science newsletter: Science News SciGuru.com

Σάββατο 4 Αυγούστου 2012

Science News SciGuru.com

Fragile X and Down syndromes share signalling pathway for intellectual disability
A new ‘metamaterial’ prevents electromagnetic waves from reflecting backward
Curiosity gets to the bottom of Mars
What you don't know can hurt you
Embryonic blood vessels that produce blood stem cells can also make heart muscle cells

Fragile X and Down syndromes share signalling pathway for intellectual disability

Posted: 04 Aug 2012 05:12 AM PDT

Intellectual disability due to Fragile X and Down syndromes involves similar molecular pathways report researchers in The EMBO Journal. The two disorders share disturbances in the molecular events that regulate the way nerve cells develop dendritic spines, the small extensions found on the surface of nerve cells that are crucial for communication in the brain.

A new ‘metamaterial’ prevents electromagnetic waves from reflecting backward

Posted: 03 Aug 2012 02:36 PM PDT

Computer chips that use light to move data would be much more energy efficient and possibly even faster than today’s chips, which use electricity. One of the difficulties in realizing them, however, is that light moving through a “waveguide” — unlike electrons moving through a wire — can reflect backward, interfering with subsequent transmissions and even disrupting the operation of the laser that emitted it.

Curiosity gets to the bottom of Mars

Posted: 03 Aug 2012 02:27 PM PDT

It weighs 900 kilograms, has ten scientific instruments on board and is the most powerful laboratory ever sent to our neighbouring planet: the Curiosity rover. It will herald a new era of Mars research. The team working on Mars Science Laboratory, as the US space agency NASA’s mission is officially known, includes scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau/Lower Saxony. In addition to searching for organic compounds in the Martian soil, they are particularly interested in the composition and nature of the rock.

What you don't know can hurt you

Posted: 03 Aug 2012 02:20 PM PDT

Is it possible for a health care system to redesign its services to better educate patients to deal with their immediate health issues and also become more savvy consumers of medicine in the long run?

The answer is yes, according to a study led by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (SFGH) that was recently reported by the Institute of Medicine (IOM).

Embryonic blood vessels that produce blood stem cells can also make heart muscle cells

Posted: 03 Aug 2012 02:13 PM PDT

UCLA stem cell researchers have discovered a surprising and unexpected phenomenon in the embryonic endothelium, the thin layer of cells lining the interior of blood vessels, where blood stem cells are made during early development.