Culture

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have figured out the orientation of a protein in the antenna complex to its neighboring membrane in a photosynthetic bacterium, a key find in the process of energy transfer in photosynthesis. Robert Blankenship, Ph.D., Markey Distinguished Professor of biology and chemistry in Arts & Sciences, led a team that for the first time combined chemical labeling with mass spectroscopy to verify the orientation. The team also included Michael Gross, Ph.D., Washington University professor of chemistry, immunology and medicine, and chemistry graduate…

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Each year, hundreds of thousands of people suffer medical complications from hypodermic needles that penetrate too far under their skin. A new device developed by MIT engineers and colleagues aims to prevent this from happening by keeping needles on target. The device, which is purely mechanical, is based on concepts borrowed from the oil industry. It involves a hollow S-shaped needle containing a filament that acts as a guide wire. When a physician pushes the device against a tissue, she is actually applying force only to the filament, not the needle itself, thanks to a…

Michael Avidan, George Mashour and David Glick highlight the serious issue of awareness during anaesthesia in a recent review published by F1000 Medicine Reports. Consciousness during general anaesthesia is an extremely distressing condition leading to post-operative psychological trauma and contributes towards patients' fear of surgery. Dr Avidan, a member of Faculty of 1000 Medicine and a leading authority on Anaesthesia and Pain Management, writes that intra-operative awareness with subsequent recall is surprisingly common, affecting around 1 in 500 surgical cases. These appear to be…

FAIRFAX, Va.—Due to regional conflicts across the globe, such as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the global war on terrorism, women are being deployed overseas in greater numbers than ever before. Women constitute approximately 16 percent of the 3.5 million members of the U.S. armed forces and 10 percent of present forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although separation of a service member from their family is always a hardship, for mothers of adolescent children, deployment comes at even more of a personal sacrifice. A recent study completed by George Mason University researcher Mona Ternus…

VERNON – Much of Texas' wheat may be grazed as a part of a dual-use crop. But many fields are still prepared using conventional tillage, which may not efficiently capture rainfall – a key to economic success in a semi-arid environment, said a Texas AgriLife Research scientist. Dr. Paul DeLaune, environmental soil scientist at the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Vernon, said tillage operations can increase soil compaction, thereby increasing runoff. Each year, depending on market conditions, up to 75 percent of wheat planted in Texas may be grazed, and of that, 95 percent is…

Boulder, CO, USA - The April Geological Society of America e-journal, GEOSPHERE, is now online. This month's papers investigate possible tectonic cycling of serpentized peridotites in the Mariana forearc; links between the Saddle Mountain and Seattle faults in the Olympic Peninsula, USA, as evidenced in maps created by airborne and marine geophysical methods; the presence of aquifers and oil and gas reservoirs within carbonate rock; and the depths of Earth using seismic reflection profiles and deep well drilling. Highlights are provided below. Representatives of the media may obtain…

Irvine, Calif., April 1, 2009 — UC Irvine pharmacological researchers have discovered that blocking a hormone related to hunger regulation can limit cocaine cravings. Their findings could herald a new approach to overcoming addiction. Led by Shinjae Chung and Olivier Civelli, the study identified how the melanin-concentrating hormone works with dopamine in the brain's "pleasure center" to create an addictive response to cocaine use. The researchers further found that blocking MCH in these brain cells limited cocaine cravings. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter essential to the normal functioning…

LIVERMORE, Calif. -- Seeds of some tree species in the Panamanian tropical forest can survive for more than 30 years before germinating. That is 10 times longer than most field botanists had believed. Using the Lab's Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry to measure the amount of carbon 14 in seeds of the trees Croton billbergianus (Euphorbiaceae), Trema micrantha (Celtidaceae) and Zanthoxylum ekmannii (Rutaceae), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Tom Brown and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign colleague James Dalling found that seeds survived in the soil for 38, 31…

It is not surprising that as our economy continues its freefall, we are feeling increasingly more stressed and worried. Many of us are feeling extreme unease about the security of our jobs and being able to make our next mortgage payment. However, according to a new report in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, stress could make our financial troubles even worse. The study, conducted by psychologists Anthony J. Porcelli and Mauricio R. Delgado of Rutgers University, reveals that acute stress affects risk taking during financial decision making. A…

As sea levels rise in the wake of climate change and semi-arid regions turn to desert, people living in those parts of the world are likely to be displaced. A mathematical approach to planned relocation reported in the International Journal of Mathematics and Operational Research. Decision scientist Sajjad Zahir at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, and colleagues Ruhul Sarker of the University of New South Wales, Canberra, Australia and Ziaul Al-Mahmud of Lethbridge Community Network, have devised a mathematical algorithm to address the problem of population relocation. The team'…