In community settings, there’s always at least one person or perhaps a group of individuals who are most highly respected. Prison systems are no different; one’s social status results from interpersonal dynamics. To better understand social structure in California prison communities, Brian Colwell, a researcher at the University of Missouri, recently examined peer relationships among inmates. [more]

A shutdown of a nuclear reactor in Canada has caused medical testing delays for thousands of patients in the United States because of a shortage of technetium-99m, a radioactive substance used in medical scans for cancer, heart disease, and bone and kidney illnesses.

Technetium-99m is produced from the decay of the radioisotope molybdenum-99. The Ontario reactor that produces molybdenum-99 for MDS Nordion has been shutdown since…[more]

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - A University of Arkansas researcher and a team of international scientists have taken cores from the sediments of a Canadian Arctic lake and found an interglacial record indicating two ice-free periods that could pre-date the Holocene Epoch.

Sonja Hausmann, assistant professor of geosciences in the J. William Fulbright…[more]

Mizzou researchers study popular African herbal remedy

University of Missouri researchers are preparing for clinical trials of an herbal remedy used in South Africa to treat illnesses ranging from depression to cancer.

Working in conjunction with scientists from the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, MU will be conducting randomized clinical trial to study the safety of the plant Sutherlandia in HIV-infected adults in…[more]

From cell growth and basic biochemical interactions research to diagnosing skin cancer using laser-induced ultrasound, researchers in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources at University of Missouri are attacking cancer from 14 different perspectives.

Georgia Davis, an associate professor in the Division of Plant Sciences, and her team are working to identify genes for resistance to the fungus Aspergillus flavus and aflatoxin, a…[more]

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Sending an unmanned spacecraft to the outer fringes of the solar system requires extensive planning. At the University of Missouri, engineers have developed an efficient and highly sophisticated mathematical algorithm (implemented as software) that determines the most efficient path for a spacecraft’s journey from point A to point B - no matter how many worlds or years away.  [more]

A multinational team of researchers has shown for the first time that the immune system can stop the growth of a cancerous tumor without actually killing it.

Scientists have been working for years to use the immune system to eradicate cancers, a technique known as immunotherapy. The new findings prove an alternate to this approach exists: When the cancer can’t be killed with immune attacks, [more]

New research conducted by the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) and published in The Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology describe success with immunizations for Alzheimer’s disease in mice.

OMRF scientists led by Jordan Tang, Ph.D., injected mice with a protein that is believed to play a…[more]

As reservoirs of valuable information go, nothing beats the sun. This sphere of heat and energy holds 99.9 percent of the solar system, saved in all original proportions after planets and meteorites formed. Analyzing the mix of hydrogen, oxygen and noble gases found in the sun can answer one of the biggest questions of the universe: How did our solar system evolve?
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If we humans are not extinct by then, the Ozarks and the rest of the world will be a lot different than today according to the current issue of New Scientist.

Those who study the Earth’s continents say the giant land masses are drifting at about the same rate as our fingernails grow and will collide about 250 million years from now. The way continents tend to drift…[more]