ScienceDaily: Most Popular News

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• Star Trek classroom: Next generation of school desks
• Magnesium oxide: From Earth to super-Earth
• Birth and migration mysteries of cortex's powerful inhibitors, 'chandelier' cells solved
• Scientists describe elusive replication machinery of flu viruses
• Protein folding: Look back on scientific advances made as result of 50-year old puzzle
• Menopause: Relaxation good therapy for hot flushes
• Novel therapeutic advancement in search for heart muscle progenitor cells: New hope for heart attack patients
• Blind patient reads words stimulated directly onto retina: Neuroprosthetic device uses implant to project visual braille
• Muscle powers spearing mantis shrimp attacks
• Climate change: Believing and seeing implies adapting
• Undisturbed excitation with pulsed light
• Transforming 'noise' into mechanical energy at nanometric level
• Why older people struggle to read fine print: It's not what you think
• Potential new treatment to prevent stroke
• First patients in US receive non-surgical device of sunken chest syndrome
• New drug overcomes resistance in patients with rare sarcoma, study suggests
• Just ten minutes in a car with a smoker boosts harmful pollutants by up to thirty percent
• Engineers pave the way towards 3-D printing of personal electronics
• Capturing living cells in micro pyramids

Star Trek classroom: Next generation of school desks Posted: 22 Nov 2012 04:55 PM PST Researchers designing and testing the 'classroom of the future' have found that multi-touch, multi-user desks can boost skills in mathematics. New results from a three-year project working with over 400 pupils, mostly eight-10 year olds, show that collaborative learning increases both fluency and flexibility in maths. It also shows that using an interactive 'smart' desk can have benefits over doing mathematics on paper.

Magnesium oxide: From Earth to super-Earth Posted: 22 Nov 2012 12:29 PM PST The mantles of Earth and other rocky planets are rich in magnesium and oxygen. Due to its simplicity, the mineral magnesium oxide is a good model for studying the nature of planetary interiors. New work studied how magnesium oxide behaves under the extreme conditions deep within planets and found evidence that alters our understanding of planetary evolution.

Birth and migration mysteries of cortex's powerful inhibitors, 'chandelier' cells solved Posted: 22 Nov 2012 12:29 PM PST Scientist have revealed the birth timing and embryonic origin of a critical class of inhibitory brain cells called chandelier cells, tracing the specific paths they take during early development into the cerebral cortex of the mouse brain. The work sheds light on the genetically programed, or "nature" part of the nature/nurture question of human development.

Scientists describe elusive replication machinery of flu viruses Posted: 22 Nov 2012 12:29 PM PST Scientists have made a major advance in understanding how flu viruses replicate within infected cells. The researchers used cutting-edge molecular biology and electron-microscopy techniques to "see" one of influenza's essential protein complexes in unprecedented detail. The images generated in the study show flu virus proteins in the act of self-replication, highlighting the virus's vulnerabilities that are sure to be of interest to drug developers.

Protein folding: Look back on scientific advances made as result of 50-year old puzzle Posted: 22 Nov 2012 12:29 PM PST Fifty years after scientists first posed a question about protein folding, the search for answers has led to the creation of a full-fledged field of research that led to major advances in supercomputers, new materials and drug discovery, and shaped our understanding of the basic processes of life, including so-called "protein-folding diseases" such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and type II diabetes.

Menopause: Relaxation good therapy for hot flushes Posted: 22 Nov 2012 08:28 AM PST Women who have undergone group therapy and learned to relax have reduced their menopausal troubles by half, according to new results.

Novel therapeutic advancement in search for heart muscle progenitor cells: New hope for heart attack patients Posted: 22 Nov 2012 08:28 AM PST Breakthrough in heart research: Medical researchers have discovered cell surface markers that enable the identification and isolation of living functional cardiovascular progenitor cells (CPCs). For the first time, therapeutically relevant CPCs can be derived from induced-pluripotent stem cells (iPS) cells. CPCs, which are typically only found in fetal development, can become all of the different cell types of the heart and can integrate into heart muscle tissue after injection.

