SPACE.com - Top NASA officials will decide today whether to proceed with the planned launch of the space shuttle Discovery next week or to stand down and replace several heat shield panels lining the orbiter's wings. Read more…
SPACE.com - NASA has extended the activities of the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity for a fifth time. Read more…
SPACE.com - Two veteran astronauts and Malaysia's first spaceflyer are settling into orbital life as they near the midpoint of a crew swap aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Read more…
NASA is extending, for a fifth time, the activities of the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Read more…
International Space Station Flight Director Derek Hassmann will be available for satellite interviews from 6 to 8 a.m. CDT Friday, Oct. 19. Read more…
NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson arrived at the International Space Station Friday to begin her tenure as the first woman to command a station mission. Read more…
NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, known as SOFIA, began a series of flight tests Thursday of the highly modified Boeing 747SP aircraft. Read more…
Expeditions 15 and 16 will discuss their missions during a news conference aboard the International Space Station at 7 a.m. CDT, Monday, Oct. 15. Read more…
NASA and the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage are partnering for the 2008 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Read more…
NASA managers have scheduled a news conference at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., no earlier than 3 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, Oct. 16, to discuss the status of the upcoming space shuttle mission. Read more…
A person is 100 times more likely to get cancer at age 65 than at age 35. But new research identifies naturally occurring processes that allow many genes to both slow aging and protect against cancer in the much-studied C. elegans roundworm. Read more…
September and October mark the start of television's new fall season as the premieres of new shows and old favorites hit the airwaves. But, University of Minnesota researchers found that watching television while eating family meals may have a negative impact on children's diets. School of Public Health Project EAT researchers found that children in families who watched TV while eating meals together had a lower-quality diet than the children of families who ate together, but turned the TV off. Boys watching TV while eating family meals consumed fewer vegetables and grains, and more soft drinks, than those who did not watch TV; girls watching TV ate significantly fewer dark vegetables and more fried food. Read more…
Scientists report that adding long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids -- typically found in fish oil -- to baby formula may help infants better regulate their blood sugar and make more proteins in their muscle cells. These results may help make better decisions when dealing with pre-term birth, low-birth weight, and feeding of infants in intensive care. Read more…
ADHD is an increasingly frequent complex mental disorder in children with partly devastating consequences for the child's further development and the families. There are promising new strategies of research to develop more appropriate treatments that specifically refer to the patient's basic neuropsychological dysfunctions and mechanisms. Working memory can be improved by training in children with ADHD and could be of clinical use for ameliorating the symptoms in ADHD. Read more…
Women with severe premenstrual syndrome perceive their sleep quality to be poorer in association with their symptoms in the late luteal phase, despite there being no specific alterations in sleep structure associated with premenstrual symptoms. Read more…
Glutaric acidemia type I is an inherited disorder similar to Huntington disease. In most, but not all, affected children, a period of normal development is followed by an irreversible brain injury triggered by a nonspecific illness. New research using a mouse model of GA-I has provided insight into the mechanisms underlying injury and age-dependent susceptibility to the disease and suggested a way to monitor children with the disease. Read more…
Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a common disease of the main artery (the aorta) in the elderly. It is characterized by a dilated aorta and if allowed to develop unchecked it can rupture, an event with a high rate of mortality. Read more…
Soil erosion from rain and wind produces water quality issues in streams, rivers and lakes, degrades soil quality, and affects human health. Now an environmentally-friendly solution called WoodStraw, an innovative erosion control material made from sliced strands of wood that is tailor-made for use on forests, highway projects, watersheds and other natural areas has been developed. Previous erosion control methods, specifically the use of straw, were hampered by lack of stability under windy conditions, possible introduction of noxious weeds, chemical residue from pesticides and short-lived performance. WoodStraw is heavier than straw, making it less likely to be blown away when exposed to high winds. Read more…
New research suggests certain self-help treatments for social anxiety disorder may be just as effective as more traditional, therapist only treatments. With mental health conditions such as anxiety growing in prevalence across the globe, there is a critical need for more innovative, cost-effective and accessible treatments. Social phobia affects more than 200,000 Australians every year. Of these people, 80 per cent do not seek treatment. A new self-help treatment for social anxiety disorder is therefore promising news for both anxiety sufferers and mental health services. Read more…
Before you can post a comment to most blogs, you have to type in a series of distorted letters and numbers to prove that you are a person and not a computer attempting to add comment spam to the blog. What if -- instead of wasting your time and typing something like SGO9DXG -- you could label an image or perform some other quick task that will help someone who is visually-impaired do their grocery shopping? Read more…
Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a risk factor for pancreatic cancer which is increasing worldwide. A research group from Turkey has found that the use of a tumor marker, Ca 19-9, in diabetics with a standard reference value can lead to misdiagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Read more…
Traditional Chinese medicine is world renowned. It has effects on some diseases, but some of the reasons are still unknown. Human hepatocellular carcinoma is a challenging disease worldwide and researchers have long sought an effective cure. A research group in China has found that a Chinese medicinal compound, delisheng, had satisfactory anti-cancer effects on HCC with one exceptive. Read more…
New research explains why more people are allergic to cow's milk than horse's milk. The relatedness of an animal food protein to a human protein determines whether it can cause allergy, according to new research. In theory all proteins have the potential to become allergens, but the study found that in practice the ability of animal food proteins to act as allergens depends on their evolutionary distance from a human equivalent. Read more…
Patients with obstructive sleep apnea who also suffer from depression often find that continued use of continuous positive airway pressure relieves them of symptoms of depression. Subjects were evaluated for symptoms of depression, were assessed again after four to six weeks of treatment with CPAP and then reassessed approximately one year later. Read more…
A high proportion of patients with obstructive sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome report previous or current use, and interest in future use, of complementary and alternative medicine therapies. Read more…
