An environmentally friendly solution to one of the world’s most notorious chemical contamination problems may be a step closer to reality, reports a research team from Purdue University and the University of British Columbia.

The team has identified one of the key stumbling blocks that prevent microorganisms from decomposing PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), a persistent and potentially hazardous industrial chemical that has become nearly ubiquitous in the environment. While capi

New research from investigators in the Centre for Neuroscience Studies at Queen’s University and the Centre for Brain and Mind at The University of Western Ontario has provided the first neuro-imaging evidence that the brain’s frontal lobes play a critical role in planning and choosing actions.

Their study is published today in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

The research team has found that a small region in the frontal lobe of the human brain is selectively activated when

Researchers are using a herpes virus that produces a firefly enzyme to illuminate the virus’s course of infection in mice and to help monitor the infection’s response to therapy. The work is published by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis in the December issue of the Journal of Virology.

“This study demonstrates the feasibility of monitoring microbial infections in living animals in real time,” says study leader David A. Leib, Ph.D., associate prof

A new technique enables doctors to directly examine the lining of milk ducts in the breast for early signs of cancer and other abnormalities, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The researchers used the technique, known as ductoscopy, to detect breast abnormalities in women with a condition called pathologic nipple discharge (PND).

The findings are published in the October issue of the journal Surgery.

“This technique is more successful

Computer prescriptions are three times less likely to contain errors than handwritten prescriptions

Have you ever received a drug prescription from a physician that looked like chicken scratch? You’re not alone. Pharmacists sometimes have a hard time reading prescriptions and in some cases they also are incomplete. To avoid errors, pharmacists have to spend precious time tracking down prescribers to clarify illegible or possibly inaccurate prescriptions. A new study by researcher

Mechanical engineers at Purdue University have discovered a simple and speedy method for pinpointing and fixing design flaws in new cars.

Douglas E. Adams, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue, said he stumbled across a mathematical solution to a design bottleneck in automotive engineering. Engineers now have to rely on complex, time-consuming mathematical models to solve design problems in new cars that are soon to begin rolling off the assembly line.

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