Scientists have reported that an experimental vaccine targeting one of the most common genetic drivers of pancreatic cancer, called mutant KRAS, is safe and generated a durable immune responses aimed at preventing the cancer.
A new study has found that not only does fish skin resemble the gut morphologically, but key components of skin immune responses are also akin to those of the gut.
Fish skin is unique in that it lacks keratin, the fibrous protein found in mammalian skin that provides a barrier against the environment. Instead, the epithelial cells of fish skin are in direct contact with the immediate environment: water. Similarly, the epithelial cells that line the gastrointestinal tract are also in direct contact with their immediate milieu.
The cyclic wobble of the Earth on its axis, axial precession, controls the production of "fixed" nitrogen, a nutrient essential to the health of the ocean, according to a new study.
Before there was life on Earth, there was a primordial soup of molecules, and at some point a specialized molecules began replicating. This self-replication kick-started a biochemical process that would lead to the first organisms.
How those molecules began replicating has been one of science's enduring mysteries.
In the early 1980s, researchers found that ribozymes — RNA enzymes — act as catalysts. It was evidence that RNA can be both the blueprints and the chemical catalysts that put those blueprints into action. This finding led to the "RNA World" hypothesis, which posits that RNA alone triggered the rise of life from a sea of molecules.
NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has been hurtling away from the Sun since it was launched in 1977 and various reports have indicated that the spacecraft has left the heliosphere, the bubble of hot, energetic charged particles surrounding the Solar System, and entered into a region of cold, dark space, known as interstellar space.
New measurements show that plasma densities around the spacecraft are consistent with theoretical predictions of the interstellar medium and that Voyager 1 arrived in this cold, unexplored interstellar region on or about 25 August, 2012.
TheSkyNet, a community computing project dedicated to astronomy that was initiated by the International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Perth, Western Australia, is celebrating its two year anniversary today with the official launch of a new research project, called T2 – Transform 2.
The world has plenty of water but not where people actually live. Arid regions lack both water and the energy to make water potable. Ironically, the energy needed to make water potable or ship it to arid regions will result in greenhouse gas emissions that result in less water, according to a new paper.
The authors write that current targets for greenhouse gas emissions - which would set the mean temperature increase at around 3.5°C above pre-industrial levels - will expose 668 million people worldwide to new or aggravated water scarcity.
If you have confidence in the future of science, you might be inclined to believe that a technology solution decades from now could make CO2 clean-up cheaper and more effective than what is available right now.
A group of economists argue just the opposite, they say that costs will be higher and that would make it less likely for decision-makers to ever push for a low-carbon economy. Global economic growth would be cut back by up to 7 percent within the first decade after climate policy implementation if the current international stalemate is continued until 2030, compared to 2 percent if a climate agreement is reached by 2015.
Astronomers have provided the best three-dimensional map yet of the central parts of the Milky Way. It shows that the inner regions take on a peanut-like appearance from some angles. This odd shape was mapped by using public data from ESO’s VISTA survey telescope along with measurements of the motions of hundreds of very faint stars in the central bulge.
One of the most important and massive parts of the galaxy is the galactic bulge. This huge central cloud of about 10 000 million stars spans thousands of light-years, but its structure and origin were not well understood.
Cilantro, a favorite ingredient in spicy cuisine, may also be an inexpensive new way of purifying drinking water, according to research done by undergraduate students at Ivy Tech Community College.
Douglas Schauer, Ph.D., reporting on the work at the American Chemical Society meeting, said that cilantro, also known as coriander and Thai parsley, shows promise as a "biosorbent" for removing lead and other potentially toxic heavy metals from contaminated water.
Anorexia nervosa is a multifactorial neuropsychiatric condition that affects as many as one percent of women in the Western world, and has an estimated mortality as high as 10 percent, making it perhaps the deadliest of mental illnesses. Anorexics severely restrict eating and become emaciated, yet consider themselves overweight. Individuals with anorexia tend to be perfectionistic, anxious or depressed, and obsessive.
A team of researchers have published new data that could prove vital for advances in care for women who suffer from recurrent miscarriage.
The recurrent loss of pregnancy through miscarriage causes significant distress to couples, often exacerbated by there being so few treatments available to clinicians.
The search for an effective treatment has been the cause of significant controversy in the field of medical research, centering on the role of natural killer cells (or NK cells) and the ability of steroids to prevent miscarriage.
Scientists have been uncertain about how these NK cells could contribute to a miscarriage and this has raised doubt over their importance in causing pregnancy loss.
20 years ago, El Niño had an uncorrected impact on the data that went into global warming models, causing puzzling results. Now, those results have been corrected and instead of El Niño impacting global warming, global warming could be impacting El Niño.
Using coral samples from Kiribati, researchers have outlined how El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle has changed over the past 4,300 years - altering the cycles of El Niño and La Niña events that bring extreme drought and flooding to Australia and many other Pacific-rim countries. The new paper suggests that external changes have an impact on the strength and timing of El Niño events.
