People with liver cancer that cannot be treated with surgical resection or transplantation could have an increased two-year survival if they are given chemoembolisation-a procedure in which blood supply to the tumour combined with the effect of chemotherapy inhibits cancer growth.

There is no standard treatment for liver cancer when surgery, transplantation, or percutaneous treatment is not possible, which applies to around three-quarters of all liver cancer cases. Arterial embolisation-the

An academic at the University of Edinburgh is attempting to solve the riddle of how jokes work — and to set up a way of analyzing the language used in jokes — as part of wider research into humour. Dr Graeme Ritchie is not investigating how funny particular jokes are, as opinions about that vary widely. Instead, he is looking at whether something is or is not a joke, about which there is more agreement. He plans to experiment, to see how much agreement there is amongst people as to what actually cons

The SUMER instrument on the ESA-NASA SOHO spacecraft has measured amazing wind speeds during its observations of the Sun. It sets a new record in its examination of two loops of gas arching in the solar atmosphere, where NASA`s TRACE satellite spotted bright blobs of gas. Shifts in the wavelength of ultraviolet light from highly ionized neon atoms, seen by SUMER, revealed steady wind speeds of up to 320 000 kilometres per hour. That`s fast enough to cross the Atlantic Ocean in less than a minute.

Over the coming weeks an international team, led by Professor Ulrich Heber of the University of Erlangen-Nuernberg, Germany, will use over fifteen different telescopes around the world to make over one hundred nights of observations of just one star to learn about its internal structure.

The constellation of the “Serpent” contains a variable star, called V338 Ser, which vibrates with several periods of about ten minutes. It is a very old and nearly burnt out star which has lost most of its o

Scientists at UCL have developed a drug to treat a serious medical condition linked to Alzheimer`s disease and type 2 diabetes. The research, supported by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and reported in NATURE, is the culmination of 25 years of basic and clinical research and the UCL scientists hope that it may be the key to the treatment of other serious diseases.

Crucially, Professor Mark Pepys and his team have managed for the first time to remove from the human body a naturally occurr

Research funded by the European Space Agency into ways of feeding future astronauts on missions to Mars is about to find a very down-to-earth application – how to dispose of the sewage sludge left over after wastewater treatment.

The MELISSA (Micro-Ecological Life Support Alternative) project, which ESA is funding in companies and research institutes throughout Europe, is developing a system of recycling as much of the waste as possible produced by astronauts on long-duration space missions