SAN FRANCISCO, April 20 /PRNewswire/ --
- Company Releases Caustic RT - Flexible Development Platform for No-Compromise Raytracing
Today Caustic Graphics released CausticRT(TM), the worlds only massively accelerated raytracing system for achieving breakthrough levels of quality in interactive, cinema-quality 3D computer graphics. The Caustic development platform, which includes a raytracing accelerator card and SDK, are now available to qualified developers so they can create new or port their existing 3D applications to Caustic and deliver fast, efficient raytracing to their customers.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090420/SF01320)
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts and LAS VEGAS, April 20 /PRNewswire/ --
- Companies Collaborate to Enhance Video Quality and Content Protection on the Web
Scientists at Cambridge University have discovered that freshwater algae can form stable groupings in which they dance around each other, miraculously held together only by the fluid flows they create. Their research was published today in Physical Review Letters.
The researchers studied the multicellular organism Volvox carteri, which consists of approximately 1,000 cells arranged on the surface of a spherical matrix about half a millimetre in diameter. Each of the surface cells has two hair-like appendages known as flagella, whose beating propels the colony through the fluid and simultaneously makes them spin about an axis.
Transcatheter valve implantation is a newly developed technique for the curative treatment of high-grade aortic stenosis. It is likely to be of benefit especially to elderly, multimorbid patients for whom the risk of open heart surgery would be too great. The initial results obtained with this technique at the German Heart Center in Munich are presented in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International by Sabine Bleiziffer and her colleagues .
We've all heard it before. Some of you may even have used it: "I thought she was X" age. Alcohol impairs judgment, it is said, or releases inhibitions, depending on whether you like the effects.
There may be nothing to that argument, according to a new study. Consuming alcohol did not affect how men judged the age of women, which has important legal implications if alcohol is cited as a cause of impairing judgement in cases of unlawful sex with a minor, because men always think women look older.
The fossil record usually shows what adult animals looked like. But the appearance and lifestyle of juvenile animals often differ dramatically from those of the adults. A classic example is provided by frogs and salamanders. New discoveries from Uppsala, Cambridge and Duke Universities, published in Science, show that some of the earliest backboned land animals also underwent such changes of lifestyle as they grew up.
Scientists at the University of Liverpool have developed a new method to help researchers identify genes that can help protect the body during the aging process.
The team developed a method of analysing genes in multiple ageing tissue types in both animals and humans. The analysis, which included more than five million gene measurements, highlighted the mechanisms used by the body to protect against cellular changes with age that can result in conditions such as muscle degeneration and cognitive aging.
More restaurants and vending machines offer healthy choices these days, so why do Americans' waistlines continue to expand? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research shows that some efforts to control eating may backfire.
Consumers may feel they have fulfilled a healthy eating goal even if they choose an unhealthy food, and the presence of a healthy option among food choices may draw their attention to the least-healthy choice available, according to authors Keith Wilcox (City University of New York), Beth Vallen (Loyola College), Lauren Block (City University of New York), and Gavan J. Fitzsimons (Duke University).
Breast cancer cells in the laboratory that don't respond to tamoxifen may be producing high amounts of cholesterol in order to provide a kind of shield against the drug, say researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC).
They say their study, presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), suggests that currently available statin drugs that reduce cholesterol might be useful in patients with tamoxifen-resistant breast cancer. Alternatively, investigators say, new agents could potentially be designed that specifically inhibit the molecules they found to be responsible for this excess production of cholesterol.
Astronomers using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii, the IRAM Millimetre-wave Telescope in Spain, and the Spitzer Space Telescope in orbit above the Earth, have completed the most wide-ranging census ever produced of dynamical star formation in and around the well-known Great Nebula of Orion.
They have found this stellar nursery to be a lively and somewhat overcrowded place, with young stars emitting gas jets in all directions, creating quite a chaotic picture and demonstrating there is much more going on in Orion than previously thought. Researchers including UKIRT Director Professor Gary Davis will present this and other UKIRT science results on Monday 20th April at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science at the University of Hertfordshire.
