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New Take on Impacts of Low Dose Radiation

By Guest PostDecember 24, 2011Health, Scienceatomic bomb blasts, berkeley lab, biological damage, breast cell line, broken dna, cancer risks, christopher pham, dna damage response, dna repair mechanisms, Environment, epidemiological data, extrapolation, gy of radiation, human breast cells, human tissue, ionizing radiation, Japan, joel swenson, lawrence berkeley national laboratory, levels of ionizing radiation, linear no threshold hypothesis, lnt, low dose radiation, mammogram, mathematical modeling, mcf10a, mina bissell, primary breast epithelial cells, radiation induced foci, rafael gomez sjoberg, repair, rif, standard model, survivors, sylvain costes, teresa neumaier, time lapse imaging, world war II, xray microbeam

*Berkeley Lab Researchers Find Evidence Suggesting Risk May Not Be Proportional to Dose at Low Dose Levels*

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), through a combination of time-lapse live imaging and mathematical modeling of a special line of human breast cells, have found evidence to suggest that for low dose levels of ionizing radiation, cancer risks may not be directly proportional to dose. This contradicts the standard model for predicting biological damage from ionizing radiation – the linear-no-threshold hypothesis or LNT – which holds that risk is directly proportional to dose at all levels of irradiation.

“Our data show that at lower doses of ionizing radiation, DNA repair mechanisms work much better than at higher doses,” says Mina Bissell, a world-renowned breast cancer researcher with Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division. “This non-linear DNA damage response casts doubt on the general assumption that any amount of ionizing radiation is harmful and additive.” (more…)

UCLA Physicists Report Nanotechnology Feat With Proteins

By Guest PostDecember 24, 2011Scienceatp, class of enzymes, elastic, enzyme, giovanni zocchi, gk, guanylate kinase, human hair, kinases, liquid, liquids flow, mechanical energy, mechanical response, nanomechanical measurements, nanometer, Nanotechnology, phosphate group, protein molecules, resolution, solid, stress, university of Illinois, visco elastic, visco elastic transition, viscoelastic behavior, viscoelastic regime, viscous, yong wang

UCLA physicists have made nanomechanical measurements of unprecedented resolution on protein molecules.

The new measurements, by UCLA physics professor Giovanni Zocchi and former UCLA physics graduate student Yong Wang, are approximately 100 times higher in resolution than previous mechanical measurements, a nanotechnology feat which reveals an isolated protein molecule, surprisingly, is neither a solid nor a liquid.

“Proteins are the molecular machines of life, the molecules we are made of,” Zocchi said. “We have found that sometimes they behave as a solid and sometimes as a liquid. (more…)

UChicago Chemist Helps Craft Message For World Leaders

By Guest PostDecember 23, 2011General, ScienceBangladesh, burundi, dmitri talapin, energy and environment, food and population, future development, Germany, global necessity, global warming, Health, Japan, kyoto, kyoto protocol, mass media, megacities, nigeria, nobel laureates, North America, nuclear safety, positive and negative aspects, reverse osmosis membrane, science and technology, scientific information, scientific research, singapore, social media, steve koppes, sts forum, sustainability, the netherlands, water shortage, young scientists

Dmitri Talapin, associate professor in chemistry, was one of 10 young scientists from around the world who delivered a message that “Scientific Research is a Global Necessity” to political, scientific and business leaders participating in the 2011 Science and Technology in Society forum last October in Kyoto, Japan.

