With prostate cancer the second leading cause of cancer deaths in men in many industrialised countries, a new diagnostic instrument offers the possibility of rapid and early warning detection and screening of this major killer.
The three-year IST programme-funded PAMELA project aimed to develop a new analytical instrument that allows very fast blood analysis to determine the presence and amount of prostate specific antigen (PSA) present – important for the follow-up of prostate cancer.
CSIRO research has found unusual properties in ilmenite sand from the Murray Basin that could be harnessed to remove heavy metal and radioactive pollution from mine drainage, industrial waste streams, and ground water.
CSIRO scientists discovered the sand grains contains tiny holes, just nanometres across, but just the right size to potentially capture and filter out toxic pollutants from mining and other industrial wastes, as well as catalyse important industrial processes.
Dr Ian
The spiral troughs of Mars’ polar ice caps have been called the most enigmatic landforms in the solar system. The deep canyons spiraling out from Red Planet’s North and South poles cover hundreds of miles. No other planet has such structures.
A new model of trough formation suggests that heating and cooling alone are sufficient to form the unusual patterns. Previous explanations had focused on alternate melting and refreezing cycles but also required wind or shifting ice caps.
“I
A scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, working with colleagues at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, has caused an individual carbon nanotube to emit light for the first time. This step in research on carbon nanotubes may help to materialize many of the proposed applications for carbon nanotubes, such as in electronics and photonics development.
The light emission is the result of a process called “electron-hole recombination.” By running an el
Obtaining quality proteins from grain legumes for both human and animal consumption is the aim of the “Grain Legumes” project, financed by the European Union VI Framework Programme for Technological Research and Development in which the Public University of Navarre is a participant.
The project, in which research teams from 67 institutions from 18 European countries and is aimed as a response to the challenge faced by the European Union in order to obtain quality plant proteins given that,
A research group at the University of Helsinki, Finland, has found a gene defect that causes hereditary colorectal cancer and defects in dentition. The finding was published online on March 23 in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
The groups led by professors Sinikka Pirinen and Irma Thesleff at the Institute of Dentistry and Institute of Biotechnology of the University of Helsinki are working on the genetic basis of hereditary dental aberrations .
The group identified a mutati
Global health threat Cryptosporidium parvum affects humans and animals
University of Minnesota researchers have completed sequencing the genome of an intestinal parasite that affects healthy humans and animals and that can be fatal to those with compromised immune systems, such as AIDS patients. The results will be published in the journal Science on March 25.
The parasite, Cryptosporidium parvum, is considered a major public health threat for which there is currently no know
Discovery of GPR56 sheds light on evolution of frontal lobes
With the identification of the gene responsible for a newly recognized type of mental retardation, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) have also discovered what appears to be the key target in the evolution of the frontal lobes of the brain’s cerebral cortex. The findings, reported in the March 26, 2004, issue of the journal Science, offer a key insight into the complex puzzle of human brain deve
Children with sickle cell disease – an inherited red blood-cell disorder – are living longer, dying less often from their disease and contracting fewer fatal infections than ever before, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas report.
Their study, which will appear in the June edition of the scientific journal Blood, is the first to evaluate survival rates of children receiving the most modern treatments for sickle cell disease. It’s also one of the largest published si
Yiping Han verifies presence of bacterium in as many as 30 percent of women
A team of researchers, led by microbiologist Yiping Han from Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine, have discovered that a bacterium (Fusobacterium nucleatum) found in periodontal disease enters the blood, specifically targets placentas and amniotic fluid of pregnant mice and triggers preterm or term stillbirths as well as early death for live-born mice.
The researchers reported t
According to NASA-funded researchers, developed land in the greater Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area is projected to increase 80 percent by 2030. Scientists used a computer-based decision support model loaded with NASA and commercial satellite images to simulate three policies affecting land use.
The researchers, Claire Jantz and Scott Goetz, from the University of Maryland, College Park, Md., and the Woods Hole Research Center, Woods Hole, Mass., also found a 39 percent increase in
Creating a tool small enough to measure friction on a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) device is not an easy task. The tool has to be about the width of a human hair.
Yet, researchers at the at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Sandia National Laboratories have developed a new “inchworm” actuator instrument that provides detailed information about friction at the microscale.
The main objective of the project was to study the validity of Amonton’s Law at
Little attention has been paid to the wishes and needs of female patients regarding fetal abnormalities
Women whose ultrasounds show fetal abnormalities want clear information about results as quickly and as empathetically as possible, says a new study by researchers at U of T, Mount Sinai Hospital and York University.
“Unfortunately, we still see examples of bad news being given quite badly,” says Dr. Rory Windrim, a U of T professor in the Faculty of Medicine and an obstet
Cancer researchers at the University of Dundee have just turned a common cancer belief on its head saying that a group of proteins previously believed to cause cancer can also be used in the fight against cancer.
Dr Neil Perkins and his team in the School of Life Sciences have identified that NF-kappaB a group of proteins present in every cell in the human body can actually assist some cancer therapies such as chemo and radio therapy. They believe that this discovery will allow clinicians to
Research from India published in this week’s issue of THE LANCET suggests that circumcised men could be over six times less likely than uncircumcised men to acquire HIV infection. The study also shows how the explanation for this decreased risk in circumcised men is likely to be biological rather than behavioural, with thin tissue in the foreskin being the likely target for viral activity.
Previous research has shown that circumcised men have a lower risk of HIV-1 infection than uncircumcis
Recent monetary policy has helped control inflation which, in turn, has kept unemployment rates low according to detailed research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
The wider economic community is reluctant to accept that monetary policy affects the underlying natural rate of unemployment. However, in the light of the research, there is clear evidence to suggest that these views should be re-thought. Unions may need to change their stance on interest rate control and its pe
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