In December 2005, ESA’s highly successful XMM-Newton was given a four-year extension. The longer life necessitated a first-ever “in-flight” upgrade to the spacecraft’s mission control software.
Last year, ESA’s Science Programme Committee decided to extend operations of ESA’s hugely valuable X-ray observation mission, XMM-Newton, for four years, until 31 March 2010.
The decision was an easy choice given the incredible science results that XMM has provided since laun
In a unique double discovery, researchers at the University of Leeds have shown that massive bursts of ultrasound are generated during the first second of biting into crunchy food – and are simultaneously analysed by the ears and mouth.
Food physicist Professor Malcolm Povey explains: “Food is, in effect, talking to us and we innately understand what it’s saying about texture by interpreting the sensations through our ears and mouths. Our research shows that the sound and feel
Scientists from the University of Edinburgh have shown that the protein Mbd3 plays a crucial role in the process by which embryonic stem cells become specialised cells, such as brain or skin cells. These findings make significant advances in understanding how embryonic stem cells can be made to become all the different types of cell in the body, ultimately to be used in replacement therapies for specific diseases and injuries. This research is published online this week in the leading scientifi
A new tool to predict epidemics of malaria up to five months in advance has been developed by a scientist at the University of Liverpool.
The model uses predictions of climate variability to indicate the level of risk of an epidemic up to five months in advance of the peak malaria season – the earliest point at which predictions have ever been made. The model will assist doctors and health care providers in preventing and controlling the disease.
Malaria is one of the
Something wicked this way comes, if you’re a frog or salamander living near El Cope, Panama.
An outbreak of an infectious disease called chytridiomycosis, attributed to the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, has infected and caused rapid die-offs in eight families of Panamanian amphibians, scientists report in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
A survey of amphibian populations in central Panama has uncovered a case of chyt
VLT Study Reveals Troubled Past of Globular Cluster Messier 12
Based on observations with ESO’s Very Large Telescope, a team of Italian astronomers reports [1] that the stellar cluster Messier 12 must have lost to our Milky Way galaxy close to one million low-mass stars.
“In the solar neighbourhood and in most stellar clusters, the least massive stars are the most common, and by far”, said Guido De Marchi (ESA), lead author of the study. “Our observations with ESO’s
Largest twin study ever undertaken confirms highest estimates of genetic risk
Alzheimer disease has a genetic cause in up to 80 percent of cases, according to a University of Southern California- led study of nearly 12,000 twin pairs. The study appears in the February 2006 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, a journal of the American Medical Association.
Margaret Gatz, professor of psychology in the USC College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, led an international t
Children who spend more time watching television spend less time interacting with their family and playing creatively, report researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and Harvard Children’s Hospital in the journal Pediatrics.
By studying children’s activities over 24-hour periods, Dr. Elizabeth Vandewater and her colleagues provide evidence for the first time that supports the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) television viewing recommendations.
A
Rotavirus vaccine will protect children against a major killer worldwide
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced the licensing of a new vaccine against a disease responsible for tens of thousands of hospitalizations in the United States and hundreds of thousands of deaths around the world each year. The vaccine, developed by Merck & Co., Inc., will be sold as ROTATEQ® and will protect infants against rotavirus infection. Rotavirus is a highly contagious virus that i
Joint signing of the “Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities” by Swiss scientific organisations
The Rector’s Conference of the Swiss Universities (CRUS), the Conference of the Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences (KFH), the Swiss Conference of Schools for Teacher Education (SKPH) as well as the Council of the Swiss Scientific Academies (CASS), together with the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), have signed the so-called “Declaration o
A prototype system designed to help consumers, farmers and other interested parties trace the geographic origin of food at all stages of production from ‘farm to fork’ – storage, processing and distribution – has been developed by researchers.
In the wake of successive outbreaks of food-borne disease in the past decade (think mad cow disease, E.coli, salmonella, etc) and the current fear over the possible spread of avian flu, public demand for tighter safeguards on the entire
Corporate Sustainable Development (CSD) – also referred to as Corporate Social Responsibility – is now at the heart of business practices. Earth Observation from space has the potential to provide a global and cost-effective way to objectively measure progress towards sustainability of business activities.
ESA has begun working with large multinational companies – including Alcan, AMEC, Aon, B&Q, Lafarge, Shell, SUEZ Energy, and UPM – to integrate satellite data into CSD reportin
Cancer researchers at the University of Helsinki, Finland, in trying to find a novel tumor suppressor gene, instead found an important evolutionary change that occurred in a key developmental signalling pathway. The finding suggests a potential mechanism for evolution of complex intercellular signalling pathways. The results are published in today’s issue of the journal Developmental Cell.
A relatively small number of evolutionary conserved genes are responsible for controlling the devel
El-Niño events are both worse and more frequent than before, perhaps due to global warming. The major event in 1997-1998 burned an area in Borneo larger than Switzerland.
Besides causing massive air pollution throughout Southeast Asia, more than a hundred butterfly species were locally exterminated from the affected area. Writing in Ecology Letters, Dr. Daniel Cleary and Dutch, French, British and Canadian colleagues now present evidence for a new pattern that further dims the future of th
At the Institut Curie, CNRS and Inserm researchers have shown that Huntington’s disease may be treated using the drug FK506, which is also used clinically to prevent graft rejection. Like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, Huntington’s disease is characterized by the abnormal death of neurons.
The Institut Curie researchers have discovered that FK506 blocks the toxicity of the protein huntingtin, which causes the death of certain neurons leading to disease onset. FK506 is already used i
Making vaccines against bird ‘flu is difficult and many problems need to be overcome before production begins of a vaccine for the disease, according to an article in the February 2006 issue of Microbiology Today, the quarterly magazine of the Society for General Microbiology.
There are worldwide anxieties about the spread of influenza and mutation of the H5N1 virus to acquire the ability to transmit easily from person to person. “Since many experts believe we are on the verge o
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