The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the New York Academy of Sciences selected Talapin to represent the young scientists of North America at the STS Forum, which meets at the same venue were the Kyoto Protocol to alleviate global warming was signed in 1997. (more…)

MSU Chemists Become The First To Support an 84-Year-Old Theory

By Guest PostDecember 23, 2011Scienceabsorption of light, angular momentum, chemical reactions, energy, energy transfer, molecules

EAST LANSING, Mich. — The same principle that causes figure skaters to spin faster as they draw their arms into their bodies has now been used by Michigan State University researchers to understand how molecules move energy around following the absorption of light. (more…)

Dictators in The Dock

By Guest PostDecember 23, 2011Politicsabdullah al senoussi, al capone, arab spring, Argentina, augusto pinochet, Chile, dictatorial regimes, dictators, dictatorship, egyptian president, embezzlemen, ex dictators, exile, hosni mubarak, human rights, hypothesis, intelligence chief, international criminal court, juan maria bordaberry, justice cascade, kangaroo courts, kathryn sikkink, latin america, libya, malefactors, military junta, moammar gadhafi, prosecution, sadam hussein, saif al islam, slobodan milosevic, trial, university of minnesota, uruguay, violations, yugoslavia and serbia

*Human rights trials for ex-dictators speed healing*

If dictators who torture, kill, or otherwise abuse their citizens’ human rights are overthrown, should they be brought to trial?

On one hand, convicting and punishing an ex-dictator and his minions would strike a welcome blow for justice in countries where it has been denied. (more…)

Physicists’ ‘Light from Darkness’ Breakthrough named A Top 2011 Discovery

By Guest PostDecember 23, 2011Sciencebackground activity, dynamical casimir effect, franco nori, light from darkness, long-predicted, physics world, quantum mechanical phenomenon, quantum vacuum fluctuations, the vacuum of space, top 2011 discovery, university of michigan, university of technology in sweden

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—They shook light from darkness. They coaxed something out of what we normally think of as nothing—the vacuum of space. And now their work has been named one of the top 10 breakthroughs of the year by Physics World, the international magazine announced today.

University of Michigan physics researcher Franco Nori is involved in the work, which was published in Nature in November.

The physicists directly observed, for the first time, light particles that flicker in and out of existence in the vacuum. They witnessed the long-predicted quantum mechanical phenomenon known as the dynamical Casimir effect. (more…)

Removal of Lymph Nodes During Surgery For Thyroid Cancer May Be Beneficial

By Guest PostDecember 22, 2011Healthaleksandra popadich, australia, biopsy, blood thyroglobulin levels, clnd, disease, England, group a patients, group b patients, lymph nodes, mark sywak, michael yeh, neck, papillary cancer, prophylactic central neck lymph node dissection, rate of disease recurrence, removal of neck lymph nodes, stan sidhu, thyroglobulin, thyroid cancer, thyroid malignancies, thyroid surgery, thyroid tumor marker, ultrasound, university of sydney, US

*Procedure may reduce recurrence rates, lower tumor marker levels*

Papillary thyroid cancer accounts for the majority of all thyroid malignancies, which primarily impact women. A new study indicates that routinely removing lymph nodes in the neck in these cancer patients may help prevent the disease from coming back.

When thyroid cancer metastasizes, lymph nodes in the neck may be affected, but these lymph-node tumors can be tiny and may not be detected by ultrasounds done before surgery to remove the diseased thyroid — or even during the procedure itself. (more…)

What is The Real Meaning of Christmas?

By Guest PostDecember 22, 2011Culturebest seller, Bible, biblical material, biblical stories, biblical text, brian j turner, christian background, christmas, curriculum materials, david spriggs, during phase 1, eleanor holmes, esther reed, exeter, key stage 3, king james version, project, rob freathy, stories in bible, university of exeter, visual artist, world

There are thousands of stories in the Bible and a visual artist in Exeter is currently on a 30-year mission to paint the whole lot.

The University of Exeter is incorporating some of what will eventually be a series of up to 3,000 artworks by Brian J Turner into new school curriculum resources that explore how biblical stories are read and interpreted.

The Art of Narrative Theology in Religious Education project is being led by Drs Esther Reed and Rob Freathy from the Department of Theology and Religion and the Graduate School of Education at the University of Exeter. The aim of the project is to get school pupils to investigate biblical stories and how people, whether from a Christian background or not, interpret and use them to make sense of their world and their role within it, particularly how they can live a good life. (more…)

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