Tech

Just three months after the Euro 5 Norm for exhaust emissions went into force for all new car models, researchers at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) have demonstrated an engine that is already close to meeting the more stringent Euro 6 emissions standard. A research team headed by Prof. Georg Wachtmeister from the Chair of Internal Combustion Engines has succeeded in reducing the pollutants in exhaust emissions to barely measurable levels.

SEATTLE – Cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins are among the most prescribed medicines in the U.S. Now a new study by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center indicates that statins may protect stem cell transplant patients from one of the most serious complications of the life-saving cancer therapy: graft-versus-host disease, or GVHD. The findings are reported in the Nov. 4 first edition of the journal Blood.

In the United States, caring for a child with special health care needs usually means higher medical expenses for a family, particularly for low-income families, who spend a disproportionally large share of their income on their child's care. Yet, for individual families, the impact of out-of-pocket expenses is often a function of their state of residence, says Paul T. Shattuck, Ph. D., professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis.

(Photo Credit: Washington University in St. Louis)

In difficult operations, patients sometimes lose a lot of blood. Surgeons therefore keep blood supplies on hand for emergencies. If the blood bags are not needed, they can only be reused if the cold chain has been maintained. Up to now, monitoring this chain has been a tricky process, but, in the future, a radio node attached to the blood bag will constantly monitor the temperature to ensure that most of these blood supplies can be reused. The radio nodes should also help to improve safety.

(Boston)- Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) researchers at the Slone Epidemiology Center found that black women with high intake of dairy products have a reduced incidence of uterine leiomyomata (fibroids). This report, based on the Black Women's Health Study, appears in the current issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Natural History Museum believe that carnivorous behaviour in plants is far more widespread than previously thought, with many commonly grown plants – such as petunias – at least part way to being "meat eaters". A review paper, Murderous plants: Victorian Gothic, Darwin and modern insights into vegetable carnivory, is published today (4 December 2009) in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.

LA JOLLA, CA – December 3, 2009– A team at The Scripps Research Institute has made major strides in solving a problem that has been plaguing chemists for many years: how best to break carbon-hydrogen bonds and then to create new bonds to join molecules together. This problem is of great interest to the pharmaceutical industry, which currently relies on a method to accomplish this feat that is relatively inefficient and sometimes difficult to perform.

For obese men, a dramatic weight loss can be an effective way to improve moderate to severe sleep apnoea, scientists at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet report. Those with severe sleep apnoea when the study began benefited most from weight loss.

"Our findings suggest that weight loss may be an effective treatment strategy for sleep apnoea in obese men," says Kari Johansson, one of the researchers involved in the study.

More than two years after being evacuated following the 2007 killings of their mothers, mountain gorilla babies Ndakasi and Ndeze this week returned home to the Democratic Republic of Congo, moving into a new custom-built forest sanctuary.

The Dec. 1 move was coordinated by the UC Davis-based Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project, which has been providing veterinary care for the orphans since they were rescued.

A coating on windows or solar panels that repels grime and dirt? Expanded battery storage capacities for the next electric car? New Tel Aviv University research, just published in Nature Nanotechnology, details a breakthrough in assembling peptides at the nano-scale level that could make these futuristic visions come true in just a few years.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A new type of natural-gas electric power plant proposed by MIT researchers could provide electricity with zero carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, at costs comparable to or less than conventional natural-gas plants, and even to coal-burning plants. But that can only come about if and when a price is set on the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases — a step the U.S. Congress and other governments are considering as a way to halt climate change.

Patients, discharged from hospitals on ventilator support and with cognitive impairments, fare poorly four months later. Researchers from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University report these findings in American Journal of Critical Care.

"Survival alone is not the only important outcome for patients," says Barbara Daly, the lead researcher on the National Institutes of Health-funded study, "Composite Outcomes of Chronically Critically Ill Patients 4 Months after Hospital Discharge."

Patients with terminal brain cancer who watched a brief video illustrating options for end-of-life care were significantly more likely to indicate a preference for comfort measures only than were patients who listened to a verbal description of treatment choices. Practically all those viewing the video would choose not to receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) after their cancer became advanced, compared with only half of those in the control group, report the authors of a study that will be published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and has received early online release.

Nida is now a tropical storm, and is being knocked around by wind shear in the Western Pacific. Satellite imagery has confirmed Nida's center of circulation is exposed and the storm is losing its circular shape. Meanwhile, System 97W located to Nida's southeast looks ominous on NASA satellite imagery.

Tropical Storm Nida's winds are around 57 mph (50 knots) today, December 2. Nida is moving west-northwest near 9 mph. At 10 a.m. ET, Nida was located about 505 nautical miles southeast of the island of Kadena, near 21.3 North and 134.8 East.

A recent study conducted by researchers and physicians at Nationwide Children's Hospital sheds new light on feeding challenges often faced by premature infants. Although the prevalence of this disorder is well recognized, the feeding milestones for infants have not been well described. The new study, published online in the Journal of Perinatology, defines the feeding milestones leading to these infants' transition to oral feeding based on their gestational age and explains other coexisting disorders affecting these skills.