(Phys.org)—When exposed to air, a luminescent 2D material called molybdenum telluride (MoTe2) appears to decompose within a couple days, losing its optical contrast and becoming virtually transparent. But when scientists probed further, they found that the disappearance is an illusion: the material remains structurally stable, and only its material properties change. The results reveal insight into the environmental stability and unusual properties of a newer class of 2D materials called transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs).

To the list of potential applications of graphene – a two-dimensional semiconductor of pure carbon that is stronger and much faster than silicon – we can now add valleytronics, the coding of data in the wavelike motion of electrons as they speed through a conductor. Berkeley Lab researchers have discovered topologically protected one-dimensional electron conducting channels at the domain walls of bilayer graphene. These conducting channels are "valley polarized," which means they can serve as filters for electron valley polarization in future devices such as quantum computers.

A team of researchers from Lawrence Livermore and UC Davis have found that covering an implantable neural electrode with nanoporous gold could eliminate the risk of scar tissue forming over the electrode's surface.

Researchers from North Carolina State University and China's Suzhou Institute of Nano-Science and Nano-Biotics have developed an inexpensive technique called "microcombing" to align carbon nanotubes (CNTs), which can be used to create large, pure CNT films that are stronger than any previous such films. The technique also improves the electrical conductivity that makes these films attractive for use in electronic and aerospace applications.

Sometimes you hear enthusiasts talking about high-quality footage. Now the chatter can shift over to discussions about quality drone footage. The good news is that a talented team has come up with a concept for taking pictures with a drone which would not require advanced skills and expensive equipment. It is no accident that a promotional video for a video-capturing drone shows a child, not an adult, holding up the phone. Fast Company said, "CyPhy Works has so far focused on developing drones for commercial and emergency responder-type uses. Now it wants to sell to everyone." CyPhy Works in Danvers, Massachusetts, founded by iRobot co-founder Helen Greiner, has been making tethered drones for industrial application. These drones were designed to fly 24/7 in all types of wind and weather.

In an unassuming office building in downtown Boston, a midsized tech startup founded by an MIT alumnus has a reach of more than half of the world's population.

A group led by inventor Patrick Sherwin has posted a Kickstarter project named GoSun Grill, it uses sunlight to charge a thermal battery which in turn is used to cook food inside a glass vacuum tube. The difference between this grill and other solar cookers is that it will continue to work if it gets cloudy out, or even after the sun goes down.

Researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a centimeter-accurate GPS-based positioning system that could revolutionize geolocation on virtual reality headsets, cellphones and other technologies, making global positioning and orientation far more precise than what is currently available on a mobile device.

A revolution is coming in flexible electronic technologies as cheaper, more flexible, organic transistors come on the scene to replace expensive, rigid, silicon-based semiconductors, but not enough is known about how bending in these new thin-film electronic devices will affect their performance, say materials scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

An eye-tracking wiper is a vision that has developed into a patent. The patent applicant is Jaguar Land Rover. This would be an eye-tracking system not to catch drivers dozing off but to help enhance safety via helping to operate the rear-screen wiper.

Star Wars fans no longer have to search their feelings to discover the truth. They can just Google it.

Modern medicine relies on optical fibers to cauterize unhealthy veins in a minimally invasive way. Now, Fraunhofer researchers have developed a laser processing method that facilitates automated series manufacture of these fibers at a much finer quality than ever before. The scientists will present a fiber probe prototype manufactured using the new technique from May 19-21 at the measurement fair SENSOR+TEST 2015 in Nuremberg (Hall 12, Booth 537).

Diabetics often have little feeling in their feet and don't perceive the body's pressure or temperature signals there. This can result in unnoticed wounds that then develop into abscesses. Many diabetics have to have toes or feet amputated. Now, a novel kind of pressure stocking developed by Fraunhofer researchers is set to help protect against wounds via an integrated sensor system that sends a warning when pressure is too high. The new pressure-monitoring stocking prototype will be presented May 19-21 at SENSOR+TEST 2015 in Nuremberg.

The oil industry believes biodiesel is not to blame for problems that Norwegian car owners are experiencing. But the nature of the fuel means that it has to be handled differently than regular petroleum-based diesel, a Norwegian researcher says, especially in colder climates or if it is stored for longer periods.

