Airplane wings or railway rails are examples of mechanical components constantly submitted to stress. They consist of materials (metal alloys) with properties that may change under stress. To understand and improve such materials, it is essential to observe them on a microscopic scale. The ESRF and the ILL make today a step forward into looking deep inside engineering components. Thanks to the use of complementary neutron and synchrotron X-ray beams, these two centres offer a unique tool to measure s

Avoiding stressful life events and learning effective coping skills may help avert flare-ups of multiple sclerosis (MS) in women with the disease, new findings suggest.

Researchers recruited 23 women with MS from the Multiple Sclerosis Clinic at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and followed them for a year. Each week, the women completed questionnaires asking about MS symptoms and life events, such as starting a new job, finding out that a child is doing poorly in school, having

Using computer models and experiments, researchers at the University of California, Davis, have identified the neurons and connections that are necessary for crayfish to swim.

“We can now pin down the essential components of the circuit,” said Brian Mulloney, a professor of neurobiology, physiology and behavior at UC Davis.

The nervous system controlling locomotion is highly tuned and very stable across different groups of animals, Mulloney said. That makes crayfish a good model

Environmental enrichment that stimulates brain activity can reverse the long-term learning deficits caused by lead poisoning, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It has long been known that lead poisoning in children affects their cognitive and behavioral development. Despite significant efforts to reduce lead contamination in homes, childhood lead poisoning remains a major public health problem with an estimated 34 million housing uni

Researchers funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences have determined the structure of a protein with a surprising feature in it: a knot. This is the first time a knot has been found in a protein from the most ancient type of single-celled organism, an archaebacterium, and one of only a few times a knot has been seen in any protein structure.

This very unusual protein shape finding is a result from the NIGMS Protein Structure Initiative, a 10-year effort to determine 10,0

Physical fertility of typical Mekong delta soils (Vietnam) and land suitability assessment for alternative crops with rice cultivation

Most of the soils in the Mekong delta, Vietnam are formed and developed during the Holocene period. The first Viet people came to reclaim and exploit this plain at the beginning of the 17th century. As a result, in the middle of the 19th century, the Mekong delta had become the largest region of agricultural production, essentially rice produce for ma