One of astronomy's big questions is why galaxies forming as recently as 1 billion years after the Big Bang contain so much dust. The leading hypothesis is that supernovae, stars that explode at the end of their lives, contain large amounts of metal-enriched material that, in turn, harbors key ingredients of dust, like silicon, iron and carbon.
[PRESS RELEASE, 8 April 2009] Many diseases derive from problems with cellular respiration, the process through which cells extract energy from nutrients. Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have now discovered a new function for a protein in the mitochondrion – popularly called the cell's power station – that plays a key part in cell respiration.
Wild female chimpanzees copulate more frequently with males who share meat with them over long periods of time, according to a study led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE April 8, 2009.
If you hate prune juice and chalky fiber supplements, just sit down and relax. Help is on the way. In a research report published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), a team of researchers has discovered a new way to make it a lot easier to go to the bathroom, especially when all other methods fail. Specifically, they have found a group of nerve ending receptors which, when stimulated, causes the bowels to pass waste, and the specific receptor needed to activate bowel clearance. Furthermore, they tested chemicals that work with those receptors, providing a blueprint for the development of new laxatives.
If cancer cells lack a certain protein, it could be much easier for them to penetrate healthy body tissue, the first step towards forming metastases. Scientists at the Pharmacology Institute of the University of Heidelberg have discovered the previously unknown cell signal factor SCAI (suppressor of cancer cell invasion), which inhibits the movement and spread of tumor cells in laboratory tests. When the factor's functioning was disrupted, the cancer cells moved much more effectively in what are known as three-dimensional matrix systems, which imitate some of the tissue properties of the human body.
The 9th Annual Spring Meeting of the European Society of Cardiology Council on Cardiovascular Nursing and Allied Professions (CCNAP), organised in cooperation with the Irish Nurses Cardiovascular Association (INCA), is being held at the Royal Dublin Society, Dublin, Ireland, on 24-25 April.
April 8, 2009 – (BRONX, NY) – Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have developed a simple, accurate, and highly sensitive test to detect and quantify ricin, an extremely potent toxin with potential use as a bioterrorism agent. The report appears as a featured article in the April 12th issue of Analytical Chemistry.
Ricin, a protein extracted from castor beans, can be in the form of a powder, mist, pellet or solution. When injected or inhaled, as little as one-half milligram of ricin is lethal to humans. No antidote is available. The most infamous ricin attack occurred in London in 1978, when Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov died after being stabbed with an umbrella that injected a ricin-coated pellet into his leg.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Higher doses of radiation combined with chemotherapy improve survival in patients with stage III lung cancer, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Standard treatment for this stage of lung cancer – when the tumor is likely too large to be removed through surgery – involves a combination of radiation therapy with chemotherapy. But, this new study finds, giving chemotherapy at the same time as the radiation enhances the effect of both. Further, increasing the dose of radiation over the course of treatment also increased survival.
A cancer scientist from Johns Hopkins has convinced an international group of colleagues to delay their race to find new cancer biomarkers and instead begin a 7,000-hour slog through a compendium of 50,000 scientific articles already published to assemble, decode and analyze the molecules that might herald the furtive presence of pancreatic cancer.
Candy Gunther Brown, an associate professor in the Indiana University Bloomington Department of Religious Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded a $150,000 grant to pursue research on divine healing practices and their involvement in globalization.
The grant comes from the Flame of Love Project, funded by the John Templeton Foundation. It complements a $64,500 in research funding that Indiana University has provided Brown in the past year.
DURHAM, NC – Rainforest reserves – even those disturbed by roads – provide an important buffer against fires that are devastating parts of the Brazilian Amazon, according to a new study by a trio of researchers at Duke University published April 8 in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE.
"Our findings show that reserves are making a difference even when they are crossed by roads," said lead author, Marion Adeney, a PhD candidate at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment. "We already knew, from previous studies, that there were generally fewer fires inside reserves than outside – what we didn't know was whether this holds true when you put a road across the reserve."
Reporting in the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE April 8, Vincenzo Penteriani and Maria Delgado of the Estacion Biologica de Doñana, Spain, describe the evolution of white throat badges in association with dawn and dusk vocal signals in certain species of nocturnal bird, which maximise the potential for these species to communicate during hours when light is low.
Previous research has suggested that visual communication is important only for diurnal species of bird, the variety and colour of birds' feathers being one of the best examples of the evolution of visual signalling. However, at sunset, colours become progressively indistinguishable, requiring a more effective mode of visual communication.
Wild female chimpanzees copulate more frequently with males who share meat with them over long periods of time, according to a study led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE April 8.
