Laboratory researchers and urologic oncologists from Fox Chase Cancer Center have demonstrated the ability to identify kidney cancer, including localized (stage I) cancer, in the urine of affected patients. The research, supported in part by a grant from the Flight Attendants Medical Research Institute and the National Cancer Institute’s Early Detection Research Network, is published in the Dec. 15 issue of the journal Cancer Research.
As with other cancers, an early diagnosis of kidne
Shadows are extremely important in making the graphics in 3D games and Virtual Reality applications seem natural. Soft shadows in real-time applications has largely been an unsolved problem, but now an algorithm is being introduced that will solve the problem and open many possibilities.
In his doctoral dissertation, Ulf Assarsson at the Department of Computer Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden, presents a newly developed algorithm that can create shadows of
Researchers based at the University of Glasgow, using X-ray data collected at the Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS) at CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory, have made a major advance in our understanding of the process by which sunlight is converted to food energy, without which life on earth could not exist. The work is published this week (12 December 2003) in the journal Science.
Green plants convert the sun’s energy to a usable form in a process called photosynthesis, which ultimately gives us al
Tiny ground movements that occur too gradually to be seen by the human eye can nevertheless be detected by ESA satellites looking down to Earth from 800 km away.
At a workshop in Italy last week, researchers explained how they are using this ability to monitor volcanoes and earthquake zones, aid oil and gas prospecting, observe urban subsidence and measure the slow flow of glaciers.
Data from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instruments like those flown aboard the ERS spacecra
In a unique experiment, five of the world’s fastest supercomputers, including Daresbury Laboratory-based HPCx, have been linked together into a seamless ‘Grid’ for the first time. This computational feat was matched by the unprecedented scale of the interactive calculation then carried out on this Grid, involving thousands of visualisations of around ten million times the amount of data used to play a typical home computer game. Once analysed, the data could help solve industrial problems and revolu
CSIRO Plant Industry has developed a simple high-throughput testing system that accurately identifies wheat and barley varieties.
“Accurate identification of wheat and barley varieties provides assurance of quality for products that require different grain characteristics, like bread, noodles and beer,” says Dr Kevin Gale, CSIRO Plant Industry. “This is vital in maintaining Australia’s export reputation in product standards.” The variety ID system tests leaf or grain samples using a panel o
Results from the EU-funded BIONIC EAR project will be presented by the European Commission at this year’s annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). The meeting opens tonight in San Francisco
The European Union is funding the 4-year BIONIC EAR project with €1.53 million out of a total budget of €2.77 million . BIONIC EAR looks into ways of repairing the inner ear whose hair cells are damaged by trauma, antibiotics or ageing, thus resulting in an irreversible
Department of Energy-funded researchers have decoded and analyzed the genome of a bacterium with the potential to bioremediate radioactive metals and generate electricity. In an article published in the December 12th issue of Science, researchers at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, report that Geobacter sulfurreducens possesses extraordinary capabilities to transport electrons and “reduce” metal ions as part of its energy-generating metabolism.
A research team at the University of Chicago has discovered a crucial signaling pathway that controls the growth of nascent nerves within the spinal cord, guiding them toward the brain during development.
The study, published in the Dec. 12, 2003, issue of the journal Science, solves a long-standing scientific mystery. It may also help restore function to people with paralyzing spinal cord injuries.
“This is the first guidance mechanism that regulates growth of nerve cells up and
Thirty-five years after biologist Garrett Hardin issued his prophetic essay, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” which warned that human beings would ultimately destroy commonly shared resources, a re-examination of the state of common pool resources by three researchers, including Indiana University Bloomington political scientist Elinor Ostrom, offers an urgent yet hopeful message.
The authors of a new report, “The Struggle to Govern the Commons,” which will appear in a special Dec. 12 issue of
Cells may help researchers in skin and hair therapies; tool can be used to find other body stem cells, including cancer stem cells
Researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at The Rockefeller University have discovered a new method to track and isolate elusive stem cells. The new animal model they developed was successfully tested by isolating and characterizing skin stem cells, but may also be valuable in searching for stem cells that produce the cells of the heart, pancreas
New ’global’ technique a dividend of NSF’s Arabidopsis 2010 effort
A new “gene expression” map is helping scientists track how a complex tissue ultimately arises from the blueprint of thousands of genes.
Focusing on the root of a small flowering mustard plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, a research team led by Duke University biologist Philip Benfey created a detailed mosaic of cells showing where and when about 22,000 of the plant’s roughly 28,000 genes are activated within grow
Scientists at UCSF’s Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center have identified a single brain protein that can account for most of the intoxicating effects of alcohol. The finding pinpoints perhaps the best target yet for a drug to block alcohol’s effect and potentially treat alcoholism, the scientists say.
The mechanisms by which alcohol acts on the brain are thought to be similar throughout the animal kingdom, since species from worms and fruit flies to mice and humans all become
ADARs do more than alter codon sequence in RNA
Recent studies at the University of Utah suggest new ways of regulating the behaviors that allow us to smell food, learn, and remember.
Brenda L. Bass, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry at the U School of Medicine and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and Leath A. Tonkin, a graduate student in her lab, published their findings in the Dec. 5 issue of the journal Science.
With the help of a tiny worm, C. ele
IBM collaborated on the industrial design and is manufacturing the new medical device
Mayo Clinic today announced it has developed a series of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) devices that make it easier to diagnose injuries and diseases that affect wrists, forearms, elbows, hands and fingers. Mayo has obtained FDA approval to market and commercialize these devices, making them available to other medical centers nationwide.
Named Mayo Clinic BC-10 MRI Coils, these devices ar
Efficacy and tolerability of borage oil in adults and children with atopic eczema: randomised double blind, placebo controlled, parallel group trial BMJ Vol 327 pp 1385-7. Editorial: Evening primrose oil for atopic dermatitis BMJ Volume 327 pp 1358-9
Borage oil (sold as starflower oil in chemists and health food shops) does not improve symptoms of eczema, despite some studies suggesting a dose related benefit, finds a study in this week’s BMJ.
Purified borage oil contai
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