News Articles

By bypassing a well-known gene implicated in almost one-third of all cancers and instead focusing on the protein activated by the gene, Dr. Christopher Counter and colleagues at the Duke University Medical Center have identified IL6 as a new target in the battle against Ras-induced cancers.
The ras gene, known as an oncogene when it is in this mutated state, has been implicated in several different cancers, including those of the pancreas and lungs. To date, efforts at blocking or turning off ras have proven ineffective.

To protect us from disease our immune system employs macrophages, cells that roam our body in search of disease-causing bacteria. With the help of long tentacle-like protrusions, macrophages can catch suspicious particles, pull them towards their cell bodies, internalise and destroy them.
Using a special microscopy technique, researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) now for the first time tracked the dynamic behaviour of these tentacles in three dimensions. In the current online issue of PNAS they describe a molecular mechanism that likely underlies the tentacle movement and that could influence the design of new nanotechnologies.

Contrary to textbook models, many genes that should be 'off' in embryonic stem cells and specialized adult cells remain primed to produce master regulatory proteins, leaving those cells vulnerable to identity changes
Biologists have long thought that a simple on/off switch controls most genes in human cells. Flip the switch and a cell starts or stops producing a particular protein. But new evidence suggests that this model is too simple and that our genes are more ready for action than previously thought.
Scientists in the lab of Whitehead Member Richard Young have discovered that many human genes hover between “on” and “off” in any given cell. According to the study, these genes begin making RNA templates for proteins—a process termed transcription—but fail to finish.

ESA’s Venus Express and NASA’s MESSENGER looked at Venus in tandem for a few hours in June. Here is the first set of images.
The orbital geometry of Venus Express when MESSENGER skimmed past Venus on 5 June meant that the two spacecraft were not at the same location (with respect to the surface of the planet) at the exact same time. So how could they make true joint observations of the same regions and phenomena? Scientists came up with a highly creative solution.

Bye-bye Venus. As NASA’s MESSENGER departed from planet Venus on 5 June 2007 to continue its journey towards Mercury, its Wide Angle Camera captured a sequence of 50 images (480-nm wavelength filter) showing the planet disappearing in the distance.

Engineers at the University of Hertfordshire have developed the first hydrogen-powered racing car which they will race this weekend.
A £5,000 grant from the Royal Society of Chemistry has made it possible for John Goddard and James Waters, two PhD students in the University’s new Sustainable Energy Technologies Centre to convert a Formula Student racing car into a hydrogen-powered vehicle.
This is the first time that a hydrogen-powered racing car has been developed anywhere in the world.

Opinions people have about innovations are influenced by the context in which they form their opinion. For example, opinions about a novel energy source like biomass are influenced by thoughts regarding other energy sources.
The less knowledge, interest or time people have, the stronger this effect. Sustainable energy options must therefore be promoted in the right context says Dutch researcher Wouter van den Hoogen.
People frequently form opinions about new technologies, such as novel energy options, despite having a very limited knowledge of the subject concerned. The subject is often complex and people are either not particularly interested or have limited time.

Researchers across the world have been trying to answer the question of how RNAi works for many years. A research group headed by Prof. Renée Schroeder (MFPL) and Dr. Javier Martinez (IMBA) based at the Campus Vienna Biocenter says they have come closer to finding an answer.
RNA interference (RNAi) is a natural cellular defence and regulation mechanism which works by eliminating unwanted RNA molecules. Its potential for use in therapy was officially recognised last year with the presentation of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The first treatments to be based on this mechanism are currently undergoing clinical testing.

Our bodies, and the biological brilliance built in, are able to move with elegance and efficiency using a combination of appropriate biomechanics, neuronal control, and adaptivity.
Simulating that with technology has so far eluded technological advances because of the motor coordination of complex multi-joint movements and the complicated nature of their dynamics.
Yet now scientists at the University of Göttingen have simulated the neuronal principles that form the dynamics of human walking in a robot.
"RunBot", as it is called, lives up to its name – it holds the world record in speed walking for dynamic machines. Now its inventors have expanded its repertoire. With an infrared eye it can detect a slope on its path and adjust its gait on the spot.

Scientists say that using data from the Mars Express mission and numerical models they can determine how the orbit of Mars around the Sun accounts for the origin and perennial occurrence of water ice at the Martian South Pole.
The OMEGA instrument on board Mars Express had already found previously undetected perennial deposits of water-ice sitting on top of million-year old layered terrains and those provided strong evidence for recent glacial activity.

The OMEGA instrument on board ESA’s Mars Express has characterised the types of ice deposits present in the South polar cap of Mars as the arrows, superimposed on an image taken by the HRSC instrument, indica

A unique set of observations, obtained with ESO's VLT, has allowed astronomers to find direct evidence for the material that surrounded a star before it exploded as a Type Ia supernova. This strongly supports the scenario in which the explosion occurred in a system where a white dwarf is fed by a red giant.
Because Type Ia supernovae are extremely luminous and quite similar to one another, these exploding events have been used extensively as cosmological reference beacons to trace the expansion of the Universe.

Left: artist's impression of the favoured configuration for the progenitor system of SN2006X before the explosion.

Volcanologist Sarah Fagents from the University of Hawaii at Manoa had an amazing opportunity to study volcanic hazards first hand, when a volcanic mudflow broke through the banks of a volcanic lake at Mount Ruapehu in New Zealand.
Fagents and colleagues were there on a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project to study the long-forecast Crater Lake break-out lahar at Mount Ruapehu.

A research team headed by Yadong Yin at the University of California, Riverside has created a liquid that changes its color “on demand” and can take on any color of the rainbow.
Nanoscopic particles made of tiny magnetic crystals coated with a plastic shell self-assemble in solution to form photonic crystals—semiconductors for light. When a magnetic field is applied, the optical properties of the crystals change, allowing their color to be very precisely adjusted through variation of the strength of the field.
The crystals involved are not “conventional” lattices of ions or molecules like the ones for salt. They are colloidal crystals, periodic structures that form from uniform solid particles that are finely dispersed in a liquid.