A new ceramic material described in this week`s issue of the journal Science could help expand the applications for solid oxide fuel cells – devices that generate electricity directly from a wide range of liquid or gaseous fuels without the need to separate hydrogen. Though the long-term durability of the new mixed ion conductor material must still be proven, its development could address tw...

Kidneys recovered from deceased donors with acute renal failure (ARF) – once deemed unusable for transplant – appear to work just as well as kidneys transplanted from deceased donors who do not develop kidney problems prior to organ donation, according to a new study by researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. The findings, reported in the October issue of Surgery,...

Once placed into a patient`s body, stem cells intended to treat or cure a disease could end up wreaking havoc simply because they are no longer under the control of the clinician. But gene therapy has the potential to solve this problem, according to a perspective article from physician-scientists at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center published in a recent issue of the jour...

New calculations made by marine chemists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) suggest that low-oxygen "dead zones" in the ocean could expand significantly over the next century. These predictions are based on the fact that, as more and more carbon dioxide dissolves from the atmosphere into the ocean, marine animals will need more oxygen to survive. Concentrations of ...

Ecologists have developed a new model to predict the impact of climate change on the dengue fever-carrying mosquito Aedes aegypti in Australia – information that could help limit its spread. According to the study climate change and evolutionary change could act together to accelerate and expand the mosquito`s range. But human behaviour – in the form of storing water to cope with clima...

For the first time in the world, transplant surgeons at Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network used a new technique to repair an injured donor lung that was unsuitable for transplant, and then successfully transplanted it into a patient. The use of this technique could significantly expand the lung donor organ pool and improve outcomes after transplantation. In their ground-breaking r...