Forget blue skies research, it is clouds that have focused minds at the University of Leicester where scientists are tackling the causes of ozone depletion.

Atmospheric scientists in the Department of Physics and Astronomy are spearheading the MAPSCORE project, a European Commission Environment project which investigates a major cause of ozone depletion – high altitude polar clouds which activate the chlorine originally from CFCs and lead eventually to severe ozone destruction.

The UK Analytical Partnership (UKAP), now in its third year, has announced five prime areas for analytical innovation: biomimetic analysis, health sensors, managing the chemical environment, real-time analysis/factory of the future and analysis in design. UKAP will be staging a number of events in the autumn to enable input from parties interested in involvement with these projects.

Richard Bahu of the Oxis Partnership, co-author of this foresight study for UKAP´s Innovation Network w

Two University of Toronto astronomers and a U.S. colleague have made the first-ever measurements of the size and shape of massive dark matter halos that surround galaxies

‘Our findings give us the clearest picture yet of a very mysterious part of our universe,’ says principal investigator Henk Hoekstra, a post-doctoral fellow at University of Toronto’s Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics. ‘Using relatively simple physics, we can get our first direct glimpse of the size an

Innovative test based on nanoshells could provide critical info for ER doctors, others

Nanotechnology researchers at Rice University have developed a new method of testing whole blood that could allow emergency room doctors and other point-of-care health professionals to rapidly diagnose a variety of ailments, including hemorrhagic stroke, heart attack, and various infectious diseases.
The test, which is faster than existing whole-blood immunoassays, uses gold nanoshells, tiny op

If your parents had coronary heart disease before age 60, the walls of your neck arteries are more likely to be thicker, putting you at higher risk of heart disease, too, researchers report in today´s rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Compared with people with no parental history of early-onset coronary heart disease (CHD), those with at least one parent who had a heart attack or other coronary event such as chest pain before age 60, had th

Chemists at Rice University have identified a chemical process for cutting carbon nanotubes into short segments. The new process yields nanotubes that are suitable for a variety of applications, including biomedical sensors small enough to migrate through cells without triggering immune reactions.

The chemical cutting process involves fluorinating the nanotubes, essentially attaching thousands of fluorine atoms to their sides, and then heating the fluoronanotubes to about 1,000 Celsi