Tech

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 2 – Inhaled nitric oxide (iNO), a therapy used in the treatment of premature newborns with respiratory failure that had shown promising results in short-term studies, does not significantly improve long-term outcomes, according to a national study led by critical care researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC.

HOUSTON -- (Nov. 2, 2009) -- Rice University scientists today unveiled a method for the industrial-scale processing of pure carbon-nanotube fibers that could lead to revolutionary advances in materials science, power distribution and nanoelectronics. The result of a nine-year program, the method builds upon tried-and-true processes that chemical firms have used for decades to produce plastics. The research is available online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

(Boston) – A team of researchers from Boston University School (BUSM), Carney Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance and Tufts University School of Medicine, have found that widespread poor compliance with regular cleaning of public restrooms on cruise ships may predict subsequent norovirus infection outbreaks (NoVOs). This study, which appears in the November 1st issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, is the first study of environmental hygiene on cruise ships.

A wireless digital 'plaster' that can monitor vital signs continuously and remotely is being tried out with patients and healthy volunteers at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, in a new clinical trial run by Imperial College London researchers.

Toumaz Technology Ltd's Sensium™ digital 'plaster' or 'patch' is a disposable device that sticks to a patient's chest. It is designed to allow patients to have their health monitored continuously without being wired up to bulky, fixed monitoring machines, potentially freeing some patients from their hospital beds.

A telemedicine system based on a modified version of the Bluetooth wireless protocol can transfer patient data, such as medical images from patient to the healthcare provider's mobile device for patient assessment almost four times as fast as conventional Bluetooth and without the intermittent connectivity problems, according to a paper in the forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Medical Engineering and Informatics.

A rocket carrying the European Space Agency's (ESA) Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite (2 November) blasted off successfully today at 02:50 Central European Time from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Northern Russia.

An international team of physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory has succeeded in using intense laser light to accelerate protons to energies never before achieved. Using this technique, scientists can now accelerate particles to extremely high velocities that would otherwise only be possible using large accelerator facilities. Physicists around the world are examining laser particle acceleration and laser produced radiation for potential future uses in cancer treatment.

A new generation of high-energy (>kJ) petawatt (HEPW) lasers is being constructed worldwide to study high intensity laser matter interactions, including fast ignition. Fast ignition is a laser-based technique for heating and igniting deuterium and tritium fuel to fusion temperatures in a two-step process. In the first phase, laser beams vaporize a fuel pellet and compress it to a thousand times its original density, while in the second phase, electrons accelerated by an intense-laser pulse deposit energy within the fuel assembly, causing rapid heating.

Particle accelerators are among the largest and most expensive scientific instruments. Thirty years ago, theorists John Dawson and Toshiki Tajima proposed an idea for making them thousands of times smaller: surf the particles on plasma waves driven by short intense laser pulses. Since plasmas are free of the damage limits of conventional accelerators, much larger fields can be built up within such waves, enabling much smaller accelerators.

Using Einstein's theory of special relativity to speedup computer simulations, scientists have designed laser-plasma accelerators with energies of 10 billion electron volts (GeV) and beyond. These systems, which have not been simulated in detail until now, could in the future serve as a compact new technology for particle colliders and energetic light sources.

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Nature inspires technology for an engineer and an ecologist teamed up at Michigan State University. They're developing robots that use advanced materials to swim like fish to probe underwater environments.

"Fish are very efficient," explained Xiaobo Tan, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. "They can perform very efficient locomotion and maneuvering in the water."

Moose eat plants; wolves kill moose. What difference does this classic predator-prey interaction make to biodiversity?

A large and unexpected one, say wildlife biologists from Michigan Technological University. Joseph Bump, Rolf Peterson and John Vucetich report in the November 2009 issue of the journal Ecology that the carcasses of moose killed by wolves at Isle Royale National Park enrich the soil in "hot spots" of forest fertility around the kills, causing rapid microbial and fungal growth that provide increased nutrients for plants in the area.

A gold skin forms on the silver cubes as the cubes are hollowed out from within. The silver atoms enter solution through pores that form in the clipped corners of the cubes.

"But the really cool part," says Xia, "and the cool part of nanotechnology generally, is that the tiny gold cages have very different properties than bulk gold." In particular, they respond differently to light.

Alexandria, VA – Despite being highly effective and beneficial for many patients, unexpected consequences are emerging in patients who are prescribed proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) for reflux diseases. Physicians are warned to monitor these effects and prescribe these medications carefully, according to a new commentary published in the November 2009 issue of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery.

A strain of MRSA that causes bloodstream infections is five times more lethal than other strains and has shown to have some resistance to the potent antibiotic drug vancomycin used to treat MRSA, according to a Henry Ford Hospital study.

The study found that 50 percent of the patients infected with the strain died within 30 days compared to 11 percent of patients infected with other MRSA strains.

The average 30-day mortality rate for MRSA bloodstream infections ranges from 10 percent to 30 percent.