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Big Leap in Iran’s Knowledge Production
An official said that as of July 12, Iran’s scientific articles carried by the reference website International Scientific Institute (ISI) in 2008 reached 7,320.
Speaking to Mehr News Agency on Sunday, Jafar Mehrad, the head of Regional Center for Dissemination of Science and Technology News, added that the pace of knowledge production in Iran is significant.
“In the past, Iran’s knowledge production never reached this level. Scientific articles produced in the country in 2007 were 9,062,“ he said.
He also said Turkey tops the region in terms of scientific articles with 14,126 cases.
“Iran ranks second in the region while Egypt ranks third with 2,586 articles. Malaysia and Saudi Arabia come in fourth and fifth with 1,719 and 1,206 cases, respectively,“ he said.
Mehrad expressed hope that in view of the growth of the country’s scientific articles and the endeavors of universities and research centers, Iran’s scientific articles in ISI would exceed 12,000 by the end of 2008.
He added that Iran’s 7,320 scientific articles pertain to science, social sciences and arts and humanities categories, which are the three major categories of ISI.
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Scientific articles produced in the country in 2007 were 9,062.
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Mehrad concluded by saying that fields of engineering, medicine, as well as agriculture, veterinary and those related to natural sciences are included in the scientific category by ISI.
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Gender Plays Role
In Post-Concussion Healing
Being female and having a history of concussions both slow recovery from a concussion among young athletes, according to a new study done on soccer players.
According to HealthDay, the researchers urged doctors and coaches to treat concussions on a case-by-case basis.
“The results of this study suggest that physicians should not be taking a one-size-fits-all approach to treating concussions,“ coauthor Alexis Chiang Colvin, sports medicine fellow for the Department of Orthopedics at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said in a news release from the society. “Our study shows that patients with a history of a previous concussion perform worse than patients without a previous history on neurocognitive tests taken after they sustain a concussion. Furthermore, females perform worse than males on post-concussion testing, as well.“
A concussion is an injury to the brain that results in temporary loss of
normal brain function, usually caused by a blow to the head. Concussions can affect memory, judgment, reflexes, speech, balance and coordination.
The authors chose to examine concussions in soccer players, ranging in age from 8 to 24, because of the sport’s popularity, similar rules among both genders, and because helmets are not worn during play.
The study of 234 soccer players (61 percent female, 39 percent male) found that females did much worse than males on reaction time tests. Females also showed more symptoms than males.
Players who had previous concussions performed significantly worse on verbal memory testing after another concussion, the study found.
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Insect Colors Help
Cancer Drug Discovery
Brightly colored beetles or butterfly larvae nibbling on a plant may signal the presence of chemical compounds active against cancer cell lines and tropical parasitic diseases, according to researchers at Smithsonian’s Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
Such clues could speed drug discovery and provide insight into the ecological relationships between tropical-forest plants and insects that feed on them, ScienceDaily reported.
“These findings are incredibly exciting and important,“ said Todd Capson, STRI research chemist, who directed the project. “The results of this study could have direct and positive impacts on the future of medical treatment for many diseases around the world.“
For this research scientists used plants already known to have anti-cancer compounds; those proven to be active against certain disease-carrying parasites; and plants without such activity.
The study showed that beetles and butterfly larvae with bright warning coloration were significantly more common on plants that contained compounds active against certain diseases, such as breast cancer and malaria.
There was no significant difference in the number of plain-colored insects between plants with and without activity, according to the study by the Smithsonian’s Panama International Cooperative Biodiversity Group Program.
“We put two and two together,“ said researcher Julie Helson. “We knew that brightly colored insects advertise to their predators that they taste bad and that some get their toxins from their host plants. But because other insects cheat by mimicking the toxic ones, we weren’t sure if insect color was really going to work to identify plants containing toxins--it did!“
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Retinal Transplant Boosts Vision
An experimental transplant of cells into the eyes of patients with failing sight improved vision in most of them, US researchers say.
The retinal cells, taken from aborted fetuses, were implanted into 10 people with retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration, BBC reported.
The American Journal of Ophthalmology study found seven had better--although still seriously impaired--vision.
Retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) are the most common causes of blindness in old age, and involve the gradual and normally irreversible destruction of the cells on the eye’s retina which receive light.
The technique used by the team at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, saw them implant the fetal retinal cells alongside cells which have the job of nourishing them, with the hope that the new cells would join forces with the existing retinal cells to improve overall vision.
Dr. Norman Radtke, who led the project, said that sight tests showed no change in three of the 10 patients, but slight improvements in the rest.
