A strong and unexpected correlation between large numbers of howler monkeys and elevated counts of birds on islands created by a Venezuelan hydroelectric project has Duke University scientists looking for explanations. They say their discovery represents a prime example of the unexpected ecological insights that the science all-too-often yields.

The scientists’ working hypothesis is that excess plant-eating monkeys found on some of the smallest islands counterintuitively spur extra tre

After two years of stubborn persistence, scientists at Johns Hopkins have determined the 3-D structure of part of a protein called HER3, which should speed efforts to interfere with abnormal growth and cancer.

“It took us more than two years to interpret the data and get HER3’s structure,” says Dan Leahy, Ph.D., a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and a professor of biophysics in Hopkins’ Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences. “Now that we have it, it might take only

Ironing must surely be one of the most dreaded household activities. Local entrepreneur Jonathan Nwabueze from Guildford, got so fed up with ironing and being delayed in the morning because of last minute ironing that he invented an iron that works without the need for a board.

His invention, featured on Tomorrow’s World on 24 July 2002, takes the drudgery out of ironing by using a heated vacuum to remove the creases from clothes. The 30-year old entrepreneur said “it can even smooth out wri

For years, physicians have noticed surprising similarities in the factors that seem to trigger attacks in such episodic neurological disorders as migraine and dyskinesia. Common triggers include psychological stress, caffeine or alcohol ingestion, fatigue, hormonal fluctuations and exercise.

A new study shows that a mouse model can be used to investigate how these substances and environmental factors trigger symptomatic attacks. The researchers also identified two drugs that can prevent at

A new and somewhat controversial study published in the August issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine suggests that 18F-FDG PET results obtained after the first cycle of treatment can better predict progression-free survival in patients with aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) or Hodgkin’s disease (HD) than PET scans conducted at the end of treatment.

Physicians at the Weill Medical College of Cornell and the New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York reported on 23 patients

In the northeastern corner of Minnesota stand towering groves of red pine trees stretching some 80 feet into the sky.

But these red pine groves could eventually vanish from Minnesota’s Boundary Water Canoe Area if what we usually view as a foe to forests — fire — fails to sweep the terrain occasionally, says a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“The big, natural groves of red pine are one of the most unique features of the BWCA. But, because of fire suppres