Iron isotopes as a tool in oceanography

New research involving scientists from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS) highlights the potential utility of iron isotopes for addressing important questions in ocean science. The findings are published in the August edition of the journal Geology . Large regions of the worl...

Dietary supplements manufacturers gain new tool to help ensure quality products

Rockville, Md., July 7, 2009 A first-of-its kind collection of standards designed to assist dietary supplements manufacturers in providing quality products to consumers is being released today by the U.S. Pharmacopeial (USP) Convention. The USP Dietary Supplements Compendium (DSC) will also help ...

Notre Dame researchers describe new tool for evaluating 'managed relocations'

Three University of Notre Dame researchers are among the authors of a new paper that describes a ground-breaking tool designed to help policy makers determine when and how to use an environmental strategy known as "managed relocation." Jessica Hellmann and Jason McLachlan, assistant professors...

Open-access membership: Reporting tool brings convenience and control

Following the recent rapid growth of institutional Memberships for open access publications, innovative publisher BioMed Central announces the introduction of the "Online Reporting System" for its open access Prepay and Postpay Membership accounts. Building on BioMed Central's cutting edge publish...

New tool for next-generation cancer treatments using nanodiamonds

A research team at Northwestern University has demonstrated a tool that can precisely deliver tiny doses of drug-carrying nanomaterials to individual cells. The tool, called the Nanofountain Probe, functions in two different ways: in one mode, the probe acts like a fountain pen, wherein drug-co...

New tool isolates RNA within specific cells

A team of University of Oregon biologists, using fruit flies, has created a way to isolate RNA from specific cells, opening a new window on how gene expression drives normal development and disease-causing breakdowns. While DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) provides an identical genetic blueprint in...

Mouse model provides a new tool for investigators of human developmental disorder

April 21, 2009, Cambridge, UK Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome (WHS) is a human disease caused by spontaneous genetic deletions. Children born with WHS have a characteristic set of facial features, including a wide flat nose bridge, downturned mouth, high forehead, and highly arched eyebrows. Other sym...

New tool for genome-wide association studies

Modern genotyping technologies offer new opportunities to explore how genes influence health and disease, but also present the challenge of analyzing huge amounts of genetic and clinical data. With this in mind, investigators at the Lausanne Branch of the international Ludwig Institute for Cancer ...

Tiny tool to control growing blood vessels opens new potential in tumor research

Researchers at Uppsala University have developed a new tool that makes it possible to study the signals in the body that control the generation of blood vessels. The researchers' findings, published in the new issue of Lab on a Chip , enable scientists to determine what signals in the body attra...

Describing soils: Calibration tool for teaching soil rupture resistance

MADISON, WI, January 5, 2009 -- A new calibration tool was recently developed to help students and soil scientists calibrate their thumb and forefinger for the correct amount of pressure. C.A. Seybold and colleagues, USDA-NRCS, Lincoln, NE, write about this new tool in the 2009 issue of Journa...

New tool could unpick complex cancer causes and help sociologists mine Facebook

Researchers at the University of Warwick's Department of Statistics and Centre for Complexity Science have devised a new research tool that could help unpick the complex cell interactions that lead to cancer and also allow social scientists to mine social networking sites such as Facebook for usef...

Powerful online tool for protein analysis provided pro bono by Stanford geneticist

STANFORD, Calif. Scientists around the world may benefit from a powerful new database, available for free online, that will help them to home in on the parts of proteins most necessary for their function. Arend Sidow, PhD, associate professor of pathology and of genetics at the Stanford Univer...

Space researchers developing tool to help disoriented pilots

HOUSTON (Nov. 13, 2008) -- Not knowing which way is up can have deadly consequences for pilots. This confusion of the senses, called spatial disorientation, is responsible for up to 10 percent of general aviation accidents in the United States, with 90 percent of these being fatal, according to t...

New tool probes function of rice genes

A new tool for investigating the rice genome has been developed by researchers at UC Davis led by Pamela Ronald, professor of plant pathology. The inexpensive, publicly-available rice DNA microarray covers nearly all the 45,000 genes in the rice genome. Details are published this week in the open-...

Paleozoic 'sediment curve' provides new tool for tracking sea-floor sediment movements

As the world looks for more energy, the oil industry will need more refined tools for discoveries in places where searches have never before taken place, geologists say. One such tool is a new sediment curve (which shows where sediment-on-the-move is deposited), derived from sediments of the Pa...

New tool to speed cancer therapy approval available

PHILADELPHIA Although cancer remains a leading cause of death in America, it can take up to 12 years to bring a new anti-cancer agent before the FDA and the success rate for approval is only five to 10 percent. That means many research hours and dollars are wasted chasing avenues that will not br...

NIH awards Argonne $800,000 to develop tool to measure distances within proteins

ARGONNE, Ill. (Sept. 3, 2008) Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have won an $800,000 EUREKA award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop MADMAX, a precise molecular ruler for measuring distances within a protein. MADMAX, which st...

Indiana U researchers launch social networking and research management tool for scientists

INDIANAPOLIS Indiana University researchers have introduced Laboratree, a web-based solution to the complex problems of scientific collaboration. Designed to streamline research and enhance collaborative social networking for the science community, Laboratree will enable scientists to securely...

Using live fish, new tool a sentinel for environmental contamination

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have harnessed the sensitivity of days-old fish embryos to create a tool capable of detecting a range of harmful chemicals. By measuring rates of oxygen use in developing fish, which are sensitive to contaminants and stressful conditions, the technology could ...

Broad Institute researchers introduce next generation tool for visualizing genomic data

Researchers are collecting vast amounts of diverse genomic data with ever-increasing speed, but effective ways to visualize these data in an integrated manner have lagged behind the ability to generate them. To address this growing need, researchers at the Broad Institute have developed the Integr...