There is a growing number of wearable devices featuring touchscreens, including smart watches, smart glasses and digital jewellery. These devices can receive notifications in many forms, but usually there is no direct way of replying, since they lack a text entry system, mainly because the space available onscreen is very limited. Now, a team of researchers from the Universitat Politècnica de València and the University of Stuttgart have developed two tiny QWERTY soft keyboard prototypes, which enable users to answer or enter text on their wearable devices.

Each time 81-year-old Bill Dworsky or his 80-year-old wife Dorothy opens the refrigerator, closes the bathroom door or lifts the lid on a pill container, tiny sensors in their San Francisco home make notes on a digital logbook.

Amazon wants to give JetBlue passengers a new option for tuning out that crying baby or talkative seat neighbor.

Investigators do not need a search warrant to obtain cellphone tower location records in criminal prosecutions, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a closely-watched case involving the rules for changing technology.

Google's influential search engine has hit a tipping point in technology's shift to smartphones. More search requests are now being made on mobile devices than on personal computers in the U.S. and many other parts of the world.

Fights over the remote are about to get a lot louder.

The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have successfully demonstrated the capability to connect grid simulations at their two labs for real time interaction via the Internet. This new inter-lab capability enables the modeling of power grids in greater detail by allowing software and equipment anywhere in the world to establish a real-time connection to the unique facilities and capabilities available within the DOE national laboratory complex.

Analysis from the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) finds that by making shared solar programs available to households and businesses that currently cannot host on-site photovoltaic (PV) systems shared solar could represent 32 to 49 percent of the distributed photovoltaic market in 2020.

Shipments of the highly anticipated Apple Watch are reportedly being slowed by a faulty component manufactured by one of Apple's suppliers in China.

Since January, a section of the popular social media app Snapchat has been filled with articles and video from publishers such as the Daily Mail, Food Network and People magazine.

The anonymous thought-sharing app Whisper has hired a president and signed its 10th advertiser as it tests how to turn the attention of its 10 million monthly users into revenue.

Vadim Tarasov is getting pickier. The managing director of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Altpoint Ventures, Tasarov has begun rejecting startup deals he would have jumped on earlier. Prices are just too high.

Apple has a history of deciding what features we need, and more important, what features we don't need in our computers and mobile devices.

Microsoft expects its newest operating system, Windows 10, to be running on 1 billion computers within two to three years.

Internet video service Netflix is telling the Federal Communication that it should reject AT&T's purchase of satellite TV company DirecTV unless some changes are made.

An Uber driver in Belgium was found guilty of breaking taxi laws on Monday, in the first case to land in a Brussels court after dozens of drivers were caught by police posing as clients of the banned service.

A recent technological and energy revolution has given rare earths strong importance due to their electric, magnetic and electronic properties. A group of researchers from the Institute of Physical Sciences at the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM) locates and analyzes geological formations containing rare earths, as they represent a valuable option for future energy sustainability.

A completely new type of mathematical logic from the University of Oslo has the potential to improve intelligence services worldwide. The US Army has already expressed keen interest.

People do not seek urban regeneration. This is because they do not see it as a necessity.

Engineers at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum have developed a shotcrete that is much more robust than traditional concrete. It can render tunnels, bridges and other constructions more resistant against fires and explosions. The new formula includes 140 kilogrammes of steel fibres per cubic metre of concrete – a figure that was thought to be impossible for shotcrete. The science magazine RUBIN reports.

District heating is a common for heating buildings and hot water in many Swedish cities. The heat is largely produced from residual products from forestry, household waste, or waste heat from industries.

A team of Empa scientists has, together with industrial partners, developed a novel chest strap device for the long-term monitoring of patients with heart and circulatory problems. What is special about the new system is that it records an electrocardiogram of the wearer. It is also self-moistening, which is essential for reliable signal monitoring. At the specialist exhibition, Techtextil, held recently in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the system won the Techtextil Innovation Award 2015.

New technologies in the last decade have shown slow but steady progress of ocean and sea energy power: about 30 tidal and 45 wave energy companies are currently at an advanced stage of technological development worldwide, many of them nearing pre-commercial array demonstration and others deploying full-scale prototypes in real-sea environment, according to a new JRC ocean energy status report.

