Origins of the brain: Complex synapses drove brain evolution

Medicine & Health / Research

Jun 08, 2008 | 4.8 / 5 (53) | 4

One of the great scientific challenges is to understand the design principles and origins of the human brain. New research has shed light on the evolutionary origins of the brain and how it evolved into the remarkably complex ...

Scientists find 245 million-year-old burrows of land vertebrates in Antarctica

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Jun 08, 2008 | 4 / 5 (25) | 2

For the first time paleontologists have found fossilized burrows of tetrapods – any land vertebrates with four legs or leglike appendages – in Antarctica dating from the Early Triassic epoch, about 245 million ...

Surprising graphene: Honing in on graphene electronics with infrared synchrotron radiation

Physics / General Physics

Jun 08, 2008 | 4.4 / 5 (20) | 4

Graphene is the two-dimensional crystalline form of carbon: a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in hexagons, like a sheet of chicken wire with an atom at each nexus. As free-standing objects, such two-dimensional ...

Caution on stem cell therapy

Biology /

Jun 08, 2008 | 4.5 / 5 (19) | 1

A single organ may contain more than one type of adult stem cell – a discovery that complicates prospects for using the versatile cells to replace damaged tissue as a treatment for disease, according to a ...

Study identifies brain pathway that shuts down seizures

Medicine & Health / Research

Jun 08, 2008 | 4.7 / 5 (10) | 0

Researchers at the University of Iowa and the Veterans Affairs Iowa City Health Care System have uncovered a brain pathway that shuts down seizures.

Researchers develop new PET scanning probe that will allowing monitoring of the immune system

Medicine & Health / Research

Jun 08, 2008 | 5 / 5 (5) | 0

Researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have modified a common chemotherapy drug to create a new probe for Positron Emission Tomography (PET), an advance that will allow them to model and measure the immune ...

Having heart surgery? Watch your blood sugar, especially if you're overweight or older

Medicine & Health / Health

Jun 08, 2008 | 4.7 / 5 (3) | 0

Nearly half of all heart surgery patients may experience blood sugar levels high enough to require temporary insulin treatment after their operation, even though they've never had diabetes, according to a new study from the ...