MRI noise reducing headset is developed

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (UPI) -- U.S. engineering students say they've designed a headset that muffles the extremely loud noises produced during magnetic resonance imaging exams.

The University of Florida students said their prototype headset reduces the repetitive, industrial-like noises that accompany MRI procedures. The noises -- often as loud as a jet engine -- can cause involuntary patient movement, blurring the image and necessitating repeat examinations, said Stephen Forguson, one of the researchers.

Forguson, Chad Dailey, Paul Norris and Christopher Ruesga designed the headset in collaboration with the Invivo Corp., a manufacturer of MRI accessories.

Although noise-canceling earphones are commercially available, they use electronics that aren't permitted within a MRI chamber. Passive systems are insufficient to combat the noise.

The newly designed headset uses existing "air phones," or headphones attached to small tubes connected to specially crafted electronics and algorithm software located outside the MRI machine. Since MRI sounds are repetitive and the piped-in sounds are timed to occur on top of the repetitions, the patients hear the same sound they would without any intervention -- but at a much lower volume.

The team is now experimenting with further improvements, said Professor Gijs Bosman, the students' faculty adviser.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International
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Brain disease studied at the atomic level

COLUMBUS, Ohio (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say they have, for the first time, inspected the atomic level of the protein that causes hereditary cerebral amyloid angiopathy.

The disease, thought to cause stroke and dementia, is initiated by certain kinds of proteins called prions that produce degenerative brain diseases such as CAA, mad cow disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. All are incurable and fatal.

The researchers, led by Ohio State University Assistant Professor Christopher Jaroniec, used solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to inspect a tiny portion of the protein molecule that is key to the formation of plaques in blood vessels in the brain.

"This is a very basic study of the structure of the protein and hopefully it will give other researchers the information they need to perform further studies and improve our understanding of CAA," he said.

The research that included doctoral students Jonathan Helmus and Philippe Naudaud, as well as scientists at Case Western Reserve University, appears in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International
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Baker College wins cyber defense contest

SAN ANTONIO (UPI) -- Baker College of Flint, Mich., Texas A&M University and the University of Louisville have won top honors in the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition.

The Baker College entrants, as the third annual competition's winning team, received an invitation from the Department of Homeland Security to attend the March 2010 Cyber Storm III National Cyber Security Exercise in Washington, D.C.

"We've competed in these collegiate cyber defense competitions for the last three years and have never made it past the regional level," said Brandon Hladysh, Baker College's team captain. "I'm really proud of my teammates and they truly are the best of the best."

The competition hosted by the University of Texas at San Antonio's Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security, featured six, eight-member teams that were scored on their ability to operate and maintain a business network while under hostile cyber attack.

Each team was required to correct problems on their network, perform typical business tasks and defend their networks from a red team that generated live, hostile activity throughout the competition that ended Sunday.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International
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Study discovers how cancer cells spread

MONTREAL (UPI) -- Canadian scientists say they've discovered cancer cells spread by releasing protein "bubbles" -- a finding that might alter our concept of how cancer works.

The discovery was made by Dr. Janusz Rak and colleagues at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Center in collaboration with Dr. Ab Guha of the University of Toronto.

The researchers found cancer cells are able to communicate with their more healthy counterparts by releasing vesicles -- bubble-like structures containing cancer-causing proteins that can trigger specific mechanisms when they merge into non- or less-malignant cells.

Rak said the finding demonstrates that cancer is a multi-cell process, where the cells "talk" to one another extensively.

"This goes against the traditional view that a single 'mutated' cell will simply multiply uncontrollably to the point of forming a tumor," said Rak. "This discovery opens exciting new research avenues, but we also hope that it will lead to positive outcomes for patients."

The study appears in the online edition of the journal Nature Cell Biology.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International
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Changing jet streams may alter storm paths

STANFORD, Calif. (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say changes in the Earth's jet streams, possibly caused by global warming, might affect storm paths and intensity, including hurricanes.

Jet streams -- high-altitude bands of fast-moving winds -- are shifting, said Carnegie Institution researchers Ken Caldeira and Cristina Archer. They found that from 1979 to 2001, the jet streams in both hemispheres rose in altitude and shifted toward the poles. At the same time, northern hemisphere jet streams weakened.

