Discovery News

Stars being born at 'runaway' rate

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New stars such as the sun are born in young galaxies at a rate much faster than earlier thought, astronomers have said.

They observed that "stellar nurseries" in early galaxies similar to our own were producing stars at a rate of up to 50 a year.

Using "gravitational lensing" to magnify one of the most distant galaxies known, MS1358arc, and using the way its light bent around a nearby galaxy cluster, they observed rapid bursts of star formation.

'Fear detector' to trace terrorists

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Scientists are developing a "fear detector" that could help trace anxious terrorists at security check points.

The prototype of the device, which depends upon recognising a pheromone - or scent signal - produced in the sweat of a nervous person, is expected to be developed in the next two to three years.

Scientists at City University London hope the security sensor system will help identify terrorists, drug smugglers or criminals on the run with the smell of their body secretions, even if they succeed in feigning a calm appearance.

Pioneering skull ops through nose

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Using a pioneering technique, surgeons are conducting cutting-edge brain operations through the nose.

Known as endonasal endoscopic skull base surgery, the operation removes tumours by using an endoscope that transmits images onto a high-definition TV screen in the operating theatre.

The procedure, which removes tumours located at the base of the skull and at the top of the spine, has been developed by Indian consultant skull base neurosurgeon Nijaguna Mathad and ENT surgeon Salil Nair at Southampton General Hospital's Wessex Neurological Centre.

Eye-tracking system could aid sales

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Software that monitors eye movements could help store owners understand what shoppers want as they look through shelves.

With the "gaze analysis", store services could be "tailored" towards meeting shoppers' needs, Bristol University scientists said.

The creation called GazeMap is a hybrid technology that combines vision location and mapping software Slam from the university's Department of Computer Science and an eye-tracking system titled Mobile Eye from the Applied Science Laboratories.

Seed Bank Collects 24,200th Species

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A pink banana from China is the 24,200th seed species to be stored at Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, reaching its target of collecting and conserving 10% of the world's wild plants.

An important part of the diet of wild Asian elephants, the forest banana - relative to the commercial species - could generate a resource to breed new disease-resistant varieties for growing the fruit.

The Musa itinerans is threatened as jungles are cleared for agriculture. Its seeds will be among more than 3.5 billion which have been collected and stored in banks in their native countries and in Kew's special facility at Wakehurst Place, West Sussex.

Tornado Camera Helps Fight Taliban

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A new RAF Tornado GR4 camera which can be used to zoom in on Taliban hideouts and snipers has been hailed as a breakthrough for fighter pilots in Afghanistan.

The Raptor is fixed beneath the jets, enabling pilots overhead to see precise detail from several miles high. It measures just under two metres in length and uses infrared technology.

The images can be transmitted via a live data-link to analysts at a ground station, displayed in the cockpit during flight and recorded for post-flight analysis.

Champagne Test Shows Hidden Depths

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Scientists have discovered that a glass of champagne does more than just tickle our taste buds - the drink has been found to release a host of chemicals that makes each glass an uplifting sensory experience.

Researchers used a cutting-edge technique - which saw the bubbles on a glass passed through a mass spectrometer, a machine that probes the atomic composition of different substances - to investigate the popularity of the beverage, eventually finding its surface behaved much like that of the sea.

In both cases, organic chemicals are dragged to the top by bubbles and released in the air as tiny droplets called aerosols, many of which were found to have properties that affected the senses.

UK's biggest science festival held

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Hundreds of researchers are set to attend the biggest and most historic science festival in Britain.

The British Science Festival, held at the University of Surrey in Guildford, is witnessing around 400 leading researchers giving presentations, talks and hosting interactive demonstrations.

The festival, which is free for the public, aims to spread awareness about research and discovery and inspire future generations of scientists.

Biogel to aid head injury recovery

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Scientists have developed a "biogel" that could spur recovery from head injuries sustained by soldiers and car crash victims.

Researchers from Clemson University in South Carolina, US, have carried out promising studies on rats, and are about three years away from trialling the material on humans.

The biogel is a mixture of synthetic and natural chemicals which triggers the growth of neural stem cells, which in turn repair damaged nerves. It is directly injected into the wound site to direct the response of neural stem cells.

New technique to monitor earthquake

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Scientists have come up with a new technique to monitor movements beneath the earth's surface which could help us discover more about earthquakes, it has been revealed.

A research team, led by Andrew Curtis, professor of Mathematical Geoscience at the University of Edinburgh, simulated the motion of one earthquake at the location of another to learn more about underground movements using computers.

The team collected the information of underground movements with the help of seismometers.