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Heat Therapy Could Be New Treatment for Parasitic Skin Disease

By Guest PostFebruary 20, 2011Healthabhay satoskar, antibiotic skin cream, antimonials, complex drug regimen, compromised immune system, cutaneous leishmaniasis, drug therapy, heat therapy, hiv infection, immune compromised people, immune systems, leishmania parasites, middle east, neha prasad, oral anti-inflammatory, parasitic disease, parasitic skin infection, radio-frequency-induced heat, sand flies, skin infection, skin lesions, sodium stibogluconate, tropical and subtropical regions

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists are hoping that heat therapy could eventually replace a complex drug regimen as the first-line treatment of a parasitic skin infection common in tropical and subtropical regions of the world.

The researchers successfully treated the skin infection with heat therapy in two patients whose immune systems were deficient, which lowered their bodies’ ability to respond to medication. Both patients have remained free of the parasitic disease, called cutaneous leishmaniasis, for more than a year since receiving the heat treatment.

That long-term effectiveness, especially in people with compromised immune systems, makes this one-time application of heat to skin lesions an appealing alternative to the conventional treatment for the infection — a series of about 20 consecutive daily drug injections that is rife with compliance problems, researchers say. (more…)

Oldest Fossils of Large Seaweeds, Worm-like Animals Tell Story of Ancient Oxygen

By Guest PostFebruary 20, 2011Sciencealgae and worms, black shale, cambrian explosion, dynamic and complex nature, ediacaran period, Environment, eukaryotes, evolution of life, geochemical data, global ocean, lantian, lantian basin, macrofossils, macroscopic eukaryotes, organic rich black, oxygen, pristine fossils, richard lane, seaweeds, shuhai xiao, snowball earth, south china, virginia tech, xunlai yuan

*Geobiologists uncover Davy Jones Locker of fossils near small village in south China*

Almost 600 million years ago, before the rapid evolution of life forms known as the Cambrian explosion, a community of seaweeds and worm-like animals lived in a quiet deep-water niche near what is now Lantian, a small village in south China.

Then they simply died, leaving some 3,000 nearly pristine fossils preserved between beds of black shale deposited in oxygen-free and unbreathable waters. (more…)

Scientists Build the World’s First Anti-laser

By Guest PostFebruary 20, 2011Scienceanti-laser, coherent light-light waves, gain medium, gallium arsenide, loss medium, near-infrared radiation, optical computing, scientific papers, yale university

More than 50 years after the invention of the laser, scientists at Yale University have built the world’s first anti-laser, in which incoming beams of light interfere with one another in such a way as to perfectly cancel each other out. The discovery could pave the way for a number of novel technologies with applications in everything from optical computing to radiology.

Conventional lasers, which were first invented in 1960, use a so-called “gain medium,” usually a semiconductor like gallium arsenide, to produce a focused beam of coherent light-light waves with the same frequency and amplitude that are in step with one another. (more…)

Rising Seas Will Affect Major U.S. Coastal Cities by 2100

By Guest PostFebruary 19, 2011Environmentglobal average temperature, global warming, jonathan overpeck, national elevation dataset, new orleans, rising sea affect, rising sea levels, southern atlantic coasts, us coastal cities, virginia beach

*The Gulf and southern Atlantic coasts will be particularly hard hit, research predicts. Miami, New Orleans, Tampa, Fla., and Virginia Beach, Va. could lose more than 10 percent of their land area by 2100*

Rising sea levels could threaten an average of 9 percent of the land within 180 U.S. coastal cities by 2100, according to new research led by University of Arizona scientists. (more…)

Replacing Body Parts Now More Than ‘Science Fiction’

By Guest PostFebruary 19, 2011Sciencecells, clinical trials, clotting, engineered lungs, genetically different cells, human body, human veins, infection, laura niklason, lunatic fringe, natural lungs, obstruction, regenerative medicine, science fiction, time of my life, tissue engineered lungs, tissue engineered replacement, vascular surgeons, vascular system

If Dr. Laura Niklason has her way, vascular surgeons will someday be able to pull human veins off a shelf, whenever they want, to save lives.

Niklason is a pioneer in the science — and art — of tissue-engineered replacement of human body components. Last year, she led a research team that successfully implanted tissue-engineered lungs, cultured in vitro, in adult rats. For short intervals of time, the engineered lungs exchanged oxygen and carbon dioxide similarly to natural lungs. (more…)

Social Networking Accounts for 1 of Every 5 Minutes Spent Online in Australia

By Guest PostFebruary 18, 2011Technologyaustralia, Comscore, cudo, digital consumer behavior, digital environment, Entertainment, Facebook, google sites, market, microsoft sites, Social networking, sydney, the state of the internet in australia, will hodgman

*comScore Presents ‘The State of the Internet in Australia’*

Sydney, Australia, February 18, 2011 – comScore, Inc, a leader in measuring the digital world, today released The State of the Internet in Australia, which looks at the latest trends in digital consumer behavior in the market. The findings of the report were also recently presented at a comScore-hosted industry event in Sydney. Among the report’s key findings was that Social Networking now accounts for the largest amount of total time spent online at 22 percent, an increase of 5.3 percentage points from the previous year, as social media plays an increasingly prominent role in Australians’ digital lives. (more…)

‘Thawing Permafrost Likely Will Accelerate Global Warming in Coming Decades’

By Guest PostFebruary 18, 2011Environmentalaska, Arctic, atmosphere, carbon, carbon dioxide concentration, climate change, CO2, earth, environmental sciences, fossil fuel emissions, frozen in soil, greenhouse gases, industrial age, kevin schaefer, last glacial period, lori bruhwiler, noaa, permafrost, Siberia, tingjun zhang, warming temperatures

Up to two-thirds of Earth’s permafrost likely will disappear by 2200 as a result of warming temperatures, unleashing vast quantities of carbon into the atmosphere, says a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

The carbon resides in permanently frozen ground that is beginning to thaw in high latitudes from warming temperatures, which will impact not only the climate but also international strategies to reduce fossil fuel emissions, said CU-Boulder’s Kevin Schaefer, lead study author. “If we want to hit a target carbon dioxide concentration, then we have to reduce fossil fuel emissions that much lower than previously thought to account for this additional carbon from the permafrost,” he said. “Otherwise we will end up with a warmer Earth than we want.” (more…)

In Watson’s Wake, IBM World Community Grid Registration Skyrockets 700%

By Guest PostFebruary 18, 2011Technologycomputing system, ibm international foundation, ibm scientists, virtual supercomputer, world community grid

$500,000 in IBM Jeopardy! Challenge prize money to fund global research that benefits humanity

ARMONK, N.Y. – 18 Feb 2011: Watson wasn’t the only computer system that won this week when it competed successfully against two human champions on the Jeopardy! game show.

The other computing system is called World Community Grid, a virtual supercomputer that helps scientists solve humanitarian challenges by tapping the unused computing power of personal computers around the world. Scientists who use World Community Grid are not only set to receive $500,000 in prize money — but are already earning unprecedented support worldwide: The day after the tournament’s conclusion, World Community Grid saw a 700% spike in the number of people who normally volunteer their computers’ spare power for the effort. (more…)

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