Carole L. Palmer, a professor of library and information science at Illinois, says that data curation -- the active and ongoing management of data through their lifecycle of interest to science -- is an important part of supporting and advancing scientific research.

As the world watches the Vancouver Olympics, researchers at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto and Children's Hospital Boston have teamed up to monitor and assess potential infectious disease threats to Vancouver during the Winter Games by integrating two independently developed intelligence systems that focus on global infectious diseases: bio.DIASPORA and HealthMap.

In a technological advance that its developers are likening to the cell phone and wireless Internet access, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientists and engineers have devised an undersea optical communications system that -- complemented by acoustics -- enables a virtual revolution in high-speed undersea data collection and transmission.

A recent special issue of Business Horizons, the journal of the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, and published by Elsevier, addresses issues central to health care and life sciences. Health care reform, for example, has been at the center of US political debate in recent years with renewed attempts to gain bipartisan support from Congress for passage of a national system of health insurance coverage.

The heaviest recognized chemical element with the atomic number 112 was discovered at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung and -- since February 19, 2010, -- officially carries the name copernicium and the chemical symbol "Cn". The name was approved and officially announced today by the international union for chemistry IUPAC. The name "Copernicium" honors scientist and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.

People can reduce their sensitivity to pain by thickening their brain, according to a new study published in a special issue of the American Psychological Association journal, Emotion. Researchers from the Universite de Montreal made their discovery by comparing the gray matter thickness of Zen meditators and non-meditators. They found evidence that practicing the centuries-old discipline of Zen can reinforce a central brain region (anterior cingulate) that regulates pain.

Today ESO has released a dramatic new image of NGC 346, the brightest star-forming region in our neighbouring galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud, 210 000 light-years away towards the constellation of Tucana (the Toucan). The light, wind and heat given off by massive stars have dispersed the glowing gas within and around this star cluster, forming a surrounding wispy nebular structure that looks like a cobweb.

Chemists at the University of Helsinki have managed to manufacture new polymer-stabilized silver nanoparticles. The result is significant because the antimicrobial characteristics of silver are used in textiles, floor coatings and paints even though the impact on health of silver nanoparticles are not entirely known. Finnish researchers now think that exposure to silver can be reduced by chemically binding the nanoparticles to polymers. The research results will soon be published in a leading journal in the field, Colloid and Polymer Science.

Irish hares are eighteen times more abundant in areas managed by the Irish Coursing Club than at similar sites in the wider countryside a recent study by Queen's University Belfast has shown.

For the first time, a woman has given birth to two children in two separate pregnancies after her fertility was restored using transplants of ovarian tissue that had been removed and frozen during her cancer treatment and then restored once she was cured. The case study is reported in Human Reproduction journal on Thursday, February 25.

Iodine is an essential element for synthesizing thyroid hormones. A team of researchers from the Childhood and Environment Project has studied the consequences of pregnant women consuming it in their diet and in supplements. The results suggest the need to evaluate their iodine nutritional status before systematically recommending taking it during pregnancy.

The quest for new drugs is generally a lengthy and costly undertaking. Researchers of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet in Munich have now come up with a simpler and more efficient way of going about it. Not only pharmaceutical research but also medical diagnostics and the environment stand to benefit from the new work.

Baby monitors of the future could translate infant cries, so that parents will know for certain whether their child is sleepy, hungry, needing a change, or in pain. Japanese scientists report details of a statistical computer program that can analyze a baby's crying in the International Journal of Biometrics.

University of California researchers found that the incidence rate for all causes of dementia in people age 90 and older is 18.2 percent annually and significantly increases with age in both men and women. Findings of the 90+ study appear in the February issue of Annals of Neurology, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Neurological Association.

Indiana U. researcher Marieke Van Puymbroeck found that a modified version of cardiac rehabilitation was effective at reducing some symptoms of stroke in just six weeks following a transient ischemic attack (TIA) often referred to as "mini strokes." No post-TIA regimen exists to help prevent future strokes -- something that Van Puymbroeck says needs to change. She discussed her study during a press conference at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2010.