(Phys.org)—In vivo neural electrical activity is the essence of nervous system function, controlling sensory modalities, emotion, memory, behavior, and basic survival functions. Therefore, to study neurons in the laboratory it is important that in vitro neuronal models also support such electrical activity to reflect fundamental brain functions – and most human neuronal cultures are currently grown in vitro using the classic culture media DMEM (Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium), Neurobasal, or a mixture of the two. In contrast, laboratory experiments employing electrophysiological techniques – such as patch clamping (which allows the study of single or multiple ion channels in cells), calcium imaging – on brain slices or in culture are performed in a medium of artificial cerebrospinal fluid (aCSF).

When it comes to sweeteners, one indulgence makes our brains predisposed to do it, according to a new study by researchers at Keck Medicine of USC.

Visceral fat deposits around internal organs in the stomach are particularly harmful: they are associated with insulin resistance, type-2 diabetes and heart disease. The study, conducted in close collaboration with researchers at the at the French Institute of Health and Medical research (INSERM) in Paris, shows that changing the pattern of fat deposition from around the stomach to under the skin starts a chain of events which result in insulin sensitivity being maintained, reducing the chances of type-2 diabetes.

As we get older we can hold less information in our minds. Whereas 16 to 17 year-olds can hold an average of 6.5 numbers in mind for a short time in their "working memory", this drops to five numbers for 75 to 79 year-olds.

It's a question that seems to offer tantalizing hope to those suffering from vision impairment. Why is it that when the optic nerve is damaged—either through trauma or disease—few of its neurons survive and fewer still regenerate? Most wither and die.

Using proteomics techniques to study injured optic nerves, researchers at Boston Children's Hospital have identified previously unrecognized proteins and pathways involved in nerve regeneration. Adding back one of these proteins—the oncogene c-myc—they achieved unprecedented optic nerve regeneration in mice when combined with two other known strategies. The findings were published online April 30 by the journal Neuron.

Out loud, someone says, "The man is catching a fish." The same person then takes pen to paper and writes, "The men is catches a fish."

Cells that relay information from the ear to the brain can change in significant ways in response to the noise level in the environment.

A new algorithm enables a moment-by-moment analysis of brain activity each time a laboratory monkey reaches this way or that during an experiment. It's like reading the monkey's mind.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins say they've discovered a cause-and-effect link between chronic high blood sugar and disruption of mitochondria, the powerhouses that create the metabolic energy that runs living cells. The discovery, reported online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on April 27, sheds light on a long-hidden connection and, they say, could eventually lead to new ways of preventing and treating diabetes.

There is conflicting evidence about whether digoxin, a drug that has been used worldwide for centuries to treat heart disease, might contribute to an increase in deaths in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) or congestive heart failure (CHF). Now, the largest review of all the evidence to date shows that it is associated with an increased risk of death in these patients, particularly in those being treated for AF.

While it may be a stereotype, it's also true that women seek medical care more frequently than men do. And a recent study shows that women with acute asthma who are treated in the emergency department (ED) are 60 percent more likely than men treated in the ED to need hospitalization.

Norway ranks as the world's best place to be a mother, well ahead of the United States which dropped to the 33rd spot in the annual scorecard released by Save the Children on Monday.

An international research project led by scientists from the University of Granada has demonstrated that motivational interviewing can make smokers see tobacco as something disagreeable, thus helping them to quit the habit. Motivational interviewing is a psychological technique of direct intervention that seeks to produce changes in patient behaviour.

New Otago University research shows that introducing strategies that reduce the dietary salt intake of New Zealanders could reduce premature death and save millions of dollars annually for our health sector.

When it comes to wearing seat belts, some motorists incorrectly think they are protected by the size of their vehicle, their seating position or where they are driving, said a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service expert.

QUT research is aiming to improve search engines after finding online self-diagnosis of health conditions provides misleading results that can do more harm than good.

Recently published findings from the University of Oslo show that allergen-specific T cells are resident in the mucosa outside the pollen season and react strongly to pollen extract, suggesting that these T cells are long-lived resident memory cells.

For more than three decades, no new drug for the treatment of breast cancer has been presented. A group of researchers analyzing a marine sponge called Halichondrin okadai obtained a mesylate eribulin substance that had already been administered to patients with metastatic breast cancer.

University of Adelaide reproductive experts have developed the world's first screening test which can predict a woman's risk of developing one or more of the four common pregnancy complications.

