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 Ophthal
Using innovative Geographic information system (GIS) technology and land parcel identification systems (LPIS), the European Commission is playing a key role in preventing agricultural subsidy irregularities. Through better monitoring of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms, the Commission is ensuring that subsidies are distributed more efficiently, fairly and reliably. The Agriculture and Fisheries Council Meeting in Brussels today will underline that implementing fair CAP reforms is essential.
Using innovative Geographic information system (GIS) technology and land parcel identification systems (LPIS), the European Commission is playing a key role in preventing agricultural subsidy irregularities. Through better monitoring of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms, the Commission is ensuring that subsidies are distributed more efficiently, fairly and reliably. The Agriculture and Fisheries Council Meeting in Brussels today will underline that implementing fair CAP reforms is essential
The history of cultivated plants in Finland stretches back some 3,500 years. Cultivated plants usually arrived in Finland from elsewhere with new settlers. Landraces were still widespread in the early part of the 20th century, but then improved varieties produced in plant breeding programmes began to gain ground in the 1920s. As a consequence, the landraces, which were well adapted to local conditions, are no longer grown to any large extent, and thus they no longer contribute to the diversity of ou
The exploration of near-Earth space will enter a new phase on 26 July when a spacecraft called Tan Ce 2 (Explorer 2) lifts off from Taiyuan spaceport, west of Beijing, on a Chinese Long March 2C rocket. The launch is currently scheduled to take place at 08:23 BST (07:23 GMT).
Tan Ce 2 is the second spacecraft to be built for the Double Star programme, a unique collaboration between Chinese and European scientists. Its predecessor, Tan Ce 1 (Explorer 1), was successfully launched on a sim
The GalileoSat development and in-orbit validation phase is well under way and the European Space Agency (ESA) has just released its procurement process to Industry indicating that the first completely civil satellite navigation system is moving forward.
Galileo Implementation: a phased approach
The Galileo Programme is being implemented in three phases:
Definition phase
Development and in-orbit validation
Full Deployment and Operations
The Definition phase was c
Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona have developed the first international server that allows the user to analyze genetic diversity on a large scale. The web service, published in the special edition of Nucleic Acids Research on bioinformatics, will facilitate research about the genetic basis of hereditary diseases. The server is called PDA (Pipeline Diversity Analysis) and for the first time biologists around the world can search for small variations in the genomes of different
Despite the efforts of food retailers and food-processing plant managers to maintain a clean, safe environment, strains of the deadly pathogen Listeria monocytogenes can persist for up to a year or longer, according to Cornell University food scientists in the latest issue of Journal of Food Protection (July 2004).
“This is disturbing because this points the finger at retail stores and some processors as a continuing source of food contamination,” says Brian D. Sauders, a Cornell doctoral c
An innovative study at Robarts Research Institute provides early evidence that hospital MRI scanners can be used to detect distinct brain cell abnormalities that are predictors of multiple sclerosis (MS).
In a preclinical study in rats with a disease similar to the human form, Robarts scientist Dr. Paula Foster used an injection of nano-particles of iron oxide, which exhibit magnetic qualities and can be detected by an MRI scanner.
During the acute inflammatory phase of the disease,
Less than 1 percent of the original Palouse Prairie remains. Split into patches of a few acres or less, the remnants tell an interesting story about insect communities, a UI researcher says.
Sanford Eigenbrode, interim Entomology Division chairman, is overseeing a study of insect communities in the prairie remnants that occupy small patches of hillsides across the Palouse.
The rich soils of the Palouse and modern agriculture meant that most of the original prairie was put to work g
Invasive species such as white pine blister rust, spotted knapweed and whirling disease in trout, as well as declining populations of plants and animals, are the focus of a new research center at the University of Idaho.
Officials announced the new Center for Research on Invasive Species and Small Populations July 14. UI scientists recently won a nearly $1 million grant from the Idaho Board of Education’s Higher Education Research Council to fund the new center.
“CRISSP bri
For many shoppers the word “organic” is synonymous with “safe.” But food safety experts cannot concede that organic is safer than conventional food, as their research shows it is not. Dialogue on the confusion between fact and myth highlighted the Institute of Food Technologists Annual Meeting and Food Expo being held here through Friday.
Surveys show that about 60 percent of consumers stress that it’s important to clarify that the organic label is a production claim, not a food safety claim
Burr chervil is a new weed exploding across northern Idaho’s landscape. The weed may offer important clues to the biology of invasive species in general, a University of Idaho scientist says.
A decade ago, burr chervil seemed like it didn’t pose much of a threat, said Tim Prather, a UI weed scientist at Moscow. “We knew of a few plants that grew under hawthorn trees near Lewiston. It just seemed to be sitting there and not doing much.”
That was when Prather was doing graduat
A new genetic model for a motor disorder that confines an estimated 10,000 people in the United States to walkers and wheelchairs indicates that instability in the microscopic scaffolding within a key set of nerve cells is the cause of this devastating disability.
The study, which is published in the July 13 issue of the journal Current Biology, provides a provocative new insight into the molecular basis of the disease called hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) and suggests a new way to tre
Scientists at the University of Chicago have discovered a better way to measure a confounding property of microscopic high-tech particles called quantum dots.
Quantum dots, also called nanocrystals, emit light in a rainbow of colors and are used in lasers, biological studies and other applications, but their tendency to blink hinders their technological value. Imagine the annoyance caused by a randomly flickering light bulb.
“A quantum dot might blink for just a millionth of a sec
Some fungi, it turns out, may be a western white pine’s best friends.
Decades after the white pine blister rust fungus swept through the vast and valuable stands of Idaho’s state tree, new work by University of Idaho scientists is providing the rest of the story.
The take-home message is: not all forest fungi are bad, and in fact it may be best to fight fungi with fungi.
A new group of fungi discovered in the green needles of western white pines by UI researchers m
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