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Skin Patch Improves Attention Span in Stroke Patients

By Guest PostJuly 7, 2012Healthadhd, brain damage, drug rotigotine, hemi spatial neglect, masud husain, parkinsons disease, placebo treatment, receptors in brain, skin patch, stroke, stroke patient, ucl, university college london

Researchers at the UCL Institute of Neurology have found that giving the drug rotigotine as a skin patch can improve inattention in some stroke patients.

Hemi-spatial neglect, a severe and common form of inattention that can be caused by brain damage following a stroke, is one of the most debilitating symptoms, frequently preventing patients from living independently. When the right side of the brain has suffered damage, the patient may have little awareness of their left-hand side and have poor memory of objects that they have seen, leaving them inattentive and forgetful. Currently there are few treatment options. (more…)

Iconic New Zealand Reptile Shows Chewing is Not Just for Mammals

By Guest PostJune 5, 2012Nature3d, angles, bbsrc, beetles, chewing technique, computer model, crickets, dinosaurs, harmful xrays, iconic, lizard, marc jones, metabolism, musculoskeletal model, neil curtis, new zealand, new zealand tuatara, reptile, sea birds, skull, small lizards, sphenodon, spiders, steak knife, tuatara, university college london, university of hull

The tuatara, an iconic New Zealand reptile, chews its food in a way unlike any other animal on the planet –challenging the widespread perception that complex chewing ability is closely linked to high metabolism.

Using a sophisticated computer model, scientists from UCL and the University of Hull demonstrate how the tuatara is able to slice its food like a “steak knife”. The tuatara’s complex chewing technique raises doubts about the supposed link between chewing and high metabolism in mammals.

The New Zealand tuatara (Sphenodon) is a lizard-like reptile that is the only survivor of a group that was globally widespread at the time of the dinosaurs. It lives on 35 islands scattered around the coast of New Zealand and was recently reintroduced to the mainland. Its diet consists of beetles, spiders, crickets, small lizards and, occasionally, sea birds. (more…)

Climate Change Led to Collapse of Ancient Indus Civilization, Study Finds

By Guest PostJune 2, 2012Environment, Sciencearabian sea, archaeological evidence, catastrophic floods, climate change, coring, dorian fuller, drilling, eastern afghanistan, egypt, ganges, geological evidence, geologist, geoscience, ghaggar hakra, goldilocks civilization, harappan civilization, harappan settlements, harappan times, himalaya, hindu mythology, indo gangetic plain, indus, james p m syvitski, liviu giosan, mesopotamia, northwest india, Pakistan, peter d clift, remains, river floods, romania, sarasvati, sediments, srtm, stefan constantinescu, topography, university college london, whoi

A new study combining the latest archaeological evidence with state-of-the-art geoscience technologies provides evidence that climate change was a key ingredient in the collapse of the great Indus or Harappan Civilization almost 4000 years ago. The study also resolves a long-standing debate over the source and fate of the Sarasvati, the sacred river of Hindu mythology.

Once extending more than 1 million square kilometers across the plains of the Indus River from the Arabian Sea to the Ganges, over what is now Pakistan, northwest India and eastern Afghanistan, the Indus civilization was the largest—but least known—of the first great urban cultures that also included Egypt and Mesopotamia. Like their contemporaries, the Harappans, named for one of their largest cities, lived next to rivers owing their livelihoods to the fertility of annually watered lands. (more…)

Green-Glowing Fish Provides New Insights into Health Impacts of Pollution

By Guest PostApril 23, 2012Environmentbisphenol a, breast, change gender, charles tyler, contraceptive pharmaceutical, decrease, endocrine disrupting chemicals, environmental estrogens, ethinyloestradiol, fluorescent fish, genetic system, green fluorescent signals, humans, industrial detergents, industrial product, male fish, nonylphenol, oestrogen hormone, oestrogenic chemicals, okhyun lee, plastics, reproductive problems, river, sperm count, testicular cancer, tetsuhiro kudoh, transgenic zebrafish, ucl, university college london, university of exeter, wastewater, wildlife, zebrafish

Understanding the damage that pollution causes to both wildlife and human health is set to become much easier thanks to a new green-glowing zebrafish.

