A newly discovered mechanism by which an infectious fungus perceives light also plays an important role in its virulence, according to Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators at Duke University Medical Center. The findings suggest that changes in light following fungal invasion of the human body may be an important and previously overlooked cue that sparks infection, the researchers said.
The discovery in the human pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans further suggests that lig
On the basis of stellar spectra totalling more than 200 hours of effective exposure time with the 8.2-m VLT Kueyen telescope at Paranal (Chile), a team of astronomers [1] has made a surprising discovery about the stars in the giant southern globular cluster Omega Centauri.
It has been known for some time that, contrary to other clusters of this type, this stellar cluster harbours two different populations of stars that still burn hydrogen in their centres. One population, accou
Today, the Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid (LCG) project announced that the computing Grid it is operating now includes more than 100 sites in 31 countries. This makes it the world’s largest international scientific Grid. This Grid is being established in order to deal with the anticipated huge computing needs of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), currently being built at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland.
The sites participating in the LCG project are primarily universities and r
Professor Anna Brunström, Karlstad University, is heading a research project that will lead to more reliable and secure telecommunications via the Internet. Reliability is an important aspect when telephony moves over to the Internet, so-called IP-telephony.
Today there are three different nets: for telephony, for the Internet, and for cable TV. Researchers believe that all of this traffic will be using the Internet instead. The advantages of IP telephony include lower costs and gr
The oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus), apart from reducing cholesterol and having anticancerogenic properties, is characterised for its capacity for breaking down cellulose. Finding out which genes are responsible for this activity – the reason why the fungus is sometimes used as a decontaminating agent, was the aim of the PhD thesis by Arantza Eizmendi Goikoetxea, which she defended at the Public University of Navarre with the title, Molecular Characterisation of a family of genes of cell
Fixing of the lumbar vertebral column aided by simple radiological techniques facilitates the process and avoids complications. This technique has arisen as a result of the conclusion of the PhD thesis by Dr. Matías Alfonso, specialist in the Department of Orthopaedic and Bone Surgery at the University Hospital of Navarre, and has been based on research carried out on a pedicular screw method based on intraoperatorial anatomical references. The study has been applied to 44 patients attending
Many activities in our daily lives use products and devices based on silicon chips – from computers and televisions to medical equipment and defense systems. As these products and applications become increasingly complex and miniature, so must the chips.
Chips are manufactured on a silicon wafer. Each chip is surrounded by electrical contacts (‘plots’) through which data enters and exits. The plots are connected to each other through extremely fine wires. In 1994 the distance be
The U.S. economy, which finally posted job gains last year after three straight years of job losses, will add another 4 million jobs through 2006, say University of Michigan economists.
“The economy lost 2.7 million payroll jobs from February 2001 to May 2003, but by 2004 the ability of employers to tease more and more output out of fewer workers had about had it,” said Saul Hymans, U-M professor emeritus of economics. “That plus renewed business confidence in the strength of
Pancreatic cancer kills 30,000 Americans every year. Not only is there no cure, but there are no effective treatments. That may change if a new finding by Mayo Clinic researchers continues to show promise. In the March 15 issue of the journal Cancer Research, (http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/future/65.6.shtml) investigators describe discovering a key molecule that controls the growth, spread and survival of pancreatic cancer cells. This is a critical first step toward developing new and better
Two University of Iowa researchers were part of a large multi-center study that provides compelling direct evidence of an association between prolonged residential radon exposure and lung cancer risk.
The study, an analysis of data pooled from seven different North American residential radon studies, demonstrates an 11 to 21 percent increased lung cancer risk at average residential radon concentrations of approximately 3.0 picocuries per liter of air, during an exposure period o
The highest levels of silver contamination ever observed in the open ocean turned up in samples collected during a survey of the North Pacific in 2002. Researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, measured silver concentrations 50 times greater than the natural background level. Though still well below levels that would be toxic to marine life, this contamination of what had been considered relatively pristine waters highlights the increasingly global impact of industrial emission
A wood-fueled electricity generating plant may be in your future.
In fact, the future is ’now’ in some Scandinavian countries, said Dr. Darwin Foster, Texas Cooperative Extension forestry program leader. “In Sweden, they’re already bundling up what we’re leaving in the forest after a timber harvest and using it as bio-fuel,” Foster said. “Bio-fuel” is all-inclusive term that includes any renewable resource used to generate energy. As with ethanol distilled fr
UK experts develop super-realistic animation system
Computing experts at Cardiff University, UK, are developing a super-realistic animation system that simulates the movements of a face, based on speech. The team in the School of Computer Science has developed highly advanced software which is continually learning the facial dynamics associated with a speaker and applying this knowledge to synthesize realistic facial animations.
“Our aim is to create sophisticated facial a
Rhesus monkeys consider whether someone can or cannot see them when trying to steal food, indicating they have the ability to reason about the mental states of others, according to a study published this month in Current Biology.
In each of six experiments, two people stood in front of a platform, each with a grape attached to the platform. The experiments created competitive conditions, the monkeys were competing with the humans for the grapes.
The 115 monkeys tested only
’Life on the bubble’
A team of researchers, led by an environmental engineer at Washington University in St. Louis, has applied a molecular approach to identify the biological particles in aerosol responsible for making employees of a Colorado hospital therapeutic pool ill. They found: when the bubble bursts, the bacteria disperse, and lifeguards get pneumonia-like symptoms.
Lars Angenent, Ph.D., Washington University assistant professor of chemical engineering, and col
Star Trek-like technology being developed at The University of Arizona might soon screen airplane passengers for explosives as they walk through a portal similar to a metal detector while hand-held units scan their baggage.
The new device is about 1,000 times more sensitive than the equipment currently used in airports to discern explosives. Rather than analyzing a swab from a person’s briefcase, the new technology could detect the traces of explosives left in air that passes
Feedback
