Up to now it was thought that nutrients penetrated the interior of plant cells by means of substance-specific transporters. Nevertheless, researchers at the Agrobiotechnology Institute at the Public University of Navarra have shown that the nutrients (saccharose, amino-acids, etc.) penetrate the cells basically through an “endocitic”, mechanism similar to fagocitosis, and induced by saccharose. This finding, carried by the latest issue of the Japanese journal, Plant Cell Physiology, will enable th
The most detailed portrait ever of the Earth’s land surface is being created with ESA’s Envisat environmental satellite. The GLOBCOVER project aims at producing a global land cover map to a resolution three times sharper than any previous satellite map.
It will be a unique depiction of the face of our planet in 2005, broken down into more than 20 separate land cover classes. The completed GLOBCOVER map will have numerous uses, including plotting worldwide land use tren
The humble snail is helping scientists at the University of Sussex to explore ways of treating memory loss in humans.
Drug manufacturers are looking at ways to create a “Viagra for the brain”, which could alleviate memory loss, one of the distressing symptoms of diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Work carried out by Dr George Kemenes, Senior Fellow in the Department of Biology and Environmental Science at the University of Sussex, will hopefully help to show how such drugs could
Increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will make global temperatures rise. By studying soil cores from the Arctic, scientists have discovered that this rise in temperature stimulates the growth of microorganisms that can break down long-term stores of carbon, releasing them into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. This will lead to further increases in global temperatures.
Carbon is held in soil either in material that is easily degraded by chemical and bact
A paper published in Nature, by scientists at the Universities of Sheffield and Warwick and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, describes how experts have used X-rays to see structures in unprecedented detail at the atomic scale. The technique is 100 times more sensitive than any other method, and has the potential to allow scientists to improve things like data storage, healthcare sensors and security systems.
Prof Mike Gibbs, of the Department of Engineering Materials at the
An international team of scientists from Israel, the United States and Germany, led by Prof. Amatzia Genin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat, has provided, for the first time, evidence of the remarkable dynamics responsible for the formation of large aggregations of microscopic animals in the ocean.
From the surface, the ocean appears to be vast and uniform. But beneath the surface, countless number of tiny, nearly
By designing a molecular bridge, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have forged a successful pathway through a complex ocean of barriers: They’ve changed the function of a protein using a co-evolution approach.
In a study to be published in the Journal of Molecular Biology, doctoral student Zhilei Chen and Huimin Zhao, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, describe what they call a “simple and efficient method for creation of novel prote
A Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center team is launching a high-tech study to determine if early screening using a special camera and images transmitted over the Internet can prevent blindness in Medicaid patients with diabetes.
“Medicaid patients are rarely screened and are at risk of becoming blind,” said Ramon Velez, M.D., M. Sc., the principal investigator. Diabetes is the leading cause of preventable blindness in the United States and Velez said the study will
While the incidence of disease from HIV and hepatitis is increasing in the United States, little is known about their prevalence in patients undergoing surgery. Now, researchers have shown that nearly 40 percent of surgeries at The Johns Hopkins Hospital occur in patients who tested positive for a bloodborne germ.
“While these rates are alarming, they are not entirely unexpected. General precautions have been in effect for some time to prevent the spread of disease to health
Duke University Medical Center researchers have found that the presence of specific variants of genes that control clotting and the contractility, or “tone,” of blood vessels can double the ability of physicians to predict those heart surgery patients at greatest risk of bleeding after surgery.
The issue of post-operative bleeding is important, the researchers said, because patients who suffer such episodes have increased rates of additional medical problems and even deat
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have developed a new method for identifying specific proteins in whole cell extracts of microorganisms using traditional peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF). The key to the new method, according to the researchers, is a “shortcut” for preparing samples that makes PMF faster and more economical. By reducing the cost of protein identification, they believe PMF can become an economical tool for monitoring and evaluating the effective
A molecular change that takes place during the progression of malignant brain tumors also occurs in breast cancer, according to a study conducted at Cedars-Sinai’s Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute. The shift appears to be part of a process that enables tumors to develop the new blood vessels they need to grow rapidly, migrate and invade other tissue.
Although the switch is evident even in an early stage of breast cancer when cells are proliferating but not infiltrating no
Psychological treatment that teaches children to face their fears is the most effective treatment for pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), according to a new Mayo Clinic analysis of previously published research.
The treatment, a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) called exposure and response prevention, produces almost twice as much benefit compared with medications used for childhood OCD, says Jonathan Abramowitz, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic psychologist and lead res
Neurotech SA announced positive results from an open-label Phase I clinical trial (03-EI-0234) of its lead product, NT-501. NT-501 uses Neurotech’s patented Encapsulated Cell Technology (ECT) as a device to deliver ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) to eyes of visually impaired patients with retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Neurotech is a biotechnology company specializing in the development of novel therapeutics to treat diseases of the eye. The company is headquartered in Paris.
Results of
Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health have examined the effect of eating nuts on cardiovascular health, reports the Harvard Men’s Health Watch. “Their work shows that nuts really are healthy, especially for men at risk for heart disease,” says Dr. Harvey B. Simon, editor.
Studies show that healthy men, and those who have already suffered a heart attack, can reduce cardiovascular risk by eating nuts regularly, reports the Harvard Men&
When last week’ s issue of The New England Journal of Medicine published a paper on iron-overload disorders, one of the authors already knew a reason why the condition is under-diagnosed: Many front-line physicians don’t think of it when patients who complain of fatigue and who have arthritis, impotence, diabetes or cirrhosis of the liver.
That’s important, because the condition is easily treated if detected early. UAB’s Ronald T. Acton, Ph.D. “Although simple treatment by drawing b
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