Oxford scientists are using the latest virtual reality technology to study how we perceive the world in 3D. The “immersive virtual reality” used by the Virtual Reality Research Group at Oxford University allows subjects to walk around or look up and down while what they see through a headset changes accordingly – they can explore the virtual environment by literally walking around. Meanwhile, the scientists monitor how they are perceiving the dimensions of their ‘Matrix’-style world.

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Discovery may help design effective therapies for the genetic disease that mainly affects Ashkenazi Jews

An interdisciplinary team of Weizmann Institute scientists has solved the three-dimensional structure of an enzyme called glucocerebrosidase. Mutations occurring in this enzyme cause Gaucher disease, a genetic illness that mainly affects Ashkenazi Jews. The Institute study, published recently in EMBO Reports, may lead to the design of effective new therapies for treating the disea

The future of proteomics is in good hands with one of the most powerful and versatile mass spectrometers being developed by scientists and engineers from the William R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory.

The high-throughput Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) mass spectrometer and automated liquid chromatography (LC) system is a breakthrough in mass spectrometry capable of improving the understanding of protein production, function and interactions at the cellul

Tiny blood vessels, viewed beneath a mouse’s skin with a newly developed application of multiphoton microscopy, appear so bright and vivid in high-resolution images that researchers can see the vessel walls ripple with each heartbeat — 640 times a minute.

The capillaries are illuminated in unprecedented detail using fluorescence imaging labels, which are molecule-size nanocrystals called quantum dots circulating through the bloodstream. Quantum dots are microscopic metal or semiconductor

Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, or so we’ve been told, and when it comes to jealousy this is especially true. Men, psychologists have long contended, tend to care more about sexual infidelity while women usually react more strongly to emotional infidelity. This view has long been espoused by evolutionary psychologists who attribute these gender differences to natural selection, which, they say, encouraged the sexes to develop different emotional reactions to jealousy.

However, a

A new method developed by a University of Toronto mathematician gives the most precise understanding yet of diffusion, a finding with potential applications to phenomena such as the spread of heat through materials, population modeling and fluid seepage through rock or soil. “We were able to get much more precise information than anticipated,” says Robert McCann, a professor in U of T’s Department of Mathematics and co-investigator of an article in the March 19-23 issue of the Proceedin

U-M study finds no relationship between backpack use, pain

Backpacks have gotten a bad rap. For years, specialists have urged school children to lighten their loads, wear their backpacks on both shoulders and avoid lugging around those heavy school bags whenever possible.

But new research from a University of Michigan Health System physiatrist indicates backpacks don’t cause the stress and strain on young backs that they’ve been linked to.

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Trading through dealers on the London Stock Exchange could be obsolete in less than three years, according to new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

A study led by Dr Nir Vulkan of the Saïd Business School and Worcester College, University of Oxford, investigated where traders would trade if they have the choice of either a dealers’ market or a computerised system. “Our study suggests that in a just a few years’ time the traditional dealing market on the London St

With the flexibility to check e-mail at home, get the kids ready for school, call your boss on the way to work, and text message your next appointment, the nature of work has changed. However, contrary to popular opinion, people who integrate their work and families are not always happier, Michigan State University researchers say.

Instead, Ellen Kossek, an MSU professor of Labor and Industrial Relations, found that people who establish boundaries between work and family are actually more

Television news programmes may be contributing to current political apathy, according to a new report funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. An in-depth study of more than 5600 TV news reports in both Britain and the US between September 2001 and February 2002 reveals that the news media may be encouraging a disengaged citizenry by representing the public as generally passive and apolitical.

“This study was prompted by growing concern about the poor and declining voter turnout

Scientists are not prepared to dismiss beliefs about aliens landing on Earth in the past or that some houses are haunted by ghosts.

Researchers from the University of Leicester, UK, and Waikato University, New Zealand, found scientists to be much more open-minded about ‘new age’ beliefs than might have been expected.

Water divining and the healing power of crystals were beliefs that some scientists were prepared to accept according to the findings which the researchers describe as ‘

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Stanford University and Tel Aviv University has developed the first computational method that can identify clusters of genes responsible for controlling processes within a cell, when those clusters become active, and, most importantly, how the clusters are regulated.

In a paper published online May 12 by Nature Genetics, the researchers report that their method revealed several previously unknown control, or r

With the aid of a chance discovery by a graduate student, scientists from Oregon State University have identified, dusted off and found a new use for an old math theory from the early 1800s that could revolutionize the management of lands, protection of species and study of ecology.

The discovery promises for the first time to address the enormous complexities of the natural world with the powerful tools of advanced mathematics – which, until now, have been of limited use in the study of man

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists from diverse disciplines have responded to the April 27 spill of nearly 15,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil into Buzzards Bay, drawing on decades of experience studying the effects of oil spills on the marine and coastal environment.

Marine chemists have collected dozens of oil samples spilled into Buzzards Bay by the barge Bouchard 120 to determine the chemical composition of the petroleum spilled and its potential toxicity. Biologists

If the evolution of complex organisms were a road trip, then the simple country drives are what get you there. And sometimes even potholes along the way are important.

An interdisciplinary team of scientists at Michigan State University and the California Institute of Technology, with the help of powerful computers, has used a kind of artificial life, or ALife, to create a road map detailing the evolution of complex organisms, an old problem in biology.

In an article in the May 8 is

Children who frequently change schools are more likely than those who don’t to have behavioral health problems, according to a new Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center study.

The study, to be presented Sunday, May 4, at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Seattle, shows that school mobility is an independent predictor of behavioral problems – regardless of one’s race, income, maternal education level or any other factor measured in the study.

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