Science Simplified!

Comment

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 1, 2015 at 8:39am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 1, 2015 at 8:27am

Poverty Shrinks Brains from Birth
Studies show that children from low-income families have smaller brains and lower cognitive abilities
The stress of growing up poor can hurt a child’s brain development starting before birth, research suggests—and even very small differences in income can have major effects on the brain.
The brains of children from the lowest income bracket—less than US$25,000—had up to 6% less surface area than did those of children from families making more than US$150,000, the researchers found. In children from the poorest families, income disparities of a few thousand dollars were associated with major differences in brain structure, particularly in areas associated with language and decision-making skills. Children's scores on tests measuring cognitive skills, such as reading and memory ability, also declined with parental income.
http://www.nature.com/news/poverty-shrinks-brains-from-birth-1.17227

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 1, 2015 at 7:24am

Super-efficient graphene lightbulbs:
A lightbulb made from wonder-material graphene will reportedly go on sale later this year, and it's promising to be brighter, cheaper, longer-lasting and use 10 percent less energy than even the best LEDs.

The dimmable lightbulb contains a filament-shaped LED that's coated in graphene, a one-atom-thick material that's 200 times stronger than steel, super flexible and also extremely conductive. If all goes to plan, this will be the first commercial graphene product to hit the market.
It's the conductive ability of graphene that makes the light bulbs so efficient, according to the developers at the University of Manchester in the UK, where the material was first discovered in 2004.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 1, 2015 at 7:02am

New research: The location of memories: Individual neurons
Scientists have shown, for the first time ever, that memories are stored in specific brain cells. By triggering a small cluster of neurons, the researchers were able to force the subject to recall a specific memory. By removing these neurons, the subject would lose that memory.
In the experiment, scientists gave mice an electric shock to create a fear memory in the hippocampus region of the brain and then later, using laser light, activated the neurons where the memory was stored. The mice “quickly entered a defensive, immobile crouch,” strongly suggesting the fear memory was being recalled.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7394/full/nature11028.html
A similar work published in e-Life also says the same!

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 1, 2015 at 6:11am

A one thousand year old Anglo-Saxon remedy for eye infections which originates from a manuscript in the British Library has been found to kill the modern-day superbug MRSA in an unusual research collaboration at The University of Nottingham.

Dr Christina Lee, an Anglo-Saxon expert from the School of English has enlisted the help of microbiologists from University’s Centre for Biomolecular Sciences to recreate a 10th century potion for eye infections from Bald’s Leechbook an Old English leatherbound volume in the British Library, to see if it really works as an antibacterial remedy. The Leechbook is widely thought of as one of the earliest known medical textbooks and contains Anglo-Saxon medical advice and recipes for medicines, salves and treatments.

Early results on the 'potion', tested in vitro at Nottingham and backed up by mouse model tests at a university in the United States, are, in the words of the US collaborator, “astonishing”. The solution has had remarkable effects on Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) which is one of the most antibiotic-resistant bugs costing modern health services billions.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 1, 2015 at 6:01am

Ancient onion and garlic remedy kills antibiotic-resistant bugs ... and it is 1000 years old!
A 1,000-year-old Anglo-Saxon ‘eye salve’ made from onion, garlic, wine and part of a cow’s stomach has been shown to wipe out 90 percent of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, otherwise known as MRSA. And it works better than modern antibiotics in both lab and mouse models.

The 9th Century ‘eye salve’ recipe was originally found in Bald’s Leechbook - an old English manuscript held by the British Library.
It was translated from ancient Anglo-Saxon by researchers at the University of Nottingham in the UK, in the hopes of finding new solutions to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance - which a recent report has predicted will kill 300 million people by 2050. But the team wasn't expecting to find something so potent.
To find out whether the ancient eye salve worked, they made the recipe as faithfully as possible - even using wine from a vineyard that existed back in the 9th Century - and then tested it against large MRSA cultures in the lab. They also tested each individual ingredient on its own against the superbugs, as well as a control solution.

