All News

Technology Offerings

Segmentation Techniques for Effective Cell Movement Tracking

The segmentation techniques of the Technology Centre for Information Studies at Bremen University and the University Clinic, Würzburg allow the visualisation…

Environmental Conservation

Discovering Ivory-Billed Woodpecker Habitat in Arkansas

Elvis. That is the nickname that Larry Mallard, refuge manager for the White River National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Arkansas, uses for the ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis), now being sought in Mallard’s woods by Cornell Lab of Ornithology staffers and volunteers.

Mallard betrays a hint of mixed feelings: He has been managing the area for other endangered species, but only since the woodpecker’s rediscovery has the refuge’s conservation needs received any

Environmental Conservation

Treated Wood: Long-Term Arsenic Leaching Risks Revealed

Arsenic from treated lumber used in decks, utility poles and fences will likely leach into the environment for decades to come, possibly threatening groundwater, according to two research papers published online Wednesday.

Researchers from the University of Miami, the University of Florida and Florida International University examined arsenic leaching from chromated copper arsenate, or CCA-treated wood, from a real deck as well as from simulated landfills.

Their conclusi

Studies and Analyses

New Insights Into RNA Editing’s Role in Gene Control

For many years, scientists thought gene activity was relatively straightforward: Genes were transcribed into messenger RNA, which was processed and translated into the proteins of the body. Certainly, there were many factors governing the transcription process, but gene control happened at the level of the DNA.

In the past few years, however, evidence for a more nuanced understanding of the total genetic system has steadily accumulated. Researchers at The Wistar Institute and els

Environmental Conservation

Acetaminophen in Wastewater: Insights from NIST Study

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have published an interesting study that sheds light on the fate of a familiar pharmaceutical as it enters the waste stream. In work initially described last year, NIST chemists investigated probable chemical reactions involving acetaminophen when the drug is subjected to typical wastewater processing. Acetaminophen is the most widely used pain reliever in the United States, and a study of 139 streams by the U.S. Geological Sur

Life & Chemistry

Mechanism for Epstein-Barr virus protein’s role in blood cancers discovered

Implications for new therapeutic targets for B cell lymphomas and other EBV-associated illnesses

Earlier this year, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine identified a link between a critical cancer pathway and an Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) protein known to be expressed in a number of EBV-associated cancers. Their findings demonstrated a new mechanism by which EBV can transform human B cells from the immune system into cancerous cells, which can lead to B

Earth Sciences

How River Shifts Unlock Secrets of Asia’s Mountain Formation

Scientists have long recognized that the collision of the earth’s great crustal plates generates mountain ranges and other features of the Earth’s surface. Yet the link between mountain uplift and river drainage patterns has been uncertain. Now scientists have used laboratory techniques and sediment cores from the ocean to help explain the how rivers have changed course over millions of years.

In a report published in the December 15 issue of Nature, scientists Peter Clift of t

Physics & Astronomy

Explore Stellar Clusters: ESO’s Cosmic Christmas Discovery

Two Stunning Pictures of Young Stellar Clusters

Just like Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol takes us on a journey into past, present and future in the time of only one Christmas Eve, two of ESO’s telescopes captured various stages in the life of a star in a single image.

ESO PR Photo 42a/05 shows the area surrounding the stellar cluster NGC 2467, located in the southern constellation of Puppis (“The Stern”). With an age of a few million years at most, it is a

Health & Medicine

The Quality Of Meat

A sensor developed by a team of analytical chemists of the Voronezh Technological Academy allows you to determine the quality of meat, to learn whether it is fresh, and how long it has been kept. Researchers headed by Professor Yakov Korenman and Tatiana Kuchmenko, Doctor of Science (Chemistry), have produced a sensor which helps to quickly and accurately analyse the scent of meat; to identify the adipose and muscular tissue oxidation products through the piesoelectric microweighing method.

Environmental Conservation

Satellites Boost Rebuilding Efforts After Asian Tsunami

The deadly Indian Ocean tsunami that swept across coastlines on 26 December 2004 took the lives of more than 200 000 people. The sheer scale of the catastrophe meant that Earth Observation was vital both for damage assessment and for co-ordinating emergency activities. Through the year that followed, satellite-based maps from ESA’s Respond consortium continued to support rebuilding efforts.

Space-based assistance is being provided through Global Monitoring for Environment and

Life & Chemistry

Promising Drug Target Identified for West Nile Virus

West Nile virus (WNV) is a serious infection spreading across the world.

Spread by mosquitoes, it can cause high fever, encephalitis, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, loss of vision, numbness, paralysis and death. There is no vaccine and no cure.

Now, there is a chance that a team of researchers have identified a promising drug target.

In the latest issue of the Biochemical Journal, Alex Strongin of The Burnam Institute,

Life & Chemistry

New Benzo[b]tiophene Compounds Show Promise in Cancer Treatment

Raquel Villar Becares, in her PhD thesis at the Public University of Navarre, has developed new derivatives of benzo[b]tiophene 1,1-dioxide that enable their application in the pharmaceutical field. Moreover, the researcher tested for the antitumoural activity of these derivatives, concluding that 23 of the 24 compounds analysed proved to be active or very active against one or more of the tumoural cell lines tested.

Treatment of diabetes or high blood pressure

Alth

Health & Medicine

Simple Testing Method for Helicobacter Pylori Discovery

Specialists of the Gamalei Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Botkin Clinical Hospital have developed the method that allows to significantly simplify examination of patients suffering from stomach and duodenal diseases caused by the Helicobacter pylori bacteria. The researchers have created immunological test-system capable to discover the pathogene toxin in the patients’ saliva and faeces without resorting to traditional complicate

Life & Chemistry

MIT Researcher Discovers Neuron Growth in Adult Brain

Despite the prevailing belief that adult brain cells don’t grow, a researcher at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory reports in the Dec. 27 issue of Public Library of Science (PLoS) Biology that structural remodeling of neurons does in fact occur in mature brains.

This finding means that it may one day be possible to grow new cells to replace ones damaged by disease or spinal cord injury, such as the one that paralyzed the late actor Christopher Reeve.

Studies and Analyses

Oral Contraceptives Safe for Women with Lupus, New Study Finds

In a major study funded by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), women with either inactive or stable systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus) — a disease in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks and damages healthy tissues of the skin, joints and internal organs — were able to take oral contraceptives without increased risk of flares, or periods of increased disease activity, that characterize th

Studies and Analyses

Nervous system’s role in fatal heart rhythm studied

Finding out why seemingly healthy people experience ventricular fibrillation, a fatal irregular heart rhythm, could eventually lead to better methods of early detection, according to a Medical College of Georgia researcher.

“We don’t know what starts ventricular fibrillation or why defibrillation – electrically shocking the heart back into beating normally – works to correct it,” says Dr. Autumn Schumacher, a new faculty member in the MCG School of Nursing who recently won the Am

Feedback