A toad sits at a pond's edge eyeing a cricket on a blade of grass. In the blink of an eye, the toad snares the insect with its tongue. This deceptively simple, remarkably fast feeding action offers a new look at how muscles work.
This fresh perspective could lead to designing more efficient electric motors, better prostheses and new medical treatments for neuromuscular diseases like Parkinson's.
CHICAGO - Metformin, the common first-line drug for type 2 diabetes, may be effective in increasing pathologic complete response rates in diabetic women with early stage breast cancer who took the drug during chemotherapy prior to having surgery, paving the way for further research of the drug as a potential cancer therapy, according to researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Irvine, Calif., June 2, 2008 — Talking it out has long been considered essential to recovering from a trauma. But new research shows that expressing one's thoughts and feelings after a traumatic event is not necessary for long-term emotional and physical health, a finding that could change the way institutions devote money and resources to mental health services following collective traumas.
DURHAM, N.C. -- Microscopic robots crafted to maneuver separately without any obvious guidance are now assembling into self-organized structures after years of continuing research led by a Duke University computer scientist.
"It's marvelous to be able to do assembly and control at this fine a resolution with such very, very tiny things," said Bruce Donald, a Duke professor of computer science and biochemistry.
PORTLAND, Ore. In a multi-site study, Oregon Health & Science University Cancer Institute researchers have found that a drug called Ipilimumab, also known as MDX-010, works to stimulate the body's own immune system to fight prostate cancer. The drug was found to be effective in study participants with a serious type of prostate cancer one where the tumor has spread and was resistant to hormonal treatment and, in some cases, also to chemotherapy.
Darryl Pape was one of 19 participants in the Oregon Health & Science University Cancer Institute trial.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Like a celestial top, the spinning neutron star known as the Crab Pulsar is slowing, a phenomenon that astronomers have yet to fully understand.
Now, researchers with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory Scientific Collaboration — an international collaboration headed by a University of Florida physicist — have ruled out one long-hypothesized cause: emission of gravitational waves.
Astronomers have discovered an extrasolar planet only three times more massive than our own, the smallest yet observed orbiting a normal star. The star itself is not large, perhaps as little as one twentieth the mass of our Sun, suggesting to the research team that relatively common low-mass stars may present good candidates for hosting Earth-like planets.
An international team of astronomers led by David Bennett of the University of Notre Dame has discovered an extra-solar planet of about three Earth masses orbiting a star with a mass so low that its core may not be large enough to maintain nuclear reactions. The result was presented Monday (June 2) at the American Astronomical Society annual meeting in St. Louis.
As the United States continues to import increasingly more of its food from developing nations, we are putting ourselves at greater risk of foodborne disease because many of these countries do not have the same sanitary standards for production, especially in the case of seafood and fresh produce, say scientists today at the 108th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Boston.
Psychologists at the University of Virginia and the University of Plymouth (United Kingdom) have conducted experimental research that contrasts with the belief that happy children are the best learners. The findings, which currently appear online in the journal Developmental Science ( www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00709.x ), and will be printed in the June issue, show that where attention to detail is required, happy children may be at a disadvantage.
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