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Researchers from around the UK, led by a team at the University of Sheffield's Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN), have found new evidence to support early nutrition management in motor neuron disease (MND). The first UK wide study into tube feeding in MND (ProGas) has found that MND patients benefited most from enteral feeding when they had lost less than 10 per cent of their body weight before the intervention.

A three-dimensional imaging technique often used in the automotive and aerospace industries for accurate measurement may be useful to measure the efficacy of injectable wrinkle reducers such as Botox and Dysport, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania .

Researchers from the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN) have shed light on how mutations in a high risk gene specifically affect motor neurons. Scientists at the flagship motor neuron disease research centre, based at the University of Sheffield, investigated how specialised nerve cells that control voluntary movements die - something which is key to understanding motor neuron disease (MND).

A new technique invented at MIT can measure the relative positions of tiny particles as they flow through a fluidic channel, potentially offering an easy way to monitor the assembly of nanoparticles, or to study how mass is distributed within a cell. With further advancements, this technology has the potential to resolve the shape of objects in flow as small as viruses, the researchers say.

University of Toronto engineers and a U of'T pediatric surgeon have discovered how physical forces such as pressure and tension affect the development of limbs in embryos - research that could someday be used to help prevent birth defects. The team, including U of'T bioengineer Rodrigo Fernandez-Gonzalez from the Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering, U of'T mechanical engineer Yu Sun and the Faculty of Medicine's Dr. Sevan Hopyan used live imaging and computer models to study the links between mechanical forces, changes in cell shape and cell movement in embryos.

New research into how tendons age has found that the material between tendon fibre bundles stiffens as it gets older and that this is responsible for older people being more susceptible to tendon injuries. Researchers from QMUL, University of East Anglia, University College London and University of Liverpool, repeatedly stretched samples of horse tendons, which are very similar to human ones, to test their elasticity and ability to recover.

University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have announced a significant step forward in the development of materials that can ward off oil - a discovery that could lead to new protective coatings and better approaches to cleaning up oil spills. In a new paper in the journal Advanced Functional Materials , professor of chemical and biological engineering David Lynn and assistant scientist Uttam Manna describe new coatings that are extremely oil-repellant (or "superoleophobic") in underwater environments.

How fast is online learning evolving? Are wind turbines a promising investment? And how long before a cheap hoverboard makes it to market? Attempting to answer such questions requires knowing something about the rate at which a technology is improving. Now engineers at MIT have devised a formula for estimating how fast a technology is advancing, based on information gleaned from relevant patents.

Renewable energy technologies, future cities and novel in-car parameter estimators are just some innovative research from the University of Bristol's Faculty of Engineering that will be showcased to industry later this month. The Faculty of Engineering Research Showcase is held every two years and enables the faculty to strengthen and develop existing partnerships with industry and to start new collaborations.

Why do some people learn a new skill right away, while others only gradually improve? Whatever else may be different about their lives, something must be happening in their brains that captures this variation. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Johns Hopkins University have taken a network science approach to this question.

New research into the phenomenon of design fixation - allowing prior experience to blind us to new possibilities - may help in the development of new tools and strategies that help to stimulate the creative process without inadvertently limiting it. Fixation can stop the creative process cold: severely limiting the way in which we see a problem and the variety of solutions we explore Nathan Crilly It's a common occurrence: when faced with a problem which is similar to one which has been faced before, most people will default to what worked in the past.

A new £1.4 million research project led by the University of Bristol will use engineering and science in the design of radically new approaches and solutions to vision-based technology. Researchers from the University's Bristol Vision Institute (BVI) have been awarded an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Platform Grant for their project ' Vision for the future '.

Gyroscopes measure rotation in everyday technologies, from unmanned aerial vehicles to cell phone screen stabilizers. Though many animals can move with more precision and accuracy than our best-engineered aircraft and technologies, gyroscopes are rarely found in nature. Scientists know of just one group of insects, the group including flies, that has something that behaves like a gyroscope - sensors called halteres , clublike structures that evolved from wings.

Teaching Science to the Brain: Carnegie Mellon Scientists Discover How the Brain Learns the Way Things Work-Carnegie Mellon News - Carnegie Mellon University By Shilo Rea / 412-268-6094 / shilo [a] cmu (p) edu When you learn a new technical concept, something happens in your brain, but exactly what has been a mystery until now.

Yale University has received a grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation to fund experiments that researchers hope will provide new insights into quantum gravity. Jack Harris, associate professor of physics, will lead a Yale team that aims to address a long-standing question in physics - how the classical behavior of macroscopic objects emerges from microscopic constituents that obey the laws of quantum mechanics.

Hard-wiring beetles for radio-controlled flight turns out to be a fitting way to learn more about their biology. Cyborg insect research led by engineers at UC Berkeley and Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is enabling new revelations about a muscle used by beetles for finely graded turns.

The pistons in your car engine rub up against their cylinder walls thousands of times a minute; without lubrication in the form of motor oil, they and other parts of the engine would quickly wear away, causing engine failure. Motor oil contains chemical additives that extend how long engines can run without failure, but, despite decades of ubiquity, how such additives actually work to prevent this damage have remained a mystery.

An origami paper-folding pattern called the square twist is the basis of a microscopic switch that Cornell physicists say could lead to origami-inspired materials and machines. Their demonstration of a square twist mechanical switch, the size of a speck of dust, is detailed , March 9. First author Jesse Silverberg, Ph.D.

An origami paper-folding pattern called the square twist is the basis of a microscopic switch that Cornell physicists say could lead to origami-inspired materials and machines. Their demonstration of a square twist mechanical switch, the size of a speck of dust, is detailed , March 9. First author Jesse Silverberg, Ph.D.

UCLA Engineering A UCLA graduate student researcher with two of the polymers used in developing more efficient solar cell technology, as well as a polymer blend. Paving the way for lighter and more flexible solar devices, UCLA researchers have identified the key principles for developing high-efficiency polymer solar cells.