news 2013

PA 332/13 Ethnicity of the mother is a significant determinant of successful outcomes after fertility treatment according to a new study by researchers at Nottingham University's Research and Treatment Unit in Reproduction (NURTURE). The team conducted a study to assess the relationship between the ethnicity of patients and the clinical success of their fertility treatment.

By using early screening, we can now identify young people at risk of heart and kidney disease Professor David Dunger Using a simple urine test, researchers can now identify young people with type 1 diabetes at risk of heart and kidney disease. The new research, funded by JDRF, Diabetes UK, and the British Heart Foundation (BHF), was published today, 06 November, in the journal Diabetes Care.

Three Imperial scientists have been named on a list of highly influential biomedical researchers based on citations by other academics. Professors Peter Barnes, Philippe Froguel and David Brooks are among the 400 scientists worldwide with the highest scores according to citation data from 1996 to 2011.

The sound vibrations that make up music can make solar panels work harder, according to new research, and pop music performs better than classical. Scientists showed that high pitched sounds like those common in pop and rock music caused the greatest improvement in the solar cells' power output, increasing it by up to forty per cent.

A new study will examine the best methods for cleaning surgical instruments to reduce the risk of variant CJD infection. The £90,000 study, funded by the Scottish Infection Research Network, will focus on instruments used in neurosurgery and test different methods for cleansing surgical instruments.

Engineers from the University of Sheffield have developed a way to significantly reduce the volume of some higher activity wastes, which will reduce the cost of interim storage and final disposal. The researchers, from the University's Faculty of Engineering, have shown that mixing plutonium-contaminated waste with blast furnace slag and turning it into glass reduces its volume by 85-95 per cent.

The study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to analyse the brain's while participants chose positive, negative and neutral adjectives to describe either themselves or the British Queen Research by the University of Liverpool has found that people experiencing depressive episodes display increased brain activity when they think about themselves.

The remarkable mechanism by which the tiny ears of locusts can hear and distinguish between different tones has been discovered by researchers from the University of Bristol. Understanding how the nanoscale features of the insect eardrum mechanically process sound could open up practical possibilities for the fabrication of embedded signal processing in extremely small microphones.

Playing pop and rock music improves the performance of solar cells, according to new research from scientists at Queen Mary University of London and Imperial College London. The high frequencies and pitch found in pop and rock music cause vibrations that enhanced energy generation in solar cells containing a cluster of 'nanorods', leading to a 40 per cent increase in efficiency of the solar cells.

In the children's game "Jenga", removing the wrong block from a tower of wooden blocks can cause the entire tower to collapse. In the same way, removing certain species from an ecosystem can cause a collapse in ecological function. A common scientific question has been to identify these critical species in different ecosystems and an international research team has developed mathematical tools that can estimate which species are most influential in a food web.

Dr Rachel Floyd: "UTIs are a growing and painful problem that affect many women around the world” A scientist from the Institute of Translational Medicine has been awarded a £190,000 Fellowship by Kidney Research UK to investigate how the E.coli bacteria which cause Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) move to the kidneys where they can cause considerable damage.

New research has found traffic jams and accidents could be reduced by controlling the reaction times of robotic cars. The study, led by Dr Róbert Szalai at the University of Bristol, is published in Physical Review E . The researchers have developed a mathematical technique that allows the calculation as to whether there is a chance a traffic jam will happen from a uniform flow of traffic.

Oxford University researchers have conducted the first academic study into the hidden problem of adolescent to parent violence in the UK. Adolescent to parent violence is not a category currently flagged in police databases. Researchers analysed raw data from the London Metropolitan Police area, revealing that in one year (2009-2010) alone, there were 1,892 reported cases of 13-19-year-olds committing violent assaults against their own parents or other carers.

Breakthrough guarantees "unconditional" security of information by harnessing quantum theory and relativity, and has been successfully demonstrated on a global scale for the first time.

04 Nov 2013 A study by researchers from the universities of Liverpool and Manchester has identified ways to improve how older people and ethnic minority populations access mental health care services. As part of the `Improving Access to Mental Health in Primary Care' programme, researchers sought to identify why two underserved groups in four areas of Liverpool and Manchester had not been using mental health services that were available and what measure could address this.

Parents who conceive through assisted reproductive technologies (ART) are likely to receive different medical advice in relation to prenatal testing than those who conceive naturally, academics have suggested. An international study has revealed that almost 45% of clinicians would recommend a 37-year-old mother undergo amniocentesis – an invasive test which screens for Down’s syndrome – if she had conceived naturally.

Current chip technology used for purchasing items via credit and debit cards in shops was developed in the mid-1990s. EMVCo, the standard body which manages, maintains and advances EMV Specifications, is in the process of designing the next generation payment technology to meet long-term industry requirements.

o Study shows how plants benefit from the use of natural latex o Researchers hope the study will help us understand how materials are used in nature o The project could show where to look for natural latex suitable for industrial applications Plants use natural latex in different ways, to help poison insects or rapidly heal wounds, a new study has found.

It's an everyday material we take for granted but now the secrets of how we came to benefit from the many uses of the most unique of substances.. glass, are revealed in a new book by a world-leading archaeologist from The University of Nottingham. The beautifully illustrated Cambridge University Press volume, 'Ancient Glass', by Professor Julian Henderson , is the first monograph of this versatile composite material to combine forensic investigational techniques from both the sciences and the humanities.

University scientists who are committed to developing improved treatments for patients with chronic kidney disease have discovered a novel way of significantly accelerating the detection of bacterial infection using the patient's own immune system. Current diagnostic tests are often delayed by days that can lead to treatment failure and sometimes even death.