Monash University researchers have contributed to the largest-ever study to work out the most effective rehabilitation treatment for stroke patients.

By using "unusual" optic fibres in a novel fashion, an international team of researchers led by the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste, scrutinized the response to light of rods, the light-sensitive cells of the retina, and demonstrated that the intensity of response varies according to the region of the cell hit by the light. In addition to improving our understanding of the process that transforms light into an electrical nerve signal, the study also introduces a new experimental method that may have major future applications in optogenetics (control of gene expression with light). The study has just been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Manchester researchers have tested a new way to genetically profile lung cancer samples, potentially allowing doctors to more easily identify the most appropriate treatment for patients.

In an elaborate study, biologists of the University of Luxembourg have found out that small molecules named microRNAs are, against many hopes, not yet suitable for early diagnosis of skin cancer, as well as supposedly for other types of cancer, in blood samples. For the first time they analysed all microRNAs in the serum of healthy people and thus provided a first complete image of the human "miRNome" in blood samples, in reference to the better-known "genome". The researchers were even explicitly complimented by their reviewers for the rigorous work – a rare occasion.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia in older adults. At the moment there is no cure, but many clinicians feel that the earlier one is diagnosed, the better the possibilities are for treatment or slowing the disease.

Michael Richardson first experienced symptoms of dystonia, a movement disorder characterized by involuntary muscle contractions and spasms, when he was 13.

Acceptance of premarital sex is at an all-time high along with an acceptance of homosexuality, find researchers led by Jean M. Twenge from San Diego State University.

Our view of what makes us happy has changed markedly since 1938.

Two objects that are the mirror-image of each other are perfectly identical objects except for their reversed geometry and, as a consequence, one can expect that they will function equally well. Nature offers many examples of objects that are mirror-images of each other and work identically. The human body is one of the best examples. Both our right foot and our left foot allow us to walk steadily. We can hear as distinctively with our left ear as with our right ear. We can smell as sensitively from our left nostril as from our right nostril.

The brains of people with type 1 diabetes show signs of accelerated aging that correlate with slower information processing, according to research led by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative condition that strikes at the heart of what makes us human: the ability to think, to feel, to remember and to communicate with those around us. The tragedy is compounded by the fact that there is currently no cure, no treatment, and no diagnostic method capable of identifying Alzheimer's at its early stages.

Treating gum disease reduced symptoms of prostate inflammation, called prostatitis, report researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine and the Departments of Urology and Pathology at University Hospitals Case Medical Center.

In what is a major step towards the prevention of recurring bouts of Clostridium difficile (Cdiff) infection, an international team led by Dale Gerding, MD, Hines Veterans Administration (VA) research physician and professor of Medicine at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, has shown that giving spores of non-toxic Cdiff by mouth is effective in stopping repeated bouts of Cdiff infection which occurs in 25-30 percent of patients who suffer an initial episode of diarrhea or colitis. The study is published in the May 5 issue of the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA).

In two studies appearing in the May 5 issue of JAMA, patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 1 infection and with or without cirrhosis achieved high rates of sustained virologic response after 12 weeks of treatment with a combination of the direct-acting-antiviral drugs daclatasvir, asunaprevir, and beclabuvir.

The effectiveness of cancer vaccines could be dramatically boosted by first loading the cancer antigens into silicon microparticles, report scientists from Houston Methodist and two other institutions in an upcoming Cell Reports.

A multidisciplinary team of Johns Hopkins researchers has developed two new strategies to treat depression in young people using the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) class of medications. These strategies, published May 5 in the journal Translational Psychiatry, incorporate a new understanding of how to mitigate the risk of suicide while on SSRI treatment.

An intervention to connect low-income uninsured and Medicaid patients to a reliable source of primary health care shows promise for reducing avoidable use of hospital emergency departments in Maryland. A University of Maryland School of Public Health study evaluating the results of the intervention was published this week in the May issue of the journal Health Affairs.

A pilot study has found that participating in a nine-week training program including elicitation of the relaxation response had a significant impact on clinical symptoms of the gastrointestinal disorders irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease and on the expression of genes related to inflammation and the body's response to stress. The report from investigators at the Benson-Henry Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, is the first to study the use of the relaxation response in these disorders and the first to investigate the genomic effects of the relaxation response in individuals with any disorder.