Since jet streams are the driving factor for weather conditions, said Archer, changes in the jets have the potential to affect large populations and major climate systems.

Caldeira and Archer, from Carnegie's Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, Calif., said hurricanes' development tends to be inhibited by jet streams. Therefore hurricanes might become more powerful and more frequent as the jet streams move away from sub-tropical zones where hurricanes are born.

The scientists said the changes fit the predictions of several global warming models, although theirs is the first study to use observation-based datasets to examine trends in all the jet stream parameters.

The research appears in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International
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9,500-year-old tree is discovered

UMEA, Sweden (UPI) -- The world's oldest living tree -- a 9,550-year-old spruce -- has been discovered in Sweden's Dalarna province, a university professor said.

Umea University Professor Leif Kullman said the discovery was made under the crown of a spruce on Fulu Mountain in central Sweden where scientists found four "generations" of spruce remains in the form of cones and wood produced from higher ground.

Researchers said the old tree survived cooler summer conditions during the past 10,000 years and, more recently, a gradual warming, by its ability to push out another trunk as older ones die.

Other very old trees, including three 375-, 5,660- and 9,000-years-old were also discovered.

Since spruce trees can multiply with root penetrating braches, they can produce exact copies, or clones, researchers said.

The trees' ages were determined in a process called carbon-14 dating at a U.S. laboratory.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International
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The worst computer viruses of all time

Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:11PM EDT

If you haven't experienced a computer virus yet, just wait -- you probably will.

Fortunately, you missed the real heyday of computer viruses when anti-virus software wasn't very widely used, and virus attacks caused millions of dollars in damages overnight. Today's viruses can still be nightmarish, but for the average user, cleanup is considerably easier than it was just a few years ago, when the only solution in many cases was reformatting your hard drive and starting from scratch (and even that didn't do the trick sometimes).

So join me on a trip down memory lane as we revisit some of the worst viruses of all time and count our blessings that our computers are still up and running despite it all. (Though, please note, "worst" is a matter of considerable debate in the security industry, as the number of infected machines and amount of financial loss is always estimated. If you think another virus was worse than these, please post it in the comments to remind us!)

The worst viruses of all time

Brain, 1986
It all started here: Brain was the first "real" virus ever discovered, back in 1986. Brain didn't really hurt your PC, but it launched the malware industry with a bang and gave bad ideas to over 100,000 virus creators for the next 2 decades.

Michelangelo, 1991
The worst MS-DOS virus ever, Michelangelo attacked the boot sector of your hard drive and any floppy drive inserted into the computer, which caused the virus to spread rapidly. After spreading quietly for months, the virus "activated" on March 6, and promptly started destroying data on tens of thousands of computers.

Melissa, 1999
Technically a worm, Melissa (named after a stripper) collapsed entire email systems by causing computers to send mountains of messages to each other. The author of the virus was eventually caught and sentenced to 20 months in prison.

ILOVEYOU, 2000
This was notable for being one of the first viruses to trick users into opening a file, which in this case claimed to be a love letter sent to the recipient. In reality, the file was a VBS script that sent mountains of junk mail and deleted thousands of files. The results were terribly devastating- one estimate holds that 10 percent of all computers were affected, to a cost of $5.5 billion. It remains perhaps the worst worm of all time.

Code Red, 2001
An early "blended threat" attack, Code Red targeted Web servers instead of user machines, defacing websites and later launching denial-of-service attacks on a host of IP addresses, including those of the White House.

Nimda, 2001
Built on Code Red's attack system of finding multiple avenues into machines (email, websites, network connections, and others), Nimda infected both Web servers and user machines. It found paths into computers so effectively that, 22 minutes after it was released, it became the Internet's most widespread virus at the time.

Klez, 2001
An email virus, Klez pioneered spoofing the "From" field in email messages it sent, making it impossible to tell if Bill Gates did or did not really send you that information about getting free money.

