For wearers of prosthetic or false limbs, the comfort and effectiveness of the socket fit is crucial. New ways of measuring and solving socket pressure points – using load analysis techniques from the aircraft industry – have been developed by engineering and computing researchers at the University of the West of England.

A team from UWE’’s Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences has just been awarded a grant of £52,000 by the charity Remedi to further their res

A new finding of a link between an anxiety disorder and peptic ulcer disease lends support to the view that this gastrointestinal disease and anxiety disorder may share a common link. In recent years, attention has focused on a more biological element with the identification of bacteria as a cause of peptic ulcers.

“The identification of Helicobacter pylori as an infectious cause of peptic ulcer disease has been considered by many to disprove the possibility that there is an important relat

Ancient artists used a technique called stippling – in which pictures are created by painting or carving a series of tiny dots – to produce drawings on cave walls and utensils thousands of years ago.

Now engineers at Purdue University have created a new kind of computer-imaging software that uses stippling to quickly produce complex pictures of internal organs and other renderings. The method is 10 times faster than some conventional methods and could provide a tool for medical professionals

The Johns Hopkins scientists who first discovered that knocking out a particular muscle gene results in “mighty mice” now report that it also softens the effects of a genetic mutation that causes muscular dystrophy.

The findings, scheduled for the December issue of the Annals of Neurology and currently online, build support for the idea that blocking the activity of that gene, known as myostatin, may one day help treat humans with degenerative muscle diseases.

Working with mice ca

Harvard Medical School researchers have uncovered an ovary gene whose absence from mouse egg cells produced severe pregnancy complications. The gene, Fmn2, which produces the protein formin-2, is similar in mice and humans and offers promise for understanding embryo loss, birth defects, and infertility in women. The study appears in the December Nature Cell Biology.

“As humans we are incredibly bad at producing eggs with the normal number of chromosomes, which is the leading cause of pregnan

Old MacDonald will be surprised when he sees what’s headed for his dairy farm: specially bred cows that naturally produce low-fat milk, designer milk that boosts the immune system, and “green” cows — engineered to produce less methane to help stem global warming. All are among the changes predicted for the future of the milk and dairy industry over the next 50 years.

These and other developments are described in a special report commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Journal of Agr