XML business integration technology empowers individual departments to develop and integrate banking applications themselves
Commerzbank has been so impressed…
Randers, 16 November 2004 For a wind power project in Canada, the Vestas Group has received an order for 12 units of V82-1.65 MW wind turbines and an…
Production of vehicle electronics in Sibiu
Hanover/Sibiu, July 22, 2004. The international automotive supplier Continental AG, Hanover, has placed a further…
The Pleiades are one of the most famous and brightest stellar clusters in our Galaxy. One might imagine that the distance to such an important object would be well-known and no longer poses a problem for astrophysicists. For several years, however, determining the distance to the Pleiades has been a crucial and complicated problem.
For several decades, the distance to the Pleiades was determined by methods relying on our knowledge of stellar physics that was assumed to be rather
The severe droughts and forest fires of recent years underline Mediterranean Europe’s continuing vulnerability to desertification – 300 000 square kilometres of territory are currently affected, threatening the livelihoods of 16.5 million Europeans. A new satellite-based service is set to provide a continuous monitoring of regions most at risk.
ESA’s DesertWatch project involves the development of a desertification monitoring system for the northern shores of the Medit
Vitamin E may help some diabetics
Despite recent reports that show use of high-dose vitamin E supplements is associated with a higher overall risk of dying, at least one group stands to benefit greatly from the same vitamin. About 40 percent of diabetic patients can reduce their risk of heart attacks and of dying from heart disease by taking vitamin E supplements, according to a Technion-Israel Institute of Technology study published in the November 2004 Diabetes Care.
Scientists have found that overexpression of a protein called Down Syndrome Critical Region 1 (DSCR-1) blocks the formation of new blood vessels and thus reduces tumor growth. Therapeutics based on this finding may potentially lead to new cancer treatments.
The research appears as the “Paper of the Week” in the November 26 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, an American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology journal.
Many vascular disorders including
In experiments with mice, a research team led by Johns Hopkins scientists has discovered an unusual protein pair that stops blood vessels’ growth in the developing back. Results of the studies, published today in the express online edition of Science, are of special interest to researchers trying to prevent blood flow that nourishes tumors or exploit the signals vessels emit during growth to help regrow damaged nerves.
During an animal’s prenatal development, protein “sig
Using biominerals as an inspiration, Livermore physicist Jim De Yoreo and his LLNL research team have determined a key factor in how to manipulate the shapes of crystals.
In a series of experiments using an atomic force microscope, De Yoreo’s team and that of Patricia Dove, a geoscientist from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, used four different biomolecules to study their effects on the dynamics of atomic steps during crystallization. They set out to test a two-
The sea urchin’s tough, brittle spines are an engineering wonder. Composed of a single crystal from base to needle-sharp tip, they grow back within a few days after being broken off. Now, a team of scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science has shown how they do it.
While many crystals grow from component atoms or molecules that are dissolved in liquid, sugar and salt being the most familiar examples, the team of Profs. Lia Addadi and Steve Weiner, of the Institute’
Drifting buoys & floats weather hurricanes for better storm prediction
While some are still cleaning up from the series of hurricanes that plowed through the Caribbean and southern United States this season, scientists supported by the Office of Naval Research are busily cleaning up valuable data collected during the storms. The rapid-fire hurricanes barely gave researchers time to rest between flights that took them into the hearts of Hurricanes Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne. As pa
Evidence of exposure to a monkey virus possibly related to cancer has been found in the blood of North American zoo workers, according to a study in the December 15 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online. The virus, a polyomavirus known as simian virus 40 (SV40), has long been a subject of public health concern, in part because it has been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals, and some investigators have reported SV40 DNA in human tumors.
The authors, E
The identification of a gene expression profile using microarray technology may help clinicians better determine the prognosis of patients with advanced stage ovarian cancer and may eventually help provide targeted therapies for this hard-to-treat disease, according to a study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC).
The findings, described in an advance on-line publication of the December issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, represent the fi
Biochemistry department featured in December issue of the prestigious Nature Methods scientific publication
The biochemistry department of the Université de Montréal salutes the brilliant research performed by Julie Perroy, post-doctoral trainee, and Stéphanie Pontier, graduate student, on the protein ubiquitination process. Their article describing this research work appears in the year-end review of the Nature Methods scientific publication. The work was performed under the dire
Scientists funded by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), used Landsat 5 satellite data to look at changes in wetlands areas in south Florida, particularly south and west of Lake Okeechobee.
Using satellite data, land-cover change history, computer models, and weather records, the researchers found a link between the losses of wetlands and more severe freezes in some agricultural areas of south Florida. In other areas of the state, changes in land use resulted in slightl
A place so barren that NASA uses it as a model for the Martian environment, Chile’s Atacama desert gets rain maybe once a decade. In 2003, scientists reported that the driest Atacama soils were sterile.
Not so, reports a team of Arizona scientists. Bleak though it may be, microbial life lurks beneath the arid surface of the Atacama’s absolute desert. “We found life, we can culture it, and we can extract and look at its DNA,” said Raina Maier, a professor of soil, water a
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