Dental x-rays could be a thing of the past thanks to a new knowledge transfer partnership between the University of Abertay Dundee and pioneering research firm IDMoS.

A team of scientists from the university’s SIMBIOS (Scottish Informatics and Mathematics Biology and Statistics) Centre will use sophisticated CAT (Computerised Axial Tomography) scanning equipment to verify that the company’s newly developed equipment for detecting dental cavities works.

Chair of the Environmental Sciences School, Professor Iain Young said: “IDMoS have developed a non-invasive method of checking teeth for cavities.

Women under the age of forty with breast cancer who are given drugs in addition to lumpectomies or radiotherapy, known as adjuvant chemotherapy, may not be benefiting from these drugs. This is especially true if their tumors respond to changing levels of hormones such as estrogen, according to research published in the online journal, Breast Cancer Research.

"Developing breast cancer at a young age is very worrying in terms of survival," explained lead researcher Dr J van der Hage. "But some young women may be undergoing not only unpleasant but also unnecessary chemotherapy, which can be avoided."

An extraordinary advance in human origins research reveals evidence of the emergence of the upright human body plan over 15 million years earlier than most experts have believed. More dramatically, the study confirms preliminary evidence that many early hominoid apes were most likely upright bipedal walkers sharing the basic body form of modern humans.

The voyage of NASA’s Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft through the Jupiter system earlier this year provided a bird’s-eye view of a dynamic planet that has changed since the last close-up looks by NASA spacecraft.

New Horizons passed Jupiter on Feb. 28, riding the planet’s gravity to boost its speed and shave three years off its trip to Pluto.

An estimated 6.6 million people in Europe suffer from schizophrenia:(1) a serious mental illness characterized by disturbances in the thoughts, perceptions, emotions and behavior of a person.

A large majority of families who care for someone with schizophrenia are confident that many people with the disease can lead independent, fulfilling lives with the ability to have a part-time job when having optimal control over their symptoms.

These results announced today on World Mental Health Day, are findings from a European survey of over 320 families and carers of people with schizophrenia conducted between July and September 2007 by EUFAMI (European Federation of Associations of Families of People with Mental Illness).

Recent observations from NASA and Japanese X-ray observatories have helped clarify one of the long-standing mysteries in astronomy -- the origin of cosmic rays.

Outer space is a vast shooting gallery of cosmic rays. Discovered in 1912, cosmic rays are not actually rays at all; they are subatomic particles and ions (such as protons and electrons) that zip through space in all directions at near-light speed, with energies tens of thousands of times greater than particles produced in Earth’s largest particle accelerators.