Employing online training programs to teach psychotherapists how to use newer evidence-based treatments can be as successful as in-person instruction, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

One person in five is expected to develop heart failure in developed countries, a disease with no cure but which is largely preventable.It feels as if every breath in and out is through a narrow straw.The Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology is calling for greater public awareness of heart failure symptoms as countries across Europe hold events for Heart Failure Awareness Day on 8, 9 and 10 May.

After gobbling the fourth Oreo in a row while bathed in refrigerator light, have you ever thought, "That wasn't enough," and then proceeded to search for something more?

Obesity is a serious health problem affecting approximately one-third of the adult population in the United States. Obese individuals have an increased risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, including hypertension. A recent study led by a University of Missouri researcher has identified the enzyme responsible for obesity-related hypertension—a finding that could lead to new treatment options.

Anxiety disorders affect approximately one in six adult Americans, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. The most well-known of these include panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and social anxiety disorder. But what of brief bouts of anxiety caused by stressful social situations?

An Austrian men's magazine has printed its latest edition using blood from people who are HIV-positive in order to counter the "stigma" often attached to the virus that causes AIDS, its chief editor said Tuesday.

Adults who experienced multiple incidents of childhood maltreatment were more than two times as likely to have trouble sleeping than their counterparts who were not maltreated during childhood, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto, University of Ottawa, and Western University. The study appears online in the journal Sleep Medicine.

New technology developed at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) may extend the benefits of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to many patients whose access to MRI is currently limited. A redesign of the wire at the core of the leads that carry signals between implanted medical devices and their target structures significantly reduces the generation of heat that occurs when standard wires are exposed to the radiofrequency (RF) energy used in MRI. The novel system is described in a paper published in the online Nature journal Scientific Reports.

Hispanics in the United States face a higher risk than whites of dying from diabetes and liver disease, according to the first nationwide report of its kind released Tuesday by US health authorities.

What's the only thing worse than having a urinary catheter when you're in the hospital? Having one and getting a urinary tract infection (UTI) - or worse - as a result.

Using a weak electric current in an attempt to boost brainpower or treat conditions has become popular among scientists and do-it-yourselfers, but a new University of North Carolina School of Medicine study shows that using the most common form of electric brain stimulation had a statistically significant detrimental effect on IQ scores.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics (Germany), VU University Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (USA) succeed in reconstructing the neuronal networks that interconnect the elementary units of sensory cortex - cortical columns.

(HealthDay)—Infertile men have increased risk of all cancers and some individual cancers, according to a study published in the May issue of The Journal of Urology.

A majority of American adults say they've tried dieting to lose weight at some point in their lives, and at any given time, about one-third of the adult population say they're currently dieting.

IBM on Tuesday said 14 US cancer treatment centers would join a partnership to get personalized care treatment plans from the company's Watson supercomputer.

(HealthDay)—For twin pregnancies, fetal/infant death risk seems to be minimized at 37 weeks' gestation, according to a study published in the May issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

(HealthDay)—Articles relating to overtreatment of cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and dementia care, as well as reduction of polypharmacy and adverse drug effects, are included in a special update summary published online April 30 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

(HealthDay)—There is a genetic link for strabismus and schizophrenia, with almost half of the genes dysregulated in strabismic medial rectus muscle identified as biomarkers for schizophrenia, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, held from May 3 to 7 in Denver.

(HealthDay)—Many patients prescribed hydroxychloroquine exceed the safety guidelines for daily dosing, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, held from May 3 to 7 in Denver.

(HealthDay)—Fecal transplantation appears to be a safe and effective way to combat Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infection, according to a new review published in the May 5 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

(HealthDay)—There's not enough data to decide whether or not electronic cigarettes can help smokers quit, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF).

(HealthDay)—Bayer's contraceptive implant Essure can cause serious complications and should be taken off the market, says a citizen's petition filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Deane Berg's doctor called her in the day after Christmas 2006 to give her the crushing news. She'd had her ovaries removed, the pathology results were back, and the information could not have been much worse. Berg had stage III ovarian cancer, and her prognosis was poor.

Chinese regulators will lift price controls on most pharmaceutical drugs starting June 1 in hopes that the market-driven pricing system will keep medical costs in check, the National Development and Reform Commission announced Tuesday.

Hospital room designs make a significant difference to the likelihood of bugs being spread through person-to-person contact between medics and patients, according to University of Leeds research.

New research from the University of Eastern Finland and Kuopio University Hospital can help explain the prevalence of widespread syndromes such as carpal tunnel syndrome and sciatica. According to the results, neural movements can be measured by using non-invasive techniques, which are also applicable in diagnostics and rehabilitation planning.

Ten-year-old Ranju Giri wrings her hands as she describes how she cowered terrified under a bed with her younger brother when a massive earthquake rocked their home in Kathmandu.

A patient has become the first to receive a new 'resistance-busting' experimental skin cancer drug with the launch of a phase I clinical trial.

A 12-week dose of an investigational three-drug hepatitis C combination cleared the virus in 93 percent of patients with liver cirrhosis who hadn't previously been treated, according to a study in the May 5, 2015, issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Ontario adult drivers who say they have experienced at least one traumatic brain injury in their lifetime also report significantly higher incidents of serious road-related driving aggression, said a new study published Monday in the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention.

Private practice directly affects the quality of care that NHS patients receive and doctors should not be allowed to work "on both sides of the divide", writes a senior doctor in The BMJ this week.

The health insurer Aetna is ending most coverage of hysterectomies performed with a once-popular device that has drawn warnings from federal regulators over a risk for spreading cancer.

Over 80 schools would get mental health clinics, every police precinct would have a victims' advocate and social workers would arrange psychological care for thousands of families in homeless shelters under Mayor Bill de Blasio's plan to invest tens of millions of dollars in mental health, his wife's signature issue.

The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) is issuing a new guideline, "Definitive and adjuvant radiotherapy in locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer: An American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) evidence-based clinical practice guideline." The guideline's executive summary is published in the May-June issue of Practical Radiation Oncology (PRO), ASTRO's clinical practice journal. The complete guideline, which cites 35 years of data to help guide current treatment and future research, is available online as an open-access article in PRO. The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) today issued an endorsement of ASTRO's guideline.

23andMe, Inc. today announced the launch of the Lupus Research Study in collaboration with Pfizer Inc. The companies aim to enroll 5,000 individuals with systemic lupus erythematosus, more commonly known as lupus, into the study to help better understand the genetics of lupus. The effort is also in collaboration with the Lupus Research Institute, and in concert with Lupus Awareness Month in May.

The two African countries still battling Ebola have both recorded weekly infections in single figures for the first time since the peak of the epidemic, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Despite increasingly aggressive clean air and fuel standards, years of drought are taking a toll on California's air quality, the American Lung Association says in a new report.

(Phys.org)—One might think of mitochondria as devices for transporting electrons to their lowest energy state. Little bags of finely-tuned respiratory chain subunits which combine electrons extracted from food with oxygen, and ultimately excrete them as water. Others might justifiably fancy mitochondria tiny bundles of geometry. Their folded inner membranes pegged with various proteins complexes like the rolls of candy button paper we might have ate as kids. Actually mitochondria are both enzyme bags and geometrical objects: the latest research tells us that it is proteins which create the complex inner membrane geometry specific to each kind of mitochondria, and in turn, it is their precise geometry which permits the respiratory proteins to create useful work in the first place.

(Phys.org)—Styrene is an important industrial chemical. It is the precursor to polystyrene which is used in various every day plastic products, like disposable cups, packaging, and insulation. Over 18.5m tons of styrene is produced industrially around the world. Typically, styrene synthesis begins with benzene and ethylene, and involves a multi-step process under harsh reaction conditions and often leads to unwanted by-products.

Chemists from Trinity College Dublin followed their own unique recipe to cook up a breakthrough that could have significant applications in skin graft operations and in protecting valuable electronics and vehicles.

For decades, robots have advanced the efficiency of human activity. Typically, however, robots are formed from bulky, stiff materials and require connections to external power sources; these features limit their dexterity and mobility. But what if a new material would allow for development of a "soft robot" that could reconfigure its own shape and move using its own internally generated power?

Researchers from Wake Forest University and the University of Utah are the first to successfully fabricate halide organic-inorganic hybrid perovskite field-effect transistors and measure their electrical characteristics at room temperature.