Now, a non-invasive system to monitor foetal heartbeat earlier

September 19th, 2009 WASHINGTON - An intelligent surveillance system, developed by researchers from the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM), can detect aberrant behaviour by drivers and people on foot crossing pedestrian crossings and in other urban settings. The study, by David Vallejo, from the ORETO Applied Intelligent Systems research group of the UCLM, could be used to penalise incorrect behaviour.

August 29th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists from Manoharbhai Patel Institute of Engineering and Technology, in Gondia, India have developed a novel fetal heart monitor that could save the lives of unborn infants in complicated pregnancies. Dr A.K. Mittra and colleagues have come up with a simple device that is based on a two-microphone system that can monitor fetal heart rate during the mother's rest times and sleep and send an alert to the woman and her physician.

August 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A survey is all set to examine the population of lionfish on the USS Monitor wreck to determine if this fierce predator is harming the site's natural ecosystem. The USS Monitor is located in 240 feet of water 16 miles south of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, where the ship sank on a stormy New Year's Eve in 1862.

July 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Forming an international team with US experts, an IIT Kharagpur researcher is developing a new in-car yawn-detection system that will keep an eye on a driver while behind the wheel. Aurobinda Routray and his colleagues - including Indian-origin researchers Aurobinda Mishra of Vanderbilt University and Mihir Mohanty of ITER - say that their system will warn a drive to pull over and take a break when he/she starts to yawn.

July 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a study, scientists have found new evidence of invasive species threatening native ones, in the form of oyster reefs in a once-pristine California coastal estuary devastated by invasive Atlantic Coast crabs and snails. Led by marine biologist David L.

July 16th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The short-term memory of a foetus begins functioning at 30 weeks, say researchers in the Netherlands. The study, conducted by researchers at Maastricht University Medical Centre and the University Medical Centre St.

July 8th, 2009 Senate hearing focuses on threats to wildlifeWASHINGTON — From a mysterious fungus attacking bats in the Northeast to the emergence of Burmese pythons in Florida, native wildlife is facing new threats throughout the country. Protecting wildlife from new diseases and invasive species is a top challenge facing state and federal officials.

July 8th, 2009 Python attack shows threat from invasive speciesWASHINGTON — A pet Burmese python broke out of a glass cage last week and strangled to death a 2-year-old girl in her Florida bedroom. The tragedy was the latest and most graphic example of a problem that has plagued the state for more than a decade: a nonnative species that is wreaking havoc in the Everglades, threatening the environment, native wildlife and people.

July 7th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), US, gives important new information on how plants can change "nitrogen cycling" to gain nitrogen and how this allows plant species to invade and take over native plants. In the research, UNL biologist Johannes Knops has demonstrated how one invasive plant species replaces native species because of its ability to take up and hold on to nitrogen.

June 16th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers at McMaster University have discovered the existence of two types of males of a fiercely invasive fish spreading through the Great Lakes, which might help explain how they rapidly reproduce. They revealed that in addition to round goby males, which guard the nest from predators and look after their offspring, there exists what scientists call "sneaker" males - little males that look like females and sneak into the nests of the larger males.

April 22nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new research, scientists have concluded that biofuel crops proposed for use in the Hawaiian Islands are two to four times more likely to become invasive pests in Hawaii and other tropical areas when compared to a random sample of other introduced plants. The research was done by scientists with the University of Hawaii Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit, who examined the impact of unregulated planting of biofuel crops for their potential invasiveness and raised concerns about their impacts on Hawaii's environment.

April 16th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists from Israel and Germany say that it is possible to monitor sleep, and potentially diagnose sleep disorders, just by recording a person's heart rate. People suffering from disturbed sleep have an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, hypertension, obesity, depression, and accidents.

March 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Over the past three years there has been a drastic increase in the number of patients seeking laser treatments to take light-years off their faces, says a new American survey. According to American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery (AACS)'s annual Procedural Survey, there has been a 456pct increase in the number of males undergoing laser resurfacing, compared to 215pct in females.

March 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers from University of Toronto have suggested a new minimal invasive therapy for relieving the pain of herniated disks. The minimally invasive interventional radiology treatment uses oxygen/ozone to relieve the chronic pain of herniated disks.

February 26th, 2009 WASHINGTON - June 2010 could be a busy month for invasive plants, insects and animals seeking free rides to distant lands. A new study forecasts climate factors such as temperature, humidity and rainfall will match at geographically distant airline departure and destination points then, which could help to shuffle invasive species, and the diseases they may carry, across the globe along existing flight routes.