Slammer, 2003
Another fast spreader, this worm infected about 75,000 systems in just 10 minutes, slowing the Internet to a crawl (much like Code Red) and shutting down thousands of websites.

MyDoom, 2004
Notable as the fastest-spreading email virus of all time, MyDoom infected computers so they would, in turn, send even more junk mail. In a strange twist, MyDoom was also used to attack the website of SCO Group, a very unpopular company that was suing other companies over its code being used in Linux distributions.

Storm, 2007
The worst recent virus, Storm spread via email spam with a fake attachment and ultimately infected up to 10 million computers, causing them to join its zombie botnet.

Thanks to Symantec for helping to compile this list.

source: yahoo tech news

Windows XP going off market in June

I just happened to read this today in yahoo tech news. I just want to share it with you especially to those who use Windows XP..well that's what I am also using now until I will buy a new PC next time. here is the news!!

Windows XP going off market in June: What it means

Mon Apr 14, 2008 5:28PM EDT

Microsoft originally announced over a year ago that Windows XP would be going off the market in January 2008. XP was later given a brief stay of execution, to June 30, 2008. That deadline is fast approaching, which has led to much panicking from people who aren't quite sure what XP's "going off market" means, exactly.
People are still as confused as ever. So let's take a stab at clarifying, once again, what's going to happen by answering some frequently asked questions about XP's imminent disappearance.
Will Windows XP really no longer be on sale after June 30? Sorry for the double negative, but no. All this means is that Microsoft will stop selling the OS. Finding a computer with XP preinstalled will likely be very difficult, as well. However, you'll still be able to find copies for the foreseeable future, and likely the unforeseeable one, too. See for yourself: You can find copies of just about any Microsoft product, including ancient versions of Windows and even MS-DOS, by simply searching online. But hang on to your current copy of Windows XP. You may need it down the road if you don't want to move to Vista.
Will I be forced to upgrade to Vista soon? No. But it will get harder and harder not to, especially since new software and peripherals are likely to stop working with XP. That could take years.
Will my XP machine stop working in June? No, but Microsoft will stop releasing non-security software updates to the masses on April 14, 2009. But let's be clear: XP will continue to "work" even after this point.
Will Microsoft shut off product activation for XP after June? No, that would be crazy. While no one has said this will happen, it's conceivable that Windows could shut down product activation for XP at some point. But that would only happen after XP reaches its end-of-support term (when all support plans expire). The good news for you: That happens on April 8, 2014, which should be plenty of time to get the kinks worked out of Vista-or switch to a Mac, Linux, or anything else. Bottom line: Your copy of XP will work, totally legally, for at least six more years.
What about after 2014? Well, that's unclear. But it's possible XP will stop being installable at that point. Microsoft's official policy is that these dates have "no affect [sic] on how long you can use a product," which may imply product activation will work forever. However, two things come to mind:
1) Even the most die-hard XP enthusiast will probably be ready to upgrade at that point (as XP will be nearly 15 years old, and your PC will be dead by then, I'm sure).
2) Even if Microsoft shuts off product activation, the hacker community will certainly make dozens of tools to let you continue using XP with abandon. Fret not.
Can I install XP on a PC that has Vista already on it? Yes. You can delete any partition with any OS on it (and reformat it) during the installation of XP. If you're feeling brave, you can even run both OSes at the same time by setting up a dual-boot machine.
Whew! Does that clear everything up? Feel free to continue sending your queries and adding your comments below.
Note: This post was originally created in April 2007 and updated with new and changed information in April 2008.
Source: yahoo tech news

Minimally invasive surgery reduces risks

SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) -- U.S. medical scientists say a new study shows laparoscopic surgery reduces the risk of nosocomial infections by 52 percent when compared with open surgery.

Ethicon End-Surgery Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company, conducted a retrospective study of more than 11,000 patients undergoing one of three surgical procedures: hysterectomy, cholecystectomy (gallbladder removal) and appendectomy. The researchers said they found laparoscopic surgery was associated with reduction of the risk of nosocomial (hospital acquired) infections during gallbladder removal by 66 percent, and during hysterectomy by 52 percent compared with open surgery.

