Hepatitis E virus infections can be fatal in pregnant women, but until recently doctors thought the disease was confined to China, India and developing countries. Now Europeans are also contracting the disease in Europe.

Hepatitis E virus is one of the few viruses which has been shown to be transmitted directly from animals through food. It was recently thought to be confined to developing countries, and although scientists are still unsure exactly how it spreads to people, direct contact with pigs or eating contaminated pork products is a likely route.

“If this proves to be a relevant route for pig to human infection for Hepatitis E in Europe, food safety regulations might need to be adapted accordingly”, says Dutch researcher Erwin Duizer.

Antibiotics are over-prescribed for bacterial infections and patients too often fail to complete their courses of treatment properly, which means many bacteria are able to pick up an entire array of antibiotic resistance genes easily by swapping genetic material with each other.

MRSA – the multiple drug resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus - and newly emerging strains of the superbug Clostridium difficile have forced medical researchers to realise that an entirely different approach is required to combat these bacteria.

“By using a virus that only attacks bacteria, called a phage – and some phages only attack specific types of bacteria – we can treat infections by targeting the exact strain of bacteria causing the disease”, says Ana Toribio from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institu

The rise in year-round consumption of fresh leafy greens such as lettuce and baby spinach is increasing the difficulty of keeping produce free from contamination by food poisoning bacteria.

“The only land suitable for supplying this abundance of year-round, high quality, fresh leafy vegetables, which are eaten raw by large populations in Europe and the United States, is in special geographic regions, with ideal soil and climate conditions”, says Robert Mandrell from the US Department of Agriculture’s Research Service in Albany, California.

This move to the year-round supply of leafy vegetables has required new methods to clean, package and deliver rapidly these fragile food items across large distances to consumers in many parts of the world.

There are major differences in the risk profile and characteristics of female patients treated for acute heart failure. Female patients are underrepresented in management trials on Heart Failure. According to data from the Euro Heart Survey on acute Heart Failure 2004-2005 in Europe, however, medical treatment has improved.

Differencies in gender profile in acute heart failure
Female patients ( m 75 years) are on average 6 years older than male subjects. They represent about 40 – 50% of all acute heart failure hospitalizations. Smoking as risk factor is present only in 15.7% of females compared to 60% in male subjects. Therefore COPD was reported in only 15% of females versus 22% of male subjects.

Using a new “genome-scanning” method, a team of scientists has identified the first robust link between genes and stature in humans. A single letter change in a gene called HMGA2 enables people who carry it to gain as much as a centimeter in height. The work provides insights into how genes hardwire growth in humans and suggests that finding additional height-related genes may be feasible.

It became clear nearly a century ago that many genes likely influence how tall a person grows, though little progress, if any, has followed in defining the myriad genes. Now an international research team brings light to this age-old question by pinpointing a genetic variant associated with human height — the first consistent genetic link to be reported.

Voyage to the bottom of the sea, or simply look along the bottom of a clear stream and you may spy lobsters or crayfish waving their antennae. Look closer, and you will see them feeling around with their legs and flicking their antennules – the small, paired sets of miniature feelers at the top of their heads between the long antennae.

Both are used for sensing the environment. The long antennae are used for getting a physical feel of an area, such as the contours of a crevice. The smaller antennules are there to both help the creature smell for food or mates or dangerous predators and also to sense motion in the water that also could indicate the presence of food, a fling or danger.

How do adult stem cells protect themselves from accumulating genetic mutations that can lead to cancer?

For more than three decades, many scientists have argued that the "immortal strand hypothesis" - which states that adult stem cells segregate their DNA in a non-random manner during cell division -- explains it. And several recent reports have presented evidence backing the idea.

But now University of Michigan stem cell researcher Sean Morrison and his colleagues say they have dealt a mortal blow to the immortal strand, at least as far as blood-forming stem cells are concerned.

If you wander around the SciFoo Lives On area, you will notice that some of the poster booths have bells. If the text above them is green, it indicates that the presenter is somewhere in Second Life. The visitor can then just click on the bell to summon the presenter with a quick message. If the text is red, the presenter is not in world. However, a message can still be sent and it will show up the next time they log in. Now this can be problematic for users who created a Second Life account exclusively for the purpose of presenting or attending a SciFoo Lives On session since they are unlikely to login again and retrieve IM messages.

A University of Leicester research team is working on a new technique for growing nanoparticles which could have extraordinary implications in electronics, medicine, the measurement of atmospheric air and the cleansing of car exhausts.

Dr Andrew Ellis and Dr Shengfu Yang, both of the University’s Department of Chemistry, have discovered a niche way of making nanoparticles that cannot be formed in any other way.

Working with Professor Chris Binns and Dr Klaus von Haeften in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, they are developing a technique involving the use of helium nanodroplets.