Created by a team from the University of Exeter, the fish makes it easier than ever before to see where in the body environmental chemicals act and how they affect health.

The fluorescent fish has shown that oestrogenic chemicals, which are already linked to reproductive problems, impact on more parts of the body than previously thought.

The research by the University of Exeter and UCL (University College London) is published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. (more…)

Pigeons’ Homing Skill Not Down to Iron-Rich Beak Cells

By Guest PostApril 16, 2012Natureballs of iron, beaks, david keays, electrical signal, Environment, imaging technique, infection, iron, macrophages, magnetic cell, magnetic field, magnetic nerve cell, mark lythgoe, mechanism, migratory bird, navigation, nerve cell, pigeon, red blood cell, state-of-the-art, theory, university college london, vienna, white blood cell

The theory that pigeons’ famous skill at navigation is down to iron-rich nerve cells in their beaks has been disproved by a new study published in Nature.

The study shows that iron-rich cells in the pigeon beak are in fact specialised white blood cells, called macrophages. This finding, which shatters the established dogma, puts the field back on course as the search for magnetic cells continues. (more…)

First Observational Test of the ‘Multiverse’

By Guest PostAugust 5, 2011Sciencealternative universes, big bang, bubble, bubble universes, cmb, cmb radiation, cmb sky, cosmic microwave background radiation, daniel mortlock, european space agency, hiranya peiris, modern theories of fundamental physics, multiverse, NASA, physicists, planck satellite, powerful computer algorithm, signs of bubble universe collisions, sky, stephen feeney, theory, ucl, universe, university college london, wilkinson microwave anisotropy probe, wmap

The theory that our universe is contained inside a bubble, and that multiple alternative universes exist inside their own bubbles – making up the ‘multiverse’ – is, for the first time, being tested by physicists.

Two research papers published in Physical Review Letters and Physical Review D are the first to detail how to search for signatures of other universes. Physicists are now searching for disk-like patterns in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation – relic heat radiation left over from the Big Bang – which could provide tell-tale evidence of collisions between other universes and our own. (more…)

Fossil Reveals Oldest Evidence of Live Birth in Reptiles

By Guest PostJuly 22, 2011Scienceaquatic groups, Beijing, blood supply to the embryos, chinese academy of sciences, early cretaceous period, eggs, embryos of modern lizards, fossil, fossil records, invertebrates, jehol biota, jehol group, lizards, mammals, marine ichthyosaurs, north eastern china, offspring, physiological adaptations, plants, rocks, snakes, squamate reptiles, susan evans, terrestrial reptiles, university college london, yabeinosaurus

*A fossil from north-eastern China has revealed that terrestrial reptiles were giving birth to live young at least as early as 120 million years ago.*

The newly discovered fossil of a pregnant lizard proves that some squamate reptiles (lizards and snakes) were giving birth to live young, rather than laying eggs, in the Early Cretaceous period – much earlier than previously thought. The fossil shows a pregnant female filled with the tiny skeletons of more than 15 baby lizards at a stage of development similar to that of late embryos of modern lizards. The mother lizard, which is 30 centimetres long (excluding her tail), probably died only a few days before giving birth.

The discovery is described in the journal Naturwissenschaften by scientists from UCL (University College London) and the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. (more…)

Telecommunications Wavelength Quantum Dot Laser Grown on Silicon Substrate

By Guest PostJune 15, 2011Science, Technologydemonstration of an electrically driven, department of electronic and electrical engineering at ucl, epsrc national centre, fabrication of active devices in electronics silicon photonics, growth of compound semiconductor laser material, Nanotechnology, nature photonics journal, photonics with silicon electronics, quantum dot laser grown directly, royal society university, semiconductors, silicon based information technology, silicon substrate (si), university college london, wafer bonding, wavelength (1300-nm)

A new generation of high speed, silicon-based information technology has been brought a step closer by researchers in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at UCL and the London Centre for Nanotechnology. The team’s research, published in Nature Photonics journal, provides the first demonstration of an electrically driven, quantum dot laser grown directly on a silicon substrate (Si) with a wavelength (1300-nm) suitable for use in telecommunications. (more…)

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