A new computer program devised by British physicists can quickly spot tiny beetles, rodent droppings and ergot (a poisonous mould) in grain destined for flour and bread manufacture. The researchers reveal details of their work today in the Institute of Physics journal Measurement Science and Technology.

Professor Roy Davies and his colleagues in the Machine Vision Research Group at Royal Holloway, University of London, in Egham, Surrey, have found they can run their program on a conventional

May increase susceptibility to inflammatory diseases such as allergic, autoimmune or cardiovascular diseases

Chronic stress not only makes people more vulnerable to catching illnesses but can also impair their immune system’s ability to respond to its own anti-inflammatory signals that are triggered by certain hormones, say researchers, possibly altering the course of an inflammatory disease. This finding is reported on in the November issue of Health Psychology, published by the

A group of researchers in Trondheim, Norway, are the first in the world to use in vivo magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to separate benign tumors from cancer. Ingrid Susann Gribbestad shows, in her recently published thesis, how one can discover breast cancer and monitor the treatment by using this new technology. The work is financed by the Norwegian Cancer Society and the Research Council of Norway.

www.kreft.no: The research behind this thesis was done at the Foundation

Like farmers across the nation bringing in their crops this season, researchers in Wisconsin are carefully taking stock of a very special harvest – one grown aboard the International Space Station.

They’ve measured and weighed plants, counted seeds, and collected additional physical information from the first-ever soybean crop grown aboard the orbiting research laboratory.

Now, the research team will begin several months of chemical and biological tests on the plants that w

A compound that enables squirrels to hibernate may one day help minimize brain damage that results from stroke, according to a researcher at the Medical College of Georgia and Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Augusta.

In an animal model for stroke, delta opioid peptide reduced by as much as 75 percent the damage to the brain’s striatum, the deeper region of the brain and a major target for strokes, according to Dr. Cesario V. Borlongan, neuroscientist.

In fact, evidence suggests t

Populations of marine fish may lose genetic diversity even if fishing stops while there are still several million individuals – a number previously assumed to be enough to preserve a diverse gene pool.

Losing the diversity of key genes can render a population less productive and unable to adapt when faced with challenges such as global warming, pollution or changes in predators or prey. Rare genetic variation of little importance today might be the key to adaptability in the future, accordin