For women of mixed racial or ethnic backgrounds, a new method for measuring bone health may improve the odds of correctly diagnosing their risk of osteoporosis and bone fractures, according to a UCLA-led study.
Currently, assessing osteoporosis and the risk of fractures from small accidents like falls requires a bone density scan. But because these scans don’t provide other relevant fracture-related information, such as bone size and the amount of force a bone is subjected to during a fall, each patient’s bone density is examined against a national database of people with the same age and race or ethnicity. (more…)
Shark migrations studied with underwater robot along Delmarva Peninsula
University of Delaware researchers are using an underwater robot to find and follow sand tiger sharks that they previously tagged with transmitters. The innovative project is part of a multi-year partnership with Delaware State University to better understand the behavior and migration patterns of the sharks in real time.
“In the past week our new, specially equipped glider OTIS – which stands for Oceanographic Telemetry Identification Sensor – detected multiple sand tiger sharks off the coast of Maryland that were tagged over the past several years,” said Matthew Oliver, assistant professor of oceanography in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. “This is the first time that a glider has found tagged sharks and reported their location in real time.” (more…)
Engineering faculty and students at the University of Colorado Boulder have produced the first experimental results showing that atomically thin graphene membranes with tiny pores can effectively and efficiently separate gas molecules through size-selective sieving.
The findings are a significant step toward the realization of more energy-efficient membranes for natural gas production and for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from power plant exhaust pipes.
Mechanical engineering professors Scott Bunch and John Pellegrino co-authored a paper in Nature Nanotechnology with graduate students Steven Koenig and Luda Wang detailing the experiments. The paper was published Oct. 7 in the journal’s online edition.(more…)
A joint effort of citizen scientists and professional astronomers has led to the first reported case of a planet orbiting twin suns that in turn is orbited by a second distant pair of stars.
Aided by volunteers using the Planethunters.org website, a Yale-led international team of astronomers identified and confirmed discovery of the phenomenon, called a circumbinary planet in a four-star system.
Only six planets are known to orbit two stars, according to researchers, and none of these are orbited by distant stellar companions. (more…)
ANN ARBOR — Some called it “witchcraft.” Others just watched in awe as their scanned fingerprints were used to pull up their records on a computer.
They were paprika farmers in Malawi participating in a new study that shows fingerprinting can help encourage borrowers to repay their loans.
Like many impoverished countries, Malawi lacks a national identification system. Most of the population lives in rural areas with few government services. Even ID as basic as a birth certificate is rare in the southeastern African nation. (more…)
New treatment may have fewer side effects than traditional cancer therapy
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Currently, large doses of chemotherapy are required when treating certain forms of cancer, resulting in toxic side effects. The chemicals enter the body and work to destroy or shrink the tumor, but also harm vital organs and drastically affect bodily functions. Now, scientists at the University of Missouri have proven that a new form of prostate cancer treatment that uses radioactive gold nanoparticles, and was developed at MU, is safe to use in dogs. Sandra Axiak-Bechtel, an assistant professor in oncology at the MU College of Veterinary Medicine, says that this is a big step for gold nanoparticle research.
“Proving that gold nanoparticles are safe to use in the treatment of prostate cancer in dogs is a big step toward gaining approval for clinical trials in men,” Axiak-Bechtel said. “Dogs develop prostate cancer naturally in a very similar way as humans, so the gold nanoparticle treatment has a great chance to translate well to human patients.” (more…)
Playing football (soccer) could be the best way for people with high blood pressure, known as hypertension, to improve their fitness, normalise their blood pressure and reduce their risk of stroke, according to research published today (Monday 15 October 2012) in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise.
Research from Universities of Exeter and Copenhagen, and Gentofte University Hospital in Denmark suggests football training prevents cardiovascular disease in middle-aged men with hypertension and is more effective than healthy lifestyle advice currently prescribed by GPs.
After six months of football training, three out of four men in this study had blood pressure within the normal, healthy range. (more…)
Berkeley Lab Researchers Develop New Technique for Heterogenizing Homogenous Nano Catalysts
Catalysts are substances that speed up the rates of chemical reactions without themselves being chemically changed. Industrial catalysts come in two main types – heterogeneous, in which the catalyst is in a different phase from the reactants; and homogeneous, in which catalyst and the reactants are in the same phase. Heterogeneous catalysts are valued for their sustainability because they can be recycled. Homogeneous catalysts are valued for their product selectivity as their properties can be easily tuned through relatively simple chemistry.
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have combined the best properties of both types of industrial catalysts by encapsulating nanoclusters of a metallic heterogeneous catalyst within the branched arms of the molecules known as dendrimers. (more…)
