News Articles

Typhoid fever kills 10–30% of untreated people. One of the best-known cases was that of Mary Mallon, a healthy carrier of typhoid, who worked for many years in the food industry in New York and is thought to have infected almost 50 people. She was eventually forcibly quarantined by authorities and named Typhoid Mary.
There are 17 million cases of Typhoid fever each year - although the World Health Organization cautions that this is a 'very conservative' estimate. Young people are most at risk: in Indonesia, nine out of ten cases occur in 3–19-year-olds.
It has been controlled by vaccination and use of antibiotics but antibiotic resistance is an emerging problem, especially in south-east Asia.

Knowledge of the structure–property–function relationships of dermal scales of armoured fish could enable pathways to improved bioinspired human body armor, and may provide clues to the evolutionary origins of mineralized tissues.
Writing in Nature Materials, researchers Benjamin J. F. Bruet, Juha Song, Mary C. Boyce and Christine Ortiz present a multiscale experimental and computational approach that reveals the materials design principles present within individual ganoid scales from the 'living fossil' Polypterus senegalus.
This fish belongs to the ancient family Polypteridae, which first appeared 96 million years ago during the Cretaceous period and still retains many of their characteristics.

A new discovery could lead to treatments which turn off the inflammation in the lungs caused by influenza and other infections, according to a study published today in the journal Nature Immunology.
The symptoms of influenza, such as breathlessness, weight loss and fever, are made much worse by the immune system responding in an exaggerated way to the virus, rather than by the virus itself. The virus is often cleared from the body by the time symptoms appear and yet symptoms can last for many days, because the immune system continues to fight the damaged lung.

A national survey into the bedroom behavior of British women has revealed that 46% percent never or rarely achieve orgasm. The survey, conducted by Scarlet magazine and the makers of the PelvicToner to mark National Orgasm Day on July 31, polled over 2000 women across the country and found that women with better pelvic floor muscles were also enjoying better sex lives.
The survey is ongoing at http://www.orgasmsurvey.co.uk. The latest survey results can be downloaded from the site.

UPDATE: See a video clip here
Total solar eclipses take place when the Earth, Moon and Sun are aligned and the shadow of the Moon touches the surface of the Earth. At mid-eclipse, observers within the lunar shadow briefly see totality, where the silhouette of the Moon completely covers the Sun, revealing the beautiful outer solar atmosphere or corona.
On August 1st, 2008 there will be a total eclipse visible from Canada, northern Greenland, Svalbard, the Barents Sea, Russia, Mongolia and China.
People in the British Isles will see a partial solar eclipse, with between 1/10th and 1/3rd of the Sun obscured by the Moon.

Global climate change could explain the explosion in marine biodiversity that took place 460 million years ago, according to researchers from INSU-CNRS Laboratoire PaléoEnvironnements et PaléobioSphère (CNRS)Université Claude Bernard Lyon and Australian National University in Canberra.
They have found evidence of a progressive ocean cooling of about 15°C over a period of 40 million years during the Ordovician, a geologic period extending from 490 to 440 million years ago. Until now, this geologic period had been associated with a "super greenhouse effect" on our planet. The results from this study were published in the July 25, 2008 issue of Science.

A collaboration between chemists and biologists has made it possible to identify the effects of a new class of molecules, polyoxometalates, primarily composed of metals and oxygen.
Polyoxometalates are anionic inorganic metal oxide structures that have valuable catalytic properties. These molecules are very powerful inhibitors of a specific protein kinase, CK2, an enzyme that is overactive in a number of cancers. The enzyme's instrumental role in controlling cell proliferation and survival makes it an important target in the search for new medications.

Individuals affected by celiac disease (gluten intolerance) often present an altered calcium (Ca2+) metabolism that can cause osteopenia, a bone mass decrease due to the impaired adsorption of this mineral, which can lead to osteoporosis (in 35-85% of the cases).
This phenomenon is particularly frequent among late-diagnosed celiac patients, as in the case of adult people, but can be present in children too.
With the aim of recognizing calcium metabolism alterations and impaired bone mineralization, laboratory and radiology exams, such as dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA), are often performed. These exams – that provide information on the health status of the bones before the onset of a specific therapy (namely the gluten-free diet) and help to monitor the progression of the bone disease once the diet is started - are nowadays indicated in children too. But are they really necessary in the celiac child?

Stories stating that soy products lower sperm count do not tell the whole story, according to a statement released by the Soyfoods Association of North America is a non-profit trade association that has been promoting consumption of soyfoods in the diet since 1978.
They say the small scale, preliminary study that Dr. Jorge Chavarro published in Human Reproduction is based on recollected intake of soyfoods and not on specific diets containing soyfoods.
“This study is confounded by many issues, thus I feel the results should be viewed with a great deal of caution,” said Dr. Tammy Hedlund, a researcher in prostate cancer prevention from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Department of Pathology. Dr. Chavarro found that “soyfood and soy isoflavone intakes were unrelated to total sperm count, ejaculate volume, sperm motility, or sperm morphology” which are the important measures of sperm quality and male fertility.

Exposure to ultraviolet light can contribute to skin cancer and, despite increased education about sunscreens, farmers, construction workers and others who spend long hours exposed to sunlight are among those most at risk. Plus, sunscreens are not alway effective for these high-risk people because they have to be re-applied frequently.
Professor Chandradhar Dwivedi, head of the Pharmaceutical Sciences Department in the College of Pharmacy at South Dakota State University, says their group is working with new types of molecules that will not only boost sunscreen protection but even reverse sun damage. Dwivedi said the work could be commercialized within 10 years.
Here’s a look at SDSU’s research of skin product components:

Proposals to reign in gasoline prices by curbing speculation in oil markets would likely increase costs at the pump instead of trimming them, a University of Illinois economist says.
Scott Irwin argues congressional efforts to curb trading by speculators is a "misguided witch hunt" that ignores the root of America's energy problem – a finite global oil supply that has been stretched thin by surging demand in China, India and other developing countries.
"There's a tendency to look for a scapegoat, and speculators are the convenient scapegoat," he said. "But, really, it's a supply and demand issue."

A team of European scientists working with COROT have discovered an exoplanet orbiting a star slightly more massive than the Sun. After just 555 days in orbit, the mission has now observed more than 50 000 stars and is adding significantly to our knowledge of the fundamental workings of stars.
The latest discovery, COROT-exo-4b is an exoplanet of about the same size as Jupiter. It takes 9.2 days to orbit its star, the longest period for any transiting exoplanet ever found.