2007 September

In a shock finding, astronomers using CSIRO’s Parkes telescope have detected a huge burst of radio energy from the distant universe that could open up a new field in astrophysics.
The research team, led by Assistant Professor Duncan Lorimer of West Virginia University, reports its discovery today in the online journal Science Express.
The radio burst appears [...]

Quantum cryptography is potentially the most secure method of sending encrypted information, but does it have a speed limit” According to a new paper by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), technological and security issues will stall maximum transmission rates at levels comparable to that [...]

Pills, sponges, IUDs, diaphragms — women have many options for planning their fertility, none of them quite perfect. But what if men want to help out? They have only two options — vasectomy, which is usually permanent, and condoms, which are crucial for dating but get old in long-term relationships. Will men ever have [...]

Insulin, it turns out, may be as important for the mind as it is for the body. Research in the last few years has raised the possibility that Alzheimer’s memory loss could be due to a novel third form of diabetes.
Now scientists at Northwestern University have discovered why brain insulin signaling — crucial for memory [...]

A research team led by San Jose State University and the University of California, Santa Barbara has discovered forests of a species of kelp previously thought endangered or extinct in deep waters near the Galapagos Islands. The discovery has important implications for biodiversity and the resilience of tropical marine systems to climate change. The research [...]

When melting sodium at high pressures, the material goes through a transition in which its electrical conductivity drops threefold.
In a series of new calculations, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists describe the unusual melting behavior of dense sodium.
"We found that molten sodium undergoes a series of pressure-induced structural and electronic transitions similar to those observed in [...]

Using enzymes from E. coli bacteria, Duke University chemists and engineers have introduced a hundred-fold improvement in the precision of features imprinted to create microdevices such as labs-on-a-chip.
Their inkless microcontact printing technique can imprint details measuring close to 1 nanometer, or billionths of a meter, the Duke team reported in the Sept. 24, 2007 issue [...]

Engineers at Ohio State University have found a way to turn discarded chicken eggshells into an alternative energy resource.
The patented process uses eggshells to soak up carbon dioxide from a reaction that produces hydrogen fuel. It also includes a unique method for peeling the collagen-containing membrane from the inside of the shells, so that the [...]

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, in collaboration with scientists at NASA’s Ames Research Center, have built a low-cost robotic device that enables any digital camera to produce breathtaking gigapixel (billions of pixels) panoramas, called GigaPans.
The technology gives people a new way to make and share images of their environment. It is being used by students [...]

It is a simple matter to print an ebook or other document directly from your computer, whether that document is on your hard drive, at a Web site or in an email. But, imagine being able to ‘print’ solid objects, a piece of sports equipment, say, or a kitchen utensil, or even a prototype car [...]

Researchers from Duke University and the University of Cambridge think there is a way to determine whether some black holes are not actually black.
Finding such an unmasked form of what physicists term a singularity "would shock the foundation of general relativity," said Arlie Petters, a Duke professor of mathematics and physics who worked with Marcus [...]

If there’s one table that seems to be getting all the action at any casino, it’s usually the craps table. Perhaps you’d like to get in on the action, but approaching the craps table has always been a bit too intimidating. While craps may seem like a complicated game, it’s actually quite simple. Almost anyone [...]

CD-ROMs and DVDs and the hardware used to play these popular audio and video compact discs (CDs) have “enormous” potential as a new generation of portable, inexpensive instruments for home health monitoring and laboratory-based testing, scientists in Spain are reporting in the Oct. 15 issue of ACS’ Analytical Chemistry, a semi-monthly journal. CD technology could [...]

A dinosaur skeleton found 24 years ago near Choteau has finally been identified as a new species that links North American dinosaurs with Asian dinosaurs. The dinosaur would have weighed 30 to 40 pounds, walked on two feet and stood about three feet tall. The fossil came from sediment that’s about 80 million years old
A [...]

The U.S. flag should occupy a place of prominence when being displayed. No other flags displayed with it should be larger or hung higher than the U.S. flag. In addition, the U.S. flag should not be allowed to touch the ground, nor should it be dipped to any other flag, person or object.
Make sure the [...]

A group of computer scientists, mathematicians, and biologists from around the world have developed a computer algorithm that can help trace the genetic ancestry of thousands of individuals in minutes, without any prior knowledge of their background. The team’s findings will be published in the September 2007 edition of the journal PLoS Genetics.
Unlike previous computer [...]

The 15 minutes it took to remove Buffalo Bills player Kevin Everett off the field after he suffered a spinal cord injury may seem like a long time for someone needing acute medical care, but in fact, those minutes underscore how critical it is to carefully move a player with a suspected spinal cord injury [...]

When the weather is humid and the sky is getting dark, it is scary knowing there could be a tornado in your neighborhood at any time. But with the right knowledge and preparation, you can give yourself piece of mind knowing your family is staying safe.
Know what to look for. Large hail, a dark greenish [...]

Why do some juries take weeks to reach a verdict, while others take just hours? How do judges pick the perfect beauty queen from a sea of very similar candidates? We have all wondered exactly why we did not win a certain award. Now, new psychological research explains how groups come to a collective decision.
Jean-Francois [...]

Good news for public health: Bioengineering researchers from the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, have developed and patented a nanoparticle that can deliver vaccines more effectively, with fewer side effects, and at a fraction of the cost of current vaccine technologies.
Described in an article appearing online September 16 in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the vaccine delivery [...]