An asteroid that has eluded astronomers for decades turns out to be an unusual pair of objects traveling together in space, a UCLA planetary scientist and colleagues report.
The asteroid Hermes was rediscovered last week after being lost for 66 years. Now Jean-Luc Margot, a researcher in UCLA’s department of Earth and space sciences, has determined that the asteroid is, in fact, two objects orbiting each other. The two objects together would cover an area approximately the size
Currents connecting Pacific and Indian Oceans are colder and deeper than thought
Scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have found that currents connecting the Indian and Pacific Oceans are colder and deeper than originally believed. This discovery may one day help climate modelers predict the intensity of the Asian monsoon or El Nino with greater accuracy and with more lead-time than is currently possible.
The findings by Arnold Gordon, R. Dwi
The presence of a common green mineral on Mars suggests that the red planet could have been cold and dry since the mineral has been exposed, which may be more than a billion years according to new research appearing in the Oct. 24 edition of Science.
Todd Hoefen, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) geophysicist, led a team of researchers from USGS, Arizona State University and NASA, that found abundant quantities of olivine on Mars. They based their conclusions on data obtained from a Thermal Emiss
For the first time, scientists have demonstrated that an experimental vaccine to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), a highly lethal disease, elicits a strong neutralizing antibody response in laboratory animals – a response that is key to preventing the virus from causing infection.
In addition, the antibodies, produced in nonhuman primates that received the vaccine, protected hamsters from disease even when administered 5 days after exposure.
These findings provide proof
Understanding cancer
Mayo Clinic researchers are the first to describe what goes wrong during the growth cycle of certain cells that can lead to inherited forms of breast cancer. Knowing the nature of this biochemical modification is a first step to designing drugs that can correct it to stop cancer.
The Mayo Clinic research finding appears in today’s issue of the journal Science. It is important because it solves an aspect of a mystery that cancer researchers worldwide have
Predisposition to many common diseases – among which cancer, cardiovascular conditions, diabetes, asthma, etc. – is said to be a multifactor phenomenon as it results from numerous genes as well as environmental factors. Identifying such predisposition genes is one of the major challenges in modern genetics and could contribute to establishing new preventive medicine patterns and developing new specific drugs.
However, the identification of predisposition genes appeared to be extremely diffic
Patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) who are taking levodopa therapy – the most widely-used agent to treat the illness – may experience the effects of their medication “wearing off” sooner than their health care providers realize. New data presented Oct. 19 at the Parkinson’s Study Group meeting in San Francisco concluded that a specifically-designed patient questionnaire identified symptoms related to “wearing off” more frequently than a clinical assessment by a movement disorder specialist.
Recently observed change in Arctic temperatures and sea ice cover may be a harbinger of global climate changes to come, according to a recent NASA study. Satellite data — the unique view from space — are allowing researchers to more clearly see Arctic changes and develop an improved understanding of the possible effect on climate worldwide.
The Arctic warming study, appearing in the November 1 issue of the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate, shows that compared to the 19
An estimated 5,000 previously unknown ocean fish species and hundreds of thousands of other marine life forms are yet to be discovered, according to scientists engaged in a massive global scientific collaboration to identify and catalog life in the oceans.
The new marine fish species, being identified at an average rate of 160 per year (roughly three new species per week since year 2000), are being catalogued and mapped by the Census of Marine Life (CoML), an unprecedented cooperativ
Researchers have found that a promising new class of antibacterial chemicals inhibits one of the most fundamental processes of life – a cell’s ability to express genetic material. Knowing exactly how these chemicals keep bacterial cells in check can help scientists make more effective antibiotics.
Like many bacterial inhibitors, this new class of compounds – called the CBR703 series – inhibits RNA polymerase, the key enzyme in gene expression. However, the unique mechanism that these compou
Immune system provides new clue to most life-threatening bacterium
The microbe that causes tuberculosis operates the way a human terrorist would. With minimal resources, the TB bacterium skillfully blends in and gains strength before lashing out unexpectedly. This microbe, which claims more human lives each year than any other bacterial pathogen, even uses its host’s defenses, hiding out in an immune cell called a macrophage.
Now, Rockefeller scientist John MacMicking, Ph.D., has discov
New evidence of global warming in Earth’s past supports current models for how climate responds to greenhouse gases
CA–Scientists have filled in a key piece of the global climate picture for a period 55 million years ago that is considered one of the most abrupt and extreme episodes of global warming in Earth’s history. The new results from an analysis of sediment cores from the ocean floor are consistent with theoretical predictions of how Earth’s climate would respon
Analysis of DNA samples from patients with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and related illnesses suggests that these neuropsychiatric disorders affecting mood and behavior are associated with an uncommon mutant, malfunctioning gene that leads to faulty transporter function and regulation. Norio Ozaki, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues in the collaborative study explain their findings in the October 23 Molecular Psychiatry.
Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have found a m
Cumbre Inc. and University of Wisconsin-Madison research collaborator publish data on a new class of bacterial RNA polymerase inhibitor
Cumbre Inc., a privately held biopharmaceutical company, announced today the publication of a research paper in the October 24, 2003 issue of Science entitled “A new class of bacterial RNA polymerase inhibitor affects nucleotide addition.” The paper describes the identification and characterization of the novel “CBR703” class of inhibitors through com
Breast cancer patients have a lower chance of long-term survival if they carry an inherited mutation in the BRCA1 gene, according to research published in Breast Cancer Research this week. However, the poor prognosis associated with the mutated gene is mitigated by chemotherapy.
The breast cancer susceptibility genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, were identified over eight years ago, but the best way of treating women who develop hereditary breast cancer associated with mutations in these genes is still
Home testing of saliva to measure personal hormone levels is gaining popularity, with dozens of companies offering do-it-yourself, mail-in test kits. Battelle scientists at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory envision a day when it may be nearly as easy to detect chemical exposure or even nerve gas poisoning — simply by analyzing a victim’s saliva. And the results would be almost immediate.
Using sophisticated mass spectrometry equipment at PNNL, researchers hav
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