Golden rods

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Gold nanoparticles are under consideration for a number of biomedical applications, such as tumor treatment. A German-American research team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Hunter College in New York, and the RWTH Aachen has now developed a new method for the production of nanoscopic gold rods. In contrast to previous methods, they have achieved this without the use of cytotoxic additives. As they report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the synthesis is not carried out in water, but in an ionic liquid, a "liquid salt".

Over 1 in 4 South African men report using physical violence against their female partners

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A first-ever, national study conducted in South Africa found that 27.5 percent of men who have ever been married or lived with a partner report perpetrating physical violence against their current or most recent female partner. This study http://www.cmaj.ca/press/pg535.pdf,led by researchers from Harvard School of Public Health, Yale School of Public Health, and the University of Cape Town in South Africa, appears in the September 9, 2008, issue of CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal.)

Survey finds spirituality is important to eye patients

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Patients visiting an ophthalmologist report that prayer is important to their well-being and that God plays a positive role in illness, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Montrealers 3 minutes away from a video lottery terminal

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A video lottery terminal In Montreal, a video lottery terminal (VLT) is often less than three minutes away by foot from a compulsive gambler, who is usually a male between 18 and 44 with little education and low revenues.

For instance, 96 percent of the Park Extension neighborhood has a business with a VLT permit less than three minutes away from the residential area, according to Université de Montréal geographer Éric Robitaille.

University of Chicago scientists await start-up of Large Hadron Collider

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The moment that James Pilcher has been waiting for since 1994 will arrive at 1:30 a.m. CDT on Wednesday, Sept. 10, when the world's largest scientific instrument is scheduled to begin operation.

Pilcher is among six University of Chicago faculty members and more than a dozen research scientists and students, both graduate and undergraduate, who have contributed to the design and construction of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland.

Walk this way? Masculine motion seems to come at you, while females walk away

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You can tell a lot about people from the way they move alone: their gender, age, and even their mood, earlier studies have shown. Now, researchers reporting in the September 9th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, have found that observers perceive masculine motion as coming toward them, while a characteristically feminine walk looks like it's headed the other way.

Such studies are done by illuminating only the joints of model walkers and asking observers to identify various characteristics about the largely ambiguous figures.

Space: The not-so-final frontier

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Of all environments, space must be the most hostile: It is freezing cold, close to absolute zero, there is a vacuum, so no oxygen, and the amount of lethal radiation from stars is very high. This is why humans need to be carefully protected when they enter this environment. New research by Ingemar Jönsson and colleagues published in the September 9 issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press journal, shows that some animals —the so-called tardigrades or 'water-bears'— are able to do away with space suits and can survive exposure to open-space vacuum, cold and radiation.

Study finds previously deported immigrants more likely to be rearrested after leaving jail

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Deportable immigrants who previously have been expelled from the United States are more likely to be rearrested on suspicion of committing a crime after they are released from jail than other deportable immigrants without the prior history of expulsion, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Rail, road or waterway?

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Scientists develop model to map continental margins

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Scientists at the University of Liverpool have developed a new exploration method to assist the oil and gas industry in identifying more precisely where the oceans and continents meet.