Material could be used to make better filters, more efficient sensors, and faster catalysts

For the first time, scientists have created a material with a gradient of gold nanoparticles on a silica covered silicon surface using a molecular template. The material, which was developed at North Carolina State University (NCSU) and tested at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National

Bacteria prefer milk chocolate to dark chocolate and will swim towards it on an agar plate, so teachers have found out this week (15-19 July) at a summer school run by the Society for General Microbiology at the University of Reading. The experiment is one of a series of A-level practicals currently being produced for teachers by the Society.
“We have developed the chocolate experiment to show that bacteria can detect a food source and swim towards it – a process called chemotaxis. But we’ve see

In a groundbreaking telemedicine development, doctors in Massachusetts earlier this month helped a physician at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station to surgically repair the damaged knee of a meteorologist spending the winter in Antarctica. Using a “telemedicine” connection operated by Raytheon Polar Services Co. (RPSC) of Centennial, Colo., orthopedic surgeon Bertram Zarins and anesthesiologist Vicki Modest, both of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, helped South Pole physician Dr. Timothy Polla

MIT engineers are excited about a new technique for repairing cartilage that could have significant advantages over the procedure now commonly used. This could affect people disabled by osteoarthritis, which slowly destroys the tissue that cushions joints. Hundreds of thousands others damage cartilage through sports-related injuries and other accidents. The new technique involves growing cartilage cells within a novel “designer” gel outside the body, then ultimately delivering the cell-seede

As Congress considers legislative proposals aimed at saving Medicare+Choice, a new study published today on the Health Affairs Web site shows that under the best-case scenario, enrollment in the troubled managed care program would stabilize at about 5 million beneficiaries. Under the worst case of the four policy proposals to boost sluggish M+C reimbursement, enrollment would shrink to just 3.3 million by 2005, according to the article by health care scholars Kenneth E. Thorpe and Adam Ather

Two seemingly unrelated Native American children have one painful thing in common: juvenile Paget’s disease (JPD), an extremely rare, bone metabolism disorder. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Shriners Hospitals for Children, St. Louis, have discovered that the two patients also share an unusual genetic defect. The research team found that both patients are completely missing the gene for a recently discovered protein called osteoprotegerin, known to