ESA’s Integral satellite is detecting gamma-ray bursts at a rate of nearly one per day, establishing itself as a key player in the hunt for these enigmatic explosions.

Launched in October 2002, Integral has just captured four bursts in the last four months right in the middle of its field of view. Such precision observations are providing scientists with a remarkable view of gamma-ray bursts, which occur randomly, fade within seconds, and yet shine with the intensity of millions

A procedure known as lung-volume reduction surgery (LVRS) appears to improve overall health and quality of life for individuals with end-stage emphysema, and these effects last as long as five years in more than half of this population, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The findings appear in the March issue of the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. The procedure was developed at the School of Medicine in 1993 by the study’s

David L. Rodland, a Ph.D. student in Virginia Tech’s Department of Geological Sciences, has been studying encrustation, or the colonization of seashells by other marine organisms that live permanently attached to hard surfaces.

Examples of encrusting organisms (or epibionts) include serpulid and spirorbid worms, bryozoans, barnacles, and algae. Many epibionts produce their own calcareous tubes, shells, or skeletons, which are attached to that surface and may become fossilized along wit

Researchers have discovered a gene that appears to be critical for maintaining a healthy sense of balance in mice. The study, led by a team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, appears in the April 1 issue of the journal Human Molecular Genetics and online March 24.

“Loss of balance is a significant problem in the elderly because it can lead to dangerous falls and injuries,” says one of the study’s principal investigators, David M. Ornitz, M.D., Ph.D., professor of

Mercury, that silvery liquid metal ubiquitous in switches, pressure gauges and thermometers, is an environmental bad-boy and toxic to humans through inhalation, skin contact and ingestion. It is easily spilled and can go unnoticed in aging lab equipment.

However, with new technology, mercury can be practically erased from the typical laboratory setting, reducing and even eliminating the environmental and health hazards, according to researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory who present

One of the most powerful tools in today’s biological and medical science is the ability to artificially remove and add bits of DNA to an organism’s genome. This has helped scientists to understand problems caused by defective genes, for example, which have now been linked to thousands of human diseases. So far the technology has been limited to small segments of DNA. But four years ago, Francis Stewart and his colleagues at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (Heidelberg) developed a new techn