News Articles

For countries without their own environmental monitoring systems, the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) can be useful for working out where there is a need for action in environmental policy making, but otherwise there are already better ways of getting results, says the conclusions of a study conducted by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ).
According to the study authors, Germany, for example, already has more accurate and appropriate instruments than the 2008 EPI – such as the European Environment Agency´s State of the Environment Report and the Federal Environmental Agency´s Umweltbarometer.
One difficulty is the legitimacy of the targets set for each indicator. The EPI employs a distance-to-target method which requires explicit target values, against which the countries are measured. According to the EPI 2008 report, only 5 out of 25 target values have been set in international agreements or guidelines, all others represent expert judgement taken from scientific literature. Augustin Berghöfer, one of the analysts at the UFZ says, "the EPI lacks crucial legitimacy as an instrument for benchmarking. Why should governments measure themselves against target values which they may not even have heard of so far?"

Charles Darwin maintained that the domesticated chicken derives from the red jungle fowl, but new research from Uppsala University now shows that the wild origins of the chicken are more complicated than that.
The researchers mapped the genes that give most domesticated chickens yellow legs and found to their surprise that this genetic heredity derives from a closely related species, the grey jungle fowl.
“Our studies show that even though most of the genes in domesticated fowls come from the red jungle fowl, at least one other species must have contributed, specifically the grey jungle fowl,” says Jonas Eriksson, a doctoral student at Uppsala University.

Many areas of research and medicine rely critically upon knowing a person’s individual immune system proteins, as they determine an individual’s ability to fight disease or mistakenly attack their own tissues. However, obtaining this information is costly and difficult.
In a new study, Listgarten et al demonstrated how statistical modeling can help researchers obtain this information more easily and cost effectively.

Schizophrenia emerges from an altered pattern of brain development and researchers have long searched for genes that cause the brain to develop along a path that ultimately leads to schizophrenia.
In a new Biological Psychiatry article, researchers report their findings on a new genetic link to schizophrenia.
A prior genetic mapping study indicated that a particular gene, multiple epidermal growth factor-like domains 10 or MEGF10, may be associated with schizophrenia.
In this new paper, Chen and colleagues directly studied this particular MEGF10 gene in both schizophrenia patients and healthy control subjects.

Using “virtual peers” -- animated life-sized children that simulate the behaviors and conversation of typically developing children -- Northwestern University researchers are developing interventions designed to prepare children with autism for interactions with real-life children.
Justine Cassell, professor of communication studies and electrical engineering and computer science, recently presented a preliminary study on the work at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
“Children with high-functioning autism may be able to give you a lecture on a topic of great interest to them but they can’t carry on a ‘contingent’ -- or two-way -- conversation,” said Cassell, director of Northwestern’s Center for Technology and Social Behavior.

One thing has long been clear. Not thinning forests has been a disaster for the environment. Groups normally at loggerheads have reached a consensus on responsible forest management and it identifies the potential volume of wood resources available from more than 2 million acres of Arizona forests, representing the first major agreement among groups typically at odds over the issue of forest thinning.
The “Wood Supply Analysis” report identifies a potential supply of up to 850 million cubic feet of wood and 8 million tons of biomass from branches and timber residue for such commercial uses as pallets, firewood, poles, lumber, mulch and stove pellets.

A team of researchers at the University of Alberta, including a scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, have discovered a gene that is able to block HIV, and thought to in turn prevent the onset of AIDS.
Dr. Stephen Barr, a researcher in the Department of Medical Microbiology & Immunology at the U of A, says his team identified a human gene called TRIM22 that can block HIV infection in a cell culture by preventing the assembly of the virus.
Barr says “interestingly, when we prevent cells from turning on TRIM22, the normal interferon response (a natural defense produced by our cells to fight infection by viruses such as HIV) is useless at blocking HIV infection.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School have identified a gene in Asian monkeys that may have evolved as a defense against lentiviruses, the group of viruses that includes HIV. The study suggests that AIDS is not a new epidemic.
The gene, called TRIM5-CypA, well characterized elsewhere (AIDS, 2007; PNAS, 2008), is a hybrid of two existing cellular genes, TRIM5 and CypA. The combination produces a single protein capable of blocking infection by viruses closely related to HIV. Surprisingly, this is actually the second time researchers have identified a TRIM5-CypA gene in monkeys. The other hybrid gene, called TRIMCyp, was discovered in 2004 in South American owl monkeys.

On Feb. 13, 2008, the president signed a $168 billion stimulus package designed to give $300, $600 or $1,200 checks to more than 100 million Americans. It was the second time in seven years that lawmakers agreed to return additional tax money in hopes that people would spend it to stimulate a sluggish economy. A key question: Will those receiving checks spend enough to have the desired effect?
Economic theory says "yes" -- give people money and they will spend it. But Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business, says the actual answer depends on more than simply giving people more money.

Brent Christner, LSU professor of biological sciences, in partnership with colleagues in Montana and France, recently found evidence that rain-making bacteria are widely distributed in the atmosphere. These biological particles could factor heavily into the precipitation cycle, affecting climate, agricultural productivity and even global warming.
Christner’s team examined precipitation from global locations and demonstrated that the most active ice nuclei – a substrate that enhances the formation of ice – are biological in origin. This is important because the formation of ice in clouds is required for snow and most rainfall. Dust and soot particles can serve as ice nuclei, but biological ice nuclei are capable of catalyzing freezing at much warmer temperatures.

Many of the greatest inventions in modern medicine were developed by physicists who imported technologies such as X rays, nuclear magnetic resonance, ultrasound, particle accelerators and radioisotope tagging and detection techniques into the medical domain.
There they became magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computerized tomography (CT) scanning, nuclear medicine, positron emission tomography (PET) scanning, and various radiotherapy treatment methods. These contributions have revolutionized medical techniques for imaging the human body and treating disease.
In 2008, the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), is celebrating its 50th anniversary and is calling attention to the field of medical physics achievements.
The best way to do that? Make a top 5 list and publish it here.

Scientists have long known that most compounds in living things exist in mirror-image forms. The two forms are like hands; one is a mirror reflection of the other. They are different, cannot be superimposed, yet identical in their parts.
When scientists synthesize these molecules in the laboratory, half of a sample turns out to be “left-handed” and the other half “right-handed.” But amino acids, which are the building blocks of terrestrial proteins, are all “left-handed,” while the sugars of DNA and RNA are “right-handed.” The mystery as to why this is the case, “parallels in many of its queries those that surround the origin of life,” says Sandra Pizzarello, a research professor at Arizona State University.
An important discovery has been made with respect to the mystery of this “handedness” in biomolecules. Some of the possible abiotic precursors to the origin of life on Earth have been shown to carry “handedness” in a larger number than previously thought.