Tech

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – A pair of clinical trials, conducted in part at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, found that two weeks of treatment with rifaximin provides significant relief of irritable bowel syndrome symptoms including bloating, abdominal pain and loose or watery stools.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — In one University of Illinois lab, invisibility is a matter of now you hear it, now you don't.

Led by mechanical science and engineering professor Nicholas Fang, Illinois researchers have demonstrated an acoustic cloak, a technology that renders underwater objects invisible to sonar and other ultrasound waves.

A team led by Patrick T. Mather, director of Syracuse Biomaterials Institute (SBI) and Milton and Ann Stevenson professor of biomedical and chemical engineering in Syracuse University's L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science (LCS), has succeeded in applying the concept of functionally graded materials (FGMs) to shape memory polymers (SMPs).

Alexandria, VA – Over the past five decades, OPEC has earned a reputation for being a powerful cartel that controls the world's oil production and prices - but there are limits to OPEC's influence and wealth. In fact, many OPEC countries face grave problems, which are to some extent the result of their oil-income dependence. EARTH examines OPEC's past, current and future place in this world. Will OPEC continue to control the planet's oil for the next 50 years?

Artificial joint replacements can drastically change a patient's quality of life. Painful, arthritic knees, shoulders and hips can be replaced with state-of-the-art metal or ceramic implants, eliminating pain and giving a person a new lease on life. But, what if, instead of metal and plastic, doctors were able to take a patient's cells and grow an entirely new joint, replacing the old one with a fully functional biological joint?

While a much hailed communication intervention works for families making decisions for chronically-ill loved ones in medical intensive care units, Case Western Reserve University researchers found the intervention was less effective for surgical and neurological ICU patients.

Barbara Daly and Sara Douglas, the study's lead researchers from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve, attribute the varied results to different types of patients served by the three types of ICUs and differences among ICU cultures.

Severely injured patients transported by helicopter from the scene of an accident are more likely to survive than patients brought to trauma centers by ground ambulance, according to a new study published in The Journal of Trauma: Injury, Infection, and Critical Care. The study is the first to examine the role of helicopter transport on a national level and includes the largest number of helicopter-transport patients in a single analysis.

The epic ocean-spanning journeys of the gigantic leatherback turtle in the South Atlantic have been revealed for the first time thanks to groundbreaking research using satellite tracking.

Experts at the Centre for Ecology and Conservation (Cornwall) at the University of Exeter led a five-year study to find out more about these increasingly rare creatures and inform conservation efforts.

WESTERVILLE, OH – Nearly one year after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked the Republic of Haiti, engineering and concrete experts at Georgia Tech report that concrete and other debris in Port-au-Prince could be safely and inexpensively recycled into strong new construction material.

PROVIDENCE, RI – Just as the site for the 2013 America's Cup has been announced, a study from Rhode Island Hospital highlights that the sport isn't always smooth sailing. The study was published recently in the journal Wilderness and Environmental Medicine.

Through an on-line survey completed by sailors, researchers at Rhode Island Hospital have pieced together a report of the injuries that occur on two types of boats -- dinghies (small boats with crews of one or two) and keel boats (larger boats like those used in the America's Cup races with a crew of up to 16).

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The United States doesn't have the infrastructure to meet the federal mandate for renewable fuel use with ethanol but could meet the mandates using cellulosic and next-generation biofuels, according to a Purdue University study.

Researchers have found what appears to be a critical tuning dial for controlling whole body energy, according to a new report in the January issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication. When energy levels within cells drop, it sets off a series of events designed to increase the amount of calorie-rich dietary fat that the body will absorb.

More plant matter could be burned in coal-fired power stations if this 'green' fuel was delivered pre-roasted like coffee beans, according to researchers from the University of Leeds, UK.

Many UK power stations are now burning plant matter, or biomass, as well as coal in a bid to cut their carbon footprint. Unlike fossil fuels, plants like willow, Miscanthus and poplar are a virtually carbon-neutral source of energy: the carbon dioxide emitted when they burn is absorbed during photosynthesis by the next batch of 'energy crops' planted in their place.

The presence of antinuclear antibodies (ANA) indicates the possibility of autoimmunity and the indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) assay on HEp-2 cells is the standard blood test (ANA-HEp-2) used to detect ANA. However, studies have shown that a "false-positive" ANA test occurs in up to 13% of healthy individuals. In such cases the test detects the presence of autoantibodies that apparently are not associated with autoimmunity.