The study showed the reduction rates of nosocomial infections during laparoscopic appendectomy were not statistically significant.

"This study gives more definitive evidence that laparoscopic surgery reduces the risk of nosocomial infection compared to open surgery, which may lead to improved patient care and potential reductions in costs to the healthcare system, " said Dr. Andrew Brill, director of minimally invasive gynecology at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, one of the lead investigators of the study.

The research appears in the journal Surgical Endoscopy.

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Copyright 2008 by United Press International

Australia suffers massive shorebird loss

SYDNEY (UPI) -- Australia has suffered a "truly alarming" decline in its number of migratory and resident shorebirds, a long-term study revealed.

An aerial survey conducted by the University of New South Wales in the eastern third of the continent determined migratory shorebird populations plunged by 73 percent and 15 species of resident shorebirds declined by 81 percent between 1983 and 2006.

"This is a truly alarming result: in effect, three-quarters of eastern Australia's millions of resident and migratory shorebirds have disappeared in just one generation," said Professor Richard Kingsford, an author of the study. "The wetlands and resting places that they rely on for food and recuperation are shrinking virtually all the way along their migration path, from Australia through Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and up through Asia into China and Russia."

The study that included John Porter and Silke Nebel appears in the journal Biological Conservation.

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Copyright 2008 by United Press International

Smaller asteroid may have killed dinosaurs

HONOLULU (UPI) -- A scientist in Hawaii says the asteroid implicated in the extinction of dinosaurs was much smaller than previously suggested.

Francois Paquay of the University of Hawaii Manoa has developed a new tool using variations of osmium isotope composition in the marine sediment record to estimate the size of asteroid impacts, the university said Thursday in a release.

The findings are published in the journal Science.

Paquay said sediment shows the asteroid that created Chicxulub crater off the coast of Mexico was about 2.5 miles wide -- less than half the size that researchers had previously suggested, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The researchers estimate the size of the asteroid that created the 63-mile-wide Popigai crater in Siberia at about 1.7 miles across. Previous estimates had put that asteroid at about 2.5 miles across.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International
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New system makes hydrogen from plant sugar

BLACKSBURG, Va. (UPI) -- A U.S. scientist says he has developed a technology that can convert plant sugars into hydrogen to be used in hydrogen-fueled cars.

Virginia Tech Assistant Professor Percival Zhang says the process involves combining plant sugars, water and a cocktail of powerful enzymes to produce hydrogen and carbon dioxide under mild reaction conditions.

"This is revolutionary work," said Zhang. "This has opened up a whole new direction in hydrogen research. With technology improvement, sugar-powered vehicles could come true eventually."

Zhang and colleagues said they believe they can produce hydrogen from cellulose, which has a similar chemical formula to starch, but is far more difficult to break down.

In laboratory studies, the scientists collected 13 different, well-known enzymes and combined them with water and starches inside a specially designed reactor. The resulting broth reacted to produce only carbon dioxide and hydrogen, with no leftover pollutants. However, they said the amount of hydrogen produced was too low for commercial use and the speed of the reactions wasn't optimal.

Zhang and colleagues described the system -- called the world's most efficient method for producing hydrogen -- this week in New Orleans during the American Chemical Society's 235th national meeting.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International
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Potential diabetes drug target identified

TORONTO (UPI) -- Canadian scientists announced the discovery of a novel signaling pathway to the gut, brain and liver that lowers blood sugar when it is activated.

The scientists at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, led by Dr. Tony Lam, used a rat model to discover that fats can activate a subset of nerves in the intestine, which then send a signal to the brain and subsequently to the liver to lower glucose production.

"This is a new approach in developing more effective methods to lower glucose or blood sugar levels in those who are obese or have diabetes," said Lam.

"We already knew that the brain and liver can regulate blood glucose levels," he said, "but the question has been, how do you therapeutically target either of these two organs without incurring side effects? We may have found a way around this problem by suggesting that the gut can be the initial target instead.

"If new medicines can be developed that stimulate this sensing mechanism in the gut, we may have an effective way of slowing down the body's production of sugar, thereby lowering blood sugar levels in diabetes," said Lam.

