Researchers have found that a portion of anomalous cosmic rays — charged particles accelerated to enormous energies by the solar wind — results from interactions with dust grains from a belt of comet-sized objects near Pluto’s orbit. These objects make up what is known as the Kuiper Belt, a remnant of the formation of the solar system.

“This novel finding shows how dust in the cosmos may play an important role for producing the most energetic particles known,” says Dr. Nathan S

About as complex as it gets—that’s how pediatric urologist Andrew Freedman, M.D., director of pediatric urology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Endourology Institute, describes the surgery he performed this summer on then 17- month-old Jalen Brown, born with Prune Belly Syndrome. That surgery required reconstructing the toddler’s urinary system in a nearly 10-hour procedure. Prune Belly Syndrome, also known as Eagle-Barrett Syndrome, is a very rare occurrence: just one in 80,000 births. An

Muscle strength, abdominal fat linked to bone mineral density

While day-to-day physical activities such as walking, housework and shopping may be good for your heart, they don’t do much for your bones, according to a Johns Hopkins study.
The new report, published in the November issue of the Journal of Internal Medicine, found that neither light-intensity activities nor aerobic fitness level contributed to bone health, contrasting previous studies suggesting that aerobics co

’Jurassic Chicken’ project may help studies of human development and evolution of dinosaurs

Scientists from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California have, for the first time, shown experimentally the steps in the origin and development of feathers, using the techniques of molecular biology. Their findings will have implications for the study of the morphogenesis of various epithelial organs-from hairs to lung tissue to mammary glands-and is already sheddin

Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and the University of California, San Francisco have shown that feeding behavior in worms is controlled by neurons that detect adverse or stressful conditions.

The findings are published in the Oct. 31 issue of Nature.

The discovery of the gene that controls social feeding behavior in worms was made in 1998 by researchers at UCSF. The new findings build on the earlier research by identifying the nociceptive neurons – ne

As cable companies and Internet access providers compete for customers by offering broadband service, cable modems and digital subscriber lines (DSLs) as faster access to the Web, slower download speeds sometimes prompt greater user response than faster download speeds, a study says.

Dr. S. Shyam Sundar, associate professor of communications and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory at Penn State, and Carson Wagner, assistant professor of advertising at the University of Texa