News aggregator
Concealed Glaciers Discovered On Mars At Mid-latitudes
Vast Martian glaciers of water ice under protective blankets of rocky debris persist today at much lower latitudes than any ice previously identified on Mars, says new research using ground-penetrating radar on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The discovery is an encouraging sign for scientists searching for life beyond Earth. The water ice might also provide a useful resource for human explorers visiting the red planet.
Categories: Science & Nature
Brain Reorganizes To Adjust For Loss Of Vision
A new study shows that when patients with macular degeneration focus on using another part of their retina to compensate for their loss of central vision, their brain seems to compensate by reorganizing its neural connections. Age--related macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness in the elderly. The study appears in the journal Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience.
Categories: Science & Nature
Shellfish Inspire New Adhesives
Adhesive shellfish proteins bind regardless of how many binding elements they contain. This has potential for the development of new kinds of binding agents.
Categories: Science & Nature
Why Only Some Former Smokers Develop Lung Cancer
Canadian researchers are trying to answer why some smokers develop lung cancer while others remain disease free, despite similar lifestyle changes.
Categories: Science & Nature
Extreme Makeover: Photos Realistically Embedded Within Videos
Stanford artificial intelligence researchers have developed software that makes it easy to reach inside an existing video and place a photo on the wall so realistically that it looks like it was there from the beginning. The photo is not pasted on top of the existing video, but embedded in it. It works for videos as well; you can play a video on a wall inside your video.
Categories: Science & Nature
Brain Compound 'Throws Gasoline Onto The Fire' Of Schizophrenia
New research has traced elevated levels of a specific compound in the brain to problem-solving deficits in patients with schizophrenia. The finding suggests that drugs used to suppress the compound, called kynurenic acid, might be an important supplement to antipsychotic medicines, as these adjuncts could be used to treat the disorder's most resistant symptoms -- cognitive impairments.
Categories: Science & Nature
2008: Surprises and disappointments (Yahoo! Sports)
Kyle Busch was the biggest surprise of the regular season, then turned into the biggest disappointment of the Chase.
Categories: Sports
Pluripotent Stem Cells Shown To Generate New Retinal Cells Necessary For Vision, Study Finds
Pluripotent stem cells -- those, like embryonic stem cells, that give rise to almost every type of cell in the body -- can be converted into the different classes of retinal cells necessary for vision, according to a new study.
Categories: Science & Nature
'4-D' Microscope Revolutionizes The Way We Look At Nano World
More than a century ago, the development of the earliest motion picture technology made what had been previously thought "magical" a reality: capturing and recreating the movement and dynamism of the world around us. A breakthrough technology based on new concepts has now accomplished a similar feat, but on an atomic scale by allowing, for the first time, the real-time, real-space visualization of fleeting changes in the structure and shape of matter barely a billionth of a meter in size.
Categories: Science & Nature
Misreading Of Damaged DNA May Spur Tumor Formation
Cells can turn on tumor-promoting growth circuits by falsely reporting critical genetic information during the process of transcription: making RNA from DNA. Damage to the DNA making up a gene can lead to a misreading of the gene as it is made into RNA, a process called transcriptional mutagenesis. Transcriptional mutagenesis could represent an additional way DNA damage contributes to tumor formation.
Categories: Science & Nature
Birds Singing In Slow Motion Help Reveal Brain Locations Responsible For Timing
As anyone who watched the Olympics can appreciate, timing matters when it comes to complex sequential actions. It can make a difference between a perfect handspring and a fall, for instance. But what controls that timing? Scientists are closing in on the brain regions responsible, thanks to some technical advances and some help from songbirds.
Categories: Science & Nature
Faster Test For Food Protein That Triggers Celiac Disease
Researchers are reporting development of a faster test for identifying the food protein that triggers celiac disease, a difficult-to-diagnose digestive disease involving the inability to digest protein called gluten that occurs in wheat, oats, rye, and barley. The finding could help millions of people avoid diarrhea, bloating, and other symptoms that occur when they unknowingly eat foods containing gluten.
Categories: Science & Nature
Rock Avalanches And Landslides: Modeling When The Mountain Slides Down Into The Valley
Rock avalanches and landslides, rock falls and slope slips are all contained in the concept of mass movements. The ever more intensive usage of the mountainous regions and the climate change are some of the causes for these natural erosion processes from high alpine regions to the hill country, and they are not insignificant causes. Engineering geologists are modeling mass movements with specially adapted computer programs. Their know-how is helpful for the risk assessment of imminent landslides and slope slips.
Categories: Science & Nature
Stress Hinders Rats' Decision-making Abilities
A single exposure to uncontrollable stress impairs decision making in rats for several days, making them unable to reliably seek out the larger of two rewards.
Categories: Science & Nature
Refit Puts Frigate Ahead in the Air and on the Water
HMS Sutherland has set sail from Scotland equipped with the most advanced air defence system in the Royal Navy following a multi-million pound MOD refit.
Categories: Military
FCS Launcher to Protect New Class of Navy Ship
The Non-Line of Sight Launch System, being developed as part of the Army's Future Combat Systems, has been selected for use aboard the first of the U.S. Navy's Littoral Combat Ships, the USS Freedom.
Categories: Military
Daunting Challenges Ahead for Pentagon Acquisitions
The United States has increased its regular investment into defense matters to over $500 billion per year, with hundreds of billions more being spent to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Categories: Military
UK MoD Selects Navistar for Mission-Specific Tactical Support Vehicle
Navistar Defense, LLC today expanded its worldwide customer list to include the United Kingdom through the Ministry of Defence's Tactical Support Vehicle (TSV) program.
Categories: Military
Preferred Bidders Named for New Breed of Armoured Vehicles
Troops on operations in Afghanistan will benefit from further improvements in safety and protection following the announcement, by Defence Secretary John Hutton, of Preferred Bidders for three new classes of armoured support vehicle.
Categories: Military

