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For Longer-Life, Disease-Free Roses, NC State Researchers Insert Celery Gene

By Guest PostFebruary 12, 2011Sciencealcohol, botrytis, bryon sosinski, celery, Colombia, disease, ecuador, environmental factors, fungal pathogens, gene, george allen, grocery stores, john dole, john williamson, lettuce, mannitol, petal blight, plant diseases, post harvest diseases, rose, rose plants, valentine day, vase life

A rose by any other name would smell … like celery?

North Carolina State University research intended to extend the “vase life” of roses inserts a gene from celery inside rose plants to help fight off botrytis, or petal blight, one of the rose’s major post-harvest diseases.

Some fungal pathogens, the bad guys that infect plants, produce a sugar alcohol called mannitol that interferes with the plant’s ability to block disease like petal blight, which produces wilty, mushy petals – an effect similar to what happens to lettuce when it’s been in the crisper too long. (more…)

Looking at a Tough Hill to Climb? Depends on Your Point of View

By Guest PostFebruary 12, 2011Scienceangle of stairs, bottom of the hill, climbing, constancy of slant perception, dennis shaffer, descending hills, fatigue, fear of falling, inclines, judgment, mariagrace flint, overestimates, people, slope of the escalator, slope of the steps, steepness of slopes

COLUMBUS, Ohio — People tend to overestimate the steepness of slopes – and psychologists studying the phenomenon have made a discovery that refutes common ideas about how we perceive inclines in general.

For more than a decade, researchers thought that our judgment was biased by our fatigue or fear of falling, explained Dennis Shaffer, associate professor of psychology at Ohio State University’s Mansfield campus. We perceive climbing or descending hills as difficult or dangerous, so when we look at an incline, our view is clouded by the expected physical exertion or danger of traversing it. (more…)

IBM Announces Eight Universities Contributing to the Watson Computing System’s Development

By Guest PostFebruary 11, 2011Technologyarchitecture, boris katz, bruce porter, computational methods, david ferrucci, eric nyberg, ibm, jeopardy, ken barker, massachusetts institute of technology, MIT, oaqa, open advancement of question answering initiative, qa technology, question answering, start, watson computing system, watson project team

ARMONK, N.Y. – 11 Feb 2011: IBM today announced that eight universities are collaborating with IBM Researchers to advance the Question Answering (QA) technology behind the “Watson” computing system, which will compete against humans on the quiz show, Jeopardy!, airing February 14-16.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Texas at Austin, University of Southern California (USC), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), University at Albany (UAlbany), University of Trento (Italy), and University of Massachusetts Amherst join Carnegie Mellon University in working with IBM on the development of a first-of-its-kind open architecture that enables researchers to efficiently collaborate on underlying QA capabilities and then apply them to IBM’s Watson system. (more…)

Stroke Takes ‘Enormous Toll’ on Hollywood Stars

By Guest PostFebruary 11, 2011General, Healthcardiovascular disease, elizabeth taylor, fatal strokes, grace Kelly, hannah smith, heart attack, high blood pressure, hollywood actors, hollywood stars, kirk douglas, los angeles, mary pickford, oscar nominees, rana fiaz, researchers, richard burton, stroke, united states

A study by researchers at the UCLA Stroke Center found that stroke and cardiovascular disease have exacted an enormous toll on Hollywood stars.

The findings were presented at the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference (ISC) in Los Angeles on Feb. 10.

“Since this is the first time the ISC is being held in Los Angeles, we thought it was an appropriate occasion to investigate the frequency and impact of stroke among leading Hollywood actors,” said Hannah Smith, a staff research associate at the UCLA Stroke Center. “By documenting the toll that stroke and myocardial infarction have exacted on stars like Kirk Douglas and Grace Kelly, we hope to illustrate the damage that cardiovascular disease can cause.” (more…)

UF Researchers Find Surgical Breast Biopsies Overused in Florida

By Guest PostFebruary 11, 2011Healthbreast biopsies, needle biopsy, open biopsy, residual cancer, surgical biopsy, surgical breast biopsies

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Thousands of women receive unnecessary surgical breast biopsies in Florida each year, University of Florida researchers state in an article published online this week by the American Journal of Surgery. (more…)

Introducing Livestand from Yahoo! – A Personalized Digital Newsstand for Tablets and Mobile Phones

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2011Technologyadvertisers, android, blake irving, company, digital media, flickr, ipad, livestand, mobile phones, publishers, scalable platform, tablets, Yahoo

*Scalable Publishing Platform Will First Come to Life with Yahoo!’s Vast Digital Content Library*

SUNNYVALE, CA – February 10, 2011 – Yahoo! Inc. today announced Livestand from Yahoo!, a digital newsstand that continually offers new content to consumers, based on their interests. Launching first for tablets, Livestand from Yahoo! will enable publishers and advertisers to seamlessly distribute content across tablets and mobile phones in an experience that is elegant and personalized to the individual.

Designed to initially power Yahoo!’s vast digital content library – which includes Sports, News, Finance, Flickr, omg!, and the Yahoo! Contributor Network – Livestand from Yahoo! leverages Yahoo!’s strengths in content and personalization and re-imagines them into a new kind of experience for the rapidly growing tablet and mobile phone categories. (more…)

New View of Family Life in the North American Nebula

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2011Sciencecontamination, cosmic community, earth, gulf of mexico, infrared view, light years, luisa rebull, micron, NASA, north american nebula, spitzer image, spitzer space telescope, stars, toddler stars, wavelength, young stars, zodiacal dust

Pasadena, Calif. — Stars at all stages of development, from dusty little tots to young adults, are on display in a new image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

This cosmic community is called the North American nebula. In visible light, the region resembles the North American continent, with the most striking resemblance being the Gulf of Mexico. But in Spitzer’s infrared view, the continent disappears. Instead, a swirling landscape of dust and young stars comes into view.

“One of the things that makes me so excited about this image is how different it is from the visible image, and how much more we can see in the infrared than in the visible,” said Luisa Rebull of NASA’s Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. Rebull is lead author of a paper about the observations, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. “The Spitzer image reveals a wealth of detail about the dust and the young stars here.” (more…)

Language May Play Important Role in Learning the Meanings of Numbers

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2011Scienceformal sign language, homesigners, meanings of numbers, number words, sign language

Research shows “homesigners” unable to comprehend the value of large numbers

New research conducted with deaf people in Nicaragua shows that language may play an important role in learning the meanings of numbers. (more…)

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