Cancer vaccines are being investigated in early-phase clinical trials around the world, with many of those trials recruiting patients with melanoma. Although tumor regressions have been seen in 10% to 20% of patients with metastatic melanoma, the great promise of cancer vaccines – controlling tumor growth and cancer spread without serious side-effects – remains as yet unrealized. This could be set to change with the publication of a new mouse model technology in Cancer Research, the journal of t
Venus Express mission controllers at ESA’s Space Operations Centre (ESOC) are in intensive preparation for an 11 April arrival at the spacecraft’s namesake destination.
The critical manoeuvre will involve a deft combination of basic physics, expert spacecraft engineering and precise timing.
Next month’s Venus Orbit Insertion (VOI) will mark the arrival of the first ESA mission at Venus, one of the Solar System’s most enigmatic planets.
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A team of three scientists and engineers from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UK, and the Astronomical Institute of the University of Wroclaw, Poland, are travelling to Libya to observe the total eclipse of the Sun on March 29th 2006. They will be using an instrument designed to understand why the Sun’s outer atmosphere is so hot.
The solar atmosphere or corona, which is normally only visible from the Earth at times of total solar eclipses, has a temperature of 1—2 million degrees
JA-YE Europe held its 2006 European Trade Fair from 23 to 25 March in Zagreb, Croatia. The event brought together 500 young entrepreneurs from 22 European countries, representing 70 student companies. The event was an opportunity for JA-YE secondary school student companies to show off their innovative ideas, to sell their products and services in a public setting and share their entrepreneurial spirit.
Educating young people about entrepreneurship will undoubtedly produce successful l
The EUREKA E! 2587 VI-TIS project has developed new instrumentation and devised modelling software to boost the quality of European wine while reducing overall production costs.
Close co-operation between French and Spanish equipment, wine-making and agricultural research partners has resulted in the development of highly automated precision farming technology aimed at helping wine growers around the world to improve the quality of their output and better control their prod
Proposals by environmentalists to declare small areas of the North Sea as no-fishing zones would not save our flagging fish stocks, suggests a new report by Newcastle University for the British Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. (DEFRA).
Marine protected areas (MPAs) would need to be tens of thousands of square miles in size – at least as big as the size of Wales – and would need to be established for decades to restore levels of cod and haddock, says the re
Wireless sensor networks consisting of multiple objects, each capable of simple sensing, actuation, communication and processing have tremendous potential. To better realise their full capabilities researchers are developing a broad vision of innovative future applications.
Wireless sensor networks are a typical example of a network of ‘cooperating objects’, tiny embedded computers that cooperate together to produce an intended result. Such embedded systems, be they tiny processo
As we all know, a healthy diet involves greens, beans and fruits. Folate, a B vitamin abundant in each of these food groups, may not be a household name, but a high folate diet is certainly well-known to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. Interestingly, scientists have never clearly understood the process by which folate fully benefits us. In a new study published in this month’s issue of the scientific journal Circulation Research, MUHC investigators shed light on the mysterious conn
Modern medicine has the desire to replace damaged tissue with newly grown tissue, such as to repair skin, bone, cartilage, or arteries. But what kinds of surfaces could be used to grow suitable tissues?
Suolong Ni, a graduate student in chemistry at Virginia Tech, has fabricated a biopolymer onto solid surfaces with a range of properties to enable the study of the effects of different surfaces on cell adhesion and tissue growth. He will present his research in the Excellence in Graduate Po
The U.S. Navy needs lighter materials so ships will go further faster. One way to do that is to use new composite materials. But how will these materials respond to fire — one of the most critical safety concerns on a ship? Virginia Tech material scientists have developed models to test composites for fire resistance – and have a recommendation.
John Bausano, a doctoral student in the chemistry-engineering interdisciplinary Macromolecular Science and Infrastructure Engineering program at
Western ideal of a perfect figure is having a negative effect on Chinese boys and girls, USC study finds.
Chinese teens who think of themselves as fat, even if they were normal or underweight, are at a greater risk for depression and school-related stress, a new USC study has found.
Girls who said they were overweight reported an overall grade point average of 3.06 versus 3.20 for other girls, according to the study of nearly 7,000 middle- and high-school students in se
Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) have found evidence in eastern North America that the snow is melting and running off into rivers earlier than it did in the first half of the 20th century. According to a USGS study published in the most recent issue of Geophysical Research Letters, winter-spring flows in many rivers in the northern United States and Canada are occurring earlier by 5-10 days.
“We studied rural, unregulated rivers with more than 50 years of USGS and Envir
Finding leads to new conclusions about marine environment
New evidence from open-sea experiments shows there’s a constant shuffling of genetic material going on among the ocean’s tiny plankton. It happens via ocean-dwelling viruses, scientists report this week in the journal Science.
Conducted by biological oceanographers Sallie Chisholm and her colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the research is uncovering a new facet of evolution and helpi
Laparoscopy proves safe, reduces hospital stay, and results in improved quality of life
In a pair of studies presented today at the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists 37th Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer, researchers have found in a large randomized trial of laparoscopy versus laparotomy for surgical treatment of uterine (endometrial) cancer that laparoscopy is safe, and when successfully completed reduces hospital stay by 50 percent, and contributes to a better quality of life
Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have synthesized chemicals that are up to 10 times more effective than isoniazid, the leading anti-tuberculosis drug. The finding could lead to badly needed new drugs for combating tuberculosis bacteria, which each year kill an estimated 2.4 million people worldwide. The study appears in the March issue of Chemistry & Biology.
One of the chemicals, 2-HA, was found to be four times more lethal than isoniazid a
Farmers who plant more crops, increase irrigation coverage and till the land less can have a profound effect on climate.
Climate scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory found that models that included recent changes in agricultural practices, such as more irrigation, higher yielding crops, and less tillage, predicted lower temperatures than models that ignored these factors.
“Nearly all models used to predict climate changes either ignore agriculture alt
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