Phospholipid bilayers that mimic cell membranes in living organisms are of interest as substrates for biosensors and for the controlled release of pharmaceuticals. To better understand how these materials behave with embedded proteins, a necessary first step is to understand how the bilayers respond by themselves.
As will be reported in the Dec. 9 issue of Physical Review Letters (published online Nov. 21), scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have studied the phase t
The discharge of groundwater to coastal waters represents an important source of dissolved nutrients and contaminants that may affect chemical and biological processes in coastal ecosystems. In a journal article published in a recent issue of Limnology and Oceanography, URI Graduate School of Oceanography chemical oceanographers Roger P. Kelly and S. Bradley Moran describe how they used radium isotopes as tracers to determine seasonal changes in groundwater input to the Pettasquamscutt estuary from
Most of us dont pay much attention to earthworms but maybe we should. New research suggests that non-native earthworms are radically changing the forest floor in the northern U.S., threatening the goblin fern and other rare plants in the process.
This is “the first research to show that exotic earthworms are harmful to rare native vegetation in northern forests,” says Michael Gundale of Michigan Technological University in Houghton, who presents this work in the December issue of Conservat
Wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest are in trouble — 26 populations are listed as threatened or endangered — and many conservationists fear hatcheries are a big part of the problem. In support of this belief, new research suggests that hatchery-reared steelhead are a threat to wild chinook in the Snake River.
“Our work suggests that steelhead released from hatcheries may increase the extinction risk of wild populations of Snake River chinook,” say Phillip Levin and John Williams of the N
Faced with a patient who is ‘tired all the time’ and reports ‘pain in my body every day’, many General Practitioners may struggle to identify fibromyalgia, a little-known but debilitating condition as the cause of their patient’s suffering.
Fibromyalgia is a widespread and yet little-recognised and little-understood pain and fatigue disorder that is thought to affect millions world-wide. Symptoms include persistent pain – the body interprets touch or movement as pain although there is no t
Oil from the wrecked tanker off the northwest coast of Spain had already reached the Spanish coast when ESA’s Envisat satellite acquired this radar image of the oil slick, stretching more than 150 km, on Sunday, 17 November, at 10.45 UTC.
The 26-year-old tanker, Prestige, can be seen as a bright white point located about 100 km off the coast. Support vessels are identifiable as smaller white points surrounding the ship. The huge oil slick is clearly visible as a dark plume emanating from the
Spin-off company offers a tiny solution for a big problem. The first sign of spoilage in many food products is the formation of free radicals, which reduces the shelf-life and…
MPI-M researchers and their partner institutions are currently performing atmospheric measurements over the equatorial Atlantic with eight coordinated measurement campaigns. They want to find out what controls the structure of…
Atomic clocks have been used for decades – but now, even greater precision has become possible: TU Wien (Vienna) and JILA/NIST are presenting the w For many years, scientists all…
The sensor could serve as a low-cost and efficient tool for early detection of neurological disorders and conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and depression. Dopamine, a neurotransmitter in our…
Nuclear parasites in deep-sea mussels. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology reveal how a bacterial parasite thrives inside the nuclei of deep-sea mussels. Most animals live in…
Bonn researchers find causative mutations in the keratin 31 gene for the dominantly-inherited form of monilethrix – From infancy and usually for life, some families suffer from broken hair due…
Energy storage systems of the future must be cost-effective and sustainable. To achieve this, it is crucial that the materials used are both readily available and recyclable. A research team…
Researchers at Tohoku University have successfully increased the capacity, lifetime durability, and cost-effectiveness of a capacitor in their pursuit of a more power-efficient future. A capacitor is a device used…
Fungi have more to offer than meets the eye. Their thread-like cells, which grow extensively and out of sight underground like a network of roots, offer huge potential for producing…
A new Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC), supported by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and led by SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, was awarded $14.4 million over four years to advance manufacturing…
Together with 24 German research institutions and companies under the coordination of Forschungszentrum (FZ) Jülich, Fraunhofer IPMS is working on an integrated German quantum computer based on superconducting quantum chips…
Automatic image recognition to identify types of wood. The new European Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is intended to prevent goods marketed in the EU from contributing to the spread of deforestation….