During migration, polar bears reach mainland by ice. The exit to the coast is extremely important for them, as bears find food there – remains of walrused perished at coastal breeding-grounds, remainder of aboriginal population’s sea fishery, ringed seal (Pusa hispida). Pregnant females come out to the locations of hiding into maternity dens. Lagging of ice sheet arrival in the south makes a lot of bears reach mainland by swimming.
In 2005, reports appeared that polar bears were more frequ
Genetically controllable self-destruction of cells or apoptosis (originating from the Greek “apoptosis” – defoliation) – is one of important processes in animate nature. Surprising transformations of embryos as they grow, development and disappearance of organs and tissues – all these are apoptosis’ work. It can protect from disease or cancer or it can mutilate and kill, for example, in case of infarct or autoimmune diseases when a lot of cells perish at once.
Biochemists from the Scienti
The Institute of Food Science & Technology, through its Public Affairs and Technical & Legislative Committees, has authorised the following Information Statement prepared by its Professional Food Microbiology Group, dated February 2006.
SUMMARY
Mycotoxins occur widely in nature. There are several different types of these substances; all of them are produced by filamentous fungi. Organisms producing them can develop in foods at any stage in the food chain from the field t
The Institute of Food Science and Technology (IFST) has taken a lead role in addressing the threat of declining numbers of graduates entering the food industry. Over recent years there has been a drop in student interest in food-related science-based subjects with a marked reduction in students studying food-related degrees. The resultant decline in graduates in this area is a threat to the requirements of the food industry to meet the needs for growth in this essential sector.
As a re
How do shortfalls in crude oil production caused by wars and other political events in the Middle East affect oil prices, economic growth and inflation in major industrialized countries? Lutz Kilian investigates this question in CEPR Discussion Paper No. 5404 ‘The Effects of Exogenous Oil Supply Shocks on Output and Inflation: Evidence From the G7 Countries’. He notes that public discussion of this question has been shaped by the economic experience of the 1970s and early 1980s. The public’s c
Hydroelectric schemes usually generate a barrage of criticism from conservationists. But the flooding of a Venezuelan valley 20 years ago has provided ecologists with the ideal outdoor laboratory to answer one of ecology’s oldest and thorniest questions: why is the world green?
Reporting their results in the March issue of the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Ecology, a team lead by Professor John Terborgh of Duke University says that the role of predators is the
Since its introduction to the United States in 1999, West Nile virus has become the major vector-borne disease in the U.S., with 770 reported deaths, 20,000 reported illnesses, and perhaps around a million people infected. The virus is transmitted by Culex mosquitoes (the “vector”) and cycles between birds that the mosquitoes feed on. Humans can also be infected with the virus when bitten by these mosquitoes.
Scientists have struggled to explain these large outbreaks in the U.S.,
As much as neuroscientists know about the neural processes that signal touch, surprisingly little is understood about the neural correlates of conscious perception of tactile sensations. In a new study in the open-access journal PLoS Biology, Felix Blankenburg, Jon Driver, and their colleagues turn to a classic somatosensory illusion—called the cutaneous rabbit—that is perfectly suited to decoupling real and illusory touch. In the illusion, a rapid succession of taps is delivered first to the wris
The proliferation of patents in the emerging stem cell field may impede scientists from developing new treatments, says Merrill Goozner of the Center for Science in the Public Interest in the open access journal PLoS Medicine.
Patent restrictions on the use of stem cells, says Goozner, can discourage researchers from pursuing a particular line of inquiry and can slow the pace of research.
Funders of stem cell research, such as the newly created California Institute fo
Mangroves, the backbone of the tropical ocean coastlines, are far more important to the global ocean’s biosphere than previously thought. And while the foul-smelling muddy forests may not have the scientific allure of tropical reefs or rain forests, a team of researchers has noted that the woody coastline- dwelling plants provide more than 10 percent of essential dissolved organic carbon that is supplied to the global ocean from land, according to a report published 21 February in Global Biogeo
Electric power is needed in remote regions difficult of access, settlements, expeditions and at timber-felling. Where can it be obtained from? Specially for such occasions, researchers from the Moscow Institute of Heating Engineering have invented a wind turbine, which can be delivered by car in a container or by helicopter, for example, MI-26 at external load. The developers promise that the device would supply energy without interruption. “What about dead calm weather?” – you would ask. In this c
Scientists using NASA’s Swift satellite have detected a new kind of cosmic explosion. The event appears to be a precursor to a supernova, which is expected to reach peak brightness in about a week’s time. UK astronomers and their colleagues around the world are watching closely as they have never seen an explosion of this kind before.
Satellites and the world’s largest telescopes are now trained on the sight, watching and waiting. The explosion has the trappings of a gamma-ray burst (
The development of a rapidly deployable interoperable communication system for future public safety is becoming increasingly important in today’s world. For any disaster relief operation requiring multinational efforts and rapid deployment a recently tested prototype communications network offers hope.
Fresh from a recent successful test-run of its system, the IST-funded project WIDENS has succeeded in developing a prototype network that could be quickly deployed in areas where there i
Researchers in Argentina have determined that night blindness is a new clinical symptom of Chagas disease. A team led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) international research scholar Mariano Jorge Levin and Cristina Paveto of the Institute for Genetic Engineering and Molecular Biology (INGEBI), National Research Council, National Council of Scientific Research and Technology in Buenos Aires, found that the immune system of individuals with the tropical disease can shut down a key reaction
Gold compounds have been used for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases for more than 75 years, but until now, how the metals work has been a mystery. Harvard Medical School researchers report in the Feb. 27 issue of Nature Chemical Biology that special forms of gold, platinum, and other classes of medicinal metals work by stripping bacteria and virus particles from the grasp of a key immune system protein.
“We were searching for a new drug to treat autoimmun
A team of researchers from the University of Alberta, the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University and the Emory Transplant Center has successfully transplanted insulin-producing neonatal porcine islet cells into monkeys, a procedure the researchers say represents a promising intermediate solution to the critical supply problem in clinical islet cell transplantation.
“Our work at the U of A and Emory, along with recent work at the University of Minnesota, is very exciti
Feedback
