Eureka! Science News - Popular science news

Higher carotid arterial stenting rates associated with poorer clinical outcomes

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:50:15 -0500

Among eligible Medicare beneficiaries, increased use of carotid arterial stenting (CAS) procedures to treat carotid stenosis—the narrowing of the carotid artery—is associated with higher rates of mortality and adverse clinical outcomes, including heart attack and stroke, according to researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

1930s drug slows tumor growth

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:12:44 -0500

Drugs sometimes have beneficial side effects. A glaucoma treatment causes luscious eyelashes. A blood pressure drug also aids those with a rare genetic disease. The newest surprise discovered by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine is a gonorrhea medication that might help battle cancer.

Rapid supernova could be new class of exploding star

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:52:36 -0500

An unusual supernova rediscovered in seven-year-old data may be the first example of a new type of exploding star, possibly from a binary star system where helium flows from one white dwarf onto another and detonates in a thermonuclear explosion.

Gene therapy technique slows brain disease

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:44:47 -0500

A strategy that combines gene therapy with blood stem cell therapy may be a useful tool for treating a fatal brain disease, French researchers have found. These findings appear in the 6 November 2009 issue of the journal Science, which is published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

Computer predicts reactions between molecules and surfaces, with ‘chemical precision’

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:12:51 -0500

Good news for heterogeneous catalysis and the hydrogen economy: computers can now be used to make accurate predictions of the reactions of (hydrogen) molecules with surfaces. An international team of researchers, headed by Leiden theoretical chemist Geert-Jan Kroes, published on this subject this week in the journal Science.

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Magnetic nanoparticles to simultaneously diagnose, monitor and treat

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:15:13 -0500

Whether it's magnetic nanoparticles (mNPs) giving an army of 'therapeutically armed' white blood cells direction to invade a deadly tumour's territory, or the use of mNPs to target specific nerve channels and induce nerve-led behaviour (such as the life-dependant thumping of our hearts), mNPs have come a long way in the past decade.

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New finding suggests prostate biopsy is not always necessary

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:31:22 -0500

Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered that some elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels in men may be caused by a hormone normally occurring in the body, and are not necessarily a predictor of the need for a prostate biopsy.

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Past climate of the northern Antarctic Peninsular informs global warming debate

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:25:19 -0500

The seriousness of current global warming is underlined by a reconstruction of climate at Maxwell Bay in the South Shetland Islands of the Antarctic Peninsula over approximately the last 14,000 years, which appears to show that the current warming and widespread loss of glacial ice are unprecedented.

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First use of antibody and stem cell transplantation to successfully treat advanced leukemia

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:38:55 -0500

For the first time, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have reported the use of a radiolabeled antibody to deliver targeted doses of radiation, followed by a stem cell transplant, to successfully treat a group of leukemia and pre-leukemia patients for whom there previously had been no other curative treatment options.

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Air pollution increases infants' risk of bronchiolitis

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:59:13 -0500

Infants who are exposed to higher levels of air pollution are at increased risk for bronchiolitis, according to a new study.

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Are the Alps growing or shrinking?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:16:15 -0500

The Alps are growing just as quickly in height, as they are shrinking. This paradoxical result could be proven by a group of German and Swiss geoscientists. Due to glaciers and rivers about exactly the same amount of material is eroded from the Alp slopes as is regenerated from the deep Earth's crust. The climatic cycles of the glacial period in Europe over the past 2.5 million years have accelerated this erosion process. In the latest volume of the science magazine "Tectonophysics" ( No. 474, S.236-249) the scientists prove that today's uplifting of the Alps is driven by these strong climatic variations.

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Dartmouth professor finds that iconic Oswald photo was not faked

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:53:44 -0500

Dartmouth Computer Scientist Hany Farid has new evidence regarding a photograph of accused John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Farid, a pioneer in the field of digital forensics, digitally analyzed an iconic image of Oswald pictured in a backyard setting holding a rifle in one hand and Marxist newspapers in the other.

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'Dropouts' pinpoint earliest galaxies

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:11:11 -0500

Astronomers, conducting the broadest survey to date of galaxies from about 800 million years after the Big Bang, have found 22 early galaxies and confirmed the age of one by its characteristic hydrogen signature at 787 million years post Big Bang. The finding is the first age-confirmation of a so-called dropout galaxy at that distant time and pinpoints when an era called the reionization epoch likely began. The research will be published in a December issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

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Researchers find new way to attack inflammation in Graves' eye disease

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:11:12 -0500

A small group of patients with severe Graves' eye disease experienced rapid improvement of their symptoms — and improved vision — following treatment with the drug rituximab. Inflammation around their eyes and damage to the optic nerve were significantly reduced. The same patients had not previously responded to steroids, a common treatment for Graves' eye disease.

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Possible help in fight against muscle-wasting disease

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:11:09 -0500

A compound already used to treat pneumonia could become a new therapy for an inherited muscular wasting disease, according to researchers at the University of Oregon and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in New York.

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Psychiatric impact of torture could be amplified by head injury

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:45:52 -0500

Depression and other emotional symptoms in survivors of torture and other traumatic experiences may be exacerbated by the effects of head injuries, according to a study from the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT), based in the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Department of Psychiatry. In the November 2009 Archives of General Psychiatry, the researchers report finding structural changes in the brains of former South Vietnamese political detainees who had suffered head injuries and clearly link those changes to psychiatric symptoms often seen in survivors of torture.

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The last European hadrosaurs lived in the Iberian Peninsula

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:23:24 -0500

Spanish researchers have studied the fossil record of hadrosaurs, the so-called 'duck-billed' dinosaurs, in the Iberian Peninsula for the purpose of determining that they were the last of their kind to inhabit the European continent before disappearing during the K/T extinction event that occurred 65.5 million years ago. Most notable among these fossils is the discovery of a new hadrosaur, the Arenysaurus ardevoli, found in Huesca, Spain.

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We spend more on products with detailed nutritional information

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:30:56 -0500

People would be willing to pay more for products that carry detailed nutritional information than for the so-called light items. Thus it has been confirmed by researchers from the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) and the Centre for Agro-Food Research and Technology of Aragón (CITA) in a new study on the nutritional labelling of breakfast biscuits.

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SNM applauds House action to build medical isotopes reactor in the US

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:25:22 -0500

SNM applauds the U.S. House of Representatives for its passage of H.R. 3276—the American Medical Isotopes Production Act of 2009.

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AIBS publishes Darwin articles open access

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:50:14 -0500

To celebrate the 150th anniversary this month of the publication of On the Origin of Species, the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) is publishing open access two peer-reviewed articles about Charles Darwin and his historic insights into evolution.

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