History of life on the Earth witnessed five mass extinctions of species as a result of natural calamities. Currently, biologists are talking more and more often about the sixth wave of extinction provoked in many respects by human beings. This opinion is shared by a Russian sea fauna diversity specialist A.V. Adrianov (Institute of Maritime Biology, Far-East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences). Research in this area has been supported by the Far-East Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, CRDF,
A major breakthrough in pinpointing some of the most primordial and violently star forming galaxies in the Universe has been made by a joint collaboration of UK and US astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope to resolve primordial galaxies initially detected by the James Clerk Maxwell telescope [JCMT]. UK astronomers from the University of Kent, The Royal Observatory Edinburgh and the University of Oxford teamed up with American cosmologists to finally identify these elusive galaxies. The work w
A research team at Aston University has received funding to try and develop an efficient vaccine for badgers against Tuberculosis (TB). Special algae beads could be used to deliver the vaccine to the animals.
In the UK, badgers are often infected with bovine Tuberculosis (TB) and there is evidence that they may be linked with TB infection in cattle, which has resulted in randomised badger culling since 1998. Obviously this isn’t the most humane way of dealing with the problem, so resear
At the end of June, FIZ Karlsruhe has made available on STN International, the world’s premier online service for sci-tech information, seven new databases from the renowned database producer Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) With these new files, STN now offers a total of 26 CSA databases, and remains the largest independent online provider of CSA databases. Coverage focuses on life sciences, environmental and aquatic sciences, computer sciences, materials science, engineering and aerospace.
Can a dose of Geritol (iron) really save them?
One might not think that our North Atlantic cod are taking their marching orders from the ghost of Genghis Khan but indeed they may well be. It is all about the story of dust in the wind. Here at the Planktos Foundation we have been working on this story of on how the oceans are being degraded by rising CO2. The key is the link between the oceans and land and the dependency the oceans have on dust born iron and other micro-nutrients. I
By depositing thin films of silicon nanoparticles on silicon substrates, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have fabricated a photodetector sensitive to ultraviolet light. Silicon-based ultraviolet sensors could prove very handy in military, security and commercial applications.
“Silicon is the most common semiconductor, but it has not been useful for detecting ultraviolet light until now,” said Munir Nayfeh, a professor of physics at Illinois and a researcher at t
Page by page, America’s rich agricultural history is being ravaged, not by boll weevils, not by locusts, not by critters of any kind, but by time.
However, librarians at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are engaged in a fierce battle to save hundreds of aged publications – the core history and literature on Illinois agriculture, as they see it.
Their weapon? Microfilm – miles of it. More than a century of endangered materials have accumulated and are in dire need of
Thousands of neurosurgeons from around the globe will convene in Boston, Massachusetts, from August 23 to 28, 2009. The American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) and the city of Boston have been selected by the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies to host the XIV International Congress in 2009.
The AANS and the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau already have initiated coordination of this remarkable meeting that will attract more than 5,400 attendees. Bookings
The new Interstate 10 bridge over University Avenue in Las Cruces may look like any other highway bridge, but it isn’t.
Embedded deep within the bridge’s concrete beams are fiber-optic sensors that will allow engineers to continually monitor the safety of the bridge. The $6.3 million bridge is the first interstate highway bridge in the nation to be fitted with this type of “smart bridge” technology.
“Traditionally, bridge inspections have relied primarily on a visual inspect
Scientists from Novosibirsk are currently creating a pleasant and harmless vaccine – an edible one. So far, they managed to incorporate the protein gene – HIV antigen in tomatoes. The research is supported by International Science and Technology Center (ISTC).
All patients would be overjoyed to get edible vaccines, contained in vegetables and fruit. Imagine, a patient eats a vaccine and this way gets protected from a dangerous infection. However, this is not a fantasy, the fact being confir
Difficulties in performing more challenging cognitive tasks, such as managing one’s finances and medications, preparing meals and traveling independently, could be early warning signs that indicate the presence of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), according to Emory University researchers. Other more basic and well-rehearsed daily tasks, such as bathing, grooming, and dressing, can also decline in patients with MCI, but to a lesser extent. The findings will be presented at the 9th International C
Highly innovative new drugs that can prevent scarring in the eye after glaucoma surgery have been discovered by a London-based team of scientists, who report today in the journal Nature Biotechnology.* By targeting more than one aspect of the scarring process at the same time, the team has been able to use the drugs safely and successfully in animal models of glaucoma surgery. The group includes scientists and clinicians from Imperial College London at Hammersmith Hospital, the Institute of Ophthalm
More analyses needed to assess clinical implications of new data
People with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) taking the drug donepezil were at reduced risk of progressing to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) for the first 18 months of a 3-year study when compared with their counterparts on placebo, according to a presentation of preliminary data from a recently completed clinical trial supported by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health. The reduc
May be due more to depression and poor physical performance than physiological side effects
Fatigue – a common problem in patients who are recovering from leukaemia, lymphoma, myeloma and other haematological cancers – is associated with depression and reduced physical performance and not, as previously suggested, with anaemia, a flagging immune system or other physiological conditions. That is the conclusion of a German research team, reported (Monday 19 July), in Annals of Oncol
Four papers that expand upon the record on the origins of agriculture will appear in a supplement, guest edited by O. Bar-Yosef, Director of the Stone Age Lab at the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, to the August/November 2004 issue of Current Anthropology. Taken as a set, they demonstrate the maturation of the study of agricultural origins through fine-grained regional analyses and new methodological techniques.
Peter Rowley-Conwy in “How the West Was Lost: A Reconsideration of Agricu
In experiments with fruit flies, Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered how a key light-detecting molecule in the eye moves in response to changes in light intensity. Their finding adds to growing evidence that some creatures — and probably people — adapt to light not only by mechanically shrinking the pupil to physically limit how much light enters the eye, but also by a chemical response.
Building on their previous work showing that specific proteins in eye cells are redistributed i
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