The research appears in the online issue of the journal Science in advance of print publication.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International
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Genetic variants linked with hypertension

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (UPI) -- Yale University scientists in Connecticut said rare genetic variants can be associated with a dramatically lower risk of high blood pressure.

The researchers say their finding that rare mutations might collectively play a large part in the development of common, yet complex, diseases such as hypertension also has implications for the diagnosis and treatment of such diseases as diabetes and schizophrenia.

"Collectively, common variants have explained a small fraction of the risk of most diseases in the population, as we would expect from the effects of natural selection,'' said Yale Professor Richard Lifton, who led the study with Daniel Levy, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institutes's Framingham Heart Study. "The question this leaves open is whether many rare variations in genes will collectively account for a large influence on common disease.''

Lifton said the new study underscores the importance of sequencing the genome of many individuals in order to discover disease-causing mutations.

The research is reported in the journal Nature Genetics.


Copyright 2008 by United Press International
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Chemists work on bamboo fabric development

I just want to share this subscribe mail with you guys before I delete it!! It is quite interesting!!

Wish everyone a very great day!!

Chemists work on bamboo fabric development

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (UPI) -- U.S. chemists said they've solved two problems that have slowed marketplace adoption of bamboo garments and other consumer products.

Colorado State University graduate student Subhash Appidi and Associate Professor Ajoy Sarkar have discovered now to make bamboo fabric that's resistant to the sun's ultraviolet radiation and also has anti-bacterial properties.

"Bamboo is environmentally friendly," said Appidi. "Pesticides and other agents are necessary to grow most other natural fibers -- (but) there is nothing like that in bamboo production."

Despite bamboo's promise as an environmentally friendly fiber, Appidi said raw bamboo fabric allows UV radiation to reach the skin. And Appidi found untreated bamboo fabric did not live up to antimicrobial expectations.

"All cellulose fibers allow more moisture to leak in and provide more food for bacteria to eat," he said. "That's why bacteria grow more on natural fibers rather than synthetic fibers."

The researchers increased the UV-protecting abilities of the fabric by coloring bamboo cloth in a dye laced with UV absorbing chemicals.

To improve bamboo's antibacterial properties Appidi treated fabric with Tinosan -- an antibacterial agent.

The details of the research were reported Monday in New Orleans during the spring national meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International
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Study: Bdelloid rotifers resist radiation

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say they've found a common class of freshwater invertebrates called bdelloid rotifers is extraordinarily resistant to ionizing radiation.

Harvard University researchers said the animals survive and continue to reproduce after being exposed to doses of gamma radiation much greater than can be tolerated by any other animal species studied.

Because free radicals such as those generated by radiation have been implicated in inflammation, cancer and aging in higher organisms, Harvard Professor Matthew Meselson and graduate student Eugene Gladyshev said their findings could stimulate new lines of research into these medically important problems.

The researchers found bdelloid rotifers Adineta vaga and Philodina roseola -- about a half-millimeter in size and commonly observed under microscopes -- remained reproductively viable after doses of radiation roughly five times greater than other classes of rotifers and other animals could endure.

The research, supported by the National Science Foundation's Eukaryotic Genetics Program, is reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

source: www.arcamax.com
Copyright 2008 by United Press International

Study points to possible malaria vaccine

DALLAS (UPI) -- U.S. and British scientists said they might have discovered why some species can nearly never interbreed -- a key insight into the basis of reproduction.

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center researchers said their finding might point to a possible malaria vaccine, thwarting the disease that kills about 1 million people each year, primarily children in sub-Saharan Africa.

The researchers found sexual reproduction begins with two genetically different steps: First, two reproductive cells must latch onto each other with one protein, and secondly they must fuse their membranes to form a single cell using a different protein.

The scientists collaborated with malaria experts at Imperial College London and found the parasite causing malaria also uses that two-step process. When they blocked "male" and "female" malarial cells from fusing, spread of the mosquito-borne disease was stopped.

The research is to appear in the April 14 issue of the journal Genes and Development and is now available at the journal's Web site.

source: www.arcamax.com
Copyright 2008 by United Press International