News Articles

Dr. Éric A. Cohen, Director of the Human Retrovirology Research Unit at Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal, and his team have published a discovery that could lead to the development of a new class of drugs to combat HIV.
Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) causes AIDS by depleting essential immune cells called CD4+T lymphocytes in infected individuals, resulting in a compromised immune system. At the center of this process is the HIV protein, viral protein R (Vpr), which stops infected CD4+T cells from dividing and as a consequence compromises their immune function.
In addition, by arresting cell division, Vpr helps HIV to harness the infected cell’s resources to enhance viral replication.

When a strand of DNA breaks in the body's cells, it normally does not take long until it has been repaired. Now researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have discovered a new mechanism that helps to explain how the cell performs these repairs.
The new results examine a phenomenon called 'cohesion', whereby two copies of a chromosome in the cell nucleus are held tightly together by a protein complex called cohesin. Cohesion fulfils an important function during cell division as the newly copied chromosomes, the sister chromatids, have to stay together until the right moment of separation. If the chromatids come apart too early, there is a risk of the daughter cells getting the wrong number of chromosomes, something that is often observed in tumor cells.

In an experiment modeled on the classic “Young’s double slit experiment” and published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, researchers have powerfully reinforced the understanding that surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) move as waves and follow analogous rules.
The demonstration reminds researchers and electronics designers that although SPPs move along a metal surface, rather than inside a wire or an optical fiber, they cannot magically overcome the size limitations of conventional optics.
Touted as the next wave of electronics miniaturization, plasmonics describes the movement of SPPs -- a type of electromagnetic wave that is bound to a metal surface by its interaction with surface electrons.

Chitin and Chitosan have been extracted from lobster waste and used in medicine and biomedicine by a team from the University of Havana. These researchers’ work has led to the development of a procedure to obtain surgical materials with great healing and antiseptic properties.
Chitin is a polymer very common in nature as part of animals’ and plants’ physical structures. Only cellulose is more abundant than chitin, which makes this compound a highly important renewable resource that can easily be found in arthropods, insects, arachnids, molluscs, fungus and algae.

Just in time for the weekend, this study from Dutch researcher Ingmar Franken says that while alcohol does not make good things any better it can make bad things a lot less worse. Previously researchers thought that alcohol primarily affected the 'reward' system in the brain. Franken found that was not so.
In the case of pleasant experiences alcohol was found to have hardly any influence. The ‘rosy glasses’ that alcohol is said to cause is therefore just a temporary filter for the more 'sober' issues in life.

It turns out they do.* And it can tell us a lot about learning.
In fact, "competitive fandom" is such a growing field that University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professors Erica and Rich Halverson are spending their summer studying something they love - fantasy baseball, and why people play such games.
It's an area ripe for analysis. Sixteen million adults played fantasy sports in 2006, spending an average of just under $500 a year and generating an economic impact of more than $1 billion a year, according to the Fantasy Sports Industry Trade Association. The majority of those first began playing the game offline and spend about three hours per week managing their teams, according to the trade group.

For the first time, it can now be shown what enzyme copies the genetic make-up of cells. The discovery is being published in the journal Science by researchers at Umeå University in Sweden in collaboration with a team in the U.S. led by Thomas A. Kunkel.
The human genome has already been mapped, as have the genomes of several other organisms. On the other hand, little has been known how genes are copied and repaired so efficiently and precisely.
These processes always involve a so-called DNA polymerase, an enzyme that performs the actual new growth of genes. The genes consist of two DNA strands, but scientists have not known what polymerase copies the two DNA strands.

New technology could allow a CD to hold up to one hundred times more information by using terahertz radiation rather than visible light, even though the length of a terahertz wave is about 1000 times longer, say University of Michigan researchers.
Manipulating light waves, or electromagnetic radiation, has led to many technologies, from cameras to lasers to medical imaging machines that can see inside the human body and now scientists have developed a way to make a lens-like device that focuses electromagnetic waves down to the tiniest of points.
The breakthrough opens the door to the next generation of technology, said Roberto Merlin, professor of physics at U-M.

Many earthquakes in the deep ocean are much smaller in magnitude than expected. Geophysicists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have found new evidence that the fragmented structure of seafloor faults, along with previously unrecognized volcanic activity, may be dampening the effects of these quakes.

Researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have uncovered a missing link in scientists' understanding of the physical forces that give DNA its famous double helix shape.
"The stability of DNA is so fundamental to life that it's important to understand all factors," said Piotr Marszalek, a professor of mechanical engineering and materials sciences at Duke. "If you want to create accurate models of DNA to study its interaction with proteins or drugs, for example, you need to understand the basic physics of the molecule. For that, you need solid measurements of the forces that stabilize DNA."

One of the major issues associated with longer life expectancy in man and his best friend is an increase in the incidence of cancer.
Dr Ali Mobasheri, an Associate Professor from the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science at The University of Nottingham, says that studying tumors in dogs and humans could give us a better understanding of their shared pathogenesis.
Cancer is the single biggest cause of death in dogs over the age of 2. The incidence of bone cancers, skin cancers, and lymphomas is increasing in humans and dogs and there are significant similarities between certain types of human and canine cancer – such as breast and prostate cancer.

A team of led by Norwich BioScience Institutes Professor Nick Harberd have discovered how plants evolved the ability to adapt to changes in climate and environment.
Plants adapt their growth, including key steps in their life cycle such as germination and flowering, to take advantage of environmental conditions. They can also repress growth when their environment is not favorable. This involves many complex signalling pathways which are integrated by the plant growth hormone gibberellin.