Researchers at North Carolina State University have shown that the amount of aerosols – dust particles, soot from automobile emissions and factories, and other airborne particles – in the atmosphere has a significant impact on whether the surface area below either absorbs or emits more carbon dioxide (CO2).
The researchers discovered that changes in the levels of airborne aerosols resulted in changes to the terrestrial carbon cycle, or the cycle in which CO2 is absorbed by plant
New microchip is 10 times smaller and 100 times more energy efficient than currently used chips
University of Alberta researchers have designed a computer chip that uses about 100 times less energy than current state-of-the-art digital chips. The greatly reduced energy consumption of this novel technology offers promise for many small devices with relatively low power needs. This technology could one day eliminate the need to recharge cellphones, help introduce smaller, ultra-high
A team of researchers based partly in South Africa has identified a key set of immune system molecules that helps determine how effectively a person resists infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Their work shows that mothers with a specific type of genetic makeup may be less likely to pass HIV to their offspring.
The finding has important implications for the development of vaccines to combat the AIDS epidemic, according to Bruce D. Walker, a Howard Hughes Medical In
New research may improve long-term forecasting skills
The authors, left to right: Andrew Charlton, postdoctoral student; Matthew Wittman, graduate student and principal author; and Lorenzo Polvani, Professor of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics & Earth and Environmental Sciences and Director of the IGERT Joint Program in Applied Mathematics and Earth and Environmental Sciences.
by Jennifer Freeman
Three members of Columbia’s Department of Applied Physics and Appli
Although transplantation is by far the preferred treatment option for patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), those with high levels of “anti-donor” antibodies have had little hope of receiving a donated organ. Among the relatively few who have undergone transplantation, rejection rates have been very high.
Because the immune systems of “highly sensitized” individuals initiate a rejection response against the tissue of the majority of the population, these patients typi
While the raccoon that raids your trash at night may look cute and mischievous, think again. Its claws can be nasty. Even worse, it might carry rabies.
Now, scientists at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and at Molecular Targeting Technologies, Inc. (MTTI) in West Chester, Pa., are taking steps to prevent the disease. They have created a more powerful, safer vaccine than currently is available to combat rabies in wildlife.
Wildlife rabies is no small matter in
Like the famous living deserts of the Southwest, the so-called “gene deserts” in our DNA are teeming with activity. The trick is knowing where to look for it. A new roadmap to the location of DNA segments that are significant in medical, biological and evolutionary research could emerge from studies published today (Dec. 9) by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and their colleagues. The work is reported in the online version of the journal Genome Research.
Many postmenopausal women with hormone-dependent breast cancer (requires estrogen and/or progesterone to grow) may be undertreated if they do not receive chemotherapy in addition to hormonal therapy after surgery, according to a Loyola University Health System, Maywood, Ill., study.
Loyola’s Dr. Kathy S. Albain presented the results of a 10-year follow-up of The Breast Cancer Intergroup of North America Trial 0100 at the late breaking session of the San Antonio Breast Cancer Sy
Scientists from Michigan State University have uncovered a previously unknown metabolic mechanism used by plants to create seed oil.
The results, described Wednesday in the British journal Nature, address a longstanding question in plant biology – why do oilseed plants rely on a seemingly inefficient metabolic process to produce such prodigious amount of energy-rich oil? The answer, according to the MSU team, is that plant seeds are more efficient than anyone thought. “Seeds ac
The connection between species richness and area occupied, recognized by biologists for more than a hundred years as a fundamental ecological relationship in plant and in animal communities, has been discerned for the first time at the microbial level.
A pair of papers in the Dec. 9 issue of the journal Nature, one focused on bacteria and another on a microbial fungi, shows that the number of species present – the diversity – increases as the area they occupy increases. “The resul
A new study has revealed a mechanism that counters established thinking on how the rate at which tectonic plates separate along mid-ocean ridges controls processes such as heat transfer in geologic materials, energy circulation and even biological production.
The study also pioneered a new seismic technique – simultaneously shooting an array of 20 airguns to generate sound — for studying the Earth’s mantle, the layer beneath the 10- to 40-kilometer-deep crust on the seaflo
Results illuminate evolutionary interaction between virus and human immune system
An international research team has identified immune-system genes that appear to play a key role in the body’s defense against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The findings may lead to ways of circumventing the virus’s ability to avoid vaccines by rapid mutation. The study in the Dec. 9 issue of Nature also describes how HIV infection is driving human evolution, since individuals with protective
The overall performance of the gene signature to be used in the first large-scale trial to study the role of such tumor signatures in breast cancer is encouraging and gives the green light to start the trial proper, Dr. Martine Piccart, head of the medical oncology department at the Institut Jules Bordet in Brussels, Belgium, told the San Antonio Breast Cancer conference today (Wednesday 8 December 2004). Dr Piccart heads the TRANSBIG consortium, which intends to use the 70-gene prognostic signatur
University of Utah scientists taught baby sparrows to sing a complete song even though the birds were exposed only to overlapping segments of the tune rather than the full melody. The study provides clues about how musical memories are stored in the brain and how those memories help birds learn to sing.
The results also may have implications for how people learn language, says Gary J. Rose, a University of Utah professor of biology and principal author of the study published in
Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have found a potential predictor of response to the chemotherapy drug Taxol, which is commonly used before or after surgery for stage I-III breast cancers, even though only a subset of women ultimately benefit from this treatment.
Patients whose breast cancer cells have lost their ability to express a protein called “tau” are twice as likely to have a good response to Taxol treatment, the researchers report
Different molecular subtypes of breast cancer respond differently to chemotherapy, a research team from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reported at the annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium meeting.
The findings reinforce the emerging notion that breast cancer should be classified according to its gene expression profile, in order to make accurate predictions about the outcome of the disease and select the optimal treatment for patients, says the senio
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