Category Archives: Science

New Ability To Regrow Blood Vessels Holds Promise For Treatment of Heart Disease

AUSTIN, Texas — University of Texas at Austin researchers have demonstrated a new and more effective method for regrowing blood vessels in the heart and limbs — a research advancement that could have major implications for how we treat heart disease, the leading cause of death in the Western world.

The treatment method developed by Cockrell School of Engineering Assistant Professor Aaron Baker could allow doctors to bypass surgery and instead repair damaged blood vessels simply by injecting a lipid-incased substance into a patient. Once inside the body, the substance stimulates cell growth and spurs the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing ones. (more…)

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University of Maryland Researcher Asks – What Does Love Look Like?

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – What does love look like? A dozen roses delivered on an ordinary weekday? Breakfast in bed? Or just a knowing glance between lovers?

While outward displays of love are fairly easy to discern, a researcher in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences is taking a decidedly “inward” approach to documenting this most complex of human emotions. (more…)

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‘Explorers’ Use Uncertainty And Specific Area of Brain

As they try to find the best reward among options, some people explore based on how uncertain they are about the outcome of the options.  Those who employ that thought process, unlike people who use other strategies, uniquely harness the computational power of the rostrolateral prefrontal cortex, a new study finds. (more…)

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Astronomy Team That Includes UCLA Finance Professor Discovers Nearby Dwarf Galaxy

A team led by UCLA research astronomer Michael Rich has used a unique telescope to discover a previously unknown companion to the nearby galaxy NGC 4449, which is some 12.5 million light years from Earth. The newly discovered dwarf galaxy had escaped even the prying eyes of the Hubble Space Telescope.

The research is published Feb. 9 in the journal Nature. (more…)

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Why Bad Immunity Genes Survive

*Study implicates “arms race” between genes and germs*

Biologists have found new evidence of why mice, people and other vertebrate animals carry thousands of varieties of genes to make immune-system proteins named MHCs–even though some of those genes make vertebrate animals susceptible to infections and to autoimmune diseases.

“Major histocompatibility complex” (MHC) proteins are found on the surfaces of most cells in vertebrate animals. They distinguish proteins like themselves from foreign proteins, and trigger an immune response against these foreign invaders. (more…)

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New Views Show Old NASA Mars Landers

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter recorded a scene on Jan. 29, 2012, that includes the first color image from orbit showing the three-petal lander of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit mission. Spirit drove off that lander platform in January 2004 and spent most of its six-year working life in a range of hills about two miles to the east.

Another recent image from HiRISE, taken on Jan. 26, 2012, shows NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander and its surroundings on far-northern Mars after that spacecraft’s second Martian arctic winter.  Phoenix exceeded its planned mission life in 2008, ending its work as solar energy waned during approach of its first Mars winter. (more…)

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Global Extinction: Gradual Doom as Bad as Abrupt

*In “The Great Dying” 250 million years ago, the end came slowly*

The deadliest mass extinction of all took a long time to kill 90 percent of Earth’s marine life–and it killed in stages–according to a newly published report.

It shows that mass extinctions need not be sudden events.

Thomas Algeo, a geologist at the University of Cincinnati, and 13 colleagues have produced a high-resolution look at the geology of a Permian-Triassic boundary section on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic. (more…)

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