Blind patient reads words stimulated directly onto retina: Neuroprosthetic device uses implant to project visual braille Posted: 22 Nov 2012 06:54 AM PST For the very first time researchers have streamed braille patterns directly into a blind patient's retina, allowing him to read four-letter words accurately and quickly with an ocular neuroprosthetic device.

Muscle powers spearing mantis shrimp attacks Posted: 22 Nov 2012 06:54 AM PST Mantis shrimps pack a powerful punch, whether they smash or spear their victims. Smasher mantis shrimps power their claws' ballistic blows using a catapult mechanism, but how do spearers deploy their weapons? Analyzing the movements of large Lysiosquillina maculata, biologists found that they unexpectedly use muscle power to launch their claw spears although smaller Alachosquilla vicina use a catapult mechanism like smashers.

Climate change: Believing and seeing implies adapting Posted: 22 Nov 2012 06:54 AM PST To communicate climate change and adaptation to stakeholders such as European forest owners is a challenge. A capacity to adapt to climate change has, until now, mainly been understood as how trees and forest ecosystems can adapt to climate change and which socio-economic factors determine the implementation of adaptive measures. The new study shows, for the first time, the importance of two personal factors; when forest owners believe in and see the effects of climate change, they are more likely to have taken adaptive measures.

Undisturbed excitation with pulsed light Posted: 22 Nov 2012 06:54 AM PST The best method to obtain the most precise information on the inner structure of atoms and molecules is to excite them by means of resonant laser light. Unfortunately, just this laser light (above a certain intensity) can lead to measurable modifications within the atom's electron shell. Scientists have now shown experimentally how to prevent such "light shifts." This confirms the advantages of "hyper" Ramsey excitation that had already been predicted theoretically.

Transforming 'noise' into mechanical energy at nanometric level Posted: 22 Nov 2012 06:53 AM PST Scientists have developed a method that enables efficiently using the random movement of a molecule in order to make a macroscopic-scale lever oscillate.

Why older people struggle to read fine print: It's not what you think Posted: 22 Nov 2012 06:53 AM PST Unique research into eye-movements of young and old people while reading discovers that word recognition patterns change as we grow older.

Potential new treatment to prevent stroke Posted: 22 Nov 2012 06:51 AM PST Scientists may have discovered a new way to prevent strokes in high risk patients, according to research from the University of Warwick and University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW).

First patients in US receive non-surgical device of sunken chest syndrome Posted: 21 Nov 2012 06:03 PM PST Surgeons have fitted a patient with a device that might eliminate the need for surgery in some patients with one of the world's most common chest deformities, pectus excavatum, often called sunken chest syndrome. Known as the vacuum bell, it works much like devices in body shops that use sustained vacuum to pop out a dent.

New drug overcomes resistance in patients with rare sarcoma, study suggests Posted: 21 Nov 2012 06:03 PM PST A new targeted drug demonstrated its ability to control metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumor, an uncommon and life-threatening form of sarcoma, after the disease had become resistant to all existing therapies.

Just ten minutes in a car with a smoker boosts harmful pollutants by up to thirty percent Posted: 21 Nov 2012 06:03 PM PST Just ten minutes spent in the back seat of a car with a smoker in the front, boosts a child's daily exposure to harmful pollutants by up to 30 percent, reveals new research.

Engineers pave the way towards 3-D printing of personal electronics Posted: 21 Nov 2012 06:01 PM PST Scientists are developing new materials which could one day allow people to print out custom-designed personal electronics such as games controllers which perfectly fit their hand shape.

Capturing living cells in micro pyramids Posted: 21 Nov 2012 10:07 AM PST Imagine a field full of pyramids, but on a micro scale. Each of the pyramids hides a living cell. Thanks to 3-D micro- and nano scale fabrication, this is possible and there are promising new applications in the offing. One of them is applying the micro pyramids for cell research: thanks to the open 'walls' of the pyramids, the cells can interact.

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