A team of researchers from EPFL, (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), the University of Lausanne, Northwestern University and Tel Aviv University bring biology and statistical physics together to answer the question of how molecular chaperones fold, unfold and pull proteins around in the cell. Their results appear the week of April 3 in the advance online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
A series of discussions in a campus café in Lausanne has blossomed
Weekend athletes who overexert themselves running or playing basketball may one day reap the benefits of research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that shows that adult stem cells can be used to make new tendon or ligament tissue.
Tendon and ligament injuries present a major clinical challenge to orthopedic medicine. In the United States, at least 200,000 patients undergo tendon or ligament repair each year. Moreover, the intervertebral disc, which is composed in part of ten
FOR decades it has been known as the red river, the stream running through a former mining village overlooking the North Sea.
But now scientists at the University of Teesside in Middlesbrough, England, believe they have the answer to the rust-coloured staining of the river caused by ochre – the earthy pigment containing ferric oxide – that leeches out of the old underground workings 40 years after the last mines closed.
The team from Teesside University’s Clean Envir
Cancer treatment needs refinement. Any method aimed at treating a tumor, from extirpation to radiotherapy, requires a precise knowledge of the cancerous tumor margins so that the intervention on it may be performed in such a way that the possibilities of healing are maximised and the effects on surrounding healthy tissues are minimised. A group of researchers from the Department of Mathematics at the Universitat Jaume I in Castelló have implemented a mathematical method that is applied to medica
The conference programme for eLearning Africa 2006 can be viewed online at www.elearning-africa.com. The first international conference dedicated to information and communication technologies (ICT) for development, education and training in Africa takes place from 24 to 26 May in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The extensive agenda includes the deployment of eLearning in schools, universities, administration and government; the development of digital educational materials; eLearning in med
A study of the Universe’s most massive galaxy clusters has shown that mergers play a vital role in their evolution.
Astronomers at Oxford University and the Gemini Observatory used a combination of data from the twin Gemini Telescopes, located in Hawaii and Chile, and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to study populations of stars in the Universe’s most massive galaxy clusters over a range of epochs – the earliest being half the age of the Universe. The HST images were used to map
The use of Anti Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs), Drug Treatment Orders and other measures designed to help women in the sex industry could lead to more prostitutes being jailed now than fifty years ago, a researcher has claimed.
Dr Jo Phoenix, a leading sex crime researcher at the University of Bath, warned that a government strategy which was supposed to help prostitutes onto drink and drug rehabilitation programmes was in fact just a “crackdown” against them.
Speaking
The Pacific Hagfish is a strange animal: it feeds by gnawing its way into a carcass and staying inside to feed for up to 3 days. Scientists at the University of British Columbia (Canada) believe the Hagfish’s gruesome method of feeding may cause the stagnant water inside the carcass to become acidic from the build up of CO2 produced by the fish, which could explain why the fish is able to cope with environmental conditions of up to 7% CO2 (350 × that found in normal air). Dan Baker is presenting
Ever wondered how flies are able to walk on the ceiling without falling off? Scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart (Germany) are investigating this James Bond-style ability of insects to hang upside down from a ceiling. In the future such knowledge could lead to the design of tiny machines that mimic this phenomenon of nature.
The team led by Stanislav Gorb used optical sensors to measure the forces applied by each leg of a fly whilst walking freely on a smooth ceiling. They
First results from the Arecibo Galaxy Environment Survey (AGES) suggest the discovery of a new dark galaxy. The AGES survey, which started in January 2006, is the most sensitive, large-scale survey of neutral hydrogen to date. Neutral hydrogen is found in most galaxies and it is a key tool in the search for dark galaxies as it can be detected even when there are no stars or other radiation sources to “shine a light” on matter.
The new candidate dark galaxy is located near NGC1156, an appar
Astronomers at Liverpool John Moores University may have solved the mystery of how spiral galaxies in clusters are transformed over time into smooth disks. Results from a study of galaxy clusters confirms that the slow-motion conditions needed for the transformation are occurring among populations of galaxies falling towards the cluster centre.
Over the past several billion years the predominant shape of disc galaxies in clusters has changed from a spiral to a smooth disk. Theor
A study of supernova remnants – material blown out into space during death throes of giant stars – has shown that a bubble of gas enveloping our Solar System is being shoved backwards by the debris of another, more recent, supernova.
Over the last few million years, several stars have exploded within the Milky Way and they have left behind bubbles of expanding, hot gas that radiate low-energy X-rays. The Solar System sits within one of these shells, known as the “Local Hot Bubble
Scientists at UCL (University College London) have measured responses to pain in the brains of premature babies and have shown that they are likely to experience ‘true’ pain rather than simply displaying reflex reactions.
The paper, published today in The Journal of Neuroscience, illustrates that routine care procedures for premature babies, such as heel-lancing for blood tests, can cause pain in premature infants. This study, undertaken on infants in the neonatal unit at the Elizabeth G
A new image of the centre of a cluster of galaxies has revealed massive filamentary structures that give a rare insight into the evolution of galaxy clusters.
“The star forming regions in the cluster that we’d observed previously were just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve now observed filaments of gas streaming out from these regions that are approximately 490 thousand light years across. The gaseous trails mark the path of galaxies travelling at high speed through the cluster. The origin of
New computer simulations of Mercury’s formation show the fate of material blasted out into space when a large proto-planet collided with a giant asteroid 4.5 billion years ago. The simulations, which track the material over several million years, shed light on why Mercury is denser than expected and show that some of the ejected material would have found its way to the Earth and Venus.
“Mercury is an unusually dense planet, which suggests that it contains far more metal than would be exp
Scientists studying the potentially devastating animal disease, bluetongue, are calling for the assistance of farmers to help them understand the distribution of the potential carriers, certain species of Culicoides biting midges, across the UK.
Although bluetongue has not been recorded in the UK, the last eight years have seen it spread throughout much of southern and eastern Europe and climate change is allowing it to extend into more northerly areas than ever before. Recent outbreaks ha
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