'The robots are coming'

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AMES, Iowa – Alexander Stoytchev and his three graduate students recently presented one of their robot's long and shiny arms to a visitor.

Here, they said, swing it around.

And so that visitor tentatively gave the robot's left arm a few twists and twirls. The metal arm was heavy, but still moved easily at its shoulder, elbow and wrist joints.

Then the graduate students hit some keyboard commands and the robot replayed those exact arm movements.

Stem cell transplant reverses early-stage multiple sclerosis

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CHICAGO --- Researchers from Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine appear to have reversed the neurological dysfunction of early-stage multiple sclerosis patients by transplanting their own immune stem cells into their bodies and thereby "resetting" their immune systems.

"This is the first time we have turned the tide on this disease," said principal investigator Richard Burt, M.D. chief of immunotherapy for autoimmune diseases at the Feinberg School. The clinical trial was performed at Northwestern Memorial Hospital where Burt holds the same title.

Surgical implants coated with one of 'nature's antibiotics' could prevent infection: UBC study

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Researchers at the University of British Columbia have discovered a mimic of one of "nature's antibiotics" that can be used to coat medical devices to prevent infection and rejection.

The study, released today in the journal Chemistry and Biology, found that a synthetic form, short tethered cationic antimicrobial peptides (cationic peptide), can protect surfaces, like those of medical devices, killing bacteria and fungi that come into contact with them. Peptides are small proteins.

Women with high blood pressure during pregnancy face future of complications

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Chronic hypertension, diabetes and blood clots are more likely in otherwise healthy women who experienced complications due to hypertension such as preeclampsia in their first pregnancies, according to Yale School of Medicine researchers working in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Scientists see the light: How vision sends its message to the brain

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Genes may predict vascular malformation

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A pair of studies, led by Medical College of Wisconsin scientists at Children's Research Institute in Milwaukee, may translate into rapid molecular tests to distinguish between hemangiomas and congenital blood or lymph vessel malformations in infants. Hemangiomas are common birthmarks consisting of benign tumors of blood vessels. The studies appear in the January 29, 2009 issue of the journal Blood.

MIT IDs genes linked to Parkinson's side effects

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Study: Learning science facts doesn't boost science reasoning

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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A study of college freshmen in the United States and in China found that Chinese students know more science facts than their American counterparts -- but both groups are nearly identical when it comes to their ability to do scientific reasoning.

Neither group is especially skilled at reasoning, however, and the study suggests that educators must go beyond teaching science facts if they hope to boost students' reasoning ability.

Research links seismic slip and tremor, with implications for subduction zone

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In the last decade, scientists have recorded regular episodes of tectonic plates slowly, quietly slipping past each other in western Washington and British Columbia over periods of two weeks or more, releasing as much energy as a magnitude 6 earthquake.

The slip events coincide with regular occurrences of what scientists call nonvolcanic tremor, which showed up clearly on seismometers but for which the origins were uncertain.

How a brain chemical changes locusts from harmless grasshoppers to swarming pests

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Scientists have uncovered the underlying biological reason why locusts form migrating swarms. Their findings, reported in today's edition of Science, could be used in the future to prevent the plagues which devastate crops (notably in developing countries), affecting the livelihood of one in ten people across the globe.