‘Pristine’ Amazonian Region Hosted Large, Urban Civilization

August 29th, 2008
They aren’t the lost cities early explorers sought fruitlessly to discover. But ancient settlements in the Amazon, now almost entirely obscured by tropical forest, were once large and complex enough to be considered “urban” as the term is commonly applied to both medieval European and ancient Greek communities.
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Treadmill Exercise Retrains Brain And Body Of Stroke Victims

August 29th, 2008
People who walk on a treadmill even years after stroke damage can significantly improve their health and mobility, changes that reflect actual “rewiring” of their brains, according to new research.
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Variation Of Normal Protein Could Be Key To Resistance To Common Cancer Drug

August 29th, 2008
Researchers have found evidence explaining why a common chemotherapy drug, cisplatin, may not always work for every cancer patient. They have shown that when a variant version of a key protein that normally causes cell death is active, patients may be resistant to the cancer-killing drug.
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Quantum ‘Traffic Jam’ Revealed: Findings May Help Get Current Flowing At Higher Temperatures

August 29th, 2008
Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators have uncovered the first experimental evidence for why the transition temperature of high-temperature superconductors cannot simply be elevated by increasing the electrons’ binding energy. The research demonstrates how, as electron-pair binding energy increases, the electrons’ tendency to get caught in a quantum mechanical “traffic jam” overwhelms the interactions needed for the material to act as a superconductor — a freely flowing fluid of electron pairs.
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Common Treatment To Delay Labor Decreases Pre-term Infants’ Risk For Cerebral Palsy

August 29th, 2008
Pre-term infants born to mothers receiving intravenous magnesium sulfate — a common treatment to delay labor — are less likely to develop cerebral palsy than are pre-term infants whose mothers do not receive it, report researchers in a large National Institutes of Health research network.
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Robots Learn To Predict Where Their Leader Is Going, And Follow Along

August 29th, 2008
Researchers have come up with a control system that allows a robot to pick up on cues that the leader is about to turn, predict where it is going and follow it.
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Eyes Evolved For X-Ray Vision: Forward-facing Eyes Allow Animals To ‘See Through’ Clutter In The World

August 29th, 2008
The advantage of using two eyes to see the world around us has long been associated solely with our capacity to see in 3-D. Now, a new study has uncovered a truly eye-opening advantage to binocular vision: our ability to see through things.
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Variant Of Mad Cow Disease May Be Transmitted By Blood Transfusions, According To Animal Study

August 29th, 2008
Blood transfusions are a valuable treatment mechanism in modern medicine, but can come with the risk of donor disease transmission. Researchers are continually studying the biology of blood products to understand how certain diseases are transmitted in an effort to reduce this risk during blood transfusions.
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Not All Fat Is Created Equal: Fat In Obese Patients Is ‘Sick’ Compared To Fat From Lean Patients

August 29th, 2008
A new study finds that fat in obese patients is “sick” when compared to fat from lean patients, which could more fully explain the link between obesity and higher risk of diabetes, heart disease and stroke.
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Natural Chemical From Sea Sponges Induces Death In Cancer Cells Via Unusual Pathway

August 29th, 2008
A chemical called candidaspongiolide (CAN) inhibits protein synthesis but also kills cancer cells by triggering caspase 12-dependent programmed cell death, according to an article in the Aug. 26 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
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