Tech

Researchers have shown that ranibizumab (Lucentis) eye injections, often in combination with laser treatment, result in better vision than laser treatment alone for diabetes-associated swelling of the retina.

Virtualization and cloud computing allow computer users access to powerful computers and software applications hosted by remote groups of servers, but security concerns related to data privacy are limiting public confidence – and slowing adoption of the new technology. Now researchers from North Carolina State University have developed new techniques and software that may be the key to resolving those security concerns and boosting confidence in the sector.

These ESA Envisat images capture the oil that is spilling into the Gulf of Mexico after a drilling rig exploded and sank off the coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi, USA, on 22 April.

In the black-and-white radar image the oil spill is visible as a dark grey whirl in the bottom right, while in the optical image it is seen as a white whirl. The Mississippi Delta is at top left, and the Delta National Wildlife Refuge extends out into the Gulf.

Like all vertebrates, snakes, mice and humans have in common a skeleton made of segments, the vertebrae. But a snake has between 200-400 ribs extending from all vertebrae, from the neck to the tail-end, whereas mice have only 13 pairs of ribs, and humans have 12 pairs, in both cases making up the ribcage.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) screening detects more cervical severe pre-cancerous lesions than conventional cervical screening, finds a study published on bmj.com today.

This is the first study to include the HPV test in an established cervical screening programme and the findings are important for cervical cancer prevention, says Dr Ahti Anttila at the Finnish Cancer Registry, who led the research.

A deep ocean current with a volume equivalent to 40 Amazon Rivers has been discovered by Japanese and Australian scientists near the Kerguelen plateau, in the Indian Ocean sector of the Southern Ocean, 4200 kilometres south-west of Perth.

In a paper published today in Nature Geoscience, the researchers described the current –more than three kilometres below the Ocean's surface – as an important pathway in a global network of ocean currents that influence climate patterns.

Today, most energy is produced at large centralised power stations based on fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. And then there is the energy produced by hydroelectric power stations, nuclear power stations and wind farms. The energy flows only one way, from the central power stations to the electricity grid and on to consumers. The idea now is that much more renewable energy should be fed into the grid. This calls for new solutions that take account of the considerable variations in the amount of wind energy, hydropower, solar energy etc.

AMES, Iowa – They can't wait to do computational chemistry at a quadrillion calculations per second.

But it's not all that computing power that's driving three Iowa State University and Ames Laboratory researchers as they develop computational chemistry at the petascale. Driving their project is the ability to run complex calculations and do better science.

In dark, rich soils on every continent, microbes dealing with the effects of climate change aren't accelerating global warming the way scientists had predicted, a study by researchers at the University of California at Irvine, Colorado State University and Yale University shows.

Results of the study appear in a paper published on-line this week in the journal Nature Geoscience. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and U.S. Department of Energy.

Using field experiments in Africa and a new computer model that gives them a bird's eye view of the world, Cambridge scientists have discovered how a bird decides whether or not a cuckoo has laid an egg in its nest. The finding offers unique insights into a 20 million-year-old evolutionary arms race.

Only seven groups of birds in the world have evolved as brood parasites, laying their eggs in other birds' nests, and ecologists have long been fascinated by this behaviour as an example of evolution in action.

Rice University researchers and their colleagues in Finland and Hungary have found a way to make carbon nanotube membranes that could find wide application as extra-fine air filters and as scaffolds for catalysts that speed chemical reactions.

The results reported in the journal ACS Nano show how such filters can remove up to 99 percent of particulates with diameters of less than a micrometer – or a millionth of a meter. (A human hair is about 100 micrometers wide.)

Here's another reason to kick the soda habit. New research published online in the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) shows that high levels of phosphates may add more "pop" to sodas and processed foods than once thought. That's because researchers found that the high levels of phosphates accelerate signs of aging. High phosphate levels may also increase the prevalence and severity of age-related complications, such as chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular calcification, and can also induce severe muscle and skin atrophy.

Irvine, Calif., April 26, 2010 – The physiology of microbes living underground could determine the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from soil on a warmer Earth, according to a study published online this week in Nature Geoscience.

Researchers at UC Irvine, Colorado State University and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies found that as global temperatures increase, microbes in soil become less efficient over time at converting carbon in soil into carbon dioxide, a key contributor to climate warming.

Two studies in the April 27th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, offer rare glimpses into the ways that chimpanzees deal with the deaths of those closest to them. In one case, researchers describe the final hours and moment of death of an older female chimp living in a small group at a UK safari park as captured on video. In the other, researchers observed as two chimpanzee mothers in the wild carried their infants' mummified remains for a period of weeks after they were lost to a respiratory epidemic.

YELLOWKNIFE, NT – APRIL 2010 – High in the Mackenzie Mountains, scientists are finding a treasure trove of ancient hunting tools being revealed as warming temperatures melt patches of ice that have been in place for thousands of years.

Tom Andrews, an archaeologist with the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife and lead researcher on the International Polar Year Ice Patch Study, is amazed at the implements being discovered by researchers.

"We're just like children opening Christmas presents. I kind of pinch myself," says Andrews.