News Articles

The fight against fake medicines could soon be aided by a small, portable device that quickly measures the hardness of a tablet, revealing whether it is counterfeit, according to research presented at the British Pharmaceutical Conference (BPC) in Manchester.
The study tested a series of dummy paracetamol tablets made with varying degrees of real medicine, versus lactose (an ingredient used by counterfeiters to replace the active drug). Tests showed that the fake tablets were harder than the tablet with the correct amount of paracetamol, and were more difficult to crush.

Engineers from NASA and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne successfully completed a series of hot-fire altitude tests using liquid methane on the RS-18 engine, which was last used to lift astronauts off the moon's surface 36 years ago and was originally flown with storable hypergolic propellants during the Apollo moon missions.
The tests, conducted at White Sands test facility in New Mexico, are part of the technology development for NASA's Constellation program, and gathered important data on ignition, performance measurement, and rapid start and stop.
The RS-18 engine has been modified to burn liquid oxygen and liquid methane, providing increased safety and performance to future space vehicles.

Almost 60% of British women use at least one herbal product during pregnancy, research launched at the British Pharmaceutical Conference (BPC) in Manchester has revealed.
In the first UK study of its kind, pharmacy researchers from the University of East Anglia found that despite the popularity of herbal products, almost half (49%) of the pregnant women were uncertain about the safety of the preparations and took them on the recommendation of family or friends rather than a healthcare professional.

Bats' ability to echolocate may have evolved more than once, according to research published this week by Queen Mary, University of London scientists.
Species of bat with the ability to echolocate do not all group together in the evolutionary tree of life - some are more related to their non-echolocating cousins, the fruit bats. This has raised the question of whether echolocation in bats has evolved more than once, or whether the fruit bats somehow lost their ability to echolocate.

Mammalian fatty acid synthase is one of the most complex molecular synthetic machines in human cells. It is also a promising target for the development of anti-cancer and anti-obesity drugs and the treatment of metabolic disorders. Now researchers at ETH Zurich have determined the atomic structure of a mammalian fatty acid synthase. Their results have just been published in Science magazine.
Synthesis of fatty acids is a central cellular process that has been studied for many decades. Fatty acids are used in the cell as energy storage compounds, messenger molecules and building blocks for the cellular envelope. Until now, individual steps of this process have been investigated using isolated bacterial enzymes. However, in higher organisms – except plants – fatty acid synthesis is catalyzed by large multifunctional proteins where many individual enzymes are brought together to form a "molecular assembly line".

Basil can protect against the harmful effects of ageing, according to research presented at the British Pharmaceutical Conference (BPC) in Manchester.
Holy basil, (Latin name Ocimum sanctum), is a close relative of the herb commonly used in Western cooking. Native to India, its extract has long been used in the ancient system of Ayurvedic medicine practiced in India and other parts of Asia as a rejuvenation drug, to promote a youthful state of physical and mental health.
In the first formal study of the herb, pharmacy researchers found that holy basil extract was effective at actively searching for and eliminating harmful molecules and protecting against damage caused by some free radicals in key organs such as the heart, liver and brain.

Ramadan is a Muslim religious observance in which participants do not eat or drink anything from dawn until sunset.
Researchers from the departments of Department of Nutrition and Bromatology and Department of Chemistry-Physics of the University of Granada have carried out a study in which they have revealed the need of counterbalancing the diet of the population who follow Ramadan.
According to the collected data, in this period of time macronutrient consumption levels are not appropriate if compared with the reference recommendations. The number of daily ingestions drops to 2 or 3, with regard to the 4 or 5 ingestions of the rest of the population in this period. In addition, scientists have established that, because of the diet, corporal fat increases and muscular mass falls.

Staying healthy is a tasteless job. Linseed is said to protect against cancer, for example, but not many people like the taste. Researchers have now isolated the valuable components of the flax seeds so when they are incorporated in bread, cakes or dressings, they support the human organism without leaving an unpleasant aftertaste.
Seriously? Cake that protects against cancer and noodles that lower cholesterol? Throw in cigars that clear our arteries and we'll join the health food bandwagon right now.
Research scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV in Freising have isolated valuable components of linseed and lupin seeds and experimentally incorporated them in various foodstuffs: the linseed in cakes, bread, dressings and sauces, the lupins in bread, rolls and pasta.

Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., a physician-geneticist and leader of the Human Genome Project, has been awarded with the new Inamori Ethics Prize from the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence at Case Western Reserve University.

Unlike the social sciences, which are overwhelmingly women, and life sciences, which are about 50-50, the hard sciences have a true gender disparity and the search is always on for reasons why.
Most parents and many teachers believe that if middle-school and high-school girls show no interest in science or math, there's little anyone can do about it but new research indicates that self-confidence instilled by parents and teachers is more important for young girls than their initial interest.
While interest is certainly a factor in getting older girls to study and pursue a career in these disciplines, more attention should be given to building confidence in their abilities early in their education, says University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Distinguished Professor Nadya Fouad. She is one of the authors of a three-year study aimed at identifying supports and barriers that steer girls toward or away from science and math during their education.
It's a high-priority question for members of organizations like the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Research Council as they ponder how to improve the numbers of women in STEM careers – science, technology, engineering and math.

In HDTV, increased resolution and picture clarity brings with it an increased volume of data so the tiniest disruptions could mean a distortion in the picture or a loss in signal entirely.
An extension of the H.264/AVC format called SVC (scalable video coding) claims to fix that.
Protecting data packets so they are not at risk during transmission poses a serious problem for developers of video coding techniques. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich-Hertz-Institut, HHI in Berlin are therefore working to improve standardized video coding techniques such as the H.264/AVC format, which is used by the YouTube video portal and Apple's QuickTime player, for example. If an Internet node is overloaded, for instance, data packets are randomly discarded during transmission. This causes a jerky picture.

Free drug samples provided to physicians by pharmaceutical companies could actually be costing uninsured patients more in the long run, according to a study done by researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and colleagues.
The retrospective study looked at the prescribing habits of more than 70 physicians in a university-affiliated internal medicine practice in the months immediately before and after the closing of their drug sample closet. The results indicate that the availability of free samples from pharmaceutical companies greatly impacts whether an uninsured patient is given a prescription for a generic or a brand-name drug. The complete findings can be found in the September issue of Southern Medical Journal.