A world leader in medical implants calls for a rethink in our approach to building medical implants.

Currently so-called biomaterials are chosen because they are reasonably successful at hiding from the body’s immune system, and are consequently not rejected. All the same, within a month of implanting them, the body isolates implants by wrapping them in a collagenous, avascular sac. Materials are considered to be ‘biocompatible’ if this sac is not too thick.

Salk Institute neurobiologists are beginning to tease apart the complex brain networks that enable humans and other higher mammals to fix our gaze on one object while independently directing attention to others - that pesky method mom used to always know you were doing something wrong when her back was turned.

In a study published in the July 5, 2007 issue of Neuron, the researchers report two classes of brain cells with distinct roles in visual attention, and highlight at least two mechanisms by which these cells mediate attention.

Mention "outsourcing" and people tend to think of fields like manufacturing or telemarketing; theoretical physics isn't even on the list.

Yet the scientists who develop theoretical predictions for high-energy particle physics experiments say "outsourcing" in their field has allowed the U.S. to lag behind in this area of high-profile, global science.

"This is the wrong kind of outsourcing," says Ulrich Baur, Ph.D., professor of physics in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences and a co-founder of the Large Hadron Collider-Theory Initiative.

Independent research, involving over 3 million Italians, conducted by Henley Management College and the University of Milan has concluded that the prescription costs for men over the age of 65 is significantly higher than it is for women.

The primary objective of this study was to make the first step in the modelling of pharmaceutical demand in Italy to improve the governance of prescribing funds.

The research found that the mean annual prescription cost per individual was similar for males (196.13 euro) and females (195.12euro). However after 65 years of age, the mean prescribing costs for males were significantly higher than females. On average, costs for a 75-year-old man would be 12 times the costs for a 25-34 year-old subject if male, 8 times if female.

Like the surface motif of a bubble bath, the spatial distribution of a magnetic field penetrating a superconductor can exhibit an intricate, foam-like structure. Ruslan Prozorov at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory has observed these mystifying, two-dimensional equilibrium patterns in lead samples when the material is in its superconducting state, below 7.2 Kelvin, or minus 446.71 degrees Fahrenheit.

Anybody who’s tried to concentrate on work while suffering a headache knows that pain compellingly commands attention—which is how evolution helped ensure survival in a painful world. Now, researchers have pinpointed the brain region responsible for pain’s ability to affect cognitive processing. They have found that this pain-related brain region is distinct from the one involved in cognitive processing interference due to a distracting memory task.

To search for the region responsible for pain’s ability to usurp attention, Ulrike Bingel and colleagues at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf asked volunteers to perform a cognitive task involving distinguishing images, as well as a working memory task involving remembering images.