Paralytic rabies after a two week holiday in India BMJ Volume 331, pp 501-3
In this week’s BMJ, experts warn travellers to get vaccinated and avoid animals when visiting areas such as Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, where rabies is common. They should also seek urgent help if they are bitten or scratched.
Their warning comes after the recent death of a British woman, bitten by a dog during a two week holiday in Goa, India.
Rabies is an a
According to two studies published today in the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) journal Gastroenterology, people with inflammatory bowel disease are more prone to developing severe disorders of the respiratory and nervous systems. The studies found an increase in the prevalence of asthma, arthritis, chronic renal disease, multiple sclerosis and psoriasis, among other disorders. “These studies remind us that the effects of inflammatory bowel disorders extend to every corner of the
Low doses of the active form of vitamin D and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, taken in combination, have been shown to act as a powerful one-two punch that knocks down the growth of prostate cancer cells.
In a study published in the journal “Cancer Research”, scientists from Stanford University discovered that the amount of both — activated vitamin D, or calcitriol, and the NSAIDs — could be reduced by half to one-tenth the dosage to thwart prostate cancer cell growth
Pomegranate fruit extracts can block enzymes that contribute to osteoarthritis according to a Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine study published in the September 2005 issue of the Journal of Nutrition.
The study looked at the ability of an extract of pomegranate fruit against Interleukin-1b (IL-1b), a pro-inflammatory protein molecule that plays a key role in cartilage degradation in osteoarthritis. Current treatments for osteoarthritis – which affects 20 mill
Prostate cancer is a cruel disease. Left untreated, prostate cancer cells often metastasize, or spread, to bone where they form fracture-prone tumors that are extremely painful.
More than 80 percent of men who die from prostate cancer die with metastatic disease in their bones. But scientists know very little about how migrating prostate cancer cells set up housekeeping in bone tissue and produce the dense bony lesions characteristic of prostate cancer.
Now, new research
Scripps Florida professor Claes Wahlestedt describes startling results of massive project
The FANTOM Consortium for Genome Exploration Research Group, a large international collection of scientists that includes researchers at The Scripps Research Institute’s Florida campus, is reporting the results of a massive multi-year project to map the mammalian “transcriptome” in this week’s issue of the journal Science.
The transcriptome, or transcriptional landscape as it is s
Scientists at Scripps Research and GNF demonstrate power of new generalized screen to find function of noncoding RNAs
A team of investigators at The Scripps Research Institute and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) have discovered a way to screen hundreds and potentially thousands of “noncoding” RNA molecules to discover their functions within cells.
Unlike traditional RNA, which is copied from DNA to code for a protein, these noncodi
Could be target to block CNS infection
A single molecular anchor that allows bacteria to invade the nervous system may hold the key to treating many types of bacterial meningitis, a University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine study has found.
By blocking the molecule’s anchoring ability, researchers may be able to find a way to stave off the most common serious infection of the central nervous system and a major cause of childhood death and disa
Editor’s Pick
Bacterial meningitis is the most common nervous system infection and a major cause of childhood death. In a new study appearing in the September 1 print issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Kelly Doran and colleagues from UCSD investigate the mechanisms responsible for the penetration of the human blood-brain barrier (BBB) by Group B Streptococcus (GBS), the bacteria that causes meningitis in newborn infants.
The authors find a novel GBS gene, called iagA
The mineral cryptomelane holds promise to absorb the toxic sulfur oxides that can degrade the emission control systems on diesel vehicles. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers have identified the potential of using cryptomelane to trap sulfur dioxide and sulfur trioxide from diesel engine emissions on monolith supports – sturdy honeycombed structures composed of small parallel channels.
Cryptomelane has a very high capacity for absorbing sulfur dioxide – more than 10 tim
As part of ongoing research to make hydrogen a mainstream source of clean, renewable energy, scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have determined how titanium atoms help hydrogen atoms attach to an aluminum surface. Their study isolates the role of titanium, which is used as a catalyst in the crucial first step to trap hydrogen within a particular class of hydrogen-storage materials. The work may also help identify and develop similar hydrogen-storag
Composite material, compression process to reduce time, cost of manufacturing bipolar plates
A single fuel cell does not produce enough energy to power a car. So fuel cells are stacked, with a bipolar plate between each cell through which electrons are conducted. The hydrogen fuel and oxygen, which are part of the fuel cell chemistry, enter the plate through channels along the face on each side of the plates. Creating the channels in the bipolar plate is a manufacturing challenge.
Brazilian researchers have sequenced the genomes of two bacteria that cause significant damage to pig and poultry farming in Brazil and elsewhere.
The researchers are now analysing the results in an attempt to identify bacterial proteins that could be used to develop vaccines and diagnostic kits against the bacteria.
Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae causes pneumonia in pigs and costs the Brazilian pig-breeding industry US$200 million each year. Mycoplasma synoviae is a related
The FANTOM Consortium for Genome Exploration Research Group and Karolinska Institutet announce the publication of “Antisense Transcription in the Mammalian Genome” in Science, September 2nd 2005.
It has been known for over half a century that our genetic material occurs as a double strand of DNA molecules. Only one of these strands – the so-called sense strand – encodes for proteins, the building blocks of our cells that in turn make up our bodies. Then what about the other DN
Astronomers and students at UK universities and observatories can use their PCs to spot stars as faint as a candle on the Moon using a record-breaking new telescope.
The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), the largest in the southern hemisphere and equal to the largest in the world, was built by partners in six countries including a UK consortium consisting of Armagh Observatory, the University of Keele, the University of Central Lancashire, the University of Nottingham, the
China’s spectacular economic growth during the last decade has brought many benefits – and some challenges. Global atmospheric mapping of nitrogen dioxide pollution performed by ERS-2’s GOME and Envisat’s SCIAMACHY reveals the world’s largest amount of NO2 hanging above Beijing and northeast China, as reported in Nature this week.
As part of ESA’s Dragon Programme, European and Chinese researchers are using results returned from the Global Ozone Mapping
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