In the May 1 issue of G&D, Dr. Leonard Guarente (MIT) and colleagues provide the first functional characterization of a mammalian sirtuin protein other than SIRT1. The Sir2 enzyme family, called sirtuins, is involved in a wide variety of biological processes, and are conserved from bacteria to humans.
The human genome encodes seven Sir2 homologs, termed SIRT1-7. Since their discovery in 1999, most research had focused on the role(s) of SIRT1, while the other members of this family have g
What’s up with the mist?
When the Niagara Parks Commission posed that question back in 2004, the concern was that high-rise hotels on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls were contributing to the creation of more mist, obscuring the very view that millions of tourists flock there every year to see.
The suspicion was that new high-rise buildings were altering airflow patterns, contributing to a higher, thicker mist plume.
Consultants conducted wind tunnel ex
A new technology for implants that may improve construction or repair of bones in the face, skull and jaw, has been developed by researchers from the American Dental Association Foundation (ADAF) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Described in recent and upcoming journal articles,* the new technology provides a method for making scaffolds for bone tissue. The scaffold is seeded with a patient’s own cells and is formed with a cement paste made of mi
Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have completed two extensive survey and mapping efforts to better understand why the 2005 New England red tide was so severe and to suggest what might lie ahead. WHOI Senior Scientist Don Anderson and colleagues mapped the distribution of Alexandrium fundyense cysts in seafloor sediments immediately before and after the historic harmful algal bloom of 2005.
The first of these analyses shows unusually large numbers of cysts o
New electronics
A study of how electrons behave in circuitry made from ultrathin layers of graphite – known as graphene – suggests the material could provide the foundation for a new generation of nanometer scale devices that manipulate electrons as waves – much like photonic systems control light waves.
In a paper published April 13 in Science Express, an online advance publication of the journal Science, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the C
Parts of the Caribbean and Central America are likely to experience a significant summer drying trend by the middle of this century, UCLA atmospheric scientists will report in the April 18 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Their research is based on an analysis of 10 global climate computer simulations, from the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laborator
Patients with severe sleep-disordered breathing are two to four times more likely to experience complex, abnormal heart rhythms while sleeping than individuals without the problem, according to the Sleep Heart Health Study (SHHS).
These findings appear in the April 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, published by the American Thoracic Society.
Reena Mehra, M.D., M.S., of University Hospitals of Cleveland at Case Western Reserve
Just as baby mammals depend on their mothers ’ milk, the young of the African amphibian Boulengerula taitanus nourish themselves by stripping off and eating the fat-rich outer layer of their mothers ’ skin, according to an international team of researchers that includes University of Michigan biologist Ronald Nussbaum.
The findings are reported in today ’s issue (April 13) of the journal Nature.
Hatchlings of B. taitanus—a legless amphibian that looks someth
A triangular molecule, resembling an abundant product detected in outer space, may one day find important applications on planet Earth.
Chemists at the University of California, Riverside have created in the laboratory a type of molecule thought to exist only in interstellar space, which may have valuable applications in the chemical industry.
The finding of their paper, titled Cyclopropenylidenes: From Interstellar Space to an Isolated Derivative in the Laboratory are
Devices convert simple motion into electricity
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have crafted tiny nanowires that generate electricity when they vibrate. Just like the quartz crystal in a watch, the zinc-oxide nanowires are piezoelectric, which means bending causes them to produce an electrical charge.
Only 20-40 billionths of a meter in diameter, each fiber partners with millions of others to form a nanogenerator capable of producing significant amounts o
Study says standing forest is the best rat control in Fiji Islands
The most cost-effective way to stop non-native rats and mongoose from decimating highly endangered species on larger tropical islands is not by intensive trapping, but instead by preserving the forest blocks where wildlife live, according to a study by the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and other groups.
The study, which appears in the latest issue of the journal Conservation Biology
Patients who receive healthy hearts from donors 50 years of age and older appear to fare just as well as patients who receive younger hearts, and that may be good news for potentially expanding a small donor pool, a University of Alberta study has found.
A study published in the March/April 2006 issue Journal of Cardiac Surgery reviewed the outcomes of using heart donors 50 years of age and older and discovered that there were no differences in ICU or post-operative length of hosp
The food that people eat is just as important as what kind of cars they drive when it comes to creating the greenhouse-gas emissions that many scientists have linked to global warming, according to a report accepted for publication in the journal Earth Interactions.
Both the burning of fossil fuels during food production and non-carbon dioxide emissions associated with livestock and animal waste contribute to the problem, the University of Chicago’s Gidon Eshel and Pamel
Scientists have reported an unprecedented number of unaccompanied and possibly abandoned walrus calves in the Arctic Ocean, where melting sea ice may be forcing mothers to abandon their pups as the mothers follow the rapidly retreating ice edge north.
Nine lone walrus calves were reported swimming in deep waters far from shore by researchers aboard the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy during a cruise in the Canada Basin in the summer of 2004. Unable to forage for themselves, th
University Georgia researchers have developed an anti-microbial treatment that adheres to the skin without being toxic.
Already, the treatment has helped heal Spirit, a burned dog in a high-profile animal cruelty case, and Gasper, a beluga whale at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.
The researchers envision a human application for the technology, which they’re currently seeking to patent.
Dr. Bran Ritchie, a distinguished research scientist in the department o
Smart coatings that should allow cash machine, mobile phone and laptop display screens to be read much more easily in bright sunlight could soon be on the way, thanks to a major research project unveiled today.
Scientists from the University of Abertay Dundee and the University of Greenwich are joining forces with specialist screen and thin film coatings manufacturers in the £600,000 ENDSENSE project, which is part-funded by the Department of Trade & Industry.
The two-y
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