Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, Roger Pomerantz, M.D., suggests that understanding how HIV interacts with another virus, GBV-C, may help researchers devise improved therapies.
Another virus could hold a key to helping researchers devise new strategies against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. A new study appearing March 4 in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that individuals infected with two viruses – HIV and the little known GBV-C – actually do better than th
High technology is now at our fingertips – literally. A new type of disposable glove emits chlorine dioxide when exposed to light or moisture, killing potentially harmful microbes and making it ideal for use among health care and food workers, according to a study in the March 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online.
The vinyl or polyethylene gloves contain microspheres that release chlorine dioxide, a water-soluble gas used to disinfect drinking water and processed f
Research suggests that Vitamin supplements may slow bone loss
Older women with low levels of vitamin B-12 are more likely to experience rapid bone loss, according to new research published this month in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. The new findings help to establish the importance of vitamin B-12 in the bone health of women as they age.
Vitamin B-12, which is found in animal products, such as meat, shellfish, milk, cheese and eggs, is needed to produce
Considered the princes of the plant world, palms are unlike many plant families in the fact that they provide both food and shelter to people, while at the same time are admired and collected for aesthetic reasons. But according to plant pathologists with The American Phytopathological Society (APS), the same genetic structure that gives the palm so many wonderful attributes is the same structure that makes them susceptible to lethal and destructive diseases.
According to Monica Elliott, pl
Certain ions bouncing around on the ocean’s surface and in droplets formed by waves may play a role in increasing ozone levels in the air we breathe, new research suggests.
These ions cover the surface of the sea in an ultra-thin blanket – about one-millionth the thickness of a sheet of paper. Researchers call this region the “interface.”
Using a technique that employs highly accurate laser beams, chemists for the first time saw the actual structures formed by these halo
Salmon farms in British Columbia may pose a threat to wild salmon stocks, a paper published today in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences claims. The paper presents evidence that native fish sampled near the farms are more heavily infected with parasitic sea lice. Lead author Alexandra Morton, a registered professional biologist and private researcher, believes the parasites multiply on the farms and are then transmitted to juvenile native salmon, causing recent drastic declines in
New sensor to detect computer hard drives
Carnegie Mellon University researchers have designed a new heat-sensitive sensor to detect computer hard drive failures.
The Carnegie Mellon Critter Temperature Sensor, which attaches to a user’s desktop computer, is being deployed across campus to monitor the working environment of university computers, according to Michael Bigrigg, a project scientist for the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems (ICES).
“Essentia
In a study of changes in gene expression covering taxa from bacteria to human published in the PNAS Online Early Edition issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Hiroki R. Ueda of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (Kobe, Japan) and colleagues report their discovery of a fundamental governing principle to the dynamics capable of producing the heterogeneous distribution of gene expression.
Ueda, who heads the CDB Laboratory for Systems Biology, found that changes
A team of reproductive biologists from the United States and Japan has succeeded in fertilizing rabbit oocytes with “dead” freeze-dried rabbit sperm. The fertilized eggs continued to develop into embryos, some of which were transplanted into female rabbits.
The researchers—from the University of Connecticut, the University of Hawaii, and Hirosaki University—note that rabbit sperm share many similarities with human sperm, so their results suggest that the freeze-drying technique could be
Fossilised remains of sea creatures are commonly found in rocks in the mountains of the Basque Country. So, at some time in the past, Euskal Herria was under the sea. For example, during the Palaeocene period, some 65-55 million years ago. The region was then subtropical, and similar in appearance to the Australian Coral Reef.
Along the Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa coast, around Eibar, in Irati and in Urbasa, for example, we can see Palaeocene outcrops at the surface. During that period there were
Using a British radio telescope called the Very Small Array (VSA), located on the flanks of Mount Teide in Tenerife, astronomers from the Universities of Manchester and Cambridge and the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) have made measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) – radiation left over from the Big Bang – which shed new light on events in the first minute fraction of the Universe’s existence.
By combining their results with those of NASA’s Wilkinson Microwa
Scientists at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia (IGC), in Portugal, together with colleagues at the Universities of Lisbon and Warwick, in the United Kingdom, have developed a mathematical model that explains why the tuberculosis (TB) vaccine is ineffective in many of the developing countries. The model quantifies the predicted decrease in the number of TB cases in light of both the socioeconomic development of a population and the characteristics of new vaccines. Their research has been published
Study Supports Development Potential in Several Therapeutic Areas Zengen, Inc. announced today that its researchers have discovered that activation of melanocortin receptors (MCR) subtypes MC1R and MC3R could be a novel strategy to control inflammatory disorders. The findings, “Targeting Melanocortin Receptors as a Novel Strategy to Control Inflammation,” appear in the March 2004 issue of Pharmacological Reviews, a publication of the American Society for Pharmacology and Exp
A new study by theoretical physicists at the University of Toronto and the University of California at Los Angeles (ULCA) could bring scientists one step closer to the dream of a superconductor that functions at room temperature, rather than the frigid temperatures more commonly found in deep space.
The findings, which appear in the March 4 issue of the journal Nature, identify three factors that explain a perplexing pattern in the temperatures at which multi-layered ceramic materials become
A balloon-shaped robot explorer that one day could search for water on other planets has survived some of the most trying conditions on planet Earth during a 70-kilometer (40-mile), wind-driven trek across Antarctica.
The Tumbleweed Rover, which is being developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., left the National Science Foundation’s Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station on Jan. 24, completing its roll across Antarctica’s polar plateau roughly eight
Mt Gambier’s Blue Lake will be the Australian focus of an international study to ensure future drinking water for towns and cities dependent on ground water. As well as Mt Gambier, the study will include Doncaster in England, Rastatt in Germany, and Ljubljana in Slovenia.
In Australia, the AISUWRS (Assessing and Improving the Sustainability of Urban Water Resources and Systems) project is expected to have immediate benefits for other towns and cities such as Perth, Newcastle and Wagga
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