Nerve stimulation therapy alleviates pain for chronic headache

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A novel therapy using a miniature nerve stimulator instead of medication for the treatment of profoundly disabling headache disorders improved the experience of pain by 80-95 percent, according to a new study from the University of California, San Francisco and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London.

Dry adhesive based on carbon nanotubes gets stronger, with directional gripping ability

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The race for the best "gecko foot" dry adhesive got a new competitor this week with a stronger and more practical material reported in the journal Science by a team of researchers from four U.S. institutions.

Digital zebrafish embryo provides the first complete developmental blueprint of a vertebrate

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Smithsonian perspective: Biodiversity in a warmer world

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Will climate change exceed life's ability to respond? Biodiversity in a Warmer World, published in the Oct. 10, 2008 issue of the journal, Science, illustrates that cross-disciplinary research fostered by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama clearly informs this urgent debate.

Ripple effect: Water snails offer new propulsion possibilities

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A UC San Diego engineer has revealed a new mode of propulsion based on how water snails create ripples of slime to crawl upside down beneath the surface.

Eric Lauga, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering, recently published a paper in the journal Physics of Fluid called "Crawling Beneath the Free Surface: Water Snail Locomotion," that explains how and why water snails can drag themselves across a fluid surface that they can't even grip.

A low-cholesterol diet leaves a bitter taste in the gut

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One role for the proteins on the tongue that sense bitter tasting substances, type 2 taste receptors (T2Rs), is to limit ingestion of these substances, as a large number of natural bitter compounds are known to be toxic. T2Rs are also found in the gut, and it has been suggested that there they have a similar role to their function in the mouth (i.e., they might limit intestinal toxin absorption). Data to support this idea has now been generated in mice by Timothy Osborne and colleagues, at the University of California, Irvine.

Keeping herpes infection in check: Pitt researchers describe immune system strategies

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PITTSBURGH, Oct. 9 – Herpes simplex virus type I can cause bouts of cold sores, blindness and potentially lethal encephalitis when it reawakens from a quiescent state in the nerve cells it infects.

To prevent these consequences, the stealthy virus is kept under constant guard by the immune system, say University of Pittsburgh scientists. Their research challenges the once common notion that latent HSV-1 in sensory neurons is invisible to the immune system.

AAAS satellite image analysis reveals South Ossetian damage

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Promising new material that could improve gas mileage

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EVANSTON, Ill. --- With gasoline at high prices, it's disheartening to know that up to three-quarters of the potential energy you are paying for is wasted. A good deal of it goes right out the tailpipe instead of powering your car.

Now a Northwestern University-led research team has identified a promising new material that could transform a technology that currently cools and heats car seats -- thermoelectrics -- into one that also efficiently converts waste heat into electricity to help power the car and improve gas mileage.

Children with cystic fibrosis not well covered by guidelines for vitamin D needs

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Existing recommendations for treating vitamin D deficiency in children with cystic fibrosis (CF) are too low to cover the serious need, leaving most at high risk for bone loss and rickets, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins Children's Center.