In one case, this improvement was still present six years after the operation, even though the patient’s other eye had continued to deteriorate.
However, the improvements were only modest, and eyesight was well short of normal vision.
Dr. Radtke said: “What we have learned will help us to refine this method and obtain further evidence that retinal transplants may be a viable therapy for retinal degenerative disease.“
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Imaging Technology
Eastman Kodak Company has achieved breakthrough in its history of imaging technology innovation with the introduction of the world’s first 50 million pixel charged coupled device (CCD) image sensor for photography.
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Sugary Snacks Help Children Concentrate
It is a discovery to delight children and horrify parents--sugary drinks and snacks may be a good thing.
Researchers have found that a sugary drink improved primary school pupils’ memories and concentration, Telegraph said.
Teachers fear the findings may promote junk food and the results confound suggestions that high-sugar diets cause hyperactivity.
The scientists, however, believe learning would improve through small regular snacks rather than large lunches.
Professor David Benton insisted: “The evidence sugar might because hyperactivity is non-existent. We have shown it can help memory and concentration.“
“Children between the ages of five and ten need twice as much glucose for their brains compared to an adult, but unlike other organs the brain does not store energy so it has to obtain it straight from the blood. The message we would like to encourage is that children need to be fed a little and often, but the risk is that they get fed a lot and often leading to problems with obesity.“
Protecting Cabbage From Foodborne Pathogens
No one knows exactly how microbes like Listeria monocytogenes or Salmonella enterica can attach themselves to the bumpy leaves of a cabbage or the ultra-fine root hairs of a tender young alfalfa sprout.
It’s a mystery that Agricultural Research Service (ARS) food safety scientists in Albany, Calif., are intent on solving. The work, based at the ARS Western Regional Research Center, may lead to new ways to protect cabbage, sprouts and other salad favorites from attack by foodborne pathogens, ScienceDaily wrote.
Microbiologist Lisa A. Gorski, for instance, led an investigation several years ago that was the first to document the genes that L. monocytogenes uses during a successful invasion of cabbage leaves. Gorski did the work with Albany colleague Jeffrey D. Palumbo and others.
Though scientists elsewhere had looked at genes that this Listeria turns on--or ’expresses’--when it’s grown on a bed of gel-like agar in a laboratory, no one had, at the time of Gorski’s investigation, ever documented genes that this microbe expresses when it grows on a vegetable.
Listeria is perhaps best known for establishing colonies in humans, not on green plants. But the team found that Listeria, when invading cabbage, calls into play some of the same genes that plant-dwelling microbes routinely use to colonize and spread harmlessly on plants.
Researcher Eyes Jellyfish to Improve Robots
Biology professor Joseph Ayers is expanding his research on animals’ nervous systems that produced the RoboLobster and RoboLamprey to include a study on tactile sensory perception in jellyfish and lobsters.
According to Physorg, in the dark, underwater robots must rely on tactile and hydrodynamic senses and tentacles and antennae are the sensors of choice. Ayers hopes to create autonomous, biomimetic underwater robotic models that emulate the animals’ nervous systems using a new electronic nervous systems (ENS) controller.
“There are hardly any autonomous robots out there that can operate in unpredictable environments,“ Ayers said. “What we bring is a really good understanding of how the nervous system controls behavior in animal models. If we can build a truly biomimetic robot, it will embody the results of four million years of evolution.“
In collaboration with Martin Poitzsch and Matt Sullivan of the Schlumberger-Doll Sensor Physics Group, a division that conducts basic research for technological innovations, Kazuo Mori, a new postdoctoral researcher at Northeastern Marine Science Center, and with the help of Warren Gibbons, an expert on jellyfish cultivation procedures, Ayers is constructing a jellyfish culture laboratory at the Nahant center.
Ayers is interested in comparing tactile sensing in the soft, bendable tentacles of jellyfish with that of the more rigid antennae of lobsters.
Spider’s Hanging Position Is Energy Friendly
An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Spain and Croatia led an investigation into the peculiar lifestyle of numerous spider species, which live, feed, breed and ’walk’ in an upside-down hanging position.
According to their results, such ’unconventional’ enterprise drives a shape in spiders that confers high energy efficiency, as in oscillatory pendulums, ScienceDaily reported.
The great majority of land animals evolved to use the ground as the main support for their motion. Accordingly, they evolved legs capable of supporting the weight of their whole bodies, enabling them to move around with their heads above their feet.
However, many spider species found it more convenient to literally turn their world upside down. They spend most of their lives hanging suspended by their legs, and ’walk’ by swinging under the influence of gravity.
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