New information about a link between the growth of blood vessels critical to the spread of cancer and the copper in our bodies has been discovered by researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago, using a beamline at the Advanced Photon Source.

Growing new blood vessels from existing ones — a process called angiogenesis — is important in growth, development and wound healing. But it also enables the spread of tumors throughout the body, so researchers have been scrambling for ways to stop angiogenesis in the fight against cancer.

One element critical to blood vessel growth is copper, a vital nutrient that plays important roles in many life processes.

The brain appears to process information more chaotically than has long been assumed. This is demonstrated by a new study conducted by scientists at the University of Bonn. The passing on of information from neuron to neuron does not, they show, occur exclusively at the synapses, i.e. the junctions between the nerve cell extensions. Rather, it seems that the neurons release their chemical messengers along the entire length of these extensions and, in this way, excite the neighbouring cells. The findings of the study are of huge significance since they explode fundamental notions about the way our brain works. Moreover, they might contribute to the development of new medical drugs.

"Nanotechnology has the potential to generate enormous health benefits for the more than five billion people living in the developing world," according to Dr. Peter A. Singer, senior scientist at the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health and Professor of Medicine at University of Toronto. "Nanotechnology might provide less-industrialized countries with powerful new tools for diagnosing and treating disease, and might increase the availability of clean water."

"But it remains to be seen whether novel applications of nanotechnology will deliver on their promise. A fundamental problem is that people are not engaged and are not talking to each other.

To function, each living cell needs both to build new and to degrade old or damaged proteins. To accomplish that, a number of intracellular systems work in concert to keep the cell healthy and from clogging up with damaged proteins. When proteins or peptides mutate, they can present major problems to the clearing up of the intracellular environment. In Huntington's disease (HD) the disease provoking mutation in the huntingtin gene eventually causes the cell to build up intranuclear and cellular inclusions of protein-aggregates, made up primarily of huntingtin.

Scientific analysis of limestone ossuaries (bone boxes) and physical evidence found in a 2,000-year-old tomb in Talpiot, Jerusalem, provide credible new information that the tomb once may have held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family. A new Discovery Channel documentary THE LOST TOMB OF JESUS, from executive producer James Cameron and director Simcha Jacobovici, exclusively reveals what might be the greatest archaeological find in history. The film presents the latest evidence from world-renowned experts in Aramaic script, ancient DNA analysis, forensics, archaeology and statistics. Among the major discoveries chronicled in the program is new evidence that Jesus and Mary Magdalene, also known as "Mariamene e Mara," may have had a son named Judah.

The future of cancer detection and treatment may be in gold nanoparticles - tiny pieces of gold so small they cannot be seen by the naked eye. The potential of gold nanoparticles has been hindered by the difficulty of making them in a stable, nontoxic form that can be injected into a patient. New research at the University of Missouri-Columbia has found that a plant extract can be used to overcome this problem, creating a new type of gold nanoparticle that is stable and nontoxic and can be administered orally or injected.

Because gold nanoparticles have a high surface reactivity and biocompatible properties, they can be used for in vivo (inside the body) molecular imaging and therapeutic applications, including cancer detection and therapy.