Texas A&M researchers develop tool to study complex clusters of genes

COLLEGE STATION, July 2, 2008 -- Two Texas A&M University researchers have developed a computational tool that will help scientists more accurately study complex units of clustered genes, called operons, in bacteria. The tool, which allows scientists to analyze many bacterial genomes at once, is m...

Statistical tool could explain gene study variations

While scientists are using the human genome to associate certain genes with disease, Dr. Hongyan Xu wants to ensure they are accounting for natural variations in those genes. "These differences can create some challenges in analyzing data," says Dr. Xu, biostatistician in the Medical College of...

Researcher provides tool to enable determination of age of anchovies with greater precision

This release is available in Spanish . Biologist Pablo Cermeo Villanueva defended his PhD thesis at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), providing a tool to determine the age of anchovies with greater accuracy on a monthly or even weekly basis, thus enabling studies of the earlie...

New chemical tool kit manipulates mitochondria, reveals insights into drug toxicity

BOSTON, Mass. (Feb. 24, 2008)Why do nearly 1 million people taking cholesterol-lowering statins often experience muscle cramps? Why is it that in the rare case when a diabetic takes medication for intestinal worms, his glucose levels improve? Is there any scientific basis for the purported health ...

New tool for resolving fisheries conflicts

Images of dolphins and turtles ensnared in tuna nets are a heart-wrenching reminder of the impact of fisheries on ocean bio-diversity. Known in fisheries science as by-catch, this killing of non-target species is a complex problem that has resisted easy answers. One possible solution, advanced ...

New MIT tool probes brain circuits

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Researchers at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT report in the Jan. 24 online edition of Science that they have created a way to see, for the first time, the effect of blocking and unblocking a single neural circuit in a living animal. This revolutionary me...

Computer-based tool aids research, helps thwart questionable publication practices

DALLAS Jan. 23, 2008 A new computer-based text-searching tool developed by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers automatically and quickly compares multiple documents in a database for similarities, providing a more efficient method to carry out literature searches, as well as offering sc...

Researchers discover important tool in understanding differentiation in human embryonic stem cells

Researchers at the University of Minnesotas Stem Cell Institute have described how an existing genetic tool can be used to study how human embryonic stem cells differentiate. The research appears in the November 2007 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine. Researchers know very little about...

UCR engineers to develop new tool to measure how environmental exposures affect health

RIVERSIDE, Calif. Engineers at UC Riversides Bourns College of Engineering have received a four-year $2.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to be shared with researchers at Arizona State University, to develop a key tool for exploring the environmental roots of common di...

U of Minnesota researchers discover noninvasive diagnostic tool for brain diseases

Researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School and Brain Sciences Center at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center have identified a noninvasive and painless way to diagnose complex brain diseases. And its as simple as staring at a point of light. The research offers promise for a less-st...

U of MN researchers discover noninvasive diagnostic tool for brain diseases

Researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School and Brain Sciences Center at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center have identified a noninvasive and painless way to diagnose complex brain diseases. And its as simple as staring at a point of light. The research offers promise for a less-st...

P[acman]-generated fruit fly gene 'library': A new research tool

HOUSTON -- (May 24, 2009) -- Using a specially adapted tool called P[acman], a collaboration of researchers led by Baylor College of Medicine has established a library of clones that cover most of the genome of Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) and should speed the pace of genetic research. ...

Cancer Genomics Browser gives cancer researchers a powerful new tool

SANTA CRUZ, CA--A Cancer Genomics Browser developed by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, provides a new way to visualize and analyze data from studies aimed at improving cancer treatment by unraveling the complex genetic roots of the disease. The browser consists of a su...

Stroke patients soon may have fun, high-tech tool

The University of Central Florida will immerse stroke survivors in a virtual world full of flying insects to help expand their range of movement. Researchers in UCF's Media Convergence Lab (MCL) are teaming up with the California-based Virtual Reality Medical Center (VRMC) to create the progra...

Tel Aviv University researchers create new stem cell screening tool

Stem cell research is the next great leap in medicine. In the future, new tissue grown in a laboratory could replace a failing heart, or new cells take the place of damaged cells in the brain. Rather than using stem cells from embryonic sources, which opens difficult ethical and complicated scient...

Class of antibiotics can enhance gene-silencing tool

A way to turn off one gene at a time has earned acceptance in biology laboratories over the last decade. Doctors envision the technique, called RNA interference, as a tool to treat a variety of diseases if it can be adapted to humans. Emory University researchers have discovered that antibiotic...

Forest Service launches Web-based forest threats viewing tool

The Forest Services Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center (EFETAC) recently launched its forest threats summary viewer, a tool that will provide images, threat distribution maps, additional forestry contact information, and brief descriptions about forest threats throughout the eas...

Male circumcision overstated as prevention tool against AIDS

In new academic research published today in the online, open-access, peer-reviewed scientific journal PLoS ONE, male circumcision is found to be much less important as a deterrent to the global AIDS pandemic than previously thought. The author, John R. Talbott, has conducted statistical empirical ...

Investigating the measles virus as a tool to kill multiple myeloma

Mayo Clinic Cancer Center has opened a new Phase I clinical trial testing an engineered measles virus against multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow that currently has no cure. This is the third of a series of molecular medicine studies in patients testing the potential of measles to kill ca...

Virginia Tech's System X supercomputer provides super tool for simulation of cell division

Virginia Tech researchers in computer science and biology have used the university's supercomputer, System X, to create models and algorithms that make it possible to simulate the cell cycle -- the processes leading to cell division. They have demonstrated that the new mathematical models and numer...