Comet Collisions Every Six Seconds Explain 17-Year-Old Stellar Mystery

Every six seconds, for millions of years, comets have been colliding with one another near a star in the constellation Cetus called 49 CETI, which is visible to the naked eye. Over the past three decades, astronomers have discovered hundreds of dusty disks around stars, but only two...

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Earth on Acid: Present & Future of Global Acidification

Climate change and extreme weather events grab the headlines, but there is another, lesser known, global change underway on land, in the seas, and in the air: acidification. It turns out that combustion of fossil fuels, smelting of ores, mining of coal and metal ores, and application of...

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Molecular Epidemiological Conditions Relating to Tuberculous and Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria

A research project studying molecular epidemiological conditions relating to diseases caused by tuberculous and non-tuberculous mycobacteria in the Mubende region of Uganda has increased our understanding of how the interplay between humans, animals and the environment affects the development of such diseases. The project focused in particular on...

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Pregnancy and Birth Complications More Likely in Mothers With Bipolar Disorder

Babies born to mothers with bipolar disorder are at increased risk of preterm birth (before 37 weeks) a study published on bmj.com suggests. Infants of mothers with untreated bipolar disorder are also at increased risks of outcomes related to fetal growth restriction. Bipolar disorder (sometimes called manic depression) is a...

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Antioxidants May Ease Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD) Blood Pressure Increase, Study Suggests

Low antioxidant levels contribute to increased blood pressure during exercise for people with peripheral arterial disease, according to researchers at Penn State Hershey Heart and Vascular Institute. Peripheral arterial disease, or PAD, affects an estimated 10 million Americans and increases the chance of death from a cardiovascular event....

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A new ‘super-Earth’

A new ‘super-Earth’ has been discovered that could have a life-supporting climate and water. The planet, given the catchy name HD 40307g, was discovered in a multi-world solar system 42 light years from the Sun and lies at exactly the right distance from its star to allow liquid...

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Discovery of small stone blades dating to 71,000 years ago

The date when stone-age humans first invented the lethal technology of spears and arrows has been set back many thousands of years with the discovery of small stone blades dating to 71,000 years ago. Archaeologists believe the “bladelets” were used as the sharp tips for arrows or spears...

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Harmless Soil-Dwelling Bacteria Successfully Kill Cancer

A bacterial strain that specifically targets tumours could soon be used as a vehicle to deliver drugs in frontline cancer therapy. The strain is expected to be tested in cancer patients in 2013, says a scientist at the Society for General Microbiology's Autumn Conference at the University of...

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Scientists Uncover Secrets of How Intellect and Behavior Emerge During Childhood

Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have shown that a single protein plays an oversized role in intellectual and behavioral development. The scientists found that mutations in a single gene, which is known to cause intellectual disability and increase the risk of developing...

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New Strategy for Fingerprint Visualization Developed

Identifying fingerprints on paper is a commonly used method in police forensic work, but unfortunately it is not easy to make those fingerprints visible. Now, scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed a new approach for making such fingerprints more readily readable. The new method, created...

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Virtual Reality Puts Human in Rat World: 'Beaming' Technology Transforms Human-Animal Interaction

Using cutting-edge virtual reality technology, researchers have 'beamed' a person into a rat facility allowing the rat and human to interact with each other on the same scale. Published October 31 in PLOS ONE, the research enables the rat to interact with a rat-sized robot controlled by a human...

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Mummy Unwrapping Brought Egyptology to the Public

Mummies have been objects of horror in popular culture since the early 1800's -- more than a century before Boris Karloff portrayed an ancient Egyptian searching for his lost love in the 1932 film "The Mummy." Public "unwrappings" of real mummified human remains performed by both showmen and...

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New Device Could Allow Your Heartbeat to Power Pacemaker

An experimental device converted energy from a beating heart to provide enough electricity to power a pacemaker, in a study presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2012. The findings suggest that patients could power their pacemakers -- eliminating the need for replacements when batteries are spent....

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Super-Massive Black Hole Inflates Giant Bubble

Like symbiotic species, a galaxy and its central black hole lead intimately connected lives. The details of this relationship still pose many puzzles for astronomers. This false colour image shows the galaxy M87. Optical light is shown in white/blue (SDSS), the radio emission in yellow/orange (LOFAR). At the...

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