Researchers at Ohio State University have found a way to boost the development of pattern recognition software by taking a different approach from that used by most experts in the field. This work may impact research in areas as diverse as genetics, economics, climate modeling, and neuroscience.
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Researchers at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Energetics and Materials at the Public University of Navarre are working on the implementation of a fork-lift truck simulator for training purposes and aimed at minimising the risks involved in their use in the workplace. The project, led by Department member Jesus Maria Pintor, is being undertaken after being commissioned by the Navarre Government’s Institute of Occupational Health and forms part of a wider project, started in 2002, on workplace risks involved with fork-lift trucks.
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Many of us have experienced déjà vu - the unsettling sensation of knowing that a situation could not have been experienced, combined with the feeling that it has. It is usually so fleeting that psychologists have until recently thought it impossible to study. But for some people, the feeling of having been there before is a persistent sensation, making every day a ‘Groundhog Day’. Psychologists from Leeds’ memory group are working with sufferers of chronic déjà vu on the world’s first study of the condition.
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In a discovery with implications for treating muscular dystrophy, researchers at the University of Utah School of Medicine and other institutions have identified a major source of two groups of adult cells that regulate muscle repair. The researchers found that these muscle repair cells, satellite and side population (SP) cells, arise from somites — transient blocks of tissue in the embryo that give rise to muscle, vertebrae, and the inner layer of skin called the dermis.
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Up until now, if you suffer from asthma, medication has been the only treatment available to you for relief. But now, clinical researchers at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) hope to open up a new avenue to alleviate the debilitating symptoms of asthma - through an investigative bronchoscopic procedure where the smooth muscle of the airway, which causes the spasm, is reduced using thermal energy.
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A research team led by Bharat Ramratnam, a Brown Medical School professor, has genetically modified bacteria found in yogurt so that the bugs produce a protein proven to block HIV infection in monkeys. The results offer hope for a microbicide that can prevent the spread of HIV, which now affects about 40 million people.
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A team of researchers has used sound waves to induce nuclear fusion without the need for an external neutron source, according to a paper in the Jan. 27 issue of Physical Review Letters. The results address one of the most prominent questions raised after publication of the team’s earlier results in 2004, suggesting that “sonofusion” may be a viable approach to producing neutrons for a variety of applications.
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Research from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) provides the most convincing evidence to date that complex mental activity across people’s lives significantly reduces the risk of dementia. The researchers found that such activity almost halves the incidence of dementia.
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After decades of debate, a U of T researcher has finally determined that duck-billed dinosaurs’ massive but hollow crests had nothing to do with what many scientists suspected — the sense of smell. Speculation about their function has led to theories that the crests functioned as everything from brain coolers to snorkels for underwater feeding. Now, David Evans, a PhD student in zoology at the University of Toronto at Mississauga, has been able to use a reconstructed brain cavity to rule out one historically popular theory: that the crests evolved to increase the animal’s sense of smell.
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Researchers at Johns Hopkins restored the normal growth of specific nerve cells in the cerebellum of mouse models of Down syndrome that were stunted by this genetic condition. The cerebellum is the rear, lower part of the brain that controls signals from the muscles to coordinate balance and motor learning.
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