Stuffing yourself with good bacteria could prevent repeat attacks from bugs responsible for ulcers and stomach upsets, according to scientists from the University of Reading. Food scientist Belinda O’’Grady is presenting the research today, Monday 8 September 2003, at the Society for General Microbiology’s meeting at UMIST in Manchester.

“We wondered whether prevention really is better than cure,” says Ms O’’Grady, of the University of Reading, “There is a school of thoug

Scientists from the Institute for Animal Health announced progress towards controlling the deadly E. coli bacterium that causes food poisoning and kidney failure, today, Monday 8 September 2003, at the Society for General Microbiology’s meeting at UMIST in Manchester.

“This bacterium, E. coli O157, is passed on by eating meat and dairy products or through contact with dung from infected animals. It is the leading cause of acute kidney failure in children in the UK,” says Dr Mark Stevens fro

Millions of dollars are being spent unnecessarily each year on treatments for high blood pressure says research published this week in BMC Health Services Research. Vast amounts could be saved if doctors prescribed thiazides, the recommended and cheapest drugs, rather than expensive alternatives.

Atle Fretheim and his colleagues from the Norwegian Directorate for Health and Social Affairs estimated the potential annual savings for six countries if thiazides were prescribed whenever there was

Inventors at Oxford University have developed a new method to indirectly measure the surface tension of liquid by tracking reflected light intensity to assess the surface configuration. The procedure is reliable, repeatable, quick to set-up and use, contact-less and non-destructive.

Surface tension measurement is an important tool in the characterisation of surface-active liquids and mixtures. Although precise, traditional measuring methods suffer from several problems. With well-established

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the heart and lungs is a valuable diagnostic tool in the medical industry, but the detailed images it produces are often marred by artefacts (unwanted signals) created by the motion of cardiac and respiratory cycles.

A team of inventors at Oxford University has now developed a method of suppressing MRI artefacts to a negligible level. This has potential to allow more precise conclusions to be made from a small number of experimental trials, with obvious po

St. Petersburg researchers have designed an original thermometer for fast-moving electrons in thermonuclear reactors. The laser beam in this device is used to instantly determine the temperature of burning hot plasma, at frequencies required for precise diagnostics.

This device is a further step forward to controlled nuclear fusion. The device will help researchers to get precise information about energy distribution of hot plasma electrons inside the tokamac – the most promising current pro