Findings reported in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine (November 3 issue) highlight promising findings from two Seattle-based researchers on the origins of bacterial vaginosis (BV).
In a collaborative effort to identify specific bacterial markers for bacterial vaginosis in vaginal-fluid samples, David Fredricks, MD, of the Program in Infectious Diseases, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Jeanne Marrazzo, MD, MPH, of the University of Washington and Harborv
Theory could result in faster artificial muscles
Robots, both large and micro, can potentially go wherever it’s too hot, cold, dangerous, small or remote for people to perform any number of important tasks, from repairing leaking water mains to stitching blood vessels together.
Now MIT researchers, led by Professor Sidney Yip, have proposed a new theory that might eliminate one obstacle to those goals – the limited speed and control of the “artificial muscles” that perf
A new report on initiatives taken to further sustainable forest management in Canada is now available.
The National Forest Strategy Coalition has just released a report on its accomplishments from 2003 to 2005. These include the establishment of a national council to coordinate and enhance research and development efforts among government and industry; new strategies for dealing with forest threats, such as insects, fire and climate change; and collaborative efforts to advance
From the Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology
Approximately 9% of children with an allergy to tree nuts will outgrow their allergy, including children who have previously experienced a severe allergic reaction, according to a study in the November 2005 Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology (JACI). The JACI is the peer-reviewed, scientific journal of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI).
Up to this point, researchers thought that allergies
Biological Psychiatry publishes novel approach to winter blues
For patients with seasonal affective disorder (SAD), starting treatment with an antidepressant medication during the fall can reduce the risk of developing depression throughout the fall and winter months, reports a study in the Oct. 15 issue of Biological Psychiatry, official journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier, a world-leading scientific and medical publisher.
“These are
Study implicates viral-mediated cell fusion as a possible engine of tumor formation
In some cases, the fusion of human cells is a normal process that leads, for instance, to the formation of muscle and bone. Viral infections can also cause cell fusion, but cells fused by viruses are widely considered to be harmless because they are generally believed to die without consequences for the host. According to a recent study, however, cell fusion triggered by viruses is a possible
With sidebar on ways to prevent heartburn, a risk factor for Barrett’s esophagus
Aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ibuprofen, may significantly reduce the risk of esophageal cancer among people with Barrett’s esophagus, a precancerous condition associated with chronic heartburn that affects an estimated 1 million to 2 million Americans.
These findings, by Thomas L. Vaughan, M.D., M.P.H., and colleagues at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research
The first study to use a cannabis-based medicine (CBM) for treating rheumatoid arthritis has found that it has a significant effect on easing pain and on suppressing the disease.
Writing in the medical journal Rheumatology [1], the researchers say that although the differences were small and variable in the group of 58 patients they studied, the results are statistically significant and a larger trial is needed to investigate in more detail the effects of CBM on the disease whi
Researchers from Bradford and London have been awarded a grant to examine emerging new forms of the traditional family unit and how people value a commitment to them.
Professor Simon Duncan, from the University of Bradford’s department of Social Sciences and Humanities, has been given a research grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to work with Miranda Phillips from the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) in London.
Their research, entitled
The European spacecraft Venus Express has been successfully placed into a trajectory that will take it on its journey from the Earth towards its destination of the planet Venus, which it will reach next April. A virtual twin sister of the Mars Express spacecraft which has been orbiting the Red Planet since December 2003, Venus Express is the second planet-bound probe to be launched by the European Space Agency.
Venus Express will eventually manoeuvre itself into orbit around Ven
The University of the West of England (UWE) and Management Process Systems (MPS) have been awarded a grant of over £68,000 from the Department of Trade and Industry to form a new Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP). The project’s aim is to develop an innovative way of calculating the costs and benefits of collaborative and workflow IT business support systems in the construction industry.
The construction industry is worth £57 billion in the UK alone, but many construction project
Three young scientists in the University of York’s Department of Chemistry have developed a gel that could spare cancer patients some of the unpleasant and dangerous side-effects of radiotherapy.
PhD students Andrew Wilson and Paul Watson, together with post-doctoral research fellow Mark Godber, have developed the gel which will help doctors to target cancer tumours more efficiently.
Now, the group has secured £30,000 under the Bioscience Yorkshire Enterprise Fellowship s
FameLab – a national competition to discover the new faces of UK science launched today in London (Tuesday 8 November 2005). The competition -dubbed the science world’s equivalent of Pop Idol – is the brainchild of the Cheltenham Science Festival and NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) and supported by Pfizer, The Daily Telegraph, Research Councils UK and Channel 4.
Now in its second year, FameLab encourages scientists to inspire and excite public
LGC, Europe’s leading independent analytical laboratory providing advanced chemical, biochemical and forensic analysis, has announced an exclusive agreement with King’s College London to offer the first pharmacogenetic screening service which will predict whether a patient with schizophrenia will respond positively to the antipsychotic drug clozapine. Developed following 13 years of research by Professor Robert Kerwin and Dr Maria Arranz from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s, the test wi
As the white wizard of Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings, Gandalf had some astounding abilities. As his modern namesake, the GANDALF project is set to cast a spell over the Internet world by offering unprecedented data transfer rates seamlessly over both fixed-line and wireless.
GANDALF has developed a groundbreaking technique to increase data rates by a thousand-fold compared to existing DSL and a hundred-fold compared to WiFi. The technology also allows data to flow seamlessly o
In an upcoming issue, the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics will publish the most complete picture of a “triggered” star-forming region. Induced (or “triggered”) star formation is one of the processes that are supposed to lead to the formation of massive stars. Massive stars play a key role in the chemical and dynamical evolution of galaxies. The way massive stars form is still much debated among the astronomers’ community: it is currently one of the hottest astrophysical topics. Do they form by a
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