Marine microbes shape the chemical composition of the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere, yet we know essentially nothing about them. Now, thanks to major grants from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, MIT researchers aim to learn dramatically more about some of the most important organisms on the globe.
Professors Penny Chisholm and Ed DeLong are among the four Moore Foundation Investigators in Marine Science selected nationally. Each inaugural investigator will receive almost $5
Defining over 1,200 of the most commonly used words in the security field
The newly released Information Security Dictionary (1st Edition) (published by Springer Science) offers information security experts, systems analysts, policy makers, managers and students a reference tool to find the most commonly used terms in the field. The dictionary defines these terms in easy to understand language, provides more detail in Tables and easy cross-referencing leading the reader to related te
Projects to expand knowledge about plants of economic importance
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has made 22 new awards as part of the seventh year of its Plant Genome Research Program (PGRP). From apples to Zea mays, the program’s goal is to expand knowledge about the biology of the plant kingdom, especially plants that people around the world rely on for food, clothing and other needs.
The awards involve researchers from 56 institutions in 22 states, as well as colla
More than 60,000 Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer this year and will require special end-of-life or palliative care. According to practitioners, researchers and families there has been a lack of palliative care services for these patients. Thanks to new funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), McGill researchers will now be able to evaluate the most effective and efficient types and methods of palliative care.
Their programme, led by Robin Cohen of McGill’s D
The scientific community’s work to create the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) enters a new phase today. Bruce Hayden, an ecologist at the University of Virginia and principal investigator for the project, along with William Michener, associate director of NSF’s Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network, will direct the NEON project office at the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) headquarters in Washington, D.C.
With a two-year, $6 million cooperative
New technique that uses gene therapy delivers nerve growth factor into regions of the brain where neurons are degenerating, in order to prevent cell death and reverse cell atrophy.
Investigators at Rush University Medical Center have successfully initiated a new technique that uses gene therapy to deliver nerve growth factor into regions of the brain where neurons are degenerating, in order to prevent cell death and reverse cell atrophy, two hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. If succ
The University of Illinois at Chicago unveiled today the world’s most powerful magnetic resonance imaging machine for human studies, capable of imaging not just the anatomy but metabolism within the brain.
This advanced technology ushers in a new age of metabolic imaging that will help researchers understand the workings of the human brain, detect diseases before their clinical signs appear, develop targeted drug therapies for illnesses like stroke and provide a better understa
Highly regulated virulence genes and genomic instability found in the horse pathogen, burkholderia mallei
More than 2,400 years after Hippocrates first described the symptoms of glanders, scientists have deciphered the genetic code of the ancient pathogen that causes the horse disease: Burkholderia mallei.
The study found that B. mallei, a highly evolved pathogen that has been deployed in the past as a biological weapon, has an extremely regulated set of virulence genes and
U of T research offers hope for environment
The energy stored in Toronto’s municipal wastewater could be harnessed to run water treatment facilities and contribute power to the city grid, says new U of T research. The study, published in the August issue of the Journal of Energy Engineering, is the first to measure the energy content of the raw municipal wastewater in the Ashbridges Bay, North Toronto, Highland Creek and Humber plants. The research revealed that the wastewater conta
Endocrinologists from the University at Buffalo are providing one more link in the growing chain of evidence pointing to chronic cellular inflammation as the precursor of heart disease and diabetes.
In research published in the Sept 21 issue of Circulation, the researchers show for the first time that circulating mononuclear cells — the body’s monocytes (the largest type of white blood cell) and lymphocytes — exist in a proinflammatory state in obese persons known to be at i
New mothers with fibromyalgia (FM) face multiple barriers to breast-feeding their babies, according to a study published recently in the American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing.
For the study, “Breast-feeding in Chronic Illness–The Voices of Women with Fibromyalgia,” Karen M. Schaefer, D.N.Sc., R.N., assistant professor of nursing at Temple University’s College of Health Professions, analyzed the written stories and tape-recorded interviews of nine mothers with FM, ranging i
In addition to its popular role in flavoring ice cream, fudge and cake frosting, vanilla may have a future use as a medicine. Recent laboratory research has strengthened the possibility that a form of vanilla may become a drug to treat sickle cell disease.
After specially bred mice received a compound that turns into vanilla in the body, they survived five times longer than mice that did not receive the chemical. All the mice had been subjected to low oxygen pressure, a condition that causes the
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine report a novel strategy for stimulating the production of utrophin – an important muscle protein in young mice – for muscular dystrophy therapy. The investigators gave mdx mice (the mouse model for Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy) heregulin, a small molecule to turn on the production of utrophin in their muscles. Utrophin improved muscle function in the mdx mice. “Our strategy boosts the levels of an existing gene using pre-existing
First complete DNA sequence of methanotroph reveals metabolic flexibility, suggests mechanisms for increasing its usefulness for biotechnology
The first complete genome sequence of a methane-breathing bacterium has revealed a surprising flexibility in its metabolism, suggesting an ability to live successfully in environments previously thought to be beyond its reach. The genome sequence of Methylococcus capsulatus – a species typical of methane-breathing bacteria commonly found in
For the first time, MIT researchers have incorporated a plant’s ability to convert sunlight to energy into a solid-state electronic “spinach sandwich” device that may one day power laptops and cell phones.
At the heart of the device is a protein complex dubbed Photosystem I (PSI). Derived from spinach chloroplasts, PSI is 10 to 20 nanometers wide. Around 100,000 of them would fit on the head of a pin. “They are the smallest electronic circuits I know of,” said researcher Marc A. Bal
Finding may lead to new therapies
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered a key mechanism in the brains of people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) dementia. The study is the first to document decreases in the neurotransmitter dopamine in those with the condition, and may lead to new, more effective therapies. HIV dementia is a type of cognitive decline that is more common in the later stages of HIV infection.
“Our
Feedback
