Nitrogen oxides produced by huge fires and fossil fuel combustion are a major component of air pollution. They are the primary ingredients in ground-level ozone, a pollutant harmful to human health and vegetation.
But new research led by a University of Washington atmospheric scientist shows that, in some regions, nitrogen oxides emitted by the soil are much greater than expected and could play a substantially larger role in seasonal air pollution than previously believed.
The key to understanding our brains may lie within a one-millimeter long worm, new research from Rockefeller University indicates. Reporting in the June issue of Developmental Cell, Shai Shaham, Ph.D., and graduate student Elliot Perens use the roundworm, C. elegans, to investigate the mysterious glial cell, which makes up 90 percent of the human brain and, when it malfunctions, can contribute to diseases like Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia.
Studying glial cells is technic
Sustainable energy source could solve Bermuda Triangle riddle
Experts at Cardiff University, UK, have designed world-first technology to investigate sustainable energy sources from the ocean bed by isolating ancient high-pressure bacteria from deep sediments.
Scientists and engineers at Cardiff University are investigating bacteria from deep sediments which despite high pressures (greater than 1,000 atmospheres), gradually increasing temperatures (from an icy 2°C to over
Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Danish Committee of Pig Breeding and Production (DCPBP) jointly announce the public release of pig genomic sequences. The released sequence data include 3.84 million pieces of the genomes of five different domestic pig breeds from Europe and China. The data are generated from the first large scale pig genome sequencing effort, the Sino-Danish Pig Genome Project, started in 2001 on the basis of a long standing collabor
A submarine seismic sensor was recently set in place at 2400 m depth, off Toulon. The instrument was attached to a neutrino telescope developed by the international scientific programme Antares (1) . For the first time in Europe, this sensor, designed by a partnership between Géosciences Azur (Mixed Research Unit IRD/CNRS/UPMC/UNSA, Villefranche sur Mer)(2) and Guralp System (United Kingdom), with the financial support of INSU, Villefranche Oceanological Observatory and the Provence-Alpes-Côte d
The office that astronomer Lei Hao shares with her fellow research associates on the first floor of the Space Sciences Building at Cornell University is tidy and organized. But Hao has been thinking a lot lately about dust.
Actually, she’s recently found a great deal of it. And she’s thrilled.
The dust in question is between 0.88 billion and 2.4 billion light years away from Hao’s office, in galaxies scientists classify as active galactic nuclei (AGNs
A single injection of a genetically engineered virus has shown promise as a treatment for patients with colorectal cancer that has spread to the liver, according to preliminary results reported today at the 2nd ESMO Scientific & Educational Conference (ESEC) in Budapest, Hungary.
In their phase I study, Professor Nancy Kemeny from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and colleagues tested an oncolytic Herpes simplex virus (oHSV). These viruses selectively kill can
Researchers successfully image delivery and gene expression of DNA nanoparticles into lungs of CF mice
Researchers at the American Society of Gene Therapy Meeting in St. Louis announced that by using imaging technologies, they are able to successfully trace the delivery of DNA nanoparticles and the extent of gene transfer in the lungs of cystic fibrosis (CF) animals. The study represents an important step in developing gene therapy for cystic fibrosis and other serious lung disease
Robertson and colleagues state that folic acid fortification has not yet had the expected effect of reducing homocysteine levels, which are associated with carotid plaque area, a strong predictor of cardiovascular events.
The authors measured levels of serum vitamin B12, homocysteine and carotid plaque in 421 patients referred to vascular disease prevention clinics and found that vitamin B12 deficiency was surprisingly common. They found that, in a subset of 224 patients whose creati
Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) have discovered a quick new way that mosquitoes can pass West Nile virus to each other. The new study challenges fundamental assumptions about the virus’ transmission cycle and may help explain why it spread so rapidly across North America despite experts’ predictions that it would progress more slowly or even die out. In the conventional understanding of West Nile transmission, mosquitoes acquire the virus when
Although morphine is well known as a highly effective analgesic, its clinical utility is severely limited by the development of drug tolerance, the requirement for increasing doses to maintain analgesic effect, and the development of physical dependence. In the June 7 issue of Current Biology, researchers report a new study showing that the administration of a drug cocktail containing morphine along with small doses of two versions of methadone, a related opioid drug, significantly reduced both tole
Journal of the American College of Cardiology study
A simple blood test can quickly identify what type of congestive heart failure (CHF) a patient has, improving diagnostic accuracy; eliminating the need for extensive diagnostic tests, such as heart muscle biopsy or exploratory surgery; and enabling the patient to be treated sooner, according to a study published in the June 7 Journal of the American College of Cardiology. After blood is drawn, the test results are ready in 15 minu
Monkeys can match the number of voices they hear to the number of faces they expect to see, Duke University scientists have found. The finding indicates that numerical perception is truly an abstract concept and not just a function of a particular sense, said the researchers. The experimental approach also will lead to further studies exploring whether human infants, before they have a verbal capacity, understand similar abstract numerical concepts, they said.
The researchers,
Researchers supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have found that half of all lifetime cases of mental illness begin by age 14, and that despite effective treatments, there are long delays — sometimes decades — between first onset of symptoms and when people seek and receive treatment. The study also reveals that an untreated mental disorder can lead to a more severe, more difficult to treat illness, and to the development of co-occurring mental illnesses.
Cranberry juice, long considered a home remedy for urinary tract infections, may also be effective against a number of gastrointestinal viruses according to researchers from St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York. They report their findings today at the 105th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.
“The addition of commercially available cranberry juice cocktail to intestinal viruses resulted in viral reductions below detectible infectivity levels,” says Patrice
Motorway Traffic Control Centres use a range of sensors for traffic surveillance and control. The shortcomings of one type, magnetic loop detectors, has led researchers to successfully develop algorithms for alternative video sensors.
“Loop detectors have a short life span of two to three years before they break,” explains project partner Jo Versavel, General Manager, Traficon, Belgium. “They are also very expensive to repair because they involve road closings. Another drawback
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