A new approach to controlling blood cholesterol levels that is already being investigated to prevent cardiovascular disease also may be a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. In their report in the October 14 issue of Neuron, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) show that blocking a pathway that controls the distribution of cholesterol in cells dramatically reduces the number of amyloid plaques in the brains of transgenic mice. Some of the treated mice were much
Burn victims may soon have face restored with minimal scarring in a single procedure
Hundreds of thousands of people are burned in fires each year with many suffering from facial burns as a result. These burn victims not only have severe physical scars, but deep emotional scars, too. A team of plastic surgeons has successfully combined several reconstructive techniques to help burn victims regain some sense of self without undergoing multiple painful procedures and huge scarring
You might want to toss those iron-fortified vitamins, because absent a diagnosed deficiency too much of a good thing can be bad.
Dietary iron imbalances either way spell trouble for healthy cells, triggering a chain of cellular events in the brain that increases the odds of developing Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative condition affecting movement and balance in more than 1 million Americans each year. But excessive iron levels are worse — much worse.
The finding
NASA-funded researchers have found that despite their sub-zero temperatures, a warming north may add more carbon to the atmosphere from soil, accelerating climate warming further.
“The 3 to 7 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature predicted by global climate computer models could cause the breakdown of the arctic tundra’s vast store of soil carbon,” said Michelle Mack, an ecologist at the University of Florida, Gainsville, Fla., and one of the lead researchers on a study published
Women who give birth after 40 run a greater risk of experiencing pregnancy complications than younger women. Moreover, there is an increased risk of the child dying in the womb or in close connection with delivery. This is shown in a study carried out by the Sahlgrenska Academy at Göteborg University in Sweden.
Women in Sweden, as in many other countries, are giving birth later and later in life. Today the average age of the mother at the birth of the first child is 29, and it
Innovative uses for plastics, rubber and their derivatives will be on display next week in Düsseldorf, at the world’s leading trade fair for plastics and rubber, K2004. A team from ESA will be present to show visitors how these commonplace materials can be used in space – and how this can lead to new technology for use on Earth.
“Plastics and derived materials today play an important role in spacecraft – years of research and development go into creating new materials that can wit
A study from the Institute of Environmental Medicine (IMM) at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, found that 10 or more years of mobile phone use increase the risk of acoustic neuroma and that the risk increase was confined to the side of the head where the phone was usually held. No indications of an increased risk for less than 10 years of mobile phone use were found.
At the time when the study was conducted only analogue (NMT) mobile phones had been in use for more than 10 years,
Understanding how the body’s immune system recognises and responds to microorganisms can be a major step in the development of new therapies against infectious diseases. Towards this aim, a paper just released in the October issue of Embo reports1 discusses the process used by mammals to respond to bacteria such as Helicobacter pylori, Listeria monocytogenes and Streptococcus pneumoniae which are responsible for ulcers, Listeriosis and pneumonia, respectively.
In order to protect aga
How do health professionals approach the complex and sensitive ethics of IVF and embryo research in their work?
While there is a great deal of public debate on contentious issues such as the ethics of stem cell research, egg sharing between couples, and the risk of multiple births, little is known about how professionals deal with these issues in day-to-day practice.
A study is to be conducted by University of York sociologist Dr Anne Kerr who specialises in the ethical a
It’s cheaper, and it enables quicker growth and bigger fish. These are the key characteristics of a new fodder in fish farming, which will replace the traditional dry fodder. The raw material is simple: Fish waste.
Fish offal is a high-grade raw material with a low price. We want to use this to make the industry grow,” says Oistein Baekken, manager of GellyFeed Ltd.
We are acquiring capital and the industry is showing a great deal of interest in applying this futur
British astronomers are providing a vital component to the world-wide effort of identifying and monitoring rogue asteroids and comets. From this month, the UK Astrometry and Photometry Programme (UKAPP) for Near-Earth Objects, based at Queens University, Belfast, will track Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) and feed their crucial information into the international programme of protecting the Earth from any future impact by a comet or asteroid.
On average 30-40 NEOs are discovered each
New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reveals why red blood cells from people with sickle cell disease are stickier than healthy red cells, pointing the way to potential new treatments for sickle cell disease. The study shows that a protein found on the surface of immature red blood cells, or reticulocytes, is responsible for those cells’ adhesion to blood vessel walls.
Reticulocytes are found at considerably higher levels in the blood of sickle
Results of a new study in monkeys offer scientists a rare glimpse of how, on a molecular level, the smallpox virus attacks its victims. The findings shed light on how the virus caused mass death and suffering, and will help point the way to new diagnostics, vaccines and drugs that would be needed in the event of a smallpox bioterror incident.
The study, led by David Relman, M.D., of Stanford University, is now online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS
Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) are putting a 21st century spin on a 19th century technology to make the nation’s ports and coastal waters safer. Airships — known today mainly for advertising flyovers at football games — are the core of a new coastal surveillance system in development for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) of the U.S. Department of Defense. But the new models will bear little resemblance to their predecessors. These High Altitude Stratospheric Air
New findings explaining the complicated process by which the “energy substations” of human cells split apart and recombine may lay the groundwork for new treatment approaches to a wide range of diseases, including some cancers and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
Researchers from The Johns Hopkins University’s Integrated Imaging Center; the University of California, Davis; and the California Institute of Technology collaborated on
Vilified in popular culture as a relentless man-eater, the great white shark finally received today global recognition as a persecuted species worthy of protection, as participants of the 13th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES) adopted a proposal to improve management and monitoring of trade in jaws, teeth and fins from the world’s largest predatory fish. Led by the governments of Madagascar and Australia, the proposal to list the
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