Pairing a real dancer with an animated dance partner is nothing new – it’s a technique used in any number of movies or television shows. But collaborating artists and engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are putting a new spin on the idea.

Working with engineers in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at Illinois, visiting Beckman scholar Yu Hasegawa-Johnson is the visionary behind a real-time, high-tech pas de deux by dancers located thousands of

Less than 10% of the human genome contains coded information in the form of genes. The 30,000-40,000 genes in the genome are found grouped in discrete regions of the chromosomes. Chemical agents and radiation habitually cause a large variety of injuries to the DNA which interferes in many cell processes, like transcription and replication, and this can cause a loss of control of cell division and the appearance of tumours. In order to avoid this, the human genome contains more than 130 DNA repair gen

While many scientists and policy makers have focused only on how heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide are altering our global climate, a new NASA-funded study points to the importance of also including human-caused land-use changes as a major factor contributing to climate change.

Land surface changes, like urban sprawl, deforestation and reforestation, and agricultural and irrigation practices strongly affect regional surface temperatures, precipitation and larger-scale atmospheric cir

Penn State engineers have developed an economical way to more efficiently manage radio spectrum use and prevent interference on wireless broadband systems for high-speed Internet access – potentially bringing down costs for consumers. Dr. Mohsen Kavehrad, director of Penn State’s Center for Information and Communications Technology Research (CICTR), says, “With this technique, service providers could offer quality service to more homes using only a limited span of the radio spectrum. And, if pro

Folic acid is not only a safeguard against spina bifida and other birth defects in babies – it may also prevent heart disease and strokes, two of Northern Ireland’s biggest killers.

Research at the University of Ulster has shown that folic acid and three other related B-vitamins can prevent the accumulation of a high blood level of homocysteine, a new risk factor for heart disease and strokes.

The risk of high homocysteine is similar to the risk of high cholesterol – but the good

Following the research line of other initiatives at European and international level, the basque company VICOMTech and Fraunhofer IGD are working together in the development of a VITAL compliant platform for representation, storage and communication of vital signs. The platform will be flexible enough to be used in multiple platforms (PDA, PC, etc.), following the manager-agent architecture of the standard, with an open representation schema and extension possibilities. As a proof of the validity of