IBM notes 20th anniversary of moving atoms
ARMONK, N.Y., Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Monday marked the 20th anniversary of IBM's Don Eigler becoming the first person in history to move and control individual atoms.
It was on Sept. 28, 1989, that Eigler and his team used a custom-built microscope to spell out the letters "IBM" with 35 xenon atoms.
"This unprecedented ability to manipulate individual atoms signaled a quantum leap forward in nanoscience experimentation and heralded in the age of nanotechnology," IBM said.
"Don Eigler's accomplishment remains, to this day, one of the most important breakthroughs in nanoscience and technology," said T.C, Chen, vice president of IBM science & technology. "At the time, the implications of this achievement were so far-reaching they almost seemed like science fiction. But now, 20 years later, it's clear that this was a defining moment that has spawned the kind of research that will eventually … advance computing to handle the massive volumes of data in the world while using less energy resources."
Young adult mortality rate doubles teens'
ROCHESTER, N.Y., Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Substance abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, homicide and vehicle crashes peak in young adulthood, a group least likely to be insured, U.S. researchers say.
Dr. Robert J. Fortuna, senior instructor in pediatrics and internal medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, says when adolescents graduate to young adulthood, their preventive care tends to fall by the wayside, even though their mortality rate is more than twice that of adolescents.
"Young adults are generally a healthy population, but many risky behaviors peak in young adulthood and few resources are available for this population," Fortuna says in a statement. "Despite having the highest rate of many preventable diseases, young adults garner relatively little attention from advocacy groups, researchers or policymakers."
Fortuna and colleagues found young adults, especially black and Hispanic males, under-use ambulatory medical care and infrequently receive preventive care. On average, young men were seen less than once every nine years for preventive care and young men without insurance were seen once every 25 years.
The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, show when young adults were offered counseling -- which occurred at about one-third of all ambulatory care visits -- they infrequently received counseling directed at the greatest threats to their health.
Space lasers track ice sheet thinning
CAMBRIDGE, England, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- British scientists say they've used NASA's satellite-based lasers to conduct the most comprehensive study to date of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.
The British Antarctic Survey and University of Bristol researchers say their findings show the most profound ice loss in both ice sheets is a result of glaciers speeding up where they flow into the sea.
The researchers say such "dynamic thinning" of glaciers now reaches all latitudes in Greenland, has intensified on key Antarctic coastlines, is penetrating far into the ice sheets' interior and is spreading as ice shelves thin by ocean-driven melt. Ice shelf collapse has triggered particularly strong thinning that has endured for decades.
"We were surprised to see such a strong pattern of thinning glaciers across such large areas of coastline -- it's widespread and in some cases thinning extends hundreds of kilometers inland," said Hamish Pritchard of the British Antarctic Survey. "We think that warm ocean currents reaching the coast and melting the glacier front is the most likely cause of faster glacier flow. This kind of ice loss is so poorly understood that it remains the most unpredictable part of future sea level rise."
The scientists said they discovered the ice loss from many glaciers in both Antarctica and Greenland is greater than the rate of snowfall further inland.
The research is reported in the journal Nature.
Ultrasound can ID melanoma metastasis
BERLIN, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Medical scientists in Germany say they've determined that ultrasound signals can be used to determine if cancer has started to spread in melanoma patients.
Dr. Christiane Voit of the Medical University of Berlin said the discovery enables physicians to decide how much surgery, if any, is required and to predict a patient's probable survival.
"We have identified two ultrasound patterns of lymph node metastasis in melanoma patients, which can identify correctly any amount of tumor cells in the sentinel lymph nodes in (75 percent to 90 percent) of cases before proceeding to surgery on the sentinel lymph node," Voit said.
Voit said although her research needs to be confirmed in multi-center, randomized clinical trials, it has the potential to spare patients unnecessary surgery, especially if it was combined with ultrasound-guided fine needle biopsy of lymph nodes rather than conventional surgery.
She present her research last week in Berlin during a joint meeting of the European CanCer Organization and the European Society for Medical Oncology.
