Google is making ground-level images of the rivers, forest and communities in the Rio Negro Reserve in the Amazon Basin available through the Street View feature on Google Maps. Now anyone can experience the beauty and diversity of the Amazon.
Take a virtual boat ride down the main section of the Rio Negro, and float up into the smaller tributaries where the forest is flooded. Stroll along… read more
This striking view of the central parts of the Milky Way was obtained with the VISTA survey telescope at the European Southern Observatory (ESO)’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. This huge picture is 108,500 by 81,500 pixels — nearly nine billion pixels. It was created by combining thousands of individual images from VISTA, taken through three different infrared filters, into a single monumental mosaic. VISTA has a… read more
Researchers using functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain found that visual areas of the cortex could adapt to altered input coming from an inflamed optic nerve.
Areas of the brain normally associated with more specialized higher visual processing reorganized themselves in response to the faulty visual information transmitted by the nerve. The techniques used in this study could also be applied to other conditions such as stroke in… read more
With 120 million monochrome and 5 million color receptors, the eye and brain are able to do what even our most advanced cameras are unable to, according to computer graphics pioneer Tim Sweeney of Epic Games.
With a resolution of about 30 megapixels, the human eye is able to gather information at about 72 frames per second, which explains why many gamers debate the need for frame rates higher than… read more
A new book, Visual Strategies, by Felice C. Frankel and Angela H. DePace is “a guide to graphics for scientists and engineers, but it will be useful for anyone who wants to make clear presentations of data of any kind, The New York Times reports.
The book offers general guidelines, with illustrative graphics, and many real-life case studies. The authors show how they… read more
A new study published in the New Journal of Physics describes the physics of several theoretical devices that could create invisibility.
The ideas in the paper are based around devices that will bend light or radio waves around a hole inside a device. Any object placed inside the hole will become invisible.
There are advances being made in metamaterials that mean the first devices will probably be used… read more
TED has just released a video with JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, who demos the AlloSphere, an entirely new way to see and interpret scientific data, in full color and surround sound inside a massive metal sphere. Dive into the brain, feel electron spin, hear the music of the elements …
Composer JoAnn Kuchera-Morin is the director of the Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology (CREATE) at… read more
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases researchers injected immune-deficient mice with cells from three aggressive human cancers — ovarian and pancreatic tumors, plus a form of brain cancer called glioblastoma — and found that vitamin C injections slowed tumour growth by up to 53%.
By injecting into the bloodstream, it is possible to get much larger amounts of the vitamin to a tumor than is possible… read more
A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley adds to the evidence that vitamin C supplements can lower concentrations of C-reactive protein (CRP), a biomarker for elevated risk of cardiovascular problems and diabetes.
However, they also found that treatment with vitamin C is ineffective in persons whose levels of CRP are less than 1 milligram per liter. The researchers also said that for people with… read more
Anthony Norman, a UC Riverside expert on vitamin D, has found 36 organ tissues in the body whose cells respond biologically to vitamin D, inciuding bone marrow, breast, colon, intestine, kidney, lung, prostate, retina, skin, stomach and the uterus; deficiency of vitamin D can impact all of them, and also cause muscle strength decrease, high risk for falls, and increased risk for colorectal, prostate and breast and other major cancers.… read more
Cancers in rich countries isn’t caused mainly by pollutants but by a vitamin D deficiency, research suggests.
Researchers are linking low vitamin D status to a host of other serious ailments, including multiple sclerosis, juvenile diabetes, influenza, osteoporosis and bone fractures among the elderly.
A four-year clinical trial involving 1,200 women found those taking the vitamin had about a 60-per-cent reduction in cancer incidence, compared with those who… read more
Scientists at Children’s Hospital & Research Center at Oakland have found evidence for vitamin D’s involvement in brain function, warranting vitamin D supplementation for groups chronically low in vitamin D, particularly nursing infants, the elderly, and African Americans.
The evidence includes wide distribution of vitamin D receptors throughout the brain and the vitamin’s ability to affect proteins in the brain known to be directly involved in learning and memory,… read more
Mount Sinai Hospital (Toronto) researchers found that women with insufficient vitamin D were nearly twice as likely to have their cancer recur or spread over the next 10 years, and 73 percent more likely to die of the disease.
In another study, University of California San Diego researchers found an association between sun exposure and lowered breast cancer rates. (Ultraviolet B radiation in sunlight triggers production… read more
There is growing evidence that vitamin D helps protect against colorectal cancer, and now a group of researchers who have long studied the vitamin say the same is true for breast cancer and ovarian cancer.
The researchers recommend 1,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D daily. Current recommendations call for people between the ages of 1 and 50 to consume 200 IU of vitamin D daily, with 400 IU… read more
University of Rochester Medical Center researchers and their colleagues have found that vitamin D induces a gene, G6PD, to increase expression of a key enzyme, protecting healthy prostate cells from the damage and injuries that can lead to cancer.
The enzyme clears cells of reactive oxygen species (ROS), molecules that can damage DNA and injure cells.