Most sensitive astronomical camera created
MONTREAL, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- Canadian physicists say they have developed the world's most sensitive astronomical camera.
University of Montreal researchers, led by physics doctoral student Olivier Daigle, developed the camera that will be used by the Mont-Megantic Observatory and NASA, which purchased the first unit.
The scientists said their camera consists of a CCD controller for counting photons -- a digital imagery device that amplifies photons observed, with the controller producing 25 gigabytes of data per second.
"The first astronomical results are astounding and highlight the increased sensitivity acquired by the new controller," Daigle said. "The clarity of the images brings us so much closer to the stars that we are attempting to understand."
Scientific results for the camera were recently featured in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
New blood thinner effective as warfarin
CLEVELAND, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- A new drug protects against stroke, blood clotting and bleeding as effectively as warfarin, but with fewer side effects, U.S. and Spanish reviewers say.
The reviewers for F1000 Medicine -- Robert Ruff of the Louis Stokes Cleveland VAMC; Brian Olshansky of University of Iowa Hospitals; and Luis Ruilope of Complutense University in Madrid -- said the original paper compared the blood thinner Dabigatran to the traditional used blood thinner warfarin in patients with atrial fibrillation.
The study by Neal Devaraj, Stuart Connolly and colleagues, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, says finding the correct dosage of warfarin requires careful and laborious monitoring and the risk of major bleeding has led to it being under used.
With fewer side effects and complications than warfarin, the reviewers say dabigatran has many potential benefits. Olshansky says it is "perhaps one of the important drug discoveries in the past decade."
"This oral anticoagulant prevents strokes and peripheral embolic events in patients with atrial fibrillation significantly better than that much older drug (warfarin) at different doses. It is also safer than warfarin with respect to major bleeding events," Ruilope says in a statement.
New geopolymer concrete technology created
RUSTON, La., Sept. 30 (UPI) -- U.S. civil engineers say they are developing a geopolymer concrete technology using fly ash, a byproduct of coal-fired power plants.
Louisiana Technical University Assistant Professor Erez Allouche and colleagues say they are conducting research on geopolymer concrete, which can help curb carbon dioxide emissions.
Inorganic polymer concrete -- geopolymer -- is an emerging class of cementitious materials that utilizes "fly ash", one of the most abundant industrial by-products on Earth, as a substitute for Portland cement, the most widely produced man-made material.
The scientists said Portland cement production is a major contributor to carbon dioxide emissions, with up to eight percent of all human-generated atmospheric CO2 worldwide produced by the concrete industry.
Switching to geopolymer concrete, the researchers said, has the potential to substantially curb CO2 emissions, produce a more durable infrastructure capable of design life measured in hundreds of years instead of tens, conserve hundreds of thousands of acres currently used for disposal of coal combustion products, and protect aquifers and surface bodies of fresh water by eliminating fly ash disposal sites.
The new technology will be one of the topics presented Nov. 5 in Shreveport, La., during an Energy Systems Conference sponsored by the university.
Brain's response to attention is studied
LA JOLLA, Calif., Sept. 30 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say reductions in the firing rates of the brain's background nerve cells occur when monkeys intensely focus on a visual stimulus.
Salk Institute researchers in La Jolla, Calif., said that finding is important because a reduction in firing rates of nerve cells not involved in the attention-demanding task contribute more to the improved attention than does the increase in firing rates of the neurons responding to the stimulus.
Until now, it had been assumed an increase in the activity of neurons responding to a stimulus was the primary cause of improvements in perceptual discrimination that result from attention, the scientists said.
The researchers recorded responses of neurons in an area of the brains of two macaque monkeys that processes visual information. Nerve responses were recorded when the monkeys were and were not directing attention to a visual stimulus.
"What we found is that attention also reduces background activity," said Jude Mitchell, first author of the study. "We estimate that this noise reduction increases the fidelity of the neural signal by a factor that is as much as four times as large as the improvement caused by attention-dependent increases in firing rate."
The research is reported in the journal Neuron.
