size, speed, or strength that distinguishes us from other mammals, but our intelligence. How might these two features -- being social and being smart -- go together? Research published by SAGE in the February 2008 issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin provides novel information about the relation between being social and being smart.
Similar news · Read more »
- Policies key as ethanol 'revolution' links agriculture, energy sectors
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
The recent boom in production of ethanol from corn grain has tightly linked the agriculture and energy sectors in an unprecedented fashion. Purdue University researchers developed a model, based on a range of possible oil prices, that predicts impacts of federal economic policies on future consumer and government costs, ethanol production and many other aspects of the two sectors.
Similar news · Read more »
- Hispanics have more difficulty controlling diabetes than non-Hispanic whites
02-15-2008 · EurekAlert!
Results of an analysis of multiple studies show diabetes control is more challenging for Hispanics than non-Hispanic whites, according to researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and colleagues.
Similar news · Read more »
- Caffeine intake tied to miscarriage
02-16-2008 · Science News Online
Intake of caffeine equal to two cups of coffee per day seems to double a woman's risk of miscarriage.
Similar news · Read more »
- Heed your elders, survive a tsunami
02-16-2008 · Science News Online
An oral tradition passed down among islanders in the South Pacific saved many lives during a tsunami last year and illustrates the benefits that community-based education and awareness programs can provide.
Similar news · Read more »
- Nanocrystal
02-16-2008 · Science News Online
Researchers have used DNA as Velcro to create the first materials that spontaneously assemble into regular 3-D patterns.
Similar news · Read more »
- Bird fads weaken sexual selection
02-16-2008 · Science News Online
There's a new look for a hot male among lark buntings every year.
Similar news · Read more »
- More evidence that flies sleep like people
02-16-2008 · Science News Online
A brain chemical puts fruit flies to sleep.
Similar news · Read more »
- Extreme Measures
02-16-2008 · Science News Online
Physicists use atom interferometry to measure gravity and other forces with unrivaled precision, and the technique could potentially guide airplanes and uncover buried caches of oil and diamonds.
Similar news · Read more »
- New World Stopover: People may have entered the Americas in stages
02-16-2008 · Science News Online
People first reached the edge of the Americas about 40,000 years ago but had to stay put for at least 20,000 years before melting ice sheets allowed them to move south and settle the rest of the continent.
Similar news · Read more »
- Don't like it hot
02-16-2008 · Science News Online
King penguins don't live on continental Antarctica but even they are vulnerable to warming water.
Similar news · Read more »
- Swell, a Pain Lesson: Gut microbes needed for immune development
02-16-2008 · Science News Online
Intestinal bacteria train the immune system to cause pain and swelling, but that's a good thing.
Similar news · Read more »
- Where stars are born
02-16-2008 · Science News Online
Some 300 young stars, hidden in visible light, shine through the dust in a new infrared portrait of the main cloud of a nearby star-forming region called Rho Ophiuchi.
Similar news · Read more »
