Duke University theoreticians said their predictions helped guide the efforts of experimenters using Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) atom smasher to create an almost perfectly flowing fluid of hot, dense matter.
Duke physics professor Berndt Mueller and assistant physics professor Steffen A. Bass said that some of the experimental evidence would also support the idea that these collisions have recreated a state of matter — a quark-glu
Research could lead to new drugs for HIV
The increased frequency of drug resistance in isolates of the AIDS virus, HIV, makes identification of new antiviral targets an urgent necessity. Host genes required to support the replication of HIV are a potential source of such novel targets, but relatively few appropriate target genes have been identified in animal cells thus far. A new study, conducted by Dr. Suzanne Sandmeyer and colleagues at the University of California, reports t
Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have developed a way to test whether the new targeted therapy Tarceva and the widely used chemotherapy drug Taxol are effectively killing tumor cells. They say that with further refinement, the test may make it possible to accurately assess whether patients are responding to these agents, as well as potentially others, within days of beginning therapy.
In two different studies being presented at the annual meetin
The beginnings of precious metals like gold can be traced to the blink of an eye in an exploding star billions of years ago, and scientists at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) at Michigan State University have been able to scrutinize a crucial step in that process.
By reproducing the processes inside supernovas in a laboratory, scientists have resurrected an isotope of nickel – one that no longer exists in nature, but is an important link in the birth of t
Ever wondered where your family’s ancestors roamed 60,000 years ago?
Now you can find out by participating in the world’s most ambitious project tracing the genetic and migratory history of the human race. Members of the general public from all over the world can supply their DNA to the Genographic Project, and scientists at The University of Arizona in Tucson will do the genetic analysis. The public DNA sampling is part of a larger undertaking to unravel the origins and migra
Although large evolutionary radiations producing many species have captured the attention of biologists, comparison of the sizes of evolutionary lineages show that unusually small groups with few species are more frequent than one would expect from a model of random speciation and extinction.
Among songbirds (Passeriformes), more than 30 of 106 tribe-level taxonomic groups have five or fewer species, compared to the average size of 54 species and a maximum of more than 10 times tha
South American floras are famous for their high species diversity. However, because of the undersampled South American plant-fossil record, remarkably little is known about how long this floral richness has existed. The Patagonian region of Argentina is an ideal place to study the history of South American plant diversity: fifty million years ago, Patagonia had humid subtropical forests with luxuriant vegetation, and today some of these forests are beautifully preserved in desert rock exposures a
Understanding the large-scale processes that shape distributions of species diversity is a long-standing challenge in ecology and can also help set conservation priorities. Regions with highly diverse or unique organisms may be targeted for conservation, but how such a region acquired its species could affect how they should be protected.
Without near-perfect records of where organisms have occurred throughout the past, it can be difficult to determine the processes underlying dive
Randomized strategies versus evolutionary branching
This new study, which will appear in the June 2005 issue of The American Naturalist, asserts that an individual could use his/her genotype as an informative cue when “deciding” which phenotype to develop. This is a new way of looking at certain kinds of genetic polymorphism. Some species have alternative phenotypes, which are different categories of adult individuals specialized for particular circumstances. For instance, if p
Potentially deadly blood clots are being missed in children, and more research and awareness is needed in the medical community, according to a study done in part at the University of Alberta.
“We don’t think of blood clots occurring in children, but they do,” said Dr. Patricia Massicotte, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Alberta, and one of the study’s authors.
A review of treatments for pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE) in children, conducted by
Finding explains the development of different forms of the disease
Frequently referred to as a silent killer, ovarian cancer offers few clues to its presence, often until it has spread beyond the ovary to other tissues. Early detection has been difficult because ovarian cancer is not a single disease, but appears in many forms, with each form behaving differently. Now researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have explained how and why different forms
Understanding the interaction of Fragile X mental retardation protein and kissing complex RNAs
Fragile X syndrome is the most common inherited form of mental retardation, affecting approximately 1 in 3600 males and 1 in 4000-6000 females. Fragile X syndrome results from loss of expression of the Fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP), the product of the FMR1 gene. Now, Drs. Robert and Jennifer Darnell and colleagues, from The Rockefeller University, report the uncovering of
Researchers from the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University have shown how an ingredient found in chocolate seems to exert its anti-cancer properties — findings that might be used one day to design novel cancer treatments. The study, published in the April issue of the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, explains how pentameric procyanidin (pentamer), a natural compound found in cocoa, deactivates a number of proteins that likely work in concert to push a cancer cell t
AZTI has drawn up some 40 tables for freshness specific for the most important commercial species in southern Europe, including fish and shellfish. The sensorial method, known as QIM (Quality Index Method) and introduced into Europe some years ago, is being applied to a greater number of species, including some in the frozen state. Concretely, for species of interest in our waters, AZTI has specific schemes for each species of commercial importance that the inspectors use.
Evaluat
ESA’s SMART-1 mission to the Moon has been monitoring the illumination of lunar poles since the beginning of 2005, about two months before arriving at its final science orbit.
Ever since, the AMIE on-board camera has been taking images which are even able to show polar areas in low illumination conditions. Images like these will help identify if peaks of eternal light exist at the poles.
SMART-1 took views of the North Polar Region from a distance of 5000 km during a paus
A researcher at the University of Essex will investigate ethnic minority disadvantage and poverty in a study launched recently.
Dr Lucinda Platt, of the Department of Sociology, has been awarded almost £34,000 by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for the one-year project entitled ’Britain Divided: A Review of Poverty and Ethnicity.’
Dr Platt will conduct a systematic survey of poverty and disadvantage across ethnic groups that will summarise current knowledge an
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