NASA scientists analyzing the dust of meteorites say they have discovered new clues to a long-standing mystery about how life works on its most basic, molecular level.
Over the last four years, the team carefully analyzed samples of meteorites with an abundance of carbon, called carbonaceous chondrites. The researchers looked for the amino acid isovaline and discovered that three types of carbonaceous meteorites had more of the left-handed version than the right-handed variety – as much as a record 18 percent more in the often-studied Murchison meteorite.
Eating dog meat is common in Asia. In two case studies published by PLoS Medicine, researchers analyzed situations in Hanoi where men died from laboratory-confirmed rabies.
The first patient was a 48-year-old male construction worker, with no preceding medical illnesses who was, among other symptoms, unable to swallow due to involuntary inspiratory muscle spasms. The second patient was a 37-year-old male farmer, without any prior medical history and similar symptoms.
The Healthcare and Science business of Thomson Reuters today announced the results of its annual roundup of the hottest researchers and research papers. In its March/April issue of Science Watch, Thomson Reuters identified the top 13 authors who fielded the highest numbers of Hot Papers in 2007-2008 as well as the most-cited research papers of 2008.
"Our annual list of those authoring multiple Hot Papers serves to highlight researchers who are leading modern scientific thought," said Christopher King, editor of Science Watch.
COPENHAGEN and ISTANBUL, March 17 /PRNewswire/ -- From golf courses to books, olive oil to vaccinations, all the goods and services that we rely on, together with many of our daily activities, require a vital resource: water. A new report by the European Environment Agency (EEA) confirms that in many parts of Europe water use is unsustainable and provides recommendations for a new approach to managing water resources.
A novel motion sensor developed by the Fraunhofer Institutes for Applied Polymer Research IAP in Potsdam-Golm and for Computer Architecture and Software Technology FIRST in Berlin could enable window panes and glass doors to detect movements, thanks to a new pecial coating.
If anything changes in front of the pane, or someone sneaks up to it, an alarm signal is sent to the security guard.
Your cat is going to have a lot of fun with that, right? Luckily, threshold for the alarm can be set, so that small moving objects do not trigger an alarm.
Tiny creatures at the bottom of the food chain called diatoms suck up nearly a quarter of the atmosphere's carbon dioxide, yet research by Michigan State University scientists suggests they could become less able to "sequester" that greenhouse gas as the climate warms. The microscopic algae are a major component of plankton living in puddles, lakes and oceans.
Zoology professor Elena Litchman, with MSU colleague Christopher Klausmeier and Kohei Yoshiyama of the University of Tokyo, explored how nutrient limitation affects the evolution of the size of diatoms in different environments. Their findings underscore potential consequences for aquatic food webs and climate shifts.
The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured a photo sequence of four moons of Saturn passing in front of their parent planet. The moons, from far left to far right, are icy white Enceladus and Dione, the large orange moon Titan, and icy Mimas. Due to the angle of the Sun, they are each preceded by their own shadow.
Though the popular conception has been that "money can't buy happiness," studies have shown that wealth can play a role in enhancing happiness. A study of American woman by a Princeton University psychologist says money doesn't buy happiness - not caring about having no money apparently makes the difference.
Women who concentrated on financial matters were less likely to be happy with their lives, according to Talya Miron-Shatz, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton, even though they had plenty of money by conventional standards.
Conversely, those who didn't fixate on finances like retirement savings, tuition for college or simply making ends meet, reported being the happiest of the group.
A new computerized method of testing could help world health officials better identify flu vaccines that are effective against multiple strains of the disease. Rice University scientists who created the method say tests of data from bird flu and seasonal flu outbreaks suggest their method can better gauge the efficacy of proposed vaccines than can tests used today.
NEWNAN, Georgia, March 16 /PRNewswire/ --
The CATANIA(TM) Coronary Stent System with NanoThin Polyzene(R)-F offers sustained benefit in the treatment of de novo coronary lesions and maximizes endothelialization, while reducing restenosis, thrombogenicity, and the need for long-term dual-antiplatelet therapy. The CATANIA(TM) Stent may be an alternative to both BMS and DES. These conclusions, based on 12-month data from the ATLANTA Trial, were published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Interventions.