Incredibly, they found that the eye salve killed up to 90 percent of MRSA bacteria, but only when all the ingredients were used together.
The team then went on to test the salve on biofilms of MRSA - sticky colonies of bacteria that are notoriously difficult for antibiotics to penetrate, and which pose a particular problem on hospital equipment. The results were the same.

The next step was to ship the eye salve off to the United States where it was tested on in vivo mouse wounds as a topical treatment. Again, it wiped out most of the MRSA cells after just 24 hours and was more efficient than modern antibiotics.
The team presented their findings at the Annual Conference of the Society for General Microbiology, in Birmingham recently. However they're still not sure exactly how the remedy works, and finding that out will be the next step.
Bald's eye salve

- Equal amounts of garlic and another allium (onion or leek), finely chopped and crushed in a mortar for two minutes.

- Add 25ml (0.87 fl oz) of English wine - in this case, taken from a historic vineyard near Glastonbury.

- Dissolve bovine salts in distilled water, add and then keep chilled for nine days at 4 degrees Celsius before straining through a cloth to remove particulates.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 31, 2015 at 7:24am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 31, 2015 at 7:11am

Scientists successfully produce highly effective medication for malaria from plant waste material
Professor Peter H. Seeberger, Professor Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern and their team are successful in producing a low-cost but highly effective medication for malaria from plant waste material. For their findings, they received the $25,000 award “Humanity in Science” during Pittcon 2015 in New Orleans.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends artemisinin as the most effective base material for medication against malaria. The two scientists produced artemisinin in a continuous process in a very short time and very high yield. This process can substantially reduce the price for the production of effective anti- malaria drugs and can make the combat against malaria affordable for people in need. The scientists have been using, among others, KNAUER technology for their processes.
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20150330/Scientists-successfully-p...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 31, 2015 at 6:34am

A plasma ‘force field’ to protect against shock waves :
It could protect military vehicles from energy emitted by nearby blasts.
Researchers are trying to build defence systems that can keep pace with sophisticated weapons, and what’s better than a force field?

Aerospace and defence giant Boeing has been awarded a patent to develop a force field-like system that could protect military vehicles from shockwaves following explosions from missiles or improvised explosive devices.
Boeing’s proposed system involves using a combination of lasers, electricity and microwaves to rapidly heat up the air between the vehicle and a blast. This heat creates a plasma shield that's denser than the surrounding air and able to deflect or absorb the energy from the incoming shockwave.

Boeing’s system is designed to protect a target - which could be a vehicle carrying troops, or a building such as a command centre or a hospital - from the after-effects of nearby explosions.

The system, which would likely be mounted on a military vehicle, or some other target, would have sensors that can detect the velocity and shape of an incoming threat. The system would also be able to determine the size and force of the resulting explosion.

Its sensors and computers would be able to calculate the time it would take the shock wave from an explosion to reach the target, and from what direction. This is important, as the generated force field would only protect a small region of the target, rather than enveloping the entire thing.

Once it has determined the timing of the shock wave, the system’s objective is to somehow heat the air around the target, generating what Boeing terms a “transient medium” that intercepts the shock wave and reduces the energy density.

But till now it is at the stage of patent application. It means that the company thinks enough of the idea to try and protect it.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/military/boeing-files-...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 29, 2015 at 7:32am

Editor quits journal over pay-for-expedited peer-review offer
With a tweet yesterday, an editor of Scientific Reports, one of Nature Publishing Group’s (NPG’s) open-access journals, has resigned in a very public protest of NPG’s recent decision to allow authors to pay money to expedite peer review of their submitted papers. “My objections are that it sets up a two-tiered system and instead of the best science being published in a timely fashion it will further shift the balance to well-funded labs and groups,” Mark Maslin, a biogeographer at University College London, tells ScienceInsider. “Academic Publishing is going through a revolution and we should expect some bumps along the way. This was just one that I felt I could not accept.”
consideration and a well thought out review is much more important than its speed. I have had brilliant reviews which have considerably improved my papers and I really appreciated all the time taken.”

http://news.sciencemag.org/scientific-community/2015/03/editor-quit...

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 836
• 837
• 838
• 839
• 840
• …
• 999
• Next ›
• Page