In 75 years’ time, the UK could be plagued by fly populations 250% up on today’s levels if forecasts of climate change prove accurate, ecologists have warned. Writing in a special climate change issue of the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology, Dave Goulson and colleagues from the University of Southampton found that if the worst case scenario for climate change occurs – a 5 deg C rise in temperature by 2080 – house fly numbers in the UK could explode.
Studie
In spring 2005 a large European research and training network was established to investigate the causes and implications of poor sleep from the medical as well as from the social point of view. This EU-financed sleep research project, named “The biomedical and sociological effects of sleep restriction” will last for four years and is coordinated by Dr. Tarja Porkka-Heiskanen (Stenberg) MD, PhD, at the University of Helsinki, Institute of Biomedicine.
The objective of this sleep restriction
Good news for TV addicts. Soon they will have the possibility to watch their favourite TV programmes wherever they may be as a result of new chipsets for digital TV from a dynamic French electronics company.
Founded in 2000, DiBcom designs high-performance, low power consuming chipsets – based on their patented algorithms and architectures – which enable mobile TV. This means digital television will be available for cars, laptops, PCs and portable LCD TV, and even mobile devices s
A University of York scientist has won the world’s most prestigious award for the excellence of his research into carbohydrates.
The International Carbohydrate Organization is to present the Roy L Whistler International Award for 2006 to Professor Gideon Davies, of the University’s Department of Chemistry.
Professor Davies is only the second UK-based scientist to win the award, which recognises scientists “who have made contributions of excellence in carbohydrat
Science researchers from the University of Versailles (France), in collaboration with the ID31 beam line at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), report their progress in the design and characterisation of microporous materials. The combination of adept chemistry and computational design made possible the synthesis of a new material, named MIL-101 by its originators, (where MIL stands for Matériaux de l’Institut Lavoisier), with very large internal pores (ø~3.4nm) and surface area
The October issue of the Royal Astronomical Society’s journal, “Astronomy and Geophysics”, contains the following feature articles.
Ptolemy, Babylon and the Rotation of the Earth
Many authors have questioned Ptolemy’s account of a lunar eclipse that was supposedly observed by the Babylonians. John Steele finds that Ptolemy was right to believe that Babylonian observers saw the eclipse of 23 December 383 BC – which poses a problem that can be solved by invoking a large c
For many areas of the West, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMS) overestimate the amount of land area within the 100-year floodplain. New research suggests a way to improve the maps.
The new three-pronged approach combines a new numerical computer model with two additional methods, satellite-image analysis and field observations. Each method serves as a check on the other two. The research team focused on the floodplains for a 10-year f
Adult stem cell therapy quickly and significantly improves recovery of motor function in an animal model for the ischemic brain injury that occurs in about 10 percent of babies with cerebral palsy, researchers report.
Within two weeks, treated animals were about 20 percent less likely to favor the unaffected side of their bodies and experienced about a 25 percent improvement in balance, compared to untreated controls, Medical College of Georgia researchers say.
Their fi
Interferon — a critical protein that mediates the body’s defense against a wide variety of infectious agents and tumors — may soon have greater therapeutic value as the result of a new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
“Essentially, we found a way to grease the gears that drive the interferon signal,” says Michael J. Holtzman, M.D., the Selma and Herman Seldin Professor of Medicine and director of the Division of Pulmonary and
3-Dimensional Imaging of Motor Proteins Provides New Insights to Molecular Mechanics of Cell Motility, Muscle Contraction
Scientists from the Burnham Institute for Medical Research and the University of Vermont have captured the first 3-dimensional (3D) atomic-resolution images of the motor protein myosin V as it “walks” along other proteins, revealing new structural insights that advance the current model of protein motility and muscle contraction. The culmination of four years o
Mayo Clinic research reinforces the importance of blood sugar control from onset of diabetes to prevent nerve damage later
Mayo Clinic researchers have found that subtle change in nerve conduction is the first reliable sign of nerve complications from diabetes and that this change can be measured long before other symptoms or signs of nerve damage develop.
“We’ve found what we believe is the earliest sign of nerve change due to diabetes,” says Peter J. Dyck, M.D., Mayo
Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers have linked alterations in a gene, called Rsf-1, to the most deadly ovarian cancers. The scientists say the discovery is the first to establish a role for the gene in ovarian cancer and may lead to a test that can predict, early on, which patients will develop aggressive disease.
“We hope new therapies can be tailored to target Rsf-1, in the same way that Herceptin for breast cancer attacks the Her2/neu gene pathway,” says Tian-Li
New genes tied to lifespan extension in yeast have been identified by researchers from UC Davis and Harvard Medical School.
Drastically reducing calorie intake, or caloric restriction, is known to extend the lifespan of species including yeast, worms and rodents. Previous research linked a gene called Sir2 with lifespan extension due to caloric restriction, but worms and yeast that lack Sir2 also live longer when put on a tough diet, showing that some other genes must be at work
Gleevec (Imatinib) is a representative of the newest generation of cancer drugs. The substance conveys its potent anti-proliferative effect by selectively supressing the tyrosine kinase pathway. The Giessen lung researchers now issue a first report of this substance as a new target therapy for pulmonary hypertension. „In cancer, tissue proliferation is uncontrolled and leads to the spreading of the tumor,” primary investigator Prof. Friedrich Grimminger of the University of Giessen Lung Center e
Dr. Maki Asano and colleagues have discovered a novel protein motif that regulates Drosophila cell cycle progression by targeting the origin recognition complex (ORC1) for degradation by the ubiquitin ligase, APC. The ORC destruction box, or the “O-box” as is it called, may serve a more widespread role in the proteosomal degradation of various cell cycle factors in other eukaryotes, as well.
This work reveals a heretofore unknown mechanism for the degradation of Drosophila ORC1 by the APC
Researchers from NASA, the National Snow and Ice Data Center and others using satellite data have detected a significant loss in Arctic sea ice this year.
On Sept. 21, 2005, sea ice extent dropped to 2.05 million sq. miles, the lowest extent yet recorded in the satellite record. Incorporating the 2005 minimum using satellite data going back to 1978, with a projection for ice growth in the last few days of this September, brings the estimated decline in Arctic sea ice to 8.5 percent
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