A Japanese brewery, an Okinawan sea sponge and some clever detective work have enabled an international research team based at the University of Chicago to solve a biological mystery, and the solution suggests a novel way to boost the body’s defenses against cancer.
In Science Express, the online early-publication version of the journal Science, the researchers provide evidence that a sugary lipid known as iGb3 plays a key role in regulating the response of natural killer T
The loss of seemingly inconsequential animal species in the marine benthos – the top 6 inches or so of mud and sediment on the floors of the world’s oceans – is giving scientists a new look ahead at the consequences of the steady decline of the world’s biological diversity.
In new work published today (Nov. 12) in the journal Science, an international team of scientists describe work in which the ocean mud and the many animals that live there are used to forecast how the
’Cytological profiling’ could streamline early phases of drug discovery
Bringing an unprecedented level of automation to microscopy, scientists at Harvard University have developed a powerful new method of visualizing drugs’ multifaceted impact on cells. The technique, which could eventually become a standard tool for drug discovery, is described this week in the journal Science.
Steven J. Altschuler and Lani F. Wu, mathematicians skilled in developing models to find me
Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have discovered a protein that controls an early and significant step in the exquisitely timed process of bone formation.
Dr. Eric Olson, chairman of molecular biology, and colleagues have shown the protein HDAC4 to be essential for proper bone development, or osteogenesis. Their findings, reported in the November issue of the journal Cell and available online, may have widespread implications for understanding and preven
In a study that mimicked the natural order of species loss in a grassland ecosystem, researchers found that declining biodiversity greatly reduced resistance to invasive species and that the presence of even small numbers of rare species had profound functional effects.
The results have important implications for understanding the biodiversity crisis, said researcher Erika S. Zavaleta, assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Pr
The existence of a new electronic state in superconductors, materials that can carry an electric current without resistance, has been confirmed experimentally according to research to be published in the 12 November 2004 issue of the journal Science by a team led by Ying Liu, associate professor of physics at Penn State. “We have established direct evidence for the existence of an odd-parity superconductor, which previously had been theorized but never demonstrated in an unambiguous experiment,
The authors of a 30-year study suggest that declines in fish supply in Ghana can lead to regional increases in the hunting, trade and human consumption of wildlife in this West African nation. Declining fish stocks suggest marine resources are nearing collapse due to overfishing by regional and foreign fleets, most notably fleets subsidized by the European Union. A fisheries collapse would have widely felt consequences for regional economies, human food supply and efforts to conserve nature on l
A research team based at the University of Chicago may have found a way to manipulate cell suicide, also known as programmed cell death, a normal process that regulates cell number but that goes awry in chronic inflammatory disorders, cancer and other diseases.
In the 12 Nov. 2004 issue of the journal Cell, the scientists show that a key step in the process of preventing cell suicide is the induction of ferritin heavy chain (FHC), a protein that collects and hoards iron. By seque
Effect of SSRIs on bone accrual
A common class of drugs prescribed to children with depression may have an adverse effect on bone growth, according to a study published online in the journal Endocrinology by researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Researchers looked at the effect of selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) on bone accrual in growing mice. The findings showed a reduction in bone mass and size in the mice administered an SSRI.
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Defeating high blood pressure may be a matter of a little molecular manipulation.
Some drugs for hypertension, such as so-called ACE inhibitors, block specific receptor proteins on the cell. But researchers at Jefferson Medical College instead have looked to a certain molecular pathway called the Gq signaling pathway, showing that it plays an important role in developing various models of hypertension. The work might lead to new insights into the roots of hypertension, and eventu
Malnutrition in the first few years of life leads to antisocial and aggressive behavior throughout childhood and late adolescence, according to a new University of Southern California study.
“These are the first findings to show that malnutrition in the early postnatal years is associated with behavior problems through age 17,” said Jianghong Liu, a postdoctoral fellow with USC’s Social Science Research Institute and the lead author of the study published in the American Jou
Levels of hepatitis C among young injecting drug users across London are reaching epidemic levels report researchers from Imperial College London, the Health Protection Agency and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
According to research published today in the British Medical Journal, four in ten new young injectors now has hepatitis C, while three per cent are now infected with HIV.
Hepatitis C, which can cause serious and sometimes fatal liver damage,
Researchers from the Universities of Southampton and Glasgow have succeeded in tying knots in light beams.
Using a computer-designed hologram, they created threads of darkness embedded in a laser beam. The hologram bends the direction of optical energy flow, so these dark threads form loops. The loops can then be linked together, or tied into knots.
Dr Mark Dennis, a University of Southampton mathematician, worked in collaboration with Professor Miles Padgett, Dr Johannes
A spot on the sun is bursting with large flares and tremendous coronal mass ejections, sending charged solar particles to Earth. The waves of particles descending on the planet are responsible for the aurora displays that have been visible as far south as the Carolinas.
Aurora forecasters at the Geophysical Institute (GI) predict maximum aurora activity until Friday, Nov. 12, and possibly into the weekend. The aurora should be visible in regions far south of the Arctic, includin
These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, are Europe’s highest-resolution pictures so far of the Martian moon Phobos.
These HRSC images show new detail that will keep planetary scientists busy for years, working to unravel the mysteries of this moon. The images show the Mars-facing side of the moon, taken from a distance of less than 200 kilometres with a resolution of about seven metres per pixel during orbit 756.
This false-colour image of two density waves in Saturn’s A ring was taken by the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens spacecraft at a distance of 6.8 million kilometres from Saturn.
The image was made from the stellar occultation observed by the Cassini-Huygens Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph, and shows a section of rings about 724 kilometres across and the smallest features about half a kilometre across.
Bright areas indicate the denser regions of